Stuck at 61, is there something faint on the gable end brick work high up?

Yes :)

myopic – Member
Some I’m sure are right but they’re not being accepted. For instance the red face on the wall

Try two words instead on one. Some are annoying like that.

Sharknado. From the trailer it seems all So bad it’s actually hilarious!!11!!1, but in reality it’s just shite.

Event Horizon is superb, dunno what you lot ^ are on about.

The things that for me cannot be unseen are two movies I watched mamy years ago. I was an intern at a well-known manufacturer of passenger jets, a bunch of us went out on the lash and ended up round at the flat of one of the senior engineers. He had Saving Private Ryan on DVD (back when DVDs were still pretty flash) and a bonkers home cinema set-up. Sounded like the tanks were about to come through the wall of his apartment, you could feel them rather than hear them. This is not about that film.

Afterwards – and after many more 1664’s and a bottle of Pastis – he brought out some ‘speciality movies’. One was called Dilatations Hors Normes and was, well, a bit of an eye-opener. Very, very NSFW by the way, if you are thinking of googling a translation. Then came a VHS he’d picked up on his travels in Mexico, which was basically a snuff movie. To be fair, it was clips of ‘public’ stuff (punishments in certain parts of the world etc.) rather than filmed to order, and was way, way tamer than you see in a typical episode of your average crime thriller post-watershed, but still is oh-so vivid in my mind. We didn’t get too far into that one and left sharpish.

Back in the real world, I saw Aliens when I was about twelve, it was a big new year’s do at a relative’s place, the adults were all drunk somewhere else and a few of us cousins put a movie on… nightmares aplenty for a while after that!

Photo book?

Some places you download a bit of software and set them out on your PC, others are web-based, but you upload a bunch of photos and arrange them as you want. They usually allow you to have a blank page with just text.

I’ve used Blurb to do big (A3 ish) one-off photobooks of holiday snaps. Software is dead easy to use. They do a whole range of book sizes, take your pick. there are quite a few places online that do photobooks, have a google, ask on here for recommendations on quality of product.

[edit: damn you bencooper! :D]

Four would be my normal portion, possibly five or six if I’m hungrier than usual.

My son set a PB of four when he was still two (almost three) years old. Hasn’t bettered it, now aged four, although has equalled it now and again. Having said that, this morning he had three slices of toast and a big bowl of rice crispies, so he could probably set a new record sometime soon.

In Sons of Anarchy when the IRA get involved, there’s no end of terrible Oirish accents. There was one particular line delivered by a character that went from passable Belfast, via Cork, Dick-van-Dyke-cockernee, and I think German. In one sentence.

We have a few stands of redwoods in our garden and I have plans to develop a network of treehouses, sort of like an Ewok village. All for the kids, of course… but the general consensus seems to be that a few (widely spaced) big scars on the tree is better than many small ones, something to do with them compartmentalising the damage. Treehouse Attachment Bolts (TABs) seems to be flavour of the moment, but they’re not cheap. You can get the same effect using some 1″ or bigger coach bolts. This gives some advice on attachments.

You can probably ignore tree growth, assuming they are mature trees, but need to allow for movement in high winds, otherwise the treehouse can get ripped ot shreds.

For a wedding gift I designed and commissioned some diamond earrings, had them sent to her room as she was getting ready on the wedding morning. The entire bridal party was pissed off at me because they all cried and ruined their make-up 8)

For a birthday I once got her a day’s rally driving, doing laps of an abandoned airfield in a Hyundai Coupé and and Evo VI. Both were ex-WRC cars and quite nippy, apparently. She still talks about that one.

One time when we were in a small rural town here in NZ, she went into an arty-crafty shop and saw a necklace she liked, carved from merino horn. I was outside at the park with the wee man. Later, the friends she was with mentioned that she had seen a necklace she really liked and gave a very vague description. I rang the shop, and between me and the owner, and some emailed photos, managed to work out which one it was (small shop, not many customers!) and bought it. She’d never mentioned it to me and couldn’t work out how I’d known.

I bought her a painting for her last birthday, she’d seen it on the wall of a café and said how much she liked it – and she’s not normally one for admiring such things. So I bought it but had it left on the wall of the café for a few months so she wouldn’t get suspicious that it had disappeared once she said she liked it. It’s an original work by a local artist, the only proper bit of art either of us has ever bought.

One that sort of back-fired, but more for her than me – for our tenth wedding anniversary I had a necklace made to match the earrings from the wedding day. Her mother was staying at ours so we could get away for a rare-as-unicorn-poo weekend without the boy. Went up to the big smoke to see the Cirque du Soleil (Noire – it’s very good btw), got our smart duds on. As she was getting ready I stepped up beside her, and was just about to say “you know what would look good with those earrings…” thinking that as it’s our tenth wedding anniversary and a rare fancy* night out, she’d be wearing those earrings and the necklace would be a winner.

