While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
Speak for yourself, I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years!
You should go see a doctor. Humans are not meant to ve veggies
Humans are omnivores and so can survive and prosper on a variety of diets without recourse to medical intervention. Like our good friend above I am on my fourth decade of being a vegetarian with no ill-effects - in fact I'm considerably healthier than the average 47 year old British male (not a high bar, admittedly).
I've been fully plant based for a few years now. Fitter, stronger, generally healthier than I've ever been. I'm 57, on no medication, not got any illnesses or conditions. That's not all down to being vegan, I've just spent the past few years putting my past lifestyle to rights. I exercise more, am more mindful, trying to be more compassionate and empathetic. Retiring has helped. Also, cut out, as much as possible, ultra processed foods. That stuff'll carry you into a world of hurt.
Maximum BMI of 30 sounds like an excellent idea for Rugby Union.
Isn't the other big problem that the players are so much fitter now that you either need to make the pitch bigger or reduce the number of players. Why not go down to 14 a side? Get rid of lifting in the lineouts and somehow sort out the scrums.
If you set the max BMI at 30 then you'd rule out ~ 90% of forwards and probably half the backs too.
Then maybe they’d lose some weight and we wouldn’t keep seeing packs nudging 1,000kg for eight men, a 20st average.
???
That's more along the lines of an argument for a max BMI of 35.
Also: https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1668916431147114496 Several Russian "milbloggers" wrote that one Russian division's troops gathered near Luhansk's Kreminna waiting for a speech of their commander before an offensive for two hours, but saw a HIMARS strike instead. It is unclear if the described incident concerns Delimkhanov.
...I didn't realise the Clarke/Baxter novel had antecedents...
Asimov's short stories and anthologies are little-read these days, but still fun. The 50's generation were good at short stories with a banging last line, like a hammer hitting a nail. "Quietly, and without any fuss, the stars were going out...", or "and AC said "Let there be light"..." or "If any of you are still white, we can cure you..."
Maximum BMI of 30 sounds like an excellent idea for Rugby Union.
Isn't the other big problem that the players are so much fitter now that you either need to make the pitch bigger or reduce the number of players. Why not go down to 14 a side? Get rid of lifting in the lineouts and somehow sort out the scrums.
But rugby is a game for all shapes and sizes. Props of the old-fashioned club sort will often have a BMI over 30 without necessarily being a danger to life and limb of their opponents.
At the professional level rugby is a game for giants built like battering rams. The suggestion is that the game would be better if this was toned down a bit.
Maximum BMI of 30 sounds like an excellent idea for Rugby Union.
Isn't the other big problem that the players are so much fitter now that you either need to make the pitch bigger or reduce the number of players. Why not go down to 14 a side? Get rid of lifting in the lineouts and somehow sort out the scrums.
If you set the max BMI at 30 then you'd rule out ~ 90% of forwards and probably half the backs too.
Then maybe they’d lose some weight and we wouldn’t keep seeing packs nudging 1,000kg for eight men, a 20st average.
???
That's more along the lines of an argument for a max BMI of 35.
I was suggesting that perhaps the pack weights need to be closer to 750kg, than the 950kg they are at the moment in international rugby.
Had a small sell of Labour in Selby. It'll be on the same day as Uxbridge which will garner the headlines as it inevitably goes Tory and the swing required is something Labour simply haven't achieved close to this parliament to take the seat. If Nads holds off on her resignation it leaves the Lib Dems free to pump the seat also so it becomes a potential Lib Dem gain even though I think that's odds against too.
Against that Electoral calculus reckons Selby goes Labour at the next GE currently. It is shown as seat 407 for Labour and 168 for the Tories.
Is that on new boundaries? I can believe that if so (not necessarily that likely, but I do think the seat is more interesting on new boundaries).
I've also got a small lay on Lab. I don't think LD have a snowball in hell's chance, but the differential between Lab lay and Con back was small when I bet, so I went with it.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
I'm a low grade cyclist as well. I live in cycleland (the Surrey Hills) and the real cyclists go hammering past me. I don't wear lycra other than the shorts. The bike has not been out until a couple of weeks ago when I started practising. I have lost 8 kg for the trip and I look for routes that lack hills because I am over weight for a cyclist.
In terms of my bike it is a converted town bike, but with a pannier added, armoured and slightly thinner tyres and butterfly handlebars. Otherwise bog standard.
There are two of us. Typically we cycle about 50 miles a day everyday. Most I have done in a day is 70 miles and that was a killer.
I do it for the beer, wine and food and the views and I love planning it which takes 4 times as long as doing it (this time it was stressful though).
A route I would recommend is Bordeaux to Biarritz. Flat as a pancake, real solitude in places, fantastic views.
I have stayed in some fantastic B&Bs and small hostels in the middle of nowhere. Converted railway lines and river paths are good and are often well maintained in France.
I can get everything I need in 2 pannier bags for 9 days plus a bike bag between them for tools, maps, phone, gloves, glasses, etc. I might smell though.
That sounds absolutely perfect. I like that there is no particular mention of anything high-tech! I'm agonising at the moment over buying a new bike with half an eye on doing something like this in the future when parental responsibilities might be less all-encompassing. I am 48 and a big old unit and hills take their toll; I like cycling primarily for the reasons you cite: food and drink and views; I'm never going to be doing 60 miles in four hours, but I wouldn't really want to, because that would necessitate missing the pub or the tea shop!
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
Surly Disc Trucker/Fuji Touring. Ortleib rack and panniers.
The brakes are junk but you aren't going to be going that fast anyway.
The advantage of a proper tourer is that you don't look as stupid going slowly on one as you do on some race machine.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
I'm a low grade cyclist as well. I live in cycleland (the Surrey Hills) and the real cyclists go hammering past me. I don't wear lycra other than the shorts. The bike has not been out until a couple of weeks ago when I started practising. I have lost 8 kg for the trip and I look for routes that lack hills because I am over weight for a cyclist.
In terms of my bike it is a converted town bike, but with a pannier added, armoured and slightly thinner tyres and butterfly handlebars. Otherwise bog standard.
There are two of us. Typically we cycle about 50 miles a day everyday. Most I have done in a day is 70 miles and that was a killer.
I do it for the beer, wine and food and the views and I love planning it which takes 4 times as long as doing it (this time it was stressful though).
A route I would recommend is Bordeaux to Biarritz. Flat as a pancake, real solitude in places, fantastic views.
I have stayed in some fantastic B&Bs and small hostels in the middle of nowhere. Converted railway lines and river paths are good and are often well maintained in France.
I can get everything I need in 2 pannier bags for 9 days plus a bike bag between them for tools, maps, phone, gloves, glasses, etc. I might smell though.
That sounds absolutely perfect. I like that there is no particular mention of anything high-tech! I'm agonising at the moment over buying a new bike with half an eye on doing something like this in the future when parental responsibilities might be less all-encompassing. I am 48 and a big old unit and hills take their toll; I like cycling primarily for the reasons you cite: food and drink and views; I'm never going to be doing 60 miles in four hours, but I wouldn't really want to, because that would necessitate missing the pub or the tea shop!
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
Jesus is an example of God evolving in the Christian faith from the God of the Old Testament to the God of the New Testament.
Hence Christians believe in the Trinity ie literally that Jesus is now God as well as Holy Spirit, whereas Jews and Muslims don't believe in the Trinity
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
Speak for yourself, I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years!
You should go see a doctor. Humans are not meant to ve veggies
Humans are omnivores and so can survive and prosper on a variety of diets without recourse to medical intervention. Like our good friend above I am on my fourth decade of being a vegetarian with no ill-effects - in fact I'm considerably healthier than the average 47 year old British male (not a high bar, admittedly).
I've been fully plant based for a few years now. Fitter, stronger, generally healthier than I've ever been. I'm 57, on no medication, not got any illnesses or conditions. That's not all down to being vegan, I've just spent the past few years putting my past lifestyle to rights. I exercise more, am more mindful, trying to be more compassionate and empathetic. Retiring has helped. Also, cut out, as much as possible, ultra processed foods. That stuff'll carry you into a world of hurt.
I completely agree with ultra processed foods being a problem.
Clean cuts of whole meat are much better than ultra processed meat substitutes. Won't touch the stuff.
Maximum BMI of 30 sounds like an excellent idea for Rugby Union.
Isn't the other big problem that the players are so much fitter now that you either need to make the pitch bigger or reduce the number of players. Why not go down to 14 a side? Get rid of lifting in the lineouts and somehow sort out the scrums.
But rugby is a game for all shapes and sizes. Props of the old-fashioned club sort will often have a BMI over 30 without necessarily being a danger to life and limb of their opponents.
At the professional level rugby is a game for giants built like battering rams. The suggestion is that the game would be better if this was toned down a bit.
Fair enough - but I'd suggest BMI isn't the issue to be addressing then! That would rule out the short fat man but not the player who is 6 foot 9 and 19 stone. And actually, it isn't even being 6 foot 9 and 19 stone which is a problem. I have in the past played against many players of that sort of size. But none of them, I'd say, were able to run 100m in 12 seconds. They were never going to put in a particularly big hit in a tackle because they were never really going to accelerate much below a slow lumber. But the players I played against were old fashioned club players rather than the gym-honed supermen who play the modern professional game.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
A shelf life of 30 years and was last used in the 90s?
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
Henotheism...A term coined by the Indologist Max Müller in an attempt to convey his idea that each deity in the apparently polytheistic Vedic pantheon was actually experienced as supreme when focused on by a particular individual. It is adherence to one particular god out of several, especially by a family, tribe, or other group. Analogous to football team supporters.
I was online too much as a teen when atheism was a big thing on Youtube, and I remember watching a really interesting segment on the Atheist Experience where one of the presenters (who had been raised evangelical) gave a really in depth historical account of Jewish henotheism and that has been the only time I have ever heard it used.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
I'm a low grade cyclist as well. I live in cycleland (the Surrey Hills) and the real cyclists go hammering past me. I don't wear lycra other than the shorts. The bike has not been out until a couple of weeks ago when I started practising. I have lost 8 kg for the trip and I look for routes that lack hills because I am over weight for a cyclist.
