saintbletch

Sound advice. Also, you have to have the hi-vis jacket IN the car and not in the boot. The convention appears to be to drape it around the driver's seat so that it is visible from the outside and is ready should you need to leave the car on a busy road. I THINK that you need two breathalyser kits - at least that is what our friends told us who live in France. But a quick Google suggests that MIGHT not be the case. And Trousers, remember that in Italy (as with a number of other countries) they give way ON the roundabouts to traffic about to join - i.e.the joining traffic has right of way. We want you back safe and sound for the new season! I just wished I'd known that before my first drive in Italy. I made a very brown noise at the first roundabout I can tell you. Also a tip that I was given by an Italian friend. She claims that it is not true that Italians do not respect any laws. Instead she says that all Italians have there own collection of laws that they will abide by and others that they won't and these are often overruled by a belief in a higher power. This makes driving in Italy interesting. Whenever you need to follow some road instructions, simple double-check that the drivers around you are doing the same and not simply putting their faith in a higher power. To be honest in and around the more built-up areas you'll be fine. If you've got time, pick a route through the Alps that takes in a few of the tunnels. Some simply disappear underground for ages whilst others go under rock ledges and provide the most spectacular views. Plan to stop plenty of times (especially if you are taking kids) and if you can really afford the time pick a detour route off the main drag that takes you UP and stop for lunch. Lastly, I got freaked out the first time I went on the Autostrada by how close the cars behind travel. Drivers will sit inches (centimetres I guess) away from your bumper waiting for you to pull over - even through I was travelling much faster than the speed limit. It is a little stressful at first. However, unlike here there was never any aggression or fist waving as they went pass. It appeared to be a convention that simply means, "I'd like to pass you". Send us all a postcard!

Snakes! We've got friends that live in northern France and a few weeks back we went over to attend their wedding. It was a baking hot day but very, very windy. I had to take the bride to get her hair done and therefore found myself with time to kill. I decided to pay a visit to the Roman monument in the centre of their tiny village. It used to be a Roman washhouse and is in a sunken field about the size of a football pitch surrounded by trees about 20 feet below the main road in the village. I soon found myself in need of a p*** and after checking that there was nobody around I went to the corner of the field under some tall trees that were growing out of a 45 degree bank that stretched away from me. The bank was covered in a tarpaulin/plastic presumably to stop weeds from growing. It was dark under the trees but with the wind blowing the canopy above, sunlight was being let in and then shut out like a strobe light. It was really disorientating but I was getting desperate having been on the beer the night before. Anyway, I'd just started my business when I noticed frenzied activity at my feet. At that point the wind picked up and the movement in the undergrowth disturbed the dust and leaves on the tarpaulin which sent dust into the air and my face suspended on the wind. With the sunlight flashing like a strobe and getting covered in dust and pollen I look down to see a black and gold snake at least 10 ft long (OK it was probably nearer 4 feet - probably 3 actually), presumably covered in my p***, struggling to get up the sloping bank and away from me and my golden shower. But it couldn't gain purchase on the smooth tarpaulin and kept sliding back down the bank towards me. P***ing was no longer my top priority so I stopped and stowed and stepped back at which point it occurred to me that there might be more around me. So I stood still, not wanting to move. Panic then subsided as I realised that the snake was more desperate to get away form me than I was him - although it was a close thing. I presume Adders (which I think is what it was) can't swim. I composed myself enough to try to get a picture of the beast but it had made it's way up the slope and under the tarpaulin so all I was left with as proof was p*** on my shorts and a photo of a patch of damp ground in northern France where once a snake had been.

Oh, very clever trousers. You post that disgusting picture and then edit your post so that it makes tpbury and me look like fantasists.

Not a lot of help here either I'm afraid tpbury as it would be very difficult to predict. Compression of video is a complex business where only the stuff that changes from frame to frame is compressed and sent down the line. So if you were watching a film where the majority of the story was shot in a dimly lit room with a close-up on two people talking, then the amount of data being sent would be minimal. As not much is changing from frame to frame. However, if you're watching a fast-moving car chase, or perhaps the tippy-tappy Spanish team moving the ball from one side of the pitch to the other all the time, then the amount of data being sent would be far greater. Add to that the different SD and HD formats, the different embedded players (Flash, Silverlight, HTML5, etc.), re-sending of data packets due to a noisy line, the quality and number of channels of the audio stream and you really are in the realms of finger-in-the-air predictions. The good news is that given the ponderous and defensive style that England is likely to exhibit at the tournament, you could probably watch 90 minutes, extra time and penalties of England v France for about 47c (AUS). But if it's that important, I'd probably look for a utility that would limit the bandwidth (data per second) that your PC can send/consume. That way you can safely watch knowing that it won't exceed a specified maximum cost per minute/hour. This is the first such utility that came up on Google so not a recommendation but NetLimiter might do a job for you. The discipline appears to be called "Bandwidth shaping" if you want to search for other utilities. By the way I thought post #5 on this thread was outrageous. How did he get that goat in that position in the first place?

I'd love to know what you typed (presumably one handed) into Google (at 2 minutes to midnight) in order to stumble across that little gem Turkish. "Menstruating women locked in a shed..." perhaps? I'm glad the text caught your eye before you had chance to click Image Search. But hey, whatever melts your butter... Anyway, I think I'll broach the subject with Mrs saintbletch before I start clearing a space in the shed.

Agreed, but it was run close by the Judge's commnent I'm quite happy to believe that this lad really is that stupid, but it does show how many people see social media as a private conversation. It's anything but.