But she hadn’t brought them. Bloody useless, some days I wonder why I keep her around…

*yes, we have low standards :-)

So the twin wires are some sort of high-gain antenna? Sounds plausible I guess :D

scaredypants – Member
I’m going for a thingy to stop hum in some sort of amplifier

Yeah, googling brought up a few references to speakers and headphones, but none featuring a doobrymawotsit quite like this one.

But… why is the cable so long? Surely it’d only need to be a few inches at most.

Terrible TMO decision on Lyon, but more disappointing was how NZ let it get to them. Fair play to the Aussies though (much as it irks me to say so) they didn’t mess about once given that lifeline.

The pink ball doesn’t seem to be as much of a problem as it was feared beforehand, glad that the match is turning out to be a corker and the ball isn’t the main talking point.

mboy – Member
Never quite understood how and why most women are so image obsessed, when to be honest, 9/10 men are more bothered about them being willing than they are the size of their chest (sorry that sounds crude, calling it like it is though). Personally, if we’re being shallow and judging on looks alone, I’m far more interested in a smile, nice eyes, a fantastic arse and athletic pair of legs than I am what’s inside the bra. Someone that makes me laugh and I can share my passions with is more important than any of that though, in which case if ever the money arose to contemplate a boob job, I’d hope my GF would suggest doing something far more interesting and worthwhile with it than spending it cosmetically.

I suspect that if asked privately, i.e. not in front of mates, most blokes would agree. But there’s often a need to be seen to be one of the boys, and to therefore agree with the perceived consensus that bigger is better. Starts in the playground and extends to varying degrees into adulthood. Lads’ mags and women’s mags continuously reinforce the myth. So it’s no wonder that women can feel insecure despite having what most blokes would be very pleased to get their hands on, should they be so lucky.

All our family holidays were Eurocamp-type camping trips to France. I’m told that when I was a baby my folks used to feed me a small amount of beer to knock me out in an evening, so they could go and have a quiet beer or two at the bar (with me sparko in the tent!) Quality parenting 8O Having said that, I turned out ok, so maybe it wasn’t all that bad…

Plastic Jeezus, The Levellers

Metallica’s cover of Tuesday’s Gone (Thanks Fatso!)

What’s that thing above the French flag?

The Egyptian flag

I bought one of these from ebay. Variable temp, quick to heat up from cold, does exactly what it says on the tin. I would have preferred a proper soldering station, but this was half the price and I only use it for messing about with quadcopters.

Another vote for Tucker & Dale vs Evil. Starts out like so many other college kids vs hillbillies slasher rubbish, then takes a whole new direction and gets proper funny.

Grassington has one of the best sweet shops in the civilised world (and I don’t just mean Yorkshire). Row upon row of big old sweet jars like the ones when you were a kid.

On the downside it’s very picture-postcard-y so you can’t move for tourists in the summer.

A big A2 cutting mat for the workshop.
A metre-long steel ruler.
A big pile of spare props for the quadcopter.
A new seat-post.
Vouchers for my favourite home brew shop.

And as we currently have builders in the office, I’ve decided I need a self-levelling laser thingy that projects cool laser lines perfectly horizontally and vertically onto the walls. No immediate uses, but I’m positive it’ll come in handy one day. Plus, well, lasers.

Auckland’s pretty dull. Get up early, head up to Paihia for a couple of nights. If you time it right, stop in at Matakana on the way up on market day. Nice little posh arty/crafty market. Good for a wander round. From Paihia get the ferry over to Russell for an afternoon, lovely little town. Do a boat trip or kayak trip in the Bay of Islands. Back to Auckland on SH16 via the Kauri forests (what’s left of them) on the west coast, including the Kauri museum.

Then I’d head to Rotorua, a 3-4hr drive. Te Puia is good, it’s pricey but you get to see some good geothermal activity and some ‘authentic’ Maori experiences. It’s cheesy but quite good if you’ve never seen anythign of that sort before. They also have a school on site where people train in traditional Maori carving (wood, pounamu, stone) weaving etc. and you can watch them. Quite interesting. Waimangu Valley is also good, but also pricey. You could always just wander through Kuirau Park in the town, it’s free and they have lots of bubbling mud pools :)

From there head down to National Park for a couple of nights to do the Tongariro Crossing. All the accommodation providers can set you up with transport to and from the start/end points. It’s a long-ish but non-technical walk. Need to be prepared for changeable weather up top, it’s very exposed. It’s absolutely stunning though, I’ve done it twice and rate it as one of the best trips I’ve done in 7.5 years here.