In terms of my bike it is a converted town bike, but with a pannier added, armoured and slightly thinner tyres and butterfly handlebars. Otherwise bog standard.
There are two of us. Typically we cycle about 50 miles a day everyday. Most I have done in a day is 70 miles and that was a killer.
I do it for the beer, wine and food and the views and I love planning it which takes 4 times as long as doing it (this time it was stressful though).
A route I would recommend is Bordeaux to Biarritz. Flat as a pancake, real solitude in places, fantastic views.
I have stayed in some fantastic B&Bs and small hostels in the middle of nowhere. Converted railway lines and river paths are good and are often well maintained in France.
I can get everything I need in 2 pannier bags for 9 days plus a bike bag between them for tools, maps, phone, gloves, glasses, etc. I might smell though.
That sounds absolutely perfect. I like that there is no particular mention of anything high-tech! I'm agonising at the moment over buying a new bike with half an eye on doing something like this in the future when parental responsibilities might be less all-encompassing. I am 48 and a big old unit and hills take their toll; I like cycling primarily for the reasons you cite: food and drink and views; I'm never going to be doing 60 miles in four hours, but I wouldn't really want to, because that would necessitate missing the pub or the tea shop!
Thanks.
Get electric for going up the hills
I'm still clinging to the illusion of - if not youth, then at least early-to-middle-middle age! But your suggestion is actually an excellent one. By the time all the kids leave home and I have long periods for this sort of silliness I will be 59. An electric bike may be just the thing by then.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
I'm a low grade cyclist as well. I live in cycleland (the Surrey Hills) and the real cyclists go hammering past me. I don't wear lycra other than the shorts. The bike has not been out until a couple of weeks ago when I started practising. I have lost 8 kg for the trip and I look for routes that lack hills because I am over weight for a cyclist.
In terms of my bike it is a converted town bike, but with a pannier added, armoured and slightly thinner tyres and butterfly handlebars. Otherwise bog standard.
There are two of us. Typically we cycle about 50 miles a day everyday. Most I have done in a day is 70 miles and that was a killer.
I do it for the beer, wine and food and the views and I love planning it which takes 4 times as long as doing it (this time it was stressful though).
A route I would recommend is Bordeaux to Biarritz. Flat as a pancake, real solitude in places, fantastic views.
I have stayed in some fantastic B&Bs and small hostels in the middle of nowhere. Converted railway lines and river paths are good and are often well maintained in France.
I can get everything I need in 2 pannier bags for 9 days plus a bike bag between them for tools, maps, phone, gloves, glasses, etc. I might smell though.
That sounds absolutely perfect. I like that there is no particular mention of anything high-tech! I'm agonising at the moment over buying a new bike with half an eye on doing something like this in the future when parental responsibilities might be less all-encompassing. I am 48 and a big old unit and hills take their toll; I like cycling primarily for the reasons you cite: food and drink and views; I'm never going to be doing 60 miles in four hours, but I wouldn't really want to, because that would necessitate missing the pub or the tea shop!
Thanks.
My pleasure.
As has been pointed out to me there is no point in saving a few grams in the weight of a bike when you are carrying several bags of potatoes on your waist line.
Yep, my bike is very basic and a high tech one wouldn't be happy on some of the paths I go on.
I do have a (or at least was) hi tech mountain bike, but as I am 68 that is hanging on the garage wall and has been there for sometime now. Hydraulic brakes on a bike are very impressive, but if you are not careful you can find that the bike stops and you don't.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
Maximum BMI of 30 sounds like an excellent idea for Rugby Union.
Isn't the other big problem that the players are so much fitter now that you either need to make the pitch bigger or reduce the number of players. Why not go down to 14 a side? Get rid of lifting in the lineouts and somehow sort out the scrums.
How about 13-a-side, no lineouts and uncontested scrums?
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Nadine Dorries isn't materially more stupid than the average Tory MP, it's just that as a woman, and a Northern working class woman, she gets called out on it more. Of course she was dumb to believe a single thing that comes out of Boris Johnson's mouth, but she is hardly alone in having made that mistake - yes PB Tories I am talking about you!
Well, I do hope that you're not implying that I'm downgrading her because of her gender, because I'm not. The vast majority of stupid MPs are, of course, male, but that doesn't preclude some women being among them.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
Funnily enough I'm taking my bike over to France on Friday and it's a huge pain for similar reasons. I'm going to be cycling from Strasbourg to the Hook of Holland along the Rhine and the route to get to Strasbourg is:
Thursday after work, train to Dover. Stay Thursday night in Dover. Half day of work in hotel room. Afternoon ferry to Calais. Evening train to Amiens. Stay Friday night in Amiens. Saturday morning train to Paris. Afternoon TGV to Strasbourg.
If Eurostar took assembled bikes it would be Saturday morning Eurostar to Paris, Saturday afternoon TGV to Strasbourg. Infuriating.
On a more positive note, Eurostar have started taking assembled bikes to Brussels again and apparently expect to be able to do Paris soon.
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
The only thing needed to understand God and his evolution down the Millenia is that man creates God in his own image.
*her* own image.
Jeez(us)
God might be a bit more civilised if women were creating her.
You would not wish to get on the wrong side of St. Olga of Kyiv.
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
Jesus is an example of God evolving in the Christian faith from the God of the Old Testament to the God of the New Testament.
Hence Christians believe in the Trinity ie literally that Jesus is now God as well as Holy Spirit, whereas Jews and Muslims don't believe in the Trinity
So God transformed from a vindictive old sod, happy to kill people and other creatures left, right and centre, into a muesli-munching hand-wringer? A bit of a Damascene conversion vibe going on there.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
A shelf life of 30 years and was last used in the 90s?
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
Surly Disc Trucker/Fuji Touring. Ortleib rack and panniers.
The brakes are junk but you aren't going to be going that fast anyway.
That’s a gruesomely expensive price for a frame with Sora kit & TRP Spyre brakes that doesn’t even come with a rack or mud guards in the price.
You can get a Genesis Tour de Fer 30 for the same price with Tiagra kit, same brakes & front&rear racks, mudguards & bottle holders as standard. Not sure why you’d choose the Surly over that?
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Nadine Dorries isn't materially more stupid than the average Tory MP, it's just that as a woman, and a Northern working class woman, she gets called out on it more. Of course she was dumb to believe a single thing that comes out of Boris Johnson's mouth, but she is hardly alone in having made that mistake - yes PB Tories I am talking about you!
Well, I do hope that you're not implying that I'm downgrading her because of her gender, because I'm not. The vast majority of stupid MPs are, of course, male, but that doesn't preclude some women being among them.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
The Tories believe in treating people as individuals not their identity or intersectionality.
There are opportunities within the party for twits of any class, gender, race or creed.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
A shelf life of 30 years and was last used in the 90s?
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
In theory, not in practice. Which is why they’re trying to inspect them all!
Why is it that public buildings are either barely better than portakabins, or else grand structures designed to last forever, but never anything in the middle? The vast majority of private buildings are in the middle.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
A shelf life of 30 years and was last used in the 90s?
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
Nowt to do with concrete, but Hampshire Police moved into a new station in Southampton in 2011. They're already having to move out (delayed until next year) because there are a host of issues with the building.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
Speak for yourself, I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years!
You should go see a doctor. Humans are not meant to ve veggies
Humans are omnivores and so can survive and prosper on a variety of diets without recourse to medical intervention. Like our good friend above I am on my fourth decade of being a vegetarian with no ill-effects - in fact I'm considerably healthier than the average 47 year old British male (not a high bar, admittedly).
I've been fully plant based for a few years now. Fitter, stronger, generally healthier than I've ever been. I'm 57, on no medication, not got any illnesses or conditions. That's not all down to being vegan, I've just spent the past few years putting my past lifestyle to rights. I exercise more, am more mindful, trying to be more compassionate and empathetic. Retiring has helped. Also, cut out, as much as possible, ultra processed foods. That stuff'll carry you into a world of hurt.
I am the same age - 58 next month - and for a good few years have eaten a low carb diet which includes a good amount of meat and dairy. My health is good and like you I have no conditions and take no medication. To my mind the key has been cutting out carbs and particularly sugars.
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Nadine Dorries isn't materially more stupid than the average Tory MP, it's just that as a woman, and a Northern working class woman, she gets called out on it more. Of course she was dumb to believe a single thing that comes out of Boris Johnson's mouth, but she is hardly alone in having made that mistake - yes PB Tories I am talking about you!
Well, I do hope that you're not implying that I'm downgrading her because of her gender, because I'm not. The vast majority of stupid MPs are, of course, male, but that doesn't preclude some women being among them.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
The Tories believe in treating people as individuals not their identity or intersectionality.
There are opportunities within the party for twits of any class, gender, race or creed.
The Tory Party: Equal Opportunities for all Twits. I like it.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shel 2010f-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
A shelf life of 30 years and was last used in the 90s?
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Nadine Dorries isn't materially more stupid than the average Tory MP, it's just that as a woman, and a Northern working class woman, she gets called out on it more. Of course she was dumb to believe a single thing that comes out of Boris Johnson's mouth, but she is hardly alone in having made that mistake - yes PB Tories I am talking about you!
Well, I do hope that you're not implying that I'm downgrading her because of her gender, because I'm not. The vast majority of stupid MPs are, of course, male, but that doesn't preclude some women being among them.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
The Tories believe in treating people as individuals not their identity or intersectionality.
There are opportunities within the party for twits of any class, gender, race or creed.
that would be fine if we lived in a world where people were treated as individuals. but we don't
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Nadine Dorries isn't materially more stupid than the average Tory MP, it's just that as a woman, and a Northern working class woman, she gets called out on it more. Of course she was dumb to believe a single thing that comes out of Boris Johnson's mouth, but she is hardly alone in having made that mistake - yes PB Tories I am talking about you!
Well, I do hope that you're not implying that I'm downgrading her because of her gender, because I'm not. The vast majority of stupid MPs are, of course, male, but that doesn't preclude some women being among them.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
The Tories believe in treating people as individuals not their identity or intersectionality.
