Amazing story, & I can just picture that stick whizzing round like a helicopter blade.

It's lucky you have such chubby fingers, saved you from potentially broken bones.

maybe the Moles had a nibble on his stick throughout the night ??

Currently looking at DIY Bangkok - Finding somewhere nice to use as a base and spending 7/8 days exploring, then maybe a river cruise. (Did one before on the Nile and loved it) Mekong river looks good, would mean flying into Siem Reap and then either home or back to Bangkok from Ho Chi Minh City.

Tom are you passing through Siem Reap or stopping off for a few days? I suggest you stop and do a guided tour of the Angkor Wat, it's incredible. Siem Reap incidentally translates to defeat Siam.

Yes Kev.

Rough plan is to fly into Bangkok, book an inexpensive hotel with a pool to use as a base while we spend about 5/6 days exploring, then fly to Seam Reep for the Angkor Wat tour and then on a river boat for 10 days finishing in Ho Chi Minh City with an excursion per day built in. Then a couple of days in HCMC, fly back to Bangkok and home from there.

Only about 18 passengers on the boat so should be quite nice. Apparently the cabins are a bit small but obv that wont bother us and I hear the food is fantastic.
Haven't got it all sussed yet though so not counting my chickens.

This boat trip sounds just right.   I went through the Mekong Delta by bus, and did a boat trip there.  A boat trip the whole way sounds great, and I wouldn't fancy some big boat as you wouldn't get close to stuff.   I have never been to Ankor Wat, but if I had a bucket list, it would be there.  Shame you can't go all the way from Laos, but I read the river goes North from there, so.ig just isn't possible.  Maybe it needs two trips.

The whole trip sounds good, just try and avoid the really wet season in Bangkok, as the flooding can get really bad.

Thanks Doobs. If we do go it's likely to be in March.

if your'e going to Thailand around March, i'd hold off for April and go for Songkran (their New Years), greattime to be in Thailand especially in the remoter parts where its just a reason to party

I'm worried about it being too hot by April though, especially in Cambodia.

It will be hotter in April and if you don't want to have water chucked on you when out walking, avoid Songkran!

yeah but the more civilized parts stick to the traditions, its only the places like Puket, Pattaya and Bngkok where you get proper drenched....but even if you do its great fun and cooling 

Currently looking at DIY Bangkok - Finding somewhere nice to use as a base and spending 7/8 days exploring, then maybe a river cruise. (Did one before on the Nile and loved it) Mekong river looks good, would mean flying into Siem Reap and then either home or back to Bangkok from Ho Chi Minh City.

Tom are you passing through Siem Reap or stopping off for a few days? I suggest you stop and do a guided tour of the Angkor Wat, it's incredible. Siem Reap incidentally translates to defeat Siam.

Yes Kev.

Rough plan is to fly into Bangkok, book an inexpensive hotel with a pool to use as a base while we spend about 5/6 days exploring, then fly to Seam Reep for the Angkor Wat tour and then on a river boat for 10 days finishing in Ho Chi Minh City with an excursion per day built in. Then a couple of days in HCMC, fly back to Bangkok and home from there.

Only about 18 passengers on the boat so should be quite nice. Apparently the cabins are a bit small but obv that wont bother us and I hear the food is fantastic.
Haven't got it all sussed yet though so not counting my chickens.

This boat trip sounds just right.   I went through the Mekong Delta by bus, and did a boat trip there.  A boat trip the whole way sounds great, and I wouldn't fancy some big boat as you wouldn't get close to stuff.   I have never been to Ankor Wat, but if I had a bucket list, it would be there.  Shame you can't go all the way from Laos, but I read the river goes North from there, so.ig just isn't possible.  Maybe it needs two trips.

The whole trip sounds good, just try and avoid the really wet season in Bangkok, as the flooding can get really bad.

