St Landrew

I've used Ryanair once, from Stansted to Montpellier and back. My expectations were quite low, and frankly it was OK. The latest Boeing 737 was better than I expected, but a bit cramped. I've flown with FlyBe from Eastleigh to Toulouse on a BAE HS146 and it was far better with roomy, comfortable seats. Of course, they've replaced the HS146 now. Progress..! I suppose the thing that gets up everybody's noses is that Ryanair's Michael O'Leary treats his customers like cattle. There's no need for his attitude, but he knows he can get away with it. FlyBe and Easyjet are a little more expensive generally, but they don't appear to have contempt for their passengers. Appearances can count for a lot, and one day Ryanair will take one arrogant step too far.

When it comes to replacing your exhaust, why not try it yourself..? If memory serves, a Fazer has four downpipes which collect into one or two silencers..? It doesn't really matter how the configuration goes, as long as you buy original and not 3rd party exhausts, which would lower the value of your bike anyway. And if they are stock, they'll fit like a jigsaw piece, so it will be a matter of removal [the slightly harder bit IMO], and replacement, and practically that simply too. Half an hour's job, tops.

Yeah, take the money. She's probably learned her lesson. Besides, if you go through insurance companies, somewhere along the line, someone will suggest she doesn't admit liability and it'll end up knock-for-knock. Only the other week, a car pulled out on me in Shirley Park Road, but I could see from the car's body language that the driver was going to do it. So I got right over to the far side, stood up on the pegs and waved my arms about while looking directly at the driver. It think it frightened him, which was the idea. Actually, it was a bloody stupid thing to do, but the carelessness of the driver really p!ssed me off. EDIT: BTW, how did it feel..?

Perhaps Simon should decide just what he wants to do. He certainly can't mix two sports and be great at both: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/8300268.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/d/doncaster/8303015.stm

A woman brought a very limp duck into a veterinary surgeon. As she laid her pet on the table, the vet pulled out his stethoscope and listened to the bird's chest. After a moment or two, the vet shook his head sadly and said, "I'm sorry, your duck, Cuddles, has passed away." The distressed woman wailed, "Are you sure?" "Yes, I am sure. The duck is dead," replied the vet. "How can you be so sure?" she protested. "I mean you haven't done any testing on him or anything. He might just be in a coma or something." The vet rolled his eyes, turned around and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with a black Labrador Retriever. As the duck's owner looked on in amazement, the dog stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the examination table and sniffed the duck from top to bottom. He then looked up at the vet with sad eyes and shook his head. The vet patted the dog on the head and took it out of the room. A few minutes later he returned with a cat. The cat jumped on the table and also delicately sniffed the bird from head to foot. The cat sat back on its haunches, shook its head, meowed softly and strolled out of the room. The vet looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry, but as I said, this is most definitely, 100% certifiably, a dead duck." The vet turned to his computer terminal, hit a few keys and produced a bill, which he handed to the woman. The duck's owner, still in shock, took the bill. "£150?" she cried. "£150 just to tell me my duck is dead?" The vet shrugged, "I'm sorry. If you had just taken my word for it, the bill would have been £15, but with the Lab Report and the Cat Scan, it's now £150.

Tesco runs into second place IMO. Which is why I don't shop there at all. Zero. Nothing. Not even their recycling machine/regime, which is a joke in itself. EDIT: Ah, I've now read up the thread a little more. You obviously all know about Tesco.

Thank you for your contribution, however ignorant it may be..!

When I said who, you say..? I meant the general, not the specific. Most people won't know who Bradley Smith is. I was reasonably sure you knew who he was though, bungle.

Aren't you talking about Sports and NOT games..? As for Mark Cavendish, of course he deserves an award, but it won't happen. The same goes for Young Sports Personality. I could nominate 18 year old Brit, Bradley Smith. Who, you say..? Well he is currently 2nd in the 125cc MotoGP World Championship, which makes him the best young rider in the World, at present, as the leader is in his mid-20s and Spanish. But I doubt Bradley will get a mention. Both sports are too much on the fringe, and MC's cycling doesn't have the Olympic cover this year.

Well, he was being pushed at the time. Wouldn't you eventually get the message if everyone was shouting for you to leave..? The country was fine, and average public opinion goes up and down with every issue of the Sun/Mail/Express, you name it. BTW, I do have a lot of respect for Vince Cable. But then he's unlikely to be tested. Shame really.

I have to say that I never jumped on the bandwagon of wanting Blair out. In fact, I couldn't understand all the clamour for his removal. He was the best thing about the Labour party, in terms of presentation and making the unpopular decisions palatable, by logical prioritising and explanation. But, as usual with political parties/governments, they find a way to screw themselves up over time. Gordon Brown was best as a Chancellor of the Exchequer, with Blair as his leader at Number 10. I wonder how many honest Labour supporters would like to turn the clock back and once again have Tony Blair in power..? I wouldn't mind the broad smile and teeth for a second as long as the country is better run.

It's impossible to say thanks to everybody. I try to give everyone who makes an effort, to give way, a thumbs up, a wave, or leg wiggle, but sometimes I'm just too busy negotiating the traffic. Sadly, none of us is perfect. Be assured that, whether or not the biker has waved thanks back, your effort has been appreciated. Unless of course, the biker's a bloody idiot, and you can usually spot them by the marks on your vehicle. As to Hatch's comment about charging up the outside, taking stupid risks... well, what might seem ultra risky to you, might be easily accomplished from the biker's perspective. Do remember that the power-to-weight ratio of your average motorbike is something the vast majority of other road users can only dream about. Even pretty ordinary bikes can have supercar acceleration and amazing stopping power, and the average sports bike will outperform 99.9% of other traffic on the road. So while I appreciate exactly what you mean, perhaps you might look twice the next time you see a biker in a traffic queue. He/she may be performing a perfectly sound maneuver, which at first glance, looks dangerous. Some good comments from people. I didn't realise you were all so nice. Shane, you ought to pull over for a biker every now and again, and feel the new rush of being a nice person, just once in a while.