There are opportunities within the party for twits of any class, gender, race or creed.
The Tory Party: Equal Opportunities for all Twits. I like it.
To be literary again, they remind me more of the headgear of Robert Browning’s bats.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shel 2010f-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
A shelf life of 30 years and was last used in the 90s?
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
It was built in 1980 using materials meant to last 30 years?
Shouldn't it have been replaced by 2010 then?
Yes, like much NHS estate there has been little investment. State of the art hospitals are potentially a lot more efficient for patient flows and modern treatments.
One of several ways that "efficiency savings" cripple service delivery is the cutting of maintenance and repair budgets.
I don't know if the 30 year life was known at the time, or is only in retrospect.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
A shelf life of 30 years and was last used in the 90s?
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
That's the safe life - if anyone had done anything about it, then the answer would be yes. But the problem has been ignored,, and an unknown number of buildings have left to become in danger of failure or collapse.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
Speak for yourself, I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years!
You should go see a doctor. Humans are not meant to ve veggies
Humans are omnivores and so can survive and prosper on a variety of diets without recourse to medical intervention. Like our good friend above I am on my fourth decade of being a vegetarian with no ill-effects - in fact I'm considerably healthier than the average 47 year old British male (not a high bar, admittedly).
I've been fully plant based for a few years now. Fitter, stronger, generally healthier than I've ever been. I'm 57, on no medication, not got any illnesses or conditions. That's not all down to being vegan, I've just spent the past few years putting my past lifestyle to rights. I exercise more, am more mindful, trying to be more compassionate and empathetic. Retiring has helped. Also, cut out, as much as possible, ultra processed foods. That stuff'll carry you into a world of hurt.
I am the same age - 58 next month - and for a good few years have eaten a low carb diet which includes a good amount of meat and dairy. My health is good and like you I have no conditions and take no medication. To my mind the key has been cutting out carbs and particularly sugars.
I eat and drink what I want, and do lots of exercise. I'm 50, and according to Garmin my fitness age is 28.
Listening to you lot I'll probably keel over next week, but I'm having fun.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
I'm a low grade cyclist as well. I live in cycleland (the Surrey Hills) and the real cyclists go hammering past me. I don't wear lycra other than the shorts. The bike has not been out until a couple of weeks ago when I started practising. I have lost 8 kg for the trip and I look for routes that lack hills because I am over weight for a cyclist.
In terms of my bike it is a converted town bike, but with a pannier added, armoured and slightly thinner tyres and butterfly handlebars. Otherwise bog standard.
There are two of us. Typically we cycle about 50 miles a day everyday. Most I have done in a day is 70 miles and that was a killer.
I do it for the beer, wine and food and the views and I love planning it which takes 4 times as long as doing it (this time it was stressful though).
A route I would recommend is Bordeaux to Biarritz. Flat as a pancake, real solitude in places, fantastic views.
I have stayed in some fantastic B&Bs and small hostels in the middle of nowhere. Converted railway lines and river paths are good and are often well maintained in France.
I can get everything I need in 2 pannier bags for 9 days plus a bike bag between them for tools, maps, phone, gloves, glasses, etc. I might smell though.
That sounds absolutely perfect. I like that there is no particular mention of anything high-tech! I'm agonising at the moment over buying a new bike with half an eye on doing something like this in the future when parental responsibilities might be less all-encompassing. I am 48 and a big old unit and hills take their toll; I like cycling primarily for the reasons you cite: food and drink and views; I'm never going to be doing 60 miles in four hours, but I wouldn't really want to, because that would necessitate missing the pub or the tea shop!
Thanks.
Get electric for going up the hills
I'm still clinging to the illusion of - if not youth, then at least early-to-middle-middle age! But your suggestion is actually an excellent one. By the time all the kids leave home and I have long periods for this sort of silliness I will be 59. An electric bike may be just the thing by then.
I'm not at the stage of an ebike yet (me and the wife's ideal ride is hammering downhill for 5 minutes, then get the bikes thrown in the back of a land rover and then get lifted up to the top again) but we do a fair few miles off road trails, and in a few years we'll definitely be on ebikes.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
Well said.
To me the whole "24 weeks" cut-off is arbitrary and absurd. A bit like Sunday trading laws. A silly, messy compromise that doesn't really satisfy anyone but most people are content to live with because they'd rather not rock the boat and compromise just sounds reasonable.
To me logically birth is the inflection point as you say, so while I would find the idea of a 32 week abortion to be utterly horrible, I wouldn't make it illegal. Horrible things should not be unlawful. At approximately 37 weeks I believe the NHS could perhaps offer induction as an alternative, so that seems a reasonable cut-off, terminate the pregnancy but with a live-birth at that stage, but 24 is just a messy compromise. They're never going to voluntarily induce then.
I actually have more intellectual respect for people who want the practice outlawed altogether, than for the 24 week cut-off. At least they're intellectually consistent. I don't agree with them, but I can see where they're coming from much better.
The logic behind 24 weeks is that is the approximate age of viability.
At that point the child can live independently of the mother.
It seems a reasonable cut off point to say “at this point the child has rights as an independent human being”
There is nothing magical about passage through the birth canal that imbues any mystic rights
Neither magic nor mysticism exist, so nor should there be.
There certainly is something about a babies first breath that is a reasonable point to mark that as when it is born and life begins from there.
There is nothing magical about a babies first breath that justifies murdering a 38 week old baby
So why does the God you worship cause so many miscarriages?
It’s rather unpleasant that you are trying to make a cheap debating point from something as tragic as a miscarriage
But they occur naturally when pregnancies are non viable
If your God exists, why doesn't He act to prevent them?
Because He sets the framework and doesn’t intervene at the point of demand.
It’s the same question - how can God allow earthquakes? They are a natural event based on movement of tectonic plates. I’m sure there is a good scientific reason why tectonic plates work in the way they do, but that’s beyond my Ken (I just have faith in science)
So why did God intervene and free the Israelites from the bondage of slavery in Egypt but didn't intervene in the holocaust?
As the God of the Old Testament was the Jewish God then (although as the God of Abraham ultimately the Christian and Muslim God too but they came along later). He also ensured the Allies won the war and so ultimately the Jews were able to defeat the Nazis as they had defeated the Egyptians
Wow.
So God didn't intervene to prevent the Nazis. He didn't intervene to prevent the Holocaust.
But he did intervene to ensure the Allies won the war?
Ooookkkkaaayyy ..
I seriously hope you're trolling us now as that's the nuttiest thing I've ever seen from you and that's saying something.
We're into shitkicker "If the English language was good enough for Jesus Christ, its good enough for me" territory.
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
All a bit smallest violin for me, I'm afraid. There's no entitlement to a peerage - the very idea is absurd - and she's rarely been restrained in celebrating the disappointments of others.
It's not as though this condemns her to a life of poverty, or any such thing. Just irrelevance.
All correct. Nevertheless I do (although I did mean the 'teeny'). I've always found those little non-tragic disappointments in life to be oddly affecting. The much anticipated holiday that doesn't quite live up. The scratch on a lovingly maintained car. The puncturing of somebody's illusions.
I hesitate to say this but I once went on a Cycling for Softies holiday.
It was originally my intention to do a tour of the Loire by automobile but then I thought that if I was having a series of long and indulgent lunches I would rather afterwards find myself in a hedgerow riding a bicycle than driving a car.
They take your bags off you and then map out a series of hotels 5-10 miles away (or whatever you want) and you can cycle directly to the hotel five miles away or you can cycle all around for 25 miles and end up there finally.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
A shelf life of 30 years and was last used in the 90s?
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
King's Lynn hospital is one of the worst hospitals I've ever come across and that's nothing to do with the buildings. The staff, nurses, doctors just couldn't give a fuck. Especially if you are over 80.
Maximum BMI of 30 sounds like an excellent idea for Rugby Union.
Isn't the other big problem that the players are so much fitter now that you either need to make the pitch bigger or reduce the number of players. Why not go down to 14 a side? Get rid of lifting in the lineouts and somehow sort out the scrums.
How about 13-a-side, no lineouts and uncontested scrums?
Part of the joy of rugby is (or at least was before too many subs were allowed) the idea of physically tiring sides out, leading to close matches for 50-60 minutes and then the stronger side running away with it at the end. Uncontested scrums makes rugby a lot less tiring for a forward (speaking from experience) and would be a retrograde step. Better may be the 13 man idea (remove the flankers).
(I know you were tongue in cheek referring to league...)
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
Speak for yourself, I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years!
You should go see a doctor. Humans are not meant to ve veggies
Humans are omnivores and so can survive and prosper on a variety of diets without recourse to medical intervention. Like our good friend above I am on my fourth decade of being a vegetarian with no ill-effects - in fact I'm considerably healthier than the average 47 year old British male (not a high bar, admittedly).
I've been fully plant based for a few years now. Fitter, stronger, generally healthier than I've ever been. I'm 57, on no medication, not got any illnesses or conditions. That's not all down to being vegan, I've just spent the past few years putting my past lifestyle to rights. I exercise more, am more mindful, trying to be more compassionate and empathetic. Retiring has helped. Also, cut out, as much as possible, ultra processed foods. That stuff'll carry you into a world of hurt.
I am the same age - 58 next month - and for a good few years have eaten a low carb diet which includes a good amount of meat and dairy. My health is good and like you I have no conditions and take no medication. To my mind the key has been cutting out carbs and particularly sugars.
I eat and drink what I want, and do lots of exercise. I'm 50, and according to Garmin my fitness age is 28.
Listening to you lot I'll probably keel over next week, but I'm having fun.
I am 58 and burnt the candle at both ends my whole life. I try not to just eat junk, but sometimes that's what I do. It's been a blast, and I think I am good for a couple of decades more.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
The only thing needed to understand God and his evolution down the Millenia is that man creates God in his own image.
While they say that abortions post-24 weeks would not be legalised, any woman who did so should not be subject to prosecution. Which effectively means you can terminate the pregnancy up to the point of birth and not suffer any (legal) consequences.
Quite right too.
