chrisp65

Set the alarm for 6:18am when I don't need to get up until 6:30am? What sort of masochistic whacko job does that? No, no, no, set the alarm for 6:30am WHICH IS WHEN I NEED TO BE GETTING UP. But set the clock 12 minutes fast, so I know there's some slack in the system. Idiot proof.

I'm loving Hunt's line, we put it in the manifesto, so now we have a duty to the majority that voted for it, to do it. Comedy gold. But anyway, if it's balanced neutral observations from an expert you're after, here's Frankie Boyle...

I use a clockwork chicken twisty timer. If I've decided something is 'done' before the time I've dialled in, I force the timer around to make it ding. Don't want it going off when I've left the kitchen. --- Here's one for you clock obsessives, my bedroom alarm clock is set 12 minutes fast so when it goes off, I know I can have a little 10 minute lie in and still be 2 minutes ahead of the game.

Yes, sorry I was presuming that the basics were universally known and observed, but you're right, well worth saying. Always get the kids to carry the gear.

The fact that it says on page 1 of the ticketing website 'no ID, no entry' suggests they could be serious. This is how some people claim to have got over this same obstacle earlier this year: e-mail them, stating that nephew will be 18, but doesn't currently have a photo ID, driving licence or passport. Ask if it will be ok to bring the birth certificate. If they say yes in an e-mail response, you then spend an evening 'shopping a really good birth certificate with the amended date of birth. You take this, along with your e-mail trail. They will check it and query it, you will volunteer that it's a photocopy as you are not so stupid as to take an original birth certificate to a gig, you will keep calm and polite but create a delay at the gate. They will let you in 'this time'. Nipper was 50% shocked and disgusted at dad's devious nature, 50% pleased as **** to get in.

As an exercise in proving you can make a film that's quite similar in look, feel and colour pallette to an older TV series, that itself was an interpretation of a book, it was fairly successful. Other than that, not really sure what it was for. Other than it did cause me to re watch the whole of the original TV series.

By sheer force of intellect and debating skills I persuaded my new quiz team to change their answer on where the national railway museum was. They'd written York, I knew it was Swindon and got all 5 of them to come round to my answer. We lost by a single point.

You're right. I don't do facebook. I do do that twitter. The local Labour party around here don't like Corbyn very much. I do understand not playing the game and I really support that idea, and I really want to 'like' Corbyn. As a kid I had a flirt for a few years with being a leftie, so I could easily vote for a proper labour party now,

Ysbeidiau Heulog here on Ynys Y Barri. Sunny intervals on Barrybados. That's my house down the far end.

Whatever happened to Jeremy Corbyn? I was expecting some questions on steel at the last PMQ's but all the questions were used up on an english regional issue. But then, you won't see english labour actually standing side by side with an english doctor, in case someone somewhere today can claim they have actually suffered due to the strike. Bad PR, death. That's over thinking. Just as it's under thinking for Corbyn's representative on earth Andrew Fisher to suggest the steel crisis was 'good' for labour, the little shit.

He got 550 votes in the last election and is convinced he will win the next one, in May. He's not one for dwelling on what others perceive as failure!

yep, totally agree with this There's one at the moment where it's some cider or other, the story is it's just a little farm but before the next batch of cider, stored in a wooden vat in a barn with straw on the floor can be despatched to us, it has to pass the old farmer's taste test. He scoops in a jug and has a glug of golden bubbly cider as quality control. We all know it's made on an industrial estate on the outskirts of some town and stored in 20 metre high stainless steel towers, quality control is by computer analysis and cost consultant purchasing of competitively priced ingredients supplied to a tight specification. But yeah, old farmer Bill's secret recipe.

In a gratuitous attempt at cool by association, my gig buddy from last night was one of the backroom team that worked on trying to get Blair impeached.

Great way to spend a Monday night. Loud, funny, loud, fantastic, loud.

I've just searched my phone, only currently got the one photo with my garden on it....

I wouldn't bother with onion seeds. Buy a bag of onion sets (small onions), stick them in and they'll grow in to big onions. No, seriously. @mjmooney ouch, he's not impressed is he. Interesting that Bosch have a hand in a cheapo range they only flog through Argos. Churn out crap for the bottom end of the market without jeopardising your good name. Qualcast wouldn't be a brand I'd automatically go for, that post only reinforces that. It does appear it's for when you're on a budget and willing to take a punt. My dad once bought an Austin Allegro and he never once had a day of trouble out of it. So I guess we're just lucky sometimes!

Yeah, I think unless you are going to go for something like Stihl as a brand there's an element of pot luck. We're on a Bosch roll at the moment, they appear to be pretty decent in everything from mowers to washing machines. But we were a bit financially embarrassed when we needed to replace the strimmer, so beggars couldn't be choosers. The Qualcast strimmer is 'ok', it takes a bit of fiddling to change the cable, it vibrates a bit, it's loud. But it starts easy enough, it doesn't leak petrol all over the boot of the car and it cuts the grass, so there's certainly no reason to buy a replacement, even if I'm not exactly in love with it. But agree some Qualcast can just be junk. The trouble is, you need to justify the spend somehow, call it a keep fit regime or social thing, or you end up trying to justify spending hundreds on kit to grow carrots and spuds with a total value of £30 or so.