A sort of Britain's Got Regent ? Although with Dennis Skinner in place of Simon Cowell. Get's my vote pap.

And his great grand-daddy's guitar kills fascists too. Re Guthrie younger, I'd be absolutely delighted if the same player that we had on loan all those years ago joined us. Don't know what his time on Prem wages might have done to his ego though.

Sounds like meat and drink for a spreadsheet Twentytwentyvision. Take a look at VLookup and/or HLookup and as long as you've got a little spreadsheet nous that should set you in the right direction.

I imagine the marrow is off by now.

I managed to perforate my ear drum with a cotton bud. Basically I was trying to brush my teeth at the same time as cleaning my ear. Brain got confused as to which hand should be brushing teeth vigorously and which hand should be sensitively drying shower water from the edge of the ear. The doctor said that you should put nothing smaller than your elbow inside your ear. I think this is doctor-code for put nothing inside your ear - on the basis that the elbow is pretty big and it's not easy to get it near your ear anyway. Mine had the same symptoms as Dog and eventually it bled into the pillow while I was sleeping. I woke up to think I'd had my throat cut in the night. Anyway, after that it took about 3 months to get back to some form or normal hearing. Still hurt the last time I went on a plane though.

Pardon?

Me neither. But I'm guessing it was ironic. They didn't get the chance to sing GSTQ when they played Cardiff because the footballing authorities didn't want the Welsh booing and spoiling the happy, smiley, chocolate box occasion. So when they were given the chance to sing it they made a protest. ?

Bullied at school?

You try telling me that on 3:24, the last dolphin to leave the beach doesn't splash its tail twice to say "Thanks humans!". Have you not read/seen THGTTG?

Just watched some of his statement to the house. Interestingly, Chris Bryant (I think it was him) asked the PM (whilst Hunt was giving his statement) if he wanted to come clean about any more meetings he'd had with "that woman, Rebekah Brooks". If not he suggested that things might get difficult for the the PM later today. Not sure if it was a statement in abstract or if he was suggesting that some specific dirt would come out of Leveson today. It was an odd thing to say, to the PM, during Hunt's statement if he didn't know something was about to break.

Yes, it was Cable that had the Sky decision removed from him - for publicly expressing his (negative) views ahead of the decision. I think that Hulture Secretary Jeremy C*** is about to learn a similar lesson. Whether it will cost him his post will be interesting. The Murdoch's must have a data centre full of incriminating interactions like this - with politicians of all colours. What they do with this over the coming years will also be interesting.

This is why he should be sacked, or at least given another portfolio that doesn't begin with a 'C. This is the reason why he'll never be Chancellor. Q. What could be worse than saying that word live on air? A. Saying it twice...

An alliterative argument against alcohol assuaging anxiety. May I suggest gin and cranberry, as it's sort of red and white and we'll need all the support we can get come the weekend. But be careful because it's so subtle that the gin empties very quickly. Gin - Duncan's ruin.

It's futile and almost pointless to try to calculate a points per game since the 7th game stat, but I've never let futility or pointlessness stop me from doing something. If our form over the entire season is projected out we would finish on 89 points (88.9 - currently 1.93 points per game) If Reading's form after the 6th game is projected out then they would finish on 102 points (101.7 @ 2.21 points per game) To continue the futile assumptions, if a team finished the Championship on 102 and their nearest rival was on 89 points, would we complain if the pundits said they had been the best team by a long, long way? Technically they've got a 14.5% better points per game return in the 37 games that McDermott is citing. Yep I'd agree with that but he'd just got his team promoted and won £50M+ on the Premiership Lotto. I can forgive him that. But as it's a pointless stat anyway, we'd do best to congratulate them and ignore it. #irony Please feel free to check my sums - or not.

Glad someone posted the stats but I took his "since the 7th game" comment to mean that after the 6th game they've been better. So if you look at the stats after 6 games it's 2 - Saints - 15pts 23 - Reading - 3 pts From McDermott's perspective they've been a promotion, 15 points (5 wins) and a 3-1 victory away at their promotion rivals better than us since their 7th game. Does that make them the best team by a long, long way? I don't know. Do we think that we are better than Blackpool or Cardiff (14 points behind us) by a long, long way? Originally I thought the long, long way term was over the top. But I can see where he's coming from, it just doesn't feel right to hear that given the great season we've had.

Reminds me of the run we had to catch Huddersfield last year. Well played Reading. Unbelievably consistent in one of the toughest divisions around. Not wanting to appear churlish but they have ridden their luck at times. Pleased for them though as they are a proper football club. Happy for their manager too.

Thanks Steve. It seems to be working now.

Not a bad suggestion but make sure you have International AA cover or similar. Although I can imagine that piling the loved ones into a tin box that you bought for less than a grand would take some internal justification. I did the same journey years ago when I took the wife and kids to Jesolo near Venice in northern Italy. I drove down in a wonderful 3.0 Alfa 166 which I'd owned from new but at the time of the journey was probably worth about £1155. The car was great, never missed a beat and it was back in the days of company funded petrol cards which was even better. It was a really great drive and it gave us a chance to see eastern France and stop when the fancy took us. The tunnels through the alps were straight out of a James Bond film. Breathtaking scenery. You'd turn round a bend and have to pull over to take some more photographs. Italian traffic regulations do take some getting used to mind (give way ON roundabouts), as does the accepted practice of driving 0.8m from the car in front's rear bumper on the autostrada when you want to pass.

A cast-iron, 24 carat, guaranteed commitment to fix it over the weekend can be found here... http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?36777-tapatalk-upgrade&p=1328711#post1328711 ...well, fingers crossed.