Thanks Doobs. If we do go it's likely to be in March.

if your'e going to Thailand around March, i'd hold off for April and go for Songkran (their New Years), greattime to be in Thailand especially in the remoter parts where its just a reason to party

i always remember going there when they couldnt serve drink and running across the road to the bar for a swift drink in between hands 

I really dont mean to come across as rude but surely that's a little closed minded to say, you'll never change? Its a different party with different policies.

It's more than close-minded.  It's a promise I made to myself in 1992 that, no matter how my life progressed, I would never, ever stoop so low as to vote Conservative and to essentially betray my upbringing.  Nothing that I've seen since has ever come remotely close to changing this view, as each successive Conservative government has just continued to the same fundamental policy of protecting the richest at the expense of the poorest.

The tragedy for me, currently, is that Labour have progressively deteriorated to a point where, for the first time in my lifetime, I couldn't rank them as any better than the Tories in this election campaign.  Even in 2017, I'd have put Corbyn's disaster communism slightly ahead of it.

FWIW, I don't view your comments as rude.  I have no doubt that it's difficult to appreciate the level of hatred I hold for the Tory party unless you grew up in a community that was so deliberately targeted by them.  For most people, politics might be an issue of debate or discussion, without ever having had an existential impact on their local communities.

But in the same context how can you try to start to get people to change from being a Con to voting Labour in the future if you already say despite whatever happens over the next 5 years you wont change your mind regardless of what the Cons do?

if we as a nation can move on from wars and the worst atrocities of the modern age and make the EU (which many on here want to stay part of) surely we can get passed such party politics and voting?

[why I will never vote Tory in my lifetime]

Apart from the obvious answer of - because they're racist - there was a massive amount of discussion about how it's all related to poverty and the North being decimated and devestated by the Tories. From what they wrote I would have guessed that the North is like some kind of Mad Max-ian post apocalyptic wasteland where the poverty stricken working class can only scrimp they're survival by digging in the dirt for the occasional fragment of coal to keep them going.

I know this was said in jest, but this wasn't far from the truth during the miners' strike in 1984-85, and living through this as the son of a coal miner is the significant factor in why I will never vote Tory in my lifetime.  Ironically, over 15,000 people within the Hemsworth constituency where I grew up managed to overcome this reluctance last week, which was probably the most stark statistic for me as to Corbyn's legacy.

In the height of the strike, it wasn't uncommon for people to try and find coal on the slag heaps (essentially the waste material from the pits) to heat their homes.  Most of the houses in the area were still powered by coal at the time.  There were a few deaths during the strike from teenagers trying to find coal for their families.  I have a distinct memory of standing at the school bus stop one morning when news of one of the deaths was being discussed around us.  The boy had relatives in the village, so news had filtered quite quickly within the small community.

Reading your post triggered the memory in a really vivid way, even though it's not something I've consciously thought about for years.

I'm always astonished when people say this, (Sturgeon said something similar on QT a few weeks back). How can people say that they will never do something in the future? Things change, 40 years before the strikes we were at war with the German's, now we have hysteria that we are trying to break up from them and the EU, things change, Governments change their policies. How can someone be happy to forgive and move on from the worst atrocity in modern age but not be willing to envisage a time they may agree with a political party regardless of their manifesto? it's this kind of party politics that has reduced the modern political picture to a farce.

Surely you'd look at each party on their policies and what you feel is going to be best for you and your core beliefs?

Simple.  My core beliefs will never align with the Tory Party, ever.

There hasn't been a Tory government in my lifetime which hasn't systematically fucked over the community I grew up in.  It's in their fundamental DNA of protecting their own interests, no matter what the cost elsewhere.

That's an immovable position, and will never change.  Rather than being a supporter of any political party my fundamental political viewpoint is anti-Tory.  There is literally nothing they could offer to make me ever consider voting for them, because that would make me a hypocrite.

 I really dont mean to come across as rude but surely that's a little closed minded to say, you'll never change? Its a different party with different policies.