Why would it be right? I'm interested in the logic. I am assuming it is a libertarian argument.
My argument would be that, given we know foetuses can feel pain etc in the womb past a certain point, allowing such procedures effectively represents the legalisation of torture.
Her body, her choice. Animals can feel pain, I still eat meat and wouldn't outlaw fishing.
Life begins at birth for me - and no woman should ever be compelled to carry a pregnancy she doesn't want to carry.
If there is to be a weeks limit then I would set the limit as where the NHS would/could induce the baby, ie at full-term. If its too premature to induce the birth, then termination should be an option - however unpleasant that is.
The concept of pain is a tricky one, and I think the religiously motivated tend to make unjustified assumptions about how early a foetus is capable of pain. The external evidence about nerve growth and stimulus response tells one story, but similar stimulus-response experiments can lead people to surprising (and wrong) conclusions about insects and plants feeling "pain". The difficulty we have to overcome is the tendency to anthropomorphise physical responses and assume our internal experience is a good model. It usually isn't. Human conscious experience is not the same as that which would be "experienced" by a fly, a fig, or a foetus. We know that foetuses are endogenously sedated, and anybody here who has experienced "pain" under sedation will know it's a curious experience and certainly not, in my experience at least, deserving of the label "suffering".
Part of the problem for the religiously minded is this idea of the soul as a model for humanity is because of the sense that a soul is seen as rather like an on-off, a binary. It's either there or it isn't. But such a mental model is very poor map for conscious experience. Foetuses aren't conscious, not in the way people are. And if you have a -- something -- that isn't and has never been conscious, trying to lump it into the same category as a walking talking person is really quite problematic. Ultimately the being-with-a-soul argument pervades this debate even to the extent that people who do not believe in souls end up thinking in unscientific ways about it. A person doesn't suddenly go from not existing to existing in a moment. It happens gradually and one of the biggest inflection points in that curve-of-becoming is at birth.
And as almost all scientists agree human life, consciousness as well as ability to feel pain starts from 24 weeks.
Be assured we will fight you secular liberals with such gross disrespect for human life you would abort up to birth every step of the way.
This is not true.
I think most scientists would say that gametes are living cells, so there is a continuum of life from adult to gamete to zygote to foetus to baby. "Life" doesn't start at 24 weeks. But lots of things are living: bacteria, amoeba, mosquitoes, cabbages. What is living isn't particularly important to the ethical debate.
I think most scientists would shy away from claims as to when consciousness begins. That's a hugely complicated question. There are brain structures associated with consciousness that develop around 24-28 weeks, so that's a possible lower limit for consciousness, but most scientists would couch that with a lot of caveats. But animals have some degree of consciousness and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for consciousness anyway. Because there isn't a simple cut-off for consciousness: it's something that develops over time, through to maybe 18 months post-birth.
The ability to feel pain is... guess what? Complicated. Yes, there are brain structures around 24-28 weeks that may be necessary, although other parts of the system are developed much earlier. We're not quite certain. So, with caveats, maybe we could say the cut-off is around 24 weeks. But, again, animals can feel pain and we don't give them many rights, so the ethical debate is more complicated than finding a simple cut-off for pain.
Science is complicated. Legislation often has to be somewhat simpler and I'm not saying 24 weeks isn't a good cut-off for legislative purposes. I note 90% of abortions are done before 12 weeks. I also note that the demand for post-24 week abortions is very small and tends to involve very difficult and complicated cases.
We use stun guns before we kill animals.
And even them the fact we kill animals for food is no argument for legalising murder
Speak for yourself, I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years!
You should go see a doctor. Humans are not meant to ve veggies
Humans are omnivores and so can survive and prosper on a variety of diets without recourse to medical intervention. Like our good friend above I am on my fourth decade of being a vegetarian with no ill-effects - in fact I'm considerably healthier than the average 47 year old British male (not a high bar, admittedly).
I've been fully plant based for a few years now. Fitter, stronger, generally healthier than I've ever been. I'm 57, on no medication, not got any illnesses or conditions. That's not all down to being vegan, I've just spent the past few years putting my past lifestyle to rights. I exercise more, am more mindful, trying to be more compassionate and empathetic. Retiring has helped. Also, cut out, as much as possible, ultra processed foods. That stuff'll carry you into a world of hurt.
I am the same age - 58 next month - and for a good few years have eaten a low carb diet which includes a good amount of meat and dairy. My health is good and like you I have no conditions and take no medication. To my mind the key has been cutting out carbs and particularly sugars.
I firmly believe that eating real food is the key, whether it be omnivorous, veggie or vegan. Sugar in itself isn't inherently bad in moderate quantities, as long as its unrefined. It's the processed shite, chemical gums, sweeteners, humectant, stabilisers, emulsifiers and all the other additives that are causing diseases and obesity. The problem is that, certainly in this country, those Industrially Manufactured Edible Products are the only types of "food" that many people can afford, both in time and money.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
I'm a low grade cyclist as well. I live in cycleland (the Surrey Hills) and the real cyclists go hammering past me. I don't wear lycra other than the shorts. The bike has not been out until a couple of weeks ago when I started practising. I have lost 8 kg for the trip and I look for routes that lack hills because I am over weight for a cyclist.
In terms of my bike it is a converted town bike, but with a pannier added, armoured and slightly thinner tyres and butterfly handlebars. Otherwise bog standard.
There are two of us. Typically we cycle about 50 miles a day everyday. Most I have done in a day is 70 miles and that was a killer.
I do it for the beer, wine and food and the views and I love planning it which takes 4 times as long as doing it (this time it was stressful though).
A route I would recommend is Bordeaux to Biarritz. Flat as a pancake, real solitude in places, fantastic views.
I have stayed in some fantastic B&Bs and small hostels in the middle of nowhere. Converted railway lines and river paths are good and are often well maintained in France.
I can get everything I need in 2 pannier bags for 9 days plus a bike bag between them for tools, maps, phone, gloves, glasses, etc. I might smell though.
That sounds absolutely perfect. I like that there is no particular mention of anything high-tech! I'm agonising at the moment over buying a new bike with half an eye on doing something like this in the future when parental responsibilities might be less all-encompassing. I am 48 and a big old unit and hills take their toll; I like cycling primarily for the reasons you cite: food and drink and views; I'm never going to be doing 60 miles in four hours, but I wouldn't really want to, because that would necessitate missing the pub or the tea shop!
Thanks.
My pleasure.
As has been pointed out to me there is no point in saving a few grams in the weight of a bike when you are carrying several bags of potatoes on your waist line.
Yep, my bike is very basic and a high tech one wouldn't be happy on some of the paths I go on.
I do have a (or at least was) hi tech mountain bike, but as I am 68 that is hanging on the garage wall and has been there for sometime now. Hydraulic brakes on a bike are very impressive, but if you are not careful you can find that the bike stops and you don't.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I do old codger cycling.
I was in the Brompton shop the other week. They now do a titanium-framed one, which is 8kg instead of the regular 11kg, but is more than three times the price, over £4k.
I was left thinking exactly the same, that if I was too worried about carrying around 3kg extra, I wouldn’t have been looking to buy a bike in the first place!
Which of the following do you think would make the best Prime Minister? (6-7 June)
Keir Starmer: 30% (no change from 30-31 May) Rishi Sunak: 23% (-3) Not sure: 43% (+2)
Landslide win for 'Not Sure' as our PM after the next general election then!
Unlike you not to put all the DKs on the Tory/Unionist side. You don't like Mr Sunak, then?
Before the 2019 election by contrast Boris was on 43% with Yougov as preferred PM, well ahead of Not sure and Corbyn.
Ahead of the 1997 election Blair was on 50% even 60% in some polls as preferred PM, miles ahead of Major and DK.
It does suggest while there isn't much enthusiasm for Sunak's government, there isn't much for Starmer either.
That suggests the next general election could be more likely to be a hung parliament or small Labour majority than the 1997 style landslide the headline voting intention suggests
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
I'm a low grade cyclist as well. I live in cycleland (the Surrey Hills) and the real cyclists go hammering past me. I don't wear lycra other than the shorts. The bike has not been out until a couple of weeks ago when I started practising. I have lost 8 kg for the trip and I look for routes that lack hills because I am over weight for a cyclist.
In terms of my bike it is a converted town bike, but with a pannier added, armoured and slightly thinner tyres and butterfly handlebars. Otherwise bog standard.
There are two of us. Typically we cycle about 50 miles a day everyday. Most I have done in a day is 70 miles and that was a killer.
I do it for the beer, wine and food and the views and I love planning it which takes 4 times as long as doing it (this time it was stressful though).
A route I would recommend is Bordeaux to Biarritz. Flat as a pancake, real solitude in places, fantastic views.
I have stayed in some fantastic B&Bs and small hostels in the middle of nowhere. Converted railway lines and river paths are good and are often well maintained in France.
I can get everything I need in 2 pannier bags for 9 days plus a bike bag between them for tools, maps, phone, gloves, glasses, etc. I might smell though.
That sounds absolutely perfect. I like that there is no particular mention of anything high-tech! I'm agonising at the moment over buying a new bike with half an eye on doing something like this in the future when parental responsibilities might be less all-encompassing. I am 48 and a big old unit and hills take their toll; I like cycling primarily for the reasons you cite: food and drink and views; I'm never going to be doing 60 miles in four hours, but I wouldn't really want to, because that would necessitate missing the pub or the tea shop!
Thanks.
My pleasure.
As has been pointed out to me there is no point in saving a few grams in the weight of a bike when you are carrying several bags of potatoes on your waist line.
Yep, my bike is very basic and a high tech one wouldn't be happy on some of the paths I go on.
I do have a (or at least was) hi tech mountain bike, but as I am 68 that is hanging on the garage wall and has been there for sometime now. Hydraulic brakes on a bike are very impressive, but if you are not careful you can find that the bike stops and you don't.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I do old codger cycling.
I was in the Brompton shop the other week. They now do a titanium-framed one, which is 8kg instead of the regular 11kg, but is more than three times the price, over £4k.