If Tongariro is too far, try the Pinnacles walk from Thames (on the Coromandel). Hot Water Beach is good too, all you do is sit in a puddle on the beach with a bunch of strangers, but is worth a visit for the novelty value.

The CD fracture one is worth a watch. They stick a CD on a motor and spin it to some ridiculous RPM, tens of thousands, until it fractures from the stress and explodes into a bazillion pieces.

I tried a wee-ride with my son, but found it too low to get my knees around, and it creaked when the bike frame flexed. I swapped it for a case of beer and bought a Yepp Mini instead, which was faultless. But if your lad is 15kg already it’s probably too late for one. My son was also big for his age, I moved to the Yepp Maxi (rear-mounted) when he was about 18 months, more to do with him being too tall and his head hitting my chest, than being too heavy.

If he’s coming up to two then a balance bike could work. Mine started on a cheap wooden one at that age. For the tagalongs he’ll need to be able to hold himself up on a saddle for however long you’ll be out. I think there’s a model that has a ‘baby seat’ with harness-style straps, instead of a saddle. Kinda like a bob trailer with Weeride/Yepp instead of a full trailer. Can’t remember details though.

If you just want to go for a pootle round the park, quality time etc, then a balance bike will be ace. If you actually want to get to places you may find that it is way slower than walking! My son is almost 4, and while he can clip along at 12-15km/h on his Byk 350 we regularly get overtaken by old people out for a stroll:
“Dad, dad, stop a sec. I think I just saw a slug. Can I squish it?”
“Dad, stop a sec. My legs are tired.” (about 100m since the last stop)
“Dad, wait. Look, you can see our shadows.”
“I need to stop for a wee.”
“Dad, stop, I want to go back and get that stick.”
It’s a wonder we ever get anywhere.

If it’s for going places, look at getting a second-hand cargo bike, with a view to re-selling it when you’re done with it. I went for an Xtracycle Free Radical, with a Yepp Maxi on the back. It’s great, the boy can ride his own bike until he’s tired (or I decide we need to actually make some progress) and then he can hop in the seat and his bike gets bungee’d on behind him. Worth a look.

I had the 2.4 Mountain Kings. No idea if they were the Black Chilli version, but they came as standard on the 2008 Five Pro. I found them really sketchy on corners, on varying surfaces. I always thought it was just me, not getting used to the new bike perhaps, until I read something on here about them. Changed to Racing Ralphs and was quite impressed at the difference. The MKs were definitely crap.

I fitted a cheap after-market one to our car a year or so ago. Quality is pretty good, and the low-light/night performance surprisingly so. Wiring was dead easy, just joined to the reverse bulb connection so it comes on when reversing. It came with a huge long cable which would probably be long enough for most campers, I had to shorten it quite a bit (not much room behind panels to have it all coiled up). I went with a 5″ screen rather than a rear-view mirror type, as I have it at the back of the car so I can see it when looking over my shoulder without having to switch between looking backwards and forwards.

That may or not be relevant, depending on the type of camper they have and how they reverse, as you need a forward-facing type camera which doesn’t flip the image. Ignore that last bit if it’s going to be a dash- or windscreen-mounted screen.

The beauty pageant scene is a work of genius, the lad absolutely nails it!

Roast chicken, avocado and cheddar toasties.

Alternatively, if there’s only a small number of wires within the cord and you’ve got access to a soldering iron, cut it, slip some heatshrink over, and do a decent job of reconnecting them[/url].

Self-amalgamating tape? Or maybe liquid electrical tape. Both to be had on ebay.

Superb film, watched it again for about the fifth time just last week.

teethgrinder – Member

My inner teenage nerd* is smitten by her

*i.e. me, basically, since I’ve never really grown up…

ir_bandito – Member
Travis – what’s the burny thing?

Microwave Plasma

Glad to hear things are looking up a bit :D

Bit disturbing the research on this stuff. Basically suggests that formula is actively bad, not just not best.

Got any links? Genuinely curious as Number 2 Child is due in January. My understanding (from 4 years ago) is that the governments of developed nations are more or less pushing ‘breast is best’ because they are supporting the message given by the WHO in less-developed countries. In places where there may not be access to clean drinking water, formula can indeed be ‘actively bad’. Breast milk is basically sterile, and can help with the child’s immunity, win-win. And it’s not the done thing to have one set of rules for rich folk and one for poor folk, or something.

Basically for No.2 we’re going to try breast-feeding as much as possible, and top up with formula if needed, and probably won’t worry too much.

Can’t tell if he is happy, or I’ve just shut him up.

