At pub shortly.

Very exciting stage.

However I cannot help but be skeptical, unfortunately.

Fnord

Up in Bradford this morning with work but heading back to Canterbury soon to vote. Looking like labour might well hold on to safest Tory seat there was before 2017.

Head says slim Tory majority overall, heart says polls have been wrong before.

The best bits of advice I got two and half years ago was approach your ex partner like you would an ex business partner.

1. Be swift, fair and reasonable with the finances. Get em done quick. Get em done right for you. Work out a reasonable solution and put it in writing.

2. You aren’t partners now and it’s always a shock when you actually realise this. One of you will probably move on to someone else quickly, even if it’s just a rebound thing. The amicability can change extremely quickly, particularly if your ex moves someone else into your house. Might not happen, but I’ve seen it more than once. So prepare yourself for a shock and either keep it in your pants or keep it to yourself.

3. Both you and your ex have one, only one, priority now. You know what that is and you know what do say and do and what not to. Stick to it and your child will thrive. Deviate and they will suffer.

Commiserations and congratulations. It takes guts to walk away after so long, but if it’s the right thing to do for you then it has to be done. You owe it to yourself to live your best life.

“if god wanted us to cycle he’d have given us wheels”

Amen, sister! Let’s get naked and eat trifle til we puke.

I am no lover of Man U, trust me, but…

It’s sad to see them in this state though. They have slipped into the second tier of teams despite spending massive amounts of money, old trafford now looks tired and dated, the infrastructure that served them so well is not fit for purpose anymore. And worst of all, the name no longer carries the weight that it used to.

They ought to be a European giant. They currently hold less allure than Leicester. It speaks volumes that I was rooting for my team (Oxford) to be drawn against them in the next round of the league cup. Not for the payday, more for the very real chance of turning them over on a cold, rainy night in Oxfordshire.

Divorce doesn’t always seem like a good thing, but it often is. You get to reset, which most folks wish for. Good luck for your future! It’s all yours.

I’ve got a s2s spark 1. I twin it with a silk liner and merino long johns and a base layer top. Was camping out by the coast in March this year at just above 0 and it was fine. It’s quite a compact shape so if you are broad shouldered or a side sleeper it’ll be pretty snug!

There are some deals around on the Santa Cruz chameleon and the Whyte 905.

I’d have a good look at those also.

There are a few different types of aikido, from memory hombu is the floaty one and iwama is the properly aggressive version.

Anyone who mistakenly believes that all aikido is purely defensive ought to try some iwama. Used it to train up a security team I used to manage. Great for control and restraint. Pretty devastating for the slightly more proactive method of crowd control shall we say 😂

Autumn – French
Fall (of the leaf) – English

Nothing glamorous about fighting.

I’ve always had a decent radar and have been content to weave my way through trouble rather than look for it. I found out in my twenties that I don’t have the capacity for casual violence – I.e. if I’m put in a situation where punches are thrown then I’m likely to not just throw punches. Not a good thing. For me or anyone else.

Plus you’d be surprised how much of a difference your age and lack of experience makes. Join an MMA, boxing or judo club if you are genuinely curious.

Chinnor Hill? Up Donkey Lane from the village and then the long route up to the Hillfort?

Don’t forget the shell grotto in Margate!

Lots of excellent beers and micropubs all over the place. I’d recommend the Thomas Tallis in Canterbury, the Butcher’s Arms in Herne and the Black Dog in Whitstable.

Faversham has its hop festival at the end of August too. Great event with live bands and tonnes of food and drink.

Loads of trails and woodland, with the emphasis on pretty mellow riding if you are bringing a bike.

I love that the crowd were chanting ‘you’re gonna cry in a minute’ at Smith during the DRS review 😂😂😂

Tales of the gold monkey
Eurotrash
Starfleet

Pedals are DMR vaults.

Usually starts about 10 minutes in. Then kinda eases off until a bit later. When it gets worse. Definitely helped by thin socks but doesn’t cure it. The impacts feel a bit cramped in the toe box but there’s not much heel lock to keep my feet back without cinching them up. Which makes my feet go numb! 😂

The dinosaur jr version is fantastic.

