yen_powell

I have to know, what is that sticking out of the wall above the fire place? It looks like a hunter's trophy head type thing, but the length of neck is confusing me.

Because I have no personal computer at the moment, only my work one, I am missing loads of bike stuff short cuts and that was one of them, I'd forgotten all about it. So I googled it, got my user name wrong a few times then managed to log in. 21 years and 40 weeks since I joined, probably 20 years since I posted anything.

I don't know yet. The whole site is surrounded by hoarding, so can't see any nooks, crannies or squeezy spaces yet. There is an area of motorcycle parking belonging to the new hospital behind our building, but that has permit signs and is walked through constantly by the great unwashed. And by great unwashed I mean, down and outs, drug addicts, drunks, scooter riding phone thieves etc. You can see how close we are to the new hospital, that's the side of the new town hall behind the wooden hoarding. It has this side and the front which are not fenced off to me. The front is the cycle super highway, cameras watch and fine people crossing over it. There is a lift for cyclists down to the 70 cycle spaces, I am wondering how large a lift it is!!!!

Rode to work this morning, had a site meeting, sprayed a bit of yellow paint about a bit and then had to go and get some software loaded at our Town Hall because our ICT department won't give me their password. Everyone is panicking about the move to our new town hall as there is no where to park, everyone has to come in by train, foot or push bike. Apparently one of our councillors was in this morning telling everyone that special bays are to be set aside for their use only in the surrounding streets. Good luck to them on that, even the illegal parking places are full up. Twas a bit chilly this morning, -1C according to the weather report, +3C according to my bike which seems to over read in all weathers compared to my Kawasaki which was spot on. I had my heated vest switched on and my 2 finger gloves on, heated grips set to half way. I had to turn them off when I hit town as I was getting a bit warm. Came home in thin motocross gloves, bike is now covered in white salt.

I always think of the bar in the Ruskin Arms when I see a fringed leather jacket. The bar was always swimming in a layer of spilt beer and anyone in such a jacket leaning their elbows on the bar whilst waiting to be served would flick beer from the tassels over people as they walked away. Google not only found a picture of the old bar top but a couple of pictures of someone who was in my class at school, Robert Threadgold, dead now, bleed on the brain or a tumour I heard. He's the one with the blonde curly hair.

Conspiracy groups.

This was in a magazine I bought today, that any good for you?

Down sleeping bags are the ones that have to stay dry but are warmer than synthetic? I do hate ducks (beaky, quacky bastards) so I'm not against them, but not tried one yet.

Nowadays they have to fill out a lot of paperwork before getting the bed messy. Permission slips, waivers, STD clearances, condom test certificates, damp tests etc. It's seems very admin intensive if you want to keep out of court.

I need a new sleeping bag, so let us know how you get on with it. Does it pack nice and small?

My car just passed its MOT. Before Covid it was always tested in July, usually on a nice warm day. Due to the 18 month extension it's now in January, today's test involved lots of windscreen scraping and defrosting the inside of the window before I could even drive off.

That's called a Nanna Nap, sign of old age.

The wife will still be keeping the local vet with shot gun on speed dial for another few weeks in case you have a relapse.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11641729/ANGELA-EPSTEIN-Whats-hacking-cough-thats-making-feel-rotten.html

Quite right, you shouldn't have to have a love length staring out at you.

He should really have some sort of tweed racing suit and perhaps a tinted monocle.

I used to hang plastic things on the radiators that held water. Always forgetting to top them up though.

No idea. They are jpegs on my phone, they are showing as jpegs on Google photos, but any time I copy and paste a picture into a thread here, it seems to randomly put them in as PNG, it doesn't ask me. They also sometimes double up and I have to delete the second picture from the post.

The old RAF Hornchurch site which is now a park. I think this was one of my school teachers, about the right age and an unusual name. My old school not mentioned though.

Don't know if it's still like this, but in those days visitors started at the top of the building and an in house photographer would take their picture next to the wax work of the month (Arnold Schwarzenegger last time I went). She was one of the photographers. In the time it took to go through the whole place they would have processed and printed the picture which people could buy at some heavily marked up price. She was there a few months and interviewed to be manager of the photographers and print room techs. We had just found out she was pregnant but she kept that from them in case it stopped her getting the job as we knew we'd need the money. She spent the next few months avoiding the dark and printing room as much as possible as the fumes were a bit potent and she was worried they might be dangerous for the baby. She got her maternity leave money etc but decided not to go back properly. They used to have staff parties in amongst the wax works until one particular time. It was a world cup party, England were playing and a big screen had been set up. It appears that after the usual penalty disaster we are famous for someone decided to take it out on one of the footballer waxworks and managed to detach the head and play football with it. They are not cheap in money or man hours, so all parties were cancelled from then on. The culprit was never identified.

I never thought to check for that.

Just for Pete. Around 1993 my then girlfriend worked in Madame Tussauds. My commuting routine at the time was to ride from home with her to Baker Street, drop her off, then ride back to my work. She would then get the tube home as she finished earlier than me. One day on the way back to work from Baker Street I hit the mother of all pot holes, it really really jarred my back, but I thought no more of it. About an hour later, I moved a little too quickly getting something from a low shelf and there was a click in my lower back. It was agony. I could just about walk if I kept dead upright and took short steps. I decided to walk just around the corner from work to the local chemist and buy some of that Ralgex deep heat stuff. Unfortunately if I didn't put my feet exactly right a pain so intense would hit me that I would involuntarily let out a sharp breath and noise. Think the Michael Jackson type high pitched noise and that would be what I did every 10 or so steps. Walking to the shop this noise would come out and any one walking in front of me would turn to see what it was, only to see a bloke walking like he'd shit himself. I made it to the shop only to discover that the deep heat cream was on the bottom shelf. I had to ask some old lady to get it for me. By the time home time came I think it took me about an hour to get my bike trousers and boots on, Michael Jacksoning the whole time. Luckily I only lived about 10 miles from work in those days.

Have you ridden a bike yet?

A bad back, a cough and now the shits. If you were a horse.........

Just to show how big the bugger was. You can see the timber baulks at the bottom