Not at all. I just don't think you can fairly and unbiasedly summarise the last time a Conservative government was in power properly in 100 words. Hansard is the offical parliamentary record. Everything that is said is recorded in Hansard. Only we can't read it. Pea Lover is John Major. He was portrayed on the puppet/satire show Spitting Image as a Grey Man who loiked green peas, and ate nothing but them. I remember one sketch, just before the 1992 election, where a proposed Labour Cabinet were rehearsing their new Government status. In walks Grey Man John Major, and asks Neil Kinnock if he wanted anything. Neil Kinock says something amusing, and all the shadow cabinet fall about laughing. John Major walks out, shouders drooping. Neil Kinnock observes that John Major is a nice bloke, but a crap politician. Here's the Pea Lover [0m 39secs into video] A couple of weeks later, Kinnock had lost Labour the election by his alright antics. I still find it incredible to hear him shout it out when I see it played again. 1m 33s into this video he does a couple of alrights. He had done loads of them on the night, and they were squirmingly embarrassing to Labour politicians at the time. Their popularity dropped like a stone, and Grey Man John Major was Prime Minister. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvt-HQHqPpY

No. Maggie took 12 years and volumes of Hansard, why should anyone give you a quick summary..? Go look it up. And there's always the pea lover that came after her.

The original is, if applied to the orifice I'm thinking of, sixpence - half-a-crown, i.e. 6d - 2s/6d sterling, or 2½p - 12½p in decimal. This was due to the relative size of the coins, not their value. This indormation is to people who were born after decimalisation, and were never made aware of the monetary system that came before it. A bit like football being played before the Premiership came about. Some people don't believe it happened, others...

To be fair, Ponty, they have had 12 years to blow it. Every Tory govt blows it in a fraction of the time. Despite Cameron's appeal, I also well remember the Poll Tax, the mass unemployment, after this country had practically always had full employement. The lack of vacancies, the despair and hopelessness. The new generations growing up with a new prospect - that of never getting a job. Coupled to that, a change in society from, let's progress together to me first, and bugger anyone else, and we have come to this point. If Cameron is a One Nation style Conservative, then fair enough. That's probably the most we can hope for from a Tory govt, and we've had a Labour version of that these past years, anyway. But if he is masquerading under a social banner and letting the weak go to the wall, on the sly, a la Thatcher, then he'll not get past a first term. And they've ALL got to deal with how the world economy has to change under dwindling resources. That doesn't sit well with the Victorian idea of progress.

Autobahn - Kraftwerk

To use an old cliche as a massive understatement: That was close..!

Lordswood, Kent or Lordswood, Southampton..? I would say £400 for everything. When you say power shower, do you mean an instant heat, or a balanced one using the hot and cold supply..?

Very good. I just wish the demo video would play without hiccoughing.

Some good ones there. I don't have a favourite, but here's a quirky one.. The pages of a new glossy book. EDIT: The Fawley smell has to have the wind blowing in a slightly unusual direction to hit Southampton. The normal Sou' Westerly will have the smell and pollution riding over Portsmouth.

There is none. You're correct. It's now moved. Ta.

Update: Bradley Smith came in 3rd, after the lead changed countless times. Smith led 2 or 3 times himself. But the 125cc bikes just slipstream, and it takes a heck of a lot to get away from a bunch of riders. It's a lesson that other motorsports ruling bodies could learn, because it makes for very good racing at worst, and absolutely cracking racing at best. The news on James Toseland is that he lost his ride in MotoGP next season with the Yamaha Tech 3 team. Looking back down this season, the evidence was there, and many people were predicting that he hadn't done enough. Only he seemed to think he had, at times. I thought it was very much in the balance, and only Ben Spies deciding to transfer from WSB finally swung it. He has been offered another ride with Pramac Ducati, but has already turned it down. To my mind, that's a mistake, because JT is one of probably the 20 best riders in the world, and there are slower riders who will be competing next season. Basically, there are too few bikes on the premier class grid. JT should be there, but he's to go back to World Superbikes, still riding for Yamaha, changing from the M1, to the R1 [production bike derived from the prototype M1 with less power and more weight], to try to equal or better Carl Fogarty's record of 4 World Championships in that class. IMO, that's the last we'll see of JT in MotoGP, and the last British rider until Bradley Smith, Scott Redding, Danny Webb, or even potential WSS Champion Cal Crutchlow, come up through the ranks.

Well I can honestly say that today's 800cc race was the boring of the whole season, even given the fact that Casey Stoner magnificently came in 2nd. It was just processional, almost F1 like. Sure there was overtaking, but the race was effectively over with 20 laps to go. I won't bother you with details other than: 1. Lorenzo, 2. Stoner, 3. Pedrosa and 4. Rossi, who had problems with his bike. JT came in 9th. News about him later. Happily, the 250cc race before it was better, and the 125cc, currently running, is a real cracker, so I'm gone.

This might come as a bit of a shock to the cynical and jaded, but yesterday, as I was returning on my bike from the West Country, I came across some of the most polite and generous drivers in all of my riding days. Yes, I ride with my headlight on, so people know I'm there and yes, the headlight is a particularly bright one. But it still left me feeling slightly astonished how drivers readily moved over once they saw me. At one point, around the Dorchester bypass, I took my left hand off the bar and just thumbed up about two dozen cars or so as I passed them. One even jovially tooted back. What's the world coming to..?