Same thing! They cry if they are hungry, tired, or in discomfort. If they are quiet then they are happy (as a general rule, obviously, exceptions may apply etc. etc.)

I’ve given the boy a dummy and am rocking the crib. More bad Dad I suppose. Now I’m feeling like the cheating failure.

Rubbish. Happy mum and dad = happy child, and vice versa. There’s no such thing as cheating, just different ways of doing things. People give advice based on their own experience. That advice may be totally, or not at all, relevant to you and your child (including this advice). Some people have raised great kids using dummies, some have raised little horrors using dummies. Same for the never-used-a-dummy crowd.

theotherjonv – Member
DO WHAT IS RIGHT FOR YOU THREE AND THE REST CAN **** OFF

This, basically. If your wife is in a shit state, then something clearly needs to change. The stress of the situation is quite possibly contributing to the problem, so it’s a bit catch-22.

My wife had a nightmare giving birth to Number 1 Child – thirty-something hours all up. Started off naturally, slowed to a stop, by this time she was knackered from the pushing. Tried venteuse, got most of the way out, got stuck, got pushed back in. Then off to surgery to take the emergency escape hatch. After all the trauma her body was having none of it when it came to breast feeding, so he had to go on formula. It came right eventually, but even then he wasn’t getting enough from her so we had to top up with formula.

We were lucky that our ante-natal teacher said “right, we’re government funded so I have to tell you that breast is best. I’m not allowed to tell you as a group anything about formula feeding. But, if one couple was to come to me privately after the class, I could tell you, not as a teacher but as a regular person, all about it. And if the rest of the class happened to have hung about and were eaves-dropping, then so be it.” So we did, and she did :) So at least we got to hear both sides, not just the official line.

Some friends of ours had their first and really struggled, the baby just wouldn’t stop crying. All day, every day, save for short periods after breast feeding. They had specialist help from the hospital, were told not to use formula, to just keep persevering and it’d come right. It didn’t. Eventually she had a bit of a breakdown and told him that she was going back to Namibia to be with her family. He got on the phone to his Mother-in-Law, got her over to the UK quick smart. Within a couple of hours the MiL (having had a load of kids and grandkids already) declared the baby was just hungry, went and bought formula and started feeding the kid that. Silence, happy baby, happy parents. Job jobbed.

So, to re-iterate what everyone else has said, do whatever it takes to get enough food into the sprog. Hopefully that will help everything else fall into place.

And hopefully this thread has made you realise that you’re not alone – it’s one of those things like infertility or miscarriages where you never hear about them and feel quite alone until you finally open up and find that loads of other people have gone through similar and that it’s actually quite common. Hopefully talking it through on here can help provide some guidance.

Full English.

Ploughman’s.

Lamb shanks with caramelised onion gravy and steamed veg.

durhambiker – Member
In a totally unrelated to the genres you’re after sort of a way, Community. Actual decent American comedy. With Chevy Chase. Different format to each episode, the D&D episodes scattered through the various seasons are particularly great, as is the Law & Order episode.

This… I’ve just watched 12 episodes in a row, and even though I really need to go to bed I might just have to stay up and watch the rest of the first series. It’s a bit schmaltzy in places, and formulaic to a degree, but is laugh-out-loud funny and Chevy Chase is superb in it.

Five identical hi-viz yellow ones for commuting. One Decathlon one from about 10 years ago biking in France, one ‘team’ jersey from a works do riding the inaugural Huka Challenge. The latter two serve all mtb purposes, plus ordinary T-shirts.

toppers3933 – Member
Old Crow Medicine Show. I wouldn’t usually class myself as a fan of country music but them in particular I really like.

Good call. Consider their fan-base marginally larger from now on :)

zippykona – Member
Go back a page click on the wolfhounds and let me know.
I can’t be the only person that likes them.

Sorry, listened to it and found it pretty tedious. It’s just not catchy. Bland. Certainly not enough to make me look them up on youtube as per nickc.

Thanks allthepies, looks like just the job. Peterfile, your list also looks good but I’m lazy so pies’ one wins :D

Thanks fellas, I’ll check out those links.

There was a Guy (years ago) who was chanted “whose the geezer with a pineapple on his head” It was a coloured guy who used to tie his rasta plats up on the top of his head. Was he from Nottngham or Portsmouth? can’t remember now. As far as I remember too he got quite upset about it..

Jason Lee, at Forest. It was Skinner and Baddiel who did the song “He’s got a piiiiiine-apple, on his head, he’s got a piiiine-apple, on his head…”. He supposedly had some sort of breakdown as a result of the fans chanting it at him every week, but that was possibly just an excuse for being a bit crap.