There’s a record shop in my town called vinyl store jr btw 😂

A forest was bloody excellent.

Just hoping for a strange day or a hundred years.

Erotic pottery is the way forward.

Send me one of your pieces as a thank you.

My youngest enjoys taking the piss out of me when we’re on the BMX track.

Him: I know 4 fat people
Me: yeah
Him: you are three of them
Me f£@&@(
Him: Are you bleeding gravy
Me: ffff£&&)@; b€#¥%¥{
Him: heheh (rides off into the distance)

Mind you, I’ve lost a stone since February and built a lot of muscle. Trouble is he’s getting bigger and bloody faster!

The Deliveroo riders here are making good money and a lot of the restaurants are using recycled and recyclable packaging.

Just progress init.

I’ve just my first six hour sitting for my first tattoo (mid life crisis – possibly). Two more to go.

What I’ve learned so far, with the help of my gf who has a few:

1. Find a tattoo artist with a style that you like. Photo-realistic, painterly or whatever. The emphasis is on artist bit and on the style.

2. Get in touch with them and discuss your idea, size and placement. Send them some of your ideas – pictures, elements of pictures, descriptive text, colours etc and then let them go from there. If they are worth their salt they’ll sketch something up and keep in touch with you throughout the process. Usually they’ll want a deposit for this bit but that’s fair enough. And again, if they are worth their coin they’ll only be prepared to start once you are totally happy and the design is completely finalised to your satisfaction.

I’m so glad I did it this way rather than plonk something on the table and said ‘ink that please’. My artist has taken my ideas and created something that’s possibly even better than I could have put together independently.

A few observations. I’d like to think I’ve got a little knowledge in the area of security/the public and control and restraint. 11 years of managing, investigation and planning.

1. His reaction is last minute. Therefore driven by anger rather than a planned intervention. He had plenty of time to decide what to do but he bursts up. Lack of control.
2. There’s no attempt to block the path with open hands. Look at his body position. All anger
3. His face tells you his mental state as does the hand round the back of the neck.
4. There’s absolutely NO WAY he would have responded like this to another fully grown male.

It’s a disproportionate use of force against someone he had already decided did not pose a threat to his personal safety. All of the bluster and bullshit about concealed weapons etc is nonsense. If he really believed that he’d have been under the table or out of the room. He got angry and lost control. Simple as that. What that says about him as a person , his party etc I’ll leave for others to debate.

The recent negative article about them in the times or telegraph, I forget which, is interesting.

Just thinking out loud, I wonder how and when the first e-bike/pedestrian accident will be reported, and whether it and subsequent collisions will perhaps trigger a change of rules from the policy makers. Perhaps there’s a possible future where e-bikes are restricted to the road and trail centres, whilst convention bicycles get greater access freedoms as per Scotland and hopefully Wales?

1. At least 4 guest ales always and one of the local brewers makes a beer specifically for the place
2. The bbq pulled pork and crispy onion loaded fries are really quite good. And cheap.
3. 3 minute walk

Some similarities with my ex

We decided to split, was all very amicable, I was very nice, moved out, split the debts 50/50, agreed to let her stay in the house we jointly owned and gave her a lump sum to help make the house her own.

2 weeks later she tells me she’s seeing a bloke in San Francisco!! Proper dickhead (fast cars, massive whitened teeth, spoilt brat type) Hahaha! This had clearly been fermenting for a while before we decided to split. She proceeded to pretty much ignore our two boys and head off over there every 3rd week (this bit did not amuse me. At all). Until a few months later he spectacularly dumped her just before she was due to fly out for the whole of Christmas and new year.

All of the cash I’d given her had disappeared by that point of course. She crashed hard, damaged her relationship with her kids and made a tit of herself.

She’s now seeing a dull man who fixes pensioners computers.

Like others have said, don’t be an arse, stay inside the law, think of the longer game and hang in there.

2 years down the line and I’m happier than I’ve ever been. Great relationship with my kids (have them 50% of the time), nice little house, a lovely girlfriend and have just started my own business. Life is good, possibly because I made some good decisions back then and stuck to them. And it’s funny how the universe pays back.