I was left thinking exactly the same, that if I was too worried about carrying around 3kg extra, I wouldn’t have been looking to buy a bike in the first place!
I'm seriously tempted to try out an eCargo bike, like a Tern or Radwagon. Can't quite convince the wife yet!
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Yeah, I know. Totally right. I was (am) against her getting a peerage. But with how it's panned out, I think she's been trod on a bit.
In the novel Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy, an 80s look at a conventional WWIIi, Russian headquarters become a suicidal posting.
A combination of radio triangulation, JSTARS type surveillance, computerised intelligence aggregation and smart weapons, in the novel, means that the headquarters get malleted all the time.
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Nadine Dorries isn't materially more stupid than the average Tory MP, it's just that as a woman, and a Northern working class woman, she gets called out on it more. Of course she was dumb to believe a single thing that comes out of Boris Johnson's mouth, but she is hardly alone in having made that mistake - yes PB Tories I am talking about you!
Well, I do hope that you're not implying that I'm downgrading her because of her gender, because I'm not. The vast majority of stupid MPs are, of course, male, but that doesn't preclude some women being among them.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
The Tories believe in treating people as individuals not their identity or intersectionality.
There are opportunities within the party for twits of any class, gender, race or creed.
that would be fine if we lived in a world where people were treated as individuals. but we don't
Was it a total lobotomy or only your sense of humour that they removed?
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
The only thing needed to understand God and his evolution down the Millenia is that man creates God in his own image.
*her* own image.
Jeez(us)
Ffs,‘their’ own image.
I would typically agree that, at least for the last few thousand years, it has been men creating God in his own image specifically. Due to the spread of the Abrahamic faiths with traditions that are deeply patriarchal and misogynistic. Men created those religions and that God, and women were subject to both.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
Funnily enough I'm taking my bike over to France on Friday and it's a huge pain for similar reasons. I'm going to be cycling from Strasbourg to the Hook of Holland along the Rhine and the route to get to Strasbourg is:
Thursday after work, train to Dover. Stay Thursday night in Dover. Half day of work in hotel room. Afternoon ferry to Calais. Evening train to Amiens. Stay Friday night in Amiens. Saturday morning train to Paris. Afternoon TGV to Strasbourg.
If Eurostar took assembled bikes it would be Saturday morning Eurostar to Paris, Saturday afternoon TGV to Strasbourg. Infuriating.
On a more positive note, Eurostar have started taking assembled bikes to Brussels again and apparently expect to be able to do Paris soon.
I wish I knew about you weeks ago. It took me ages to work out how to get the bikes from Calais to Paris. For some odd reason that TGV doesn't take them on this route so you have to take TERs. It then took me a while to find out that the only way I could find out about TER trains to Paris was to break the route (I picked Amiens). If I manage it right the train I catch will go from Calais all the way to Paris (stopping everywhere), but I had to add Amiens in the middle to get the route up. Although SNFC say you can take bikes on TER trains none of the trains from Calais show the bike symbol (so that was another panic). As I said in an earlier post I have visions of just cycling around Calais for the entire holiday.
The shuttle now offers a service to get around some of this stuff which is bizarre. You can load your bike on a van at Folkestone. It drive 100m to the train. It rolls off the other end and you cycle off. The van is in effect a box you and you bike go in on the train that drives each day just a couple of hundred metres. Sadly it only runs once a day at 8 am so to use that would be another overnight stay for me as I can't get to Folkestone by train by that time.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
Having cycled SPD pedals for a couple of years, it was really weird borrowing my wife's hybrid a couple of weeks ago to go out with our eldest (mine was out of action due to broken spoke). I hadn't realised how much I pull/lift off on the up stroke now. My feet were all over the place until I got the hang of it.
Also endorse the multi-release. Mine are SM-SH56s and you can get them out pretty much any which way if you need to. I've never forgotten I'm clipped in (only ever used SPDs with this bike, so it's natural) but I did once start falling the other way to the side I'd unclipped (left) and was able to yank the right foot out in a hurry, without the normal twist of foot, and get it down before I looked like too much of a tit (I think! Less of a tit than lying flat on the floor anyway...).
In the novel Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy, an 80s look at a conventional WWIIi, Russian headquarters become a suicidal posting.
A combination of radio triangulation, JSTARS type surveillance, computerised intelligence aggregation and smart weapons, in the novel, means that the headquarters get malleted all the time.
Well reality is definitely following fiction there. The Russian command post structures and vehicles obviously stick out like a sore thumb, to the massive amount of NATO surveillance informing the Ukranians of targets.
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Nadine Dorries isn't materially more stupid than the average Tory MP, it's just that as a woman, and a Northern working class woman, she gets called out on it more. Of course she was dumb to believe a single thing that comes out of Boris Johnson's mouth, but she is hardly alone in having made that mistake - yes PB Tories I am talking about you!
Well, I do hope that you're not implying that I'm downgrading her because of her gender, because I'm not. The vast majority of stupid MPs are, of course, male, but that doesn't preclude some women being among them.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
The Tories believe in treating people as individuals not their identity or intersectionality.
There are opportunities within the party for twits of any class, gender, race or creed.
that would be fine if we lived in a world where people were treated as individuals. but we don't
Was it a total lobotomy or only your sense of humour that they removed?
can't remove something you never had to begin with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
This thought needs about three simple insights to bring to bear:
Whether there is a God and what (if there is one) is God's nature in itself is not a knowable item. As all time testifies.
There are different understandings of God because people's history and beliefs differ.
It is perfectly possible that God (if there is one) does not evolve but is unchanging but that the average state of human belief develops and evolves - sometimes in good ways.
Oh yes, and fourthly, simplified parodies of complex belief systems are rarely fruitful in any field of thought. That's the Daily Mail's job.
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
Not you as well! She was only shafted by Boris because she made the fatal mistake of worshipping him. Anybody who worships Boris obviously lacks both judgment and common sense, and is by definition unfit for a role in public life. Also, she's as daft as a brush (not always a bar, I grant you).
Nadine Dorries isn't materially more stupid than the average Tory MP, it's just that as a woman, and a Northern working class woman, she gets called out on it more. Of course she was dumb to believe a single thing that comes out of Boris Johnson's mouth, but she is hardly alone in having made that mistake - yes PB Tories I am talking about you!
Well, I do hope that you're not implying that I'm downgrading her because of her gender, because I'm not. The vast majority of stupid MPs are, of course, male, but that doesn't preclude some women being among them.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
Also- Nadine isn't a twit for falling for Boris. Virtually everyone does at first, and often through the first couple of betrayals.
(Go on- who had the foresight to spot him as a wrongun in, say, 1995?)
To still be loyal to him now... That's harder to excuse. But again understandable.
It takes a personal betrayal to realise quite how awful a man he is, and he can only betray so many people per day.
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
All a bit smallest violin for me, I'm afraid. There's no entitlement to a peerage - the very idea is absurd - and she's rarely been restrained in celebrating the disappointments of others.
It's not as though this condemns her to a life of poverty, or any such thing. Just irrelevance.
All correct. Nevertheless I do (although I did mean the 'teeny'). I've always found those little non-tragic disappointments in life to be oddly affecting. The much anticipated holiday that doesn't quite live up. The scratch on a lovingly maintained car. The puncturing of somebody's illusions.
I think that's perhaps empathy ?
I experienced it when watching it gradually dawn on Caucescu during his final speech that the game might be up. That certainly wasn't quite the same thing as feeling sorry for him.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
A couple of years ago my brother in law was on his bike using pedal clips and whilst climbing a hill somehow contrived to come off the road. He couldn’t get his feet out of the clips in time so ended up sliding down the embankment attached to his bike and only just managed, by grabbing a tree as he slid past, to stop himself falling into the river at the bottom. He blew apart his ankle and lower leg - pins, cage, repeated surgeries, the whole shebang. Really shook him up, being inches from drowning, fucking his leg so badly, never been quite the same since.
Unlucky but put me off them. Not that I’m a serious enough cyclist to warrant them - mostly I ride a Brompton.
Now that YouGov has published its polling from last week, I set out below my average.
As this is last week's polling, it is before any fallout from Boris's appointment as Steward and Bailiff.
The Lib Dems have maintained their better run of polling, whilst Labour is going backwards and the Greens have a good week.
TLDR: Lab down around 3 points, Lib up around two, everybody else not really moving.
At that rate, Lab will cross over with Con in 16 months - Oct 2024 - and LD will hit 43% at the same date. So an Oct2024 Election will be Lab 28, Con 28, Lib 43, and Ed Davey will be PM. Also [check notes] extrapolating from present trends on a straight line basis is stupid. Ah. [blushes, shuffle off stage]
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
Having cycled SPD pedals for a couple of years, it was really weird borrowing my wife's hybrid a couple of weeks ago to go out with our eldest (mine was out of action due to broken spoke). I hadn't realised how much I pull/lift off on the up stroke now. My feet were all over the place until I got the hang of it.
Also endorse the multi-release. Mine are SM-SH56s and you can get them out pretty much any which way if you need to. I've never forgotten I'm clipped in (only ever used SPDs with this bike, so it's natural) but I did once start falling the other way to the side I'd unclipped (left) and was able to yank the right foot out in a hurry, without the normal twist of foot, and get it down before I looked like too much of a tit (I think! Less of a tit than lying flat on the floor anyway...).
I rode clipless(spd) for years when I was a roadie, but it's been Five Ten flats all the way now its mountain biking. I am actually trialling clipless mtb pedals for downhill this year, but the arse twitching potential is strong!
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
The only thing needed to understand God and his evolution down the Millenia is that man creates God in his own image.
*her* own image.
Jeez(us)
Ffs,‘their’ own image.
I would typically agree that, at least for the last few thousand years, it has been men creating God in his own image specifically. Due to the spread of the Abrahamic faiths with traditions that are deeply patriarchal and misogynistic. Men created those religions and that God, and women were subject to both.
