St Landrew

So am I. But then I'm looking forward to Spring too. If we have to have winter, let's have some proper snow.** **fat chance. :mad:

So now we get into the realms of my youth, and total fantasy land for hamster. By now, I rode 250s but dreamt of these. Apart from the 350 versions of favourite 250cc bikes, like Yamaha RDs etc... there were bikes that were perfect at 350cc and didn't have smaller versions made. My two favourites were the Triumph Tiger 90: Which was the ideal smaller bike for lads who wanted a 500/650cc Triumph but either couldn't afford it, or couldn't handle the weight and grunt of the bigger bikes. But what they had in this bike was a little jewel fom the 1960's. It harked back to rockers, leathers and greasy hair. Bags of performance and reliability, good handling and economy. Normally, you got 2 out of 4 with British bikes, but with this one you got the lot, and 1960's good looks as well. To this day, I'd love one. Possibly the perfect engine size for the Triumph 360° parallel twin. And then the other 350 I'd love to ride. It was oh-so different from anything else. It had superb handling, grunt and speed. Pity it had sh!te electrics, but then it was 1970's italian. The Moto Morini 3½ Sport was just somehing else. Honda, Yamaha, Kwacker or Suzi just wouldn't have had the guts to produce a bike like this back then. It was poetry on two wheels: A little cracker. I'd love one but wouldn't be able to come up with the dosh. A good one must be worth a bloody mint. I gave a thumbs up to a bloke riding one of these just the other day, going past the The Stile Inn/University. He grinned a grin so wide back to me, I could see it through his full face helmet.

Quite a good read, that.

Has nobody heard of Disney's famous lack of a sense of humour..? They take their business very, very seriously indeed. Sending out lawsuits is not a pastime they are strangers to. There's a fairly little known story of a small local charity for disabled kids, somewhere in the UK, [can't remember where] deciding to make the childrens' day by throwing a big [maybe Xmas] party, and the staff dressed up as Disney characters. It was all done very small time, and the staff made their own costumes. But a Disney employee over here on holiday somehow heard about it; went and saw the party, called up Disney in the USA, and they had the UK local police go around to stop the event. You'd have thought they would have let a little thing like that go by. But oh no, not Disney. Nice company eh..? You have been warned.

Oh well that's it then isn't it..? One of the most respected channels on digital TV has brought out evidence that man hasn't been to the moon. OK, guys, call it all off. Virgin1 says we haven't been to the moon, so it must have been a hoax after all. :smt046

Firstly, apologies to my cohorts. And I thought we'd made so much noise, everybody had heard of Give It To Ron. Go here: www.giveittoron.co.uk

I wish people wouldn't say things like this. Perhaps they'll have bouncebackability..? Who knows..? No game is actually easy, and I bloody well hope the players don't hold the same opinion either. It's one thing to be confident, and another to underestimate the opposition.

Here's the Solent interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/s/southampton/8324276.stm

OK, this is aimed at a former pompey keeper, but the song is just the same:

Been thinking that on this quality and form, the playoffs are entirely possible now. Putting into perspective how well Saints are doing at the moment; if we had not been deducted 10 points we'd be 1 point outside of them now, and if Saints had been able to get out of the blocks quickly and not got bogged down earlier in the season, due to effectively being 2 months behind in their preparation, we'd probably be league leaders. As it is, with a 10 point deduction, we'd have been in a playoff position. Yes, it is all what-ifs. But they're good what-ifs.

So what you're saying is... thanks for leaving. I'll go along with that.

Two similar systems, winning mentality, winning players. Absolutely superb crowd support.

I haven't felt this happy about Saints since 4th place in the Premiership.

Loving this... 3-1, and full time too.

How long to go..? Some of the matches are whistling full-time. EDIT: Oh..!

I can't be the only one one who believes this bloke has been a bit of a plonker for some years now. Now he is seriously suggesting that F1 doesn't need a British Grand Prix. This country has most of the F1 teams within its borders, with 2 concurrent World Champions, and F1 support is enormous [i often wonder why, but that's another story]. And Ecclestone doesn't think he should give Silverstone a discount like the ones issued to Monza and Monaco, so that they can stage the bloody event. Frankly, I'm pretty sure F1 doesn't need Ecclestone anymore.

Yeah, I saw the previous post. I deleted my answer..! You are absolutely right here. But there is always a faint hope. The UK has actually done it before, which is why there is real evidence.

Because I like daylight when I can enjoy it, and so do a lot of other people. Remember Baj, that Europe is already one or two hours ahead of the UK. Putting their clocks back still gives them bags of daylight. EDIT: The Scottish farmers thing is an age old reason. I'm not sure what the Govt use as a valid reason for putting the clocks back now.

Funnily enough, most advice I received from people was to choose an electric. Not because the guitar could make easy pleasing sounds, but because generally the action [distance of strings to fretboard] of an electric guitar is lower than on a cheap acoustic one, and hence is slightly easier on the fingers. Of course, you'll have to buy an amp/speaker if you want to make more sound than plinkety-plink. I've got an old Epiphone acoustic from 1974, which nobody has ever managed to learn on because the action was incredibly high and the strings were very heavy. Hence it was too painful for the beginner to practice on. I lowered the action, and put lighter strings on. Yes, the tone suffered a bit, but at least I can play the bloody thing, and I'm super crap.