How much is a big steak? 300g? I tend to have one of those every couple of weeks. In fact, I think it might be time to get another one. Apart from that it’s all pulses, grains and veg.

I wonder if there’ a correlation between plastic grass users and e-bike ownership? 🤔😉

I’d say I was mainly veggie. Probably eat meat two or three times a month. Loads and loads of choice these days for meat substitutes – caldron veggie sausages with lentils, new potatoes and lots of smoked paprika etc is belting and easily as good as the fleshy counterpart. My diet has expanded into lots more pulses and grains (emmer wheat being a big fave), with loads of leafy greens – we do about two big bags of kale a week at moment.

I find it easier to prepare, less risky to cook and simpler to store food with hardly any meat in the house (it’s butcher to plate pretty much when I do hanker for a steak or whatever).

I feel loads better. Can’t quite put my finger on exactly why but I do. Plenty of energy, muscle mass seems to be fine and oh course I guff like a god. Happy days.

What’s it about?

Two words:

Banger racing 😎

As an Oxford fan I’ve got mixed opinions bout your manager! He got us up and out of non-league hell. He didn’t exactly endear himself to us subsequently! Can’t argue he’s done a fantastic job with you though. All the best for next year, I’ll be interested to see how he reacts when things go against him.

I recently packed my job in. Me and my wife (ex now) separated about 18 months ago and I realised it was a great opportunity to hit the reset button on every single area of my life and only take forward the things that I cared about. So I continued in my well paid but ultimately dead-eyed management role until I’d worked out want I wanted. Quit just before Christmas. I have a bit of money to one side and my new business may or may not be wildly successful. I think I’ve realised that actually that stuff doesn’t really matter. Doing the things you love and that make you feel alive is where it’s at. I’ll be taking my kids away on a decent summer holiday this year but apart from that it’s bike packing, camping & hiking and indulging my love of Mesolithic and Neolithic history for me in my spare time – which is at least half the week. Every week. Complete change of pace and change of mental wellbeing. I’ll never go back. Life is too short and too amazing to waste.

Can someone summarise please. In a haiku.

As a child I once pulled a foot long tapeworm out of my bottom. 😎

My tuppence worth, if it’s any use, is this:

Go talk to someone, professionally. Have a really good look at what you are, how you’ve got here and what you want.

Only keep the stuff that makes you feel alive and fulfilled. Then draw a mental ring around that stuff. That’s yours to nurture, essentially that’s the only stuff that matters in your life. The rest of it, and that may include personal or social relationships, jobs, habits etc need to be binned.

Then ensure that you create the conditions for all the good stuff to flourish. That might be bike riding, book reading, yoga, cheese rolling or volunteering for something. Or all of them. Make proper time for them to happen. Book em in like a work meeting you cannot miss and do not budge for anyone who wants you to miss them.

Then do it all without fear. Persistently. It gets easier because it’s the stuff you love, that makes you who you are. How can you possibly fail? 😀

It’s not snidey name calling. I do honestly think you come across as a massive knobber. This may be your online persona, but I suspect I’m not alone in thinking this based on your posts.

He does come across as well..a bit of a cock. It might just be how he comes across on the page though. I’ve know a few like that – sound enough in person but have some kind of weird **** version of themselves online. I guess that the knowledge and obvious experience of riding gets mixed up in the ego inflation. Some folk just can’t help themselves when they have an audience and an image to uphold. It’s almost like they are in some kind of ‘assisted’ state 😉

I can confidently say I am better at every single fascette of actually riding a mtb than you.

Bedwetter.

I have no need for one. My version of riding bicycles involves doing it without a motor/pedal assist/call it whatever. As Hemingway said ‘It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and can coast down them…. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motorcar only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle.’ That’s kind of why I ride bikes. Appreciate that others may have other reasons.

My opinion is that E-bikes are a solution to a problem that largely doesn’t exist. As an alternative for those who can’t ride a conventional bike – fine. I do like the application of them in urban areas as a practical delivery vehicle or commuter for longer journeys. As a recreational tool? Very concerned about the impact they might well have on our already limited access rights and perception with other trail user groups.

No doubt those that have used them have no problem justifying them. I do not consider them to be cycling as I know it though. Sometimes making things easier isn’t always the best idea.