[why I will never vote Tory in my lifetime]

Apart from the obvious answer of - because they're racist - there was a massive amount of discussion about how it's all related to poverty and the North being decimated and devestated by the Tories. From what they wrote I would have guessed that the North is like some kind of Mad Max-ian post apocalyptic wasteland where the poverty stricken working class can only scrimp they're survival by digging in the dirt for the occasional fragment of coal to keep them going.

I know this was said in jest, but this wasn't far from the truth during the miners' strike in 1984-85, and living through this as the son of a coal miner is the significant factor in why I will never vote Tory in my lifetime.  Ironically, over 15,000 people within the Hemsworth constituency where I grew up managed to overcome this reluctance last week, which was probably the most stark statistic for me as to Corbyn's legacy.

In the height of the strike, it wasn't uncommon for people to try and find coal on the slag heaps (essentially the waste material from the pits) to heat their homes.  Most of the houses in the area were still powered by coal at the time.  There were a few deaths during the strike from teenagers trying to find coal for their families.  I have a distinct memory of standing at the school bus stop one morning when news of one of the deaths was being discussed around us.  The boy had relatives in the village, so news had filtered quite quickly within the small community.

Reading your post triggered the memory in a really vivid way, even though it's not something I've consciously thought about for years.

I'm always astonished when people say this, (Sturgeon said something similar on QT a few weeks back). How can people say that they will never do something in the future? Things change, 40 years before the strikes we were at war with the German's, now we have hysteria that we are trying to break up from them and the EU, things change, Governments change their policies. How can someone be happy to forgive and move on from the worst atrocity in modern age but not be willing to envisage a time they may agree with a political party regardless of their manifesto? it's this kind of party politics that has reduced the modern political picture to a farce.

Surely you'd look at each party on their policies and what you feel is going to be best for you and your core beliefs?

I want to run a small competition

Please post before polls close on Thursday to be eligible

Answer with one number, either

a) size of conservative majority or b) number of seats short of majority (and state which your answer is)

Nearest wins a £25 donation to a charity of their choice (will post screenshot)

In the event of a tie earliest guess wins

27 seat majority - if i win i'll match the donation

quick question..

To get to this point,

a - how many cups of tea were consumed?
b- How much cake / bacon sarnies ?
c- as a guess how many swear words were used?

44% Brexit
44% Conservative
12% Lib dem

scissor traps work.

Interesting critters, they can move so move dirt for such small size.

https://www.theactivetimes.com/can-you-gain-weight-one-day-overeating


would be good enough for me.... are there any moles in the shed?

Sounds right to me.


The moles have gone berserk, the whole lawn in like a post-apocalyptic nightmare.

I think they have started fracking now.

get some Gin traps out

https://www.theactivetimes.com/can-you-gain-weight-one-day-overeating


would be good enough for me.... are there any moles in the shed?

I presume it's a lot easier to adjust output and burn an extra 500 KCal a day, than burn an extra 4000 KCal in a day, so I would presume spreading the cake out would be less harmful for your 'friend'

Hmmm....

See I would have thought the body could more easily process and store an extra 500 cals per day over 7 days than it could 4000 cals in one day.

Eaten in one day, I suspect that a goodly amount of the 4000 cals would pass through unused.



If your theory is right, then in a survival situation you would be better off eating all your food at once rather than rationing.

I have no idea of the facts, I'm just cogitating.

I suggest you your "Friend" puts the cake in a shed at the bottom of the garden to  1) stop others eating it.... 2) keep it cool   & 3) and most importantly .. means that the will have to walk a few hundred yards to get a piece and would of basically burnt of the calories when you get there meaning you deserve that 4th piece in 3 hours.

worst for me was when i had 2x disc's prolapse at once (2 lowest ones) they damaged the nerves and even separated some. Morphine came nowhere close to masking the pain and 6 weeks in hospital 2 surgery's later hopefully its all sorted.

2nd most painful was a friend flicked one of my nuts 50% of the world will need no further info.