Absolutely. I’m not much arsed by pronouns aside from believing you should address people as they want to be addressed, but the greatest (or most influential in any case) fictional creations of humankind might be a good place to start.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
A couple of years ago my brother in law was on his bike using pedal clips and whilst climbing a hill somehow contrived to come off the road. He couldn’t get his feet out of the clips in time so ended up sliding down the embankment attached to his bike and only just managed, by grabbing a tree as he slid past, to stop himself falling into the river at the bottom. He blew apart his ankle and lower leg - pins, cage, repeated surgeries, the whole shebang. Really shook him up, being inches from drowning, fucking his leg so badly, never been quite the same since.
Unlucky but put me off them. Not that I’m a serious enough cyclist to warrant them - mostly I ride a Brompton.
Many years ago I was doing the London bikathon when I guy in front of me stopped at the traffic lights (some of us do) and fell sideways just as he stopped just like Del in Only Fools and Horses when he leans on the bar that isn't there. Mid fall he said 'Oh f***'
So I approve of clip on peddles if only for making me laugh so much that day.
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
The only thing needed to understand God and his evolution down the Millenia is that man creates God in his own image.
*her* own image.
Jeez(us)
Ffs,‘their’ own image.
I would typically agree that, at least for the last few thousand years, it has been men creating God in his own image specifically. Due to the spread of the Abrahamic faiths with traditions that are deeply patriarchal and misogynistic. Men created those religions and that God, and women were subject to both.
If there is no God, and all the worst (as well as the best) that religion can do is an entirely human enterprise, then there is no point in dragging God into it. It is Humanism, with its veneration of the human, that has some explaining to do.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
Having cycled SPD pedals for a couple of years, it was really weird borrowing my wife's hybrid a couple of weeks ago to go out with our eldest (mine was out of action due to broken spoke). I hadn't realised how much I pull/lift off on the up stroke now. My feet were all over the place until I got the hang of it.
Also endorse the multi-release. Mine are SM-SH56s and you can get them out pretty much any which way if you need to. I've never forgotten I'm clipped in (only ever used SPDs with this bike, so it's natural) but I did once start falling the other way to the side I'd unclipped (left) and was able to yank the right foot out in a hurry, without the normal twist of foot, and get it down before I looked like too much of a tit (I think! Less of a tit than lying flat on the floor anyway...).
I rode clipless(spd) for years when I was a roadie, but it's been Five Ten flats all the way now its mountain biking. I am actually trialling clipless mtb pedals for downhill this year, but the arse twitching potential is strong!
Dura Ace 'Red' zero float cleats with release tension maxed out for me. 🤘
Maximum BMI of 30 sounds like an excellent idea for Rugby Union.
Isn't the other big problem that the players are so much fitter now that you either need to make the pitch bigger or reduce the number of players. Why not go down to 14 a side? Get rid of lifting in the lineouts and somehow sort out the scrums.
How about 13-a-side, no lineouts and uncontested scrums?
This is where we came in Sandy! The point is that we were lamenting rugby union becoming too much like rugby league - some of us like contested scrums, competitive line outs, and mauling.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
Having cycled SPD pedals for a couple of years, it was really weird borrowing my wife's hybrid a couple of weeks ago to go out with our eldest (mine was out of action due to broken spoke). I hadn't realised how much I pull/lift off on the up stroke now. My feet were all over the place until I got the hang of it.
Also endorse the multi-release. Mine are SM-SH56s and you can get them out pretty much any which way if you need to. I've never forgotten I'm clipped in (only ever used SPDs with this bike, so it's natural) but I did once start falling the other way to the side I'd unclipped (left) and was able to yank the right foot out in a hurry, without the normal twist of foot, and get it down before I looked like too much of a tit (I think! Less of a tit than lying flat on the floor anyway...).
I don't know a single person who the first time they got SPDs did not fall over at least once. Part of the initiation. Here were my 2 occasions for your amusement.
The first occasion was coming up to a T-junction in the country. It was the first time I had used SPDs. Go to unclip my left foot (the natural one for me to use) and they were so stiff that I couldn't get enough force to do so. Ended up toppling over at the T-junction and laying on my side with my foot still clipped in. Still couldn't unclip and had to remove the shoe to be able to get up off the ground. Fortunately, both for my safety and respectability, no one was around to observe this.
The other time there were plenty of people to observe. This was probably a few weeks after I'd first started using SPDs. Had to go on a short stretch of the A4 between Maidenhead and Slough. Come up to some traffic lights on red. Unclip fine but as I go to put my foot on the down I manage to accidentally clip back in and then toppled over. Got myself straight back up but I think there were several amused drivers right behind me.
Not happened since as I took the approach to be cautious and unclip even if you don't think you really need to. Plus not done much cycling for the last few years due to a lack of time.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
A couple of years ago my brother in law was on his bike using pedal clips and whilst climbing a hill somehow contrived to come off the road. He couldn’t get his feet out of the clips in time so ended up sliding down the embankment attached to his bike and only just managed, by grabbing a tree as he slid past, to stop himself falling into the river at the bottom. He blew apart his ankle and lower leg - pins, cage, repeated surgeries, the whole shebang. Really shook him up, being inches from drowning, fucking his leg so badly, never been quite the same since.
Unlucky but put me off them. Not that I’m a serious enough cyclist to warrant them - mostly I ride a Brompton.
Many years ago I was doing the London bikathon when I guy in front of me stopped at the traffic lights (some of us do) and fell sideways just as he stopped just like Del in Only Fools and Horses when he leans on the bar that isn't there. Mid fall he said 'Oh f***'
So I approve of clip on peddles if only for making me laugh so much that day.
I fractured my wrist when I was a kid doing that. Wasn't using clips. somehow my trousers at either side had got caught in the chain or on the sprocket or something. Seemed to stay upright for a few seconds before slowly toppling to one side. Fractured the left wrist breaking my fall. I'm a lefty so got me out of school work for a few weeks, so it wasn't all bad.
Mr. HYUFD, some say the God of the Old Testament is just Zeus with a rebrand.
I would interpret this as our understanding of God evolving
Is the bit that I just don't get but hey good luck with it all. If it's luck, that is, and not predestination.
I don't think that an unusual concept, indeed most Churches would hold that, albeit in some disagreement of what that understanding should be.
Like many other things, it isn't linear progress, and there can be wrong turns and blind alleys along the way.
Oh absolutely and my apologies for making anything of it but I just don't get the god thing and hence it interests me when people use phrases such as you did "our understanding of god is evolving..."
I'll abide by my rules on what not to discuss henceforth...
I don't understand how God can evolve. Why does he need to? He's God, the main man. He's an old white bloke, long flowing hair and beard, a bit wrathful, likes women in their place, not a fan of the gays. Likes a bit of a disaster. Now? He's a woke lefty liberal who let's women be bishops, let's gays get married, goes on pride marches and probably carries an iPhone. I don't get it.
The only thing needed to understand God and his evolution down the Millenia is that man creates God in his own image.
*her* own image.
Jeez(us)
Ffs,‘their’ own image.
I though the point of monotheism was that God was singular?
(Yes I know there is a historical linguistic argument for using 'they' as non-gender-specific singular just as there is a historical linguistic argument that 'less' can be used interchangeably with 'fewer', but both raise my hackles in exactly the same way (alongside using 'disinterested' to mean 'indifferent'. They just sound wrong to me.)
Edit: I do agree it would be useful to have some pronouns for non-gender specific singular third person. But 'they' and 'them' are already doing a really useful job over at plural third person.
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
All a bit smallest violin for me, I'm afraid. There's no entitlement to a peerage - the very idea is absurd - and she's rarely been restrained in celebrating the disappointments of others.
It's not as though this condemns her to a life of poverty, or any such thing. Just irrelevance.
All correct. Nevertheless I do (although I did mean the 'teeny'). I've always found those little non-tragic disappointments in life to be oddly affecting. The much anticipated holiday that doesn't quite live up. The scratch on a lovingly maintained car. The puncturing of somebody's illusions.
I think that's perhaps empathy ?
I experienced it when watching it gradually dawn on Caucescu during his final speech that the game might be up. That certainly wasn't quite the same thing as feeling sorry for him.
Conversely I was pretty pleased when Ceaucescu got pelters during his last speech but felt rather sick when he and his wife met their televised end. They just looked like confused pensioners not really aware what was happening to them. I guess if you were Romanian you might have felt a more justified rage.
Maximum BMI of 30 sounds like an excellent idea for Rugby Union.
Isn't the other big problem that the players are so much fitter now that you either need to make the pitch bigger or reduce the number of players. Why not go down to 14 a side? Get rid of lifting in the lineouts and somehow sort out the scrums.
How about 13-a-side, no lineouts and uncontested scrums?
This is where we came in Sandy! The point is that we were lamenting rugby union becoming too much like rugby league - some of us like contested scrums, competitive line outs, and mauling.
You mean time to go for a pint without missing any action.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
Having cycled SPD pedals for a couple of years, it was really weird borrowing my wife's hybrid a couple of weeks ago to go out with our eldest (mine was out of action due to broken spoke). I hadn't realised how much I pull/lift off on the up stroke now. My feet were all over the place until I got the hang of it.
Also endorse the multi-release. Mine are SM-SH56s and you can get them out pretty much any which way if you need to. I've never forgotten I'm clipped in (only ever used SPDs with this bike, so it's natural) but I did once start falling the other way to the side I'd unclipped (left) and was able to yank the right foot out in a hurry, without the normal twist of foot, and get it down before I looked like too much of a tit (I think! Less of a tit than lying flat on the floor anyway...).
I don't know a single person who the first time they got SPDs did not fall over at least once. Part of the initiation. Here were my 2 occasions for your amusement.
The first occasion was coming up to a T-junction in the country. It was the first time I had used SPDs. Go to unclip my left foot (the natural one for me to use) and they were so stiff that I couldn't get enough force to do so. Ended up toppling over at the T-junction and laying on my side with my foot still clipped in. Still couldn't unclip and had to remove the shoe to be able to get up off the ground. Fortunately, both for my safety and respectability, no one was around to observe this.
The other time there were plenty of people to observe. This was probably a few weeks after I'd first started using SPDs. Had to go on a short stretch of the A4 between Maidenhead and Slough. Come up to some traffic lights on red. Unclip fine but as I go to put my foot on the down I manage to accidentally clip back in and then toppled over. Got myself straight back up but I think there were several amused drivers right behind me.