There are some people who have real mental health problems having to cope with the sudden lack of daylight in their awake hours. I can work in artificial light, it doesn't bother me. Most of my leisure time is spent outside doing recreational pursuits that are far more enjoyable in daylight. Which kind of answers your question. Life got. I might make the observation that, because you are cooped up in a submarine, for a lot of your time, your comments might be considered slightly less valid than from someone who maximises the daylight hours. But I'm not one for sweeping statements, so I would never say that.

I haven't been able to watch the entire programme yet, but I know it wasn't a bad one. There was a real sense of it being a BNP lamb-to-the-slaughter, and it is always slightly uneasy to watch an entire baying audience and panel turn on one individual, when that person is clearly out of their depth. Even David Dimbleby gave Griffin enough rope to hang himself, although he protected him from the worst that could have come his way. I can't honestly say that it will have helped the BNP in any shape, despite it giving them a nationwide platform. I'll watch the remainder on the BBC iPlayer. It might end up being the most streamed and downloaded BBC programme so far.

So many people have problems with it. People even get ill and depressed by it. Crime rate goes up because it. Traffic accidents rise because of it. Even UK power consumption goes up because of it. It even costs the UK financially to keep doing it. And the list goes on. But the Govt says they can find no call from the British people to stop doing it, despite getting petition after petition every sodding year. You're right, it is an out-dated procedure, and there are valid reasons for scrapping it. Yes, it is the UK moving back to its own Greenwich Mean Time, or nowadays called Universal Time Coordinated, but only a few countries have their times set right on it. For example, France, much of which is directly south of the UK, remains 1 hour in advance, and so enjoys 1 extra hour of evening daylight than we do. Seems sensible to me. Most countries set their times so that they make the most use of evening light, without being bloody silly about it and putting their citizens into early daytime blackness. But we seem to have this pathetic idea that we're helping a couple of crofters in Scotland, who have since discovered the torch anyway, and on the UK goes into the gloom of winter. So, until the last weekend in March 2010, we have 5 months of unnecessarily dark evenings. Already can't wait for the clocks to go forward again. Scrap the whole thing and let's stay at BST.

I do hope that by admitting to being with SKY you haven't given important info away. As a tiny example, did you confirm your name and address to the caller..?

That's really sad. That girl's life may be ruined until she dies. How can anyone laugh about an another innocent person's tragedy..?

You're right. The Benelli company did produce a 250 inline-4 cylinder bike back then, called the Quattro. It was the first more than twin cylinder 250 made aside from racing machines [Honda once made a 250 SIX..!]. I've found a picture of it: A pretty thing, and quite unusual for way back then. I also think you're right about the Suzuki X7. I saw enough of them and felt that they were rather spindley and well... just not as good as some of the competition. I thought Suzuki's earlier effort, the GT250 [the one with RAM-AIR] was a better machine. I also agree on your thoughts about the Honda Superdream. Yeah they looked so-so, and were 4-stroke bikes, but they were far too sanitised, and more importantly, SLOW..! Your earlier CB200 was much more like the bike Honda made well. I believe the SuperDream sold so many because the bike was the way forward at the time. Simple 2-stroke engines are inherently dirty, [although there are expensive clean 2-stroke designs], and they were always going to be phased out. Honda knew this all along, which is why they are the biggest motorcycle manfacturer in the world. IMO, Honda's problem in the past was that they tried to make bikes that appealed to too many people, and end up missing some customers who thought they were a bit bland. Perhaps this was the case for you with the Superdream. Nowadays, Honda might build a couple of different 250 on-road models at the same time to appeal to different people. As for balls, I'm as chicken as the next person. What I have found is that over the years, I've ridden some f*****g awful bikes that have given me no confidence at all, and when I do ride one that has handled well I haven't had the inherent confidence to push it hard. And anyway, for many years I realise I was sh!te rider. I spent the first 6 weeks of riding my Viffer thinking what on earth this beast was. It was so heavy..! Why did they have to make them so heavy..? And it was so incredibly powerful..! I've ridden other big bikes in the past, but they weren't so powerful. Or if they were, I hadn't used it at all. But I own this bike, and I didn't need all that power. Well you soon get used to the power, because as long as you don't twist the throttle open, the power is contained. But I also realised that modern bikes have moved on. Jeez, does the Viffer handle. I mean, it's brilliant. And there are even better handling bikes out there, and more powerful. They actually are easy to ride, and you start to get rather confident. Thankfully I suppose, I always have a wee picture in the back of my mind of a mangled biker, so I never push it beyond my limit. But with modern bikes, you'll be surprised how far out there your limit can go. Perhaps you could give it a try..? Don't be like me and let the years pass before you get back on a bike. I left it for 10 years, and before that another 10. Now I wouldn't be without one. They're so cheap to run, after all and so much fun.