Avoid the brand name Sovereign. In my experience, every stereotype about cheapo chinese tat applies to sovereign. Weird non-standard unavailable parts, rubbish build quality, overheats whilst dripping petrol. So dangerous I bent it and threw it away rather than give it away. Other than that, fine. We've currently got a bottom of the range Qualcast petrol strimmer which does the job ok, nothing special and nothing bad to note.

Dept for Business Innovation & Skills - UK Trade Performance That report takes us up to and including the crash. Even accounting for the 2008 crash, that still left trade with the EU massively increased over where it had been a decade earlier. As a percentage, yes, trade with the EU has shrunk since 2001. As a figure, it's increased. We export more to the EU now than we did in 2001. But we also export even more than we did to the rest of the world. But the EU is not a shrinking market, it's growing slower than others. thanks, I'll get my coat....

If the youngsters aren't good enough or aren't mentally or physically up to it to play out a few practice games that have no meaning, why on earth are they here? What is the plan during the summer to get them ready for away games at Leeds, Millwall, Birmingham, Sheffield...... I guess the club is just planning on selling Bacuna to Real Madrid and use the winnings to buy 15 proven promotion quality newbies.

First off a couple of points of background: I commute using a car as my day often involves unscheduled visits to far away places that aren't right next door to train stations. I understand some people like to cycle to work, that's fine with me. Some cyclists are lycra nazi's just itching to be offended by something. Some drivers are nasty and stupid. Some drivers can't drive and need to be re-educated. So with all that set out, here's what happened on Friday: I rolled up to a red light at a junction, stopping at the point cars are indicated to stop. A cyclist (middle aged man, all the gear, big helmet, camera), cycled up in front of me, positioned himself square in front of me in the middle of the lane. Clearly, unless this guy has a hidden rocket booster or runs the red, he is going to slow me down across this junction. He then proceeds to do this jiggle thing where he's giving it half a pace forward and backward to keep the bike upright without putting a foot down. Light goes green, he tries to propel forward. But instead he does a sort of drunk baby giraffe sprawl all over the road. A sort of wobbly tripod of bike and lycra. He didn't completely hit the tarmac. But he spazzed out stumbling around for the entire duration of our green light. I didn't roll forward, I didn't toot. I may have smiled. He totally lost his shit! Scowling at me, pointing at the front of the car. waving his arms around. A bit more scowling. Then decided to take his chances just cycling across the junction on a red anyway. I actually wondered if he thought I'd nudged him. I doubt he'll be sticking that one on youtube or twitter.

Last game of the season for my local team today. A lovely sunny day, everyone there for a good bit of chat and a shouty sing song. Then a very pedestrian 0:0 draw which ensured we'll finish 2nd not 1st. An excellent result that is the highest finish you can have without promotion to financial ruin. Three completed seasons since the club became fan owned, 2014: 1st and promoted, 2015: 1st and promoted, 2016: 2nd, stick. Isn't football great....

I'm anti TTIP and it is probably the one thing that could persuade me to vote out. But once out, we will have a tory government, and being realistic we've probably got at least 9 years of that. If the outers win then the right wing of a right wing party will have the upper hand. Anyone that thinks we will be 'protected' against big business by the right wing of the tory party needs to have a serious re think. Anyone that thinks the right wing of the tory party is here to protect the NHS really really needs to think on. We might be out of TTIP, we won't be out of the hands of business and profit over people. Having just googled the conservative and conservative MEP position on TTIP they are strongly for it. So these people once out of the EU would then protect us against it? Dream on. ----- What on earth is this bizarre rubbish Boris Johnson and Farage are going on about today claiming Obama's Kenyan ancestory means he's deliberately plotting against us? That is proper right wing swivel eyed conspiracy stuff there. Farage this morning on the radio also started on about how Obama had got rid of Churchill from his office so we shouldn't listen to him or trust him. There's plenty of reasons not to trust Obama, what ornaments he likes is well down the list. Boris has apparently come out with something similar? Weird.

But surely that's to be expected isn't it? It's hardly a conspiracy that the people in power get to choose the timing and the wording and should try and manipulate the agenda. Is it? There surely isn't a suggestion here that if Downing Street had been shared by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, they would have refused to have their allies and friends come out with statements advantageous to their side? They'd work out somehow the positive angle of Vladimir Putin being in favour of us leaving the EU. They'd struggle beyond Putin, but they'd find someone, Marie Le Pen maybe. What is more key here, is the utter incompetence of Cameron to have been played so easily by the right wing of a right wing party. He's got himself, and us, in a position where he has volunteered a referendum on a subject he now tells us is of vital importance. A referendum can be won or lost by what is in the news the day before and we are going to base our children's future's on this. In the week before the referendum Cameron and the remain group will be 'hostage' to every tale of smuggled immigrants and overly curved cucumbers. One story about one Belgian born brown muslim terrorist being seen in Birmingham and that tilts 100,000 votes. Unfortunately, this referendum on our future is easily won or lost on what hits the news on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday leading up to it. I fear that we will turn away from the crazy leftie EU with it's workers rights and head off in to the arms of the right of the tory party and ukip lot. Locally we had UKIP on a TV debate last week, the regional leader of UKIP was happy to stand at a platform and deny climate change, he told the audience that they shouldn't 'just believe' scientists from all around the world, they should think for themselves. This got the biggest cheer of the evening. This reconfirmed to me that we are not involved in rational debate here. What chance have we got.