Not happened since as I took the approach to be cautious and unclip even if you don't think you really need to. Plus not done much cycling for the last few years due to a lack of time.
If we're swapping anecdotes I once walked over to a (motor)bike park with another guy with a helmet. We arrived and I went to mount my teeny-weeny bit tricked up Bandit 600 (Renthals, high pipe) while he jumped on board a Ducati 916 in Bright Yellow. I nodded approvingly and he accepted the nod with a "you know it is" look. He then fired up the bike, engaged gear and went smacking down to the ground as he had forgotten to take his wheel lock off.
I moped around a bit saying uselessly "can I help" but of course I couldn't so I just rode off.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I think SPD (or whatever) is worth persevering with for touring as they are more comfortable and reduce the risk of knee/ankle injuries by maintaining alignment. Especially important when fatigued.
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
Having cycled SPD pedals for a couple of years, it was really weird borrowing my wife's hybrid a couple of weeks ago to go out with our eldest (mine was out of action due to broken spoke). I hadn't realised how much I pull/lift off on the up stroke now. My feet were all over the place until I got the hang of it.
Also endorse the multi-release. Mine are SM-SH56s and you can get them out pretty much any which way if you need to. I've never forgotten I'm clipped in (only ever used SPDs with this bike, so it's natural) but I did once start falling the other way to the side I'd unclipped (left) and was able to yank the right foot out in a hurry, without the normal twist of foot, and get it down before I looked like too much of a tit (I think! Less of a tit than lying flat on the floor anyway...).
I rode clipless(spd) for years when I was a roadie, but it's been Five Ten flats all the way now its mountain biking. I am actually trialling clipless mtb pedals for downhill this year, but the arse twitching potential is strong!
Yeah, I use flats on the mountain bike, mainly because it means you can just get off and walk much more easily. Sometimes with full mountaineering boots...
On a tourer I use old fashioned straps for the same reason - no need to clump around in specialist shoes when off the bike.
I don't think I've done more than 70 miles in a day when touring so the knees usually come off worse from walking up hills rather than any cycling to get to the bottom.
In the novel Red Storm Rising, by Tom Clancy, an 80s look at a conventional WWIIi, Russian headquarters become a suicidal posting.
A combination of radio triangulation, JSTARS type surveillance, computerised intelligence aggregation and smart weapons, in the novel, means that the headquarters get malleted all the time.
Well reality is definitely following fiction there. The Russian command post structures and vehicles obviously stick out like a sore thumb, to the massive amount of NATO surveillance informing the Ukranians of targets.
In the novel, it was the combination of computerisation of intelligence plus computerisation of targeting requests that got the time down from “see” to “bang” to minutes.
The Ukrainian system for unifying target identification and strike requests is something that could have been done years ago, in the West. But was blocked by politics.
Why would a Tory try and create maximum problems for Sunak given where the Tories are in the polls? It’s sociopathic.
Because she's acting like a spoilt toddler throwing her toys out of the pram as she hasn't been given the bauble she wanted.
Next thread please.
I surprise myself sometimes and I do here. I feel a teeny bit sorry for Nadine. Seems she's been shafted by Boris (and not in the way she might have dreamt of). She does not merit a peerage but by recent standards it wouldn't be beyond the pale.
All a bit smallest violin for me, I'm afraid. There's no entitlement to a peerage - the very idea is absurd - and she's rarely been restrained in celebrating the disappointments of others.
It's not as though this condemns her to a life of poverty, or any such thing. Just irrelevance.
All correct. Nevertheless I do (although I did mean the 'teeny'). I've always found those little non-tragic disappointments in life to be oddly affecting. The much anticipated holiday that doesn't quite live up. The scratch on a lovingly maintained car. The puncturing of somebody's illusions.
I think that's perhaps empathy ?
I experienced it when watching it gradually dawn on Caucescu during his final speech that the game might be up. That certainly wasn't quite the same thing as feeling sorry for him.
Conversely I was pretty pleased when Ceaucescu got pelters during his last speech but felt rather sick when he and his wife met their televised end. They just looked like confused pensioners not really aware what was happening to them. I guess if you were Romanian you might have felt a more justified rage.
I think people getting chop like that would create a stir of sympathy in most reasonable people. Just as with Gaddafi’s end.
Someone’s career ending with a comfortable retirement on a well funded pension doesn’t reach that level, for me.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
Funnily enough I'm taking my bike over to France on Friday and it's a huge pain for similar reasons. I'm going to be cycling from Strasbourg to the Hook of Holland along the Rhine and the route to get to Strasbourg is:
Thursday after work, train to Dover. Stay Thursday night in Dover. Half day of work in hotel room. Afternoon ferry to Calais. Evening train to Amiens. Stay Friday night in Amiens. Saturday morning train to Paris. Afternoon TGV to Strasbourg.
If Eurostar took assembled bikes it would be Saturday morning Eurostar to Paris, Saturday afternoon TGV to Strasbourg. Infuriating.
On a more positive note, Eurostar have started taking assembled bikes to Brussels again and apparently expect to be able to do Paris soon.
I wish I knew about you weeks ago. It took me ages to work out how to get the bikes from Calais to Paris. For some odd reason that TGV doesn't take them on this route so you have to take TERs. It then took me a while to find out that the only way I could find out about TER trains to Paris was to break the route (I picked Amiens). If I manage it right the train I catch will go from Calais all the way to Paris (stopping everywhere), but I had to add Amiens in the middle to get the route up. Although SNFC say you can take bikes on TER trains none of the trains from Calais show the bike symbol (so that was another panic). As I said in an earlier post I have visions of just cycling around Calais for the entire holiday.
The shuttle now offers a service to get around some of this stuff which is bizarre. You can load your bike on a van at Folkestone. It drive 100m to the train. It rolls off the other end and you cycle off. The van is in effect a box you and you bike go in on the train that drives each day just a couple of hundred metres. Sadly it only runs once a day at 8 am so to use that would be another overnight stay for me as I can't get to Folkestone by train by that time.
Going from Calais you have to be careful to avoid the TER GV services (although I think they generally go from Frethun rather than Ville) as they don't take bikes. One useful trick I've found is to search using the Deutsche Bahn route planner as that covers Europe pretty comprehensively and then in additional options limit the search to local trains only. That way it just gives you the TERs. If you select bicycle on SNCF or DB it only shows you services where bikes can/need to be booked, rather than services which allow a free for all like most TERs.
Working out the best way to do this trip without taking yet more time off work or any overly risk connections took me quite a while and several iterations of my route.
Anyway I hope it all goes well and hopefully next time Eurostar will be offering a proper service!
Nadine will not resign, too much to lose the MP's salary, the expenses, the cheap meals etc etc. She will stay till the General and could then get a good leavers payment. It makes far more sense than resigning in a pique.
As some of you may remember I was venting on here a few weeks ago re the inability to take unboxed bikes on Eurostar because of Brexit (i have no idea why because you can on a ferry so brexit doesn't sound like a good excuse to me). I go tomorrow. My journey now consists of 6 trains and a ferry and 2 days starting at 4 am tomorrow instead of just 3 trains leaving mid morning and arriving late afternoon the same day. And a lot, lot more expensive and huge opportunities for missing connections. Still it is there so has to be done (unless of course I spend the whole time in Calais, which is possible)
Anyway if it goes to plan I will be cycling from Poitier to ile d'Aix on the tiniest roads possible and then to Angouleme on Greeways. About 250 - 300 miles.
@kjh - I'm a fairly low-grade cyclist but interested in getting into cycling of that sort of scale. What bike do you use and do you carry your stuff on panniers, and how much can you carry? And how many days do you expect that to take?
I'm a low grade cyclist as well. I live in cycleland (the Surrey Hills) and the real cyclists go hammering past me. I don't wear lycra other than the shorts. The bike has not been out until a couple of weeks ago when I started practising. I have lost 8 kg for the trip and I look for routes that lack hills because I am over weight for a cyclist.
In terms of my bike it is a converted town bike, but with a pannier added, armoured and slightly thinner tyres and butterfly handlebars. Otherwise bog standard.
There are two of us. Typically we cycle about 50 miles a day everyday. Most I have done in a day is 70 miles and that was a killer.
I do it for the beer, wine and food and the views and I love planning it which takes 4 times as long as doing it (this time it was stressful though).
A route I would recommend is Bordeaux to Biarritz. Flat as a pancake, real solitude in places, fantastic views.
I have stayed in some fantastic B&Bs and small hostels in the middle of nowhere. Converted railway lines and river paths are good and are often well maintained in France.
I can get everything I need in 2 pannier bags for 9 days plus a bike bag between them for tools, maps, phone, gloves, glasses, etc. I might smell though.
That sounds absolutely perfect. I like that there is no particular mention of anything high-tech! I'm agonising at the moment over buying a new bike with half an eye on doing something like this in the future when parental responsibilities might be less all-encompassing. I am 48 and a big old unit and hills take their toll; I like cycling primarily for the reasons you cite: food and drink and views; I'm never going to be doing 60 miles in four hours, but I wouldn't really want to, because that would necessitate missing the pub or the tea shop!
Thanks.
Get electric for going up the hills
I'm still clinging to the illusion of - if not youth, then at least early-to-middle-middle age! But your suggestion is actually an excellent one. By the time all the kids leave home and I have long periods for this sort of silliness I will be 59. An electric bike may be just the thing by then.
For sure if you have panniers full, possibly tent , stove etc
Comments
Also, cut out, as much as possible, ultra processed foods. That stuff'll carry you into a world of hurt.
That's more along the lines of an argument for a max BMI of 35.
Also:
https://twitter.com/EuromaidanPress/status/1668916431147114496
Several Russian "milbloggers" wrote that one Russian division's troops gathered near Luhansk's Kreminna waiting for a speech of their commander before an offensive for two hours, but saw a HIMARS strike instead. It is unclear if the described incident concerns Delimkhanov.
https://www.strava.com/segments/738025
Con: 26% (+1 from 30-31 May)
Lab: 42% (-2)
Lib Dem: 11% (=)
Green: 8% (+2)
Reform UK: 7% (-1)
SNP: 4% (+1)
Ah, nostalgia...
Keir Starmer: 30% (no change from 30-31 May)
Rishi Sunak: 23% (-3)
Not sure: 43% (+2)
I've also got a small lay on Lab. I don't think LD have a snowball in hell's chance, but the differential between Lab lay and Con back was small when I bet, so I went with it.
Thanks.
Ministers launch inquiry into use of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC)
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/jun/14/uk-public-buildings-feared-to-be-at-risk-of-collapse-as-concrete-crumbles
...Inspectors are thought to have no idea how many out of thousands of government buildings were constructed with RAAC.
The development represents a major expansion of a previous inquiry into the use of the building material that focused mainly on hospitals and schools. Experts have so far identified more than 150 schools where it has potentially been in use, and last week closed a primary in Southend, Essex, because of the safety risk.
RAAC looks like concrete, but it is a lighter form of the material that was used in many one- and two-storey public sector buildings in the UK from the mid-1950s to the mid-90s. Less durable than traditional concrete, it has a shelf-life estimated to be about 30 years and is prone to collapse when wet...
There aren't that many specialist tourer places now but I got one from https://spacycles.co.uk/
They do Surlys and also their own brand frames sourced from the far east.
What you want will vary according to whether you want to go the full camping kit or super light B&B style.
I used to do the full camping kit but even then if there are two of you even that isn't horrendous.
https://www.sciencealert.com/we-finally-know-how-ancient-roman-concrete-was-so-durable
Hence Christians believe in the Trinity ie literally that Jesus is now God as well as Holy Spirit, whereas Jews and Muslims don't believe in the Trinity
Clean cuts of whole meat are much better than ultra processed meat substitutes. Won't touch the stuff.
And actually, it isn't even being 6 foot 9 and 19 stone which is a problem. I have in the past played against many players of that sort of size. But none of them, I'd say, were able to run 100m in 12 seconds. They were never going to put in a particularly big hit in a tackle because they were never really going to accelerate much below a slow lumber. But the players I played against were old fashioned club players rather than the gym-honed supermen who play the modern professional game.
Shouldn't there be no buildings left with it used soon then?
But your suggestion is actually an excellent one. By the time all the kids leave home and I have long periods for this sort of silliness I will be 59. An electric bike may be just the thing by then.
As has been pointed out to me there is no point in saving a few grams in the weight of a bike when you are carrying several bags of potatoes on your waist line.
Yep, my bike is very basic and a high tech one wouldn't be happy on some of the paths I go on.
I do have a (or at least was) hi tech mountain bike, but as I am 68 that is hanging on the garage wall and has been there for sometime now. Hydraulic brakes on a bike are very impressive, but if you are not careful you can find that the bike stops and you don't.
I did put clip on peddles on my touring bike, but took them off as the stress of not falling over outweighed the benefits on a trip.
I do old codger cycling.
As for all the references to her social class, I find them a bit patronising. Again, there are a lot more upper-class twits in the HoC than working-class twits. I think Nadine is a twit regardless of her origins.
Thursday after work, train to Dover.
Stay Thursday night in Dover.
Half day of work in hotel room.
Afternoon ferry to Calais.
Evening train to Amiens.
Stay Friday night in Amiens.
Saturday morning train to Paris.
Afternoon TGV to Strasbourg.
If Eurostar took assembled bikes it would be Saturday morning Eurostar to Paris, Saturday afternoon TGV to Strasbourg. Infuriating.
On a more positive note, Eurostar have started taking assembled bikes to Brussels again and apparently expect to be able to do Paris soon.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-norfolk-63609257
You can get a Genesis Tour de Fer 30 for the same price with Tiagra kit, same brakes & front&rear racks, mudguards & bottle holders as standard. Not sure why you’d choose the Surly over that?
There are opportunities within the party for twits of any class, gender, race or creed.
Why is it that public buildings are either barely better than portakabins, or else grand structures designed to last forever, but never anything in the middle? The vast majority of private buildings are in the middle.
Twelve years. For a new, modern building. FFS.
https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/23586798.southampton-plans-move-police-station-revamp-on-hold/
Shouldn't it have been replaced by 2010 then?
but we don't
One of several ways that "efficiency savings" cripple service delivery is the cutting of maintenance and repair budgets.
I don't know if the 30 year life was known at the time, or is only in retrospect.
But the problem has been ignored,, and an unknown number of buildings have left to become in danger of failure or collapse.
Listening to you lot I'll probably keel over next week, but I'm having fun.
It was originally my intention to do a tour of the Loire by automobile but then I thought that if I was having a series of long and indulgent lunches I would rather afterwards find myself in a hedgerow riding a bicycle than driving a car.
They take your bags off you and then map out a series of hotels 5-10 miles away (or whatever you want) and you can cycle directly to the hotel five miles away or you can cycle all around for 25 miles and end up there finally.
https://www.cycling-for-softies.co.uk/
As this is last week's polling, it is before any fallout from Boris's appointment as Steward and Bailiff.
The Lib Dems have maintained their better run of polling, whilst Labour is going backwards and the Greens have a good week.
(I know you were tongue in cheek referring to league...)
If you're worry about eating shit you can get multi-release cleats which come out in any direction and wind the spring tension back. (Shimano part code SM-SH56).
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/14/vodafone-and-three-agree-merger-to-form-uk-largest-mobile-operator?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
I was left thinking exactly the same, that if I was too worried about carrying around 3kg extra, I wouldn’t have been looking to buy a bike in the first place!
Ahead of the 1997 election Blair was on 50% even 60% in some polls as preferred PM, miles ahead of Major and DK.
It does suggest while there isn't much enthusiasm for Sunak's government, there isn't much for Starmer either.
That suggests the next general election could be more likely to be a hung parliament or small Labour majority than the 1997 style landslide the headline voting intention suggests
#mebigsofty
A combination of radio triangulation, JSTARS type surveillance, computerised intelligence aggregation and smart weapons, in the novel, means that the headquarters get malleted all the time.
The shuttle now offers a service to get around some of this stuff which is bizarre. You can load your bike on a van at Folkestone. It drive 100m to the train. It rolls off the other end and you cycle off. The van is in effect a box you and you bike go in on the train that drives each day just a couple of hundred metres. Sadly it only runs once a day at 8 am so to use that would be another overnight stay for me as I can't get to Folkestone by train by that time.
Also endorse the multi-release. Mine are SM-SH56s and you can get them out pretty much any which way if you need to. I've never forgotten I'm clipped in (only ever used SPDs with this bike, so it's natural) but I did once start falling the other way to the side I'd unclipped (left) and was able to yank the right foot out in a hurry, without the normal twist of foot, and get it down before I looked like too much of a tit (I think! Less of a tit than lying flat on the floor anyway...).
Whether there is a God and what (if there is one) is God's nature in itself is not a knowable item. As all time testifies.
There are different understandings of God because people's history and beliefs differ.
It is perfectly possible that God (if there is one) does not evolve but is unchanging but that the average state of human belief develops and evolves - sometimes in good ways.
Oh yes, and fourthly, simplified parodies of complex belief systems are rarely fruitful in any field of thought. That's the Daily Mail's job.
(Go on- who had the foresight to spot him as a wrongun in, say, 1995?)
To still be loyal to him now... That's harder to excuse. But again understandable.
It takes a personal betrayal to realise quite how awful a man he is, and he can only betray so many people per day.
I experienced it when watching it gradually dawn on Caucescu during his final speech that the game might be up.
That certainly wasn't quite the same thing as feeling sorry for him.
Unlucky but put me off them. Not that I’m a serious enough cyclist to warrant them - mostly I ride a Brompton.
I’m not much arsed by pronouns aside from believing you should address people as they want to be addressed, but the greatest (or most influential in any case) fictional creations of humankind might be a good place to start.
So I approve of clip on peddles if only for making me laugh so much that day.
Sounds like an interesting variation of the card game.
The first occasion was coming up to a T-junction in the country. It was the first time I had used SPDs. Go to unclip my left foot (the natural one for me to use) and they were so stiff that I couldn't get enough force to do so. Ended up toppling over at the T-junction and laying on my side with my foot still clipped in. Still couldn't unclip and had to remove the shoe to be able to get up off the ground. Fortunately, both for my safety and respectability, no one was around to observe this.
The other time there were plenty of people to observe. This was probably a few weeks after I'd first started using SPDs. Had to go on a short stretch of the A4 between Maidenhead and Slough. Come up to some traffic lights on red. Unclip fine but as I go to put my foot on the down I manage to accidentally clip back in and then toppled over. Got myself straight back up but I think there were several amused drivers right behind me.
Not happened since as I took the approach to be cautious and unclip even if you don't think you really need to. Plus not done much cycling for the last few years due to a lack of time.
(Yes I know there is a historical linguistic argument for using 'they' as non-gender-specific singular just as there is a historical linguistic argument that 'less' can be used interchangeably with 'fewer', but both raise my hackles in exactly the same way (alongside using 'disinterested' to mean 'indifferent'. They just sound wrong to me.)
Edit: I do agree it would be useful to have some pronouns for non-gender specific singular third person. But 'they' and 'them' are already doing a really useful job over at plural third person.
I moped around a bit saying uselessly "can I help" but of course I couldn't so I just rode off.
On a tourer I use old fashioned straps for the same reason - no need to clump around in specialist shoes when off the bike.
I don't think I've done more than 70 miles in a day when touring so the knees usually come off worse from walking up hills rather than any cycling to get to the bottom.
If it is 2% less efficient then so what.
The Ukrainian system for unifying target identification and strike requests is something that could have been done years ago, in the West. But was blocked by politics.
NEW THREAD
Someone’s career ending with a comfortable retirement on a well funded pension doesn’t reach that level, for me.
Working out the best way to do this trip without taking yet more time off work or any overly risk connections took me quite a while and several iterations of my route.
Anyway I hope it all goes well and hopefully next time Eurostar will be offering a proper service!