Jerry_Atrick

That looks like a modern prison

well, here is the vid of the road where the potholes are. There are a few of them: Nice to get on the bike again.

Yeah - I did build a lot on the question.. I could have let it go to the keeper as it is an innocuous comment at the end of the day. But these "simple" questions often (and I am not saying in this case) belie or at least allude to a deeper agenda. But, the other problem is, society is becoming ever more polarised because of transgressions passed that have no bearing on the people of today (except we are bound to learn from them and improve society). As a result, we aree seeing an increase in civil violence. None of us were directly involved with the taking of Australia from Aboriginals, and I sympathise with the concept of Invasion day, but rather than using it as a weapon to integrate better, it is being used as a weapon to divide the populations and now you have attempted or hoax bombs being thrown into the demonstations. While there has always been a hard core of Nazis since WWII, sadly, even in Australia, they are managing to attract more and more who were not Nazi sympathisers or hard core, and they are probably no more than disenfranchised with the way things are going, and possibly being sick of labelled eveything from a mysoginist to racial vilifier or some such stuff. Over here, division of society is being sewn from the slave trade over a hundred years ago, ironically when there were no slaves in the UK. Yes, the UK participated in it and yes, they profited from it, but the apologists are now calling for all sorts of stuff and no one is saying it was actually the UK (or England) that ended African slavery!" So, nowm you are getting more people fed up being labelled something they are not because of previous generations' transgressions, and resentment as well as moving the support base to the dodgier part of town (e.g. the more white supremacist part of town). You try speaking to many younger white males these days. Many are feeling they are victimised because they are protrayed as representing many of them don't represent.

Yes.. And that was over 900 years ago. Since then, there have been many wars in the name of religion, partiularly the Abrahamic ones - in Europe and the Middle-East, at least. Do any of those justify the same behviour today of the other side? With some exceptions, the global society could move on after WWII at an alarming rate - sometimes within the same generation, but after one or two generations - definitely. But is society not supposed to move on after 1,000 years (and religious wars peretrated by both sides of the Christian/Islam sides since)? The problems with the "they did it a thousand years ago, so we can't be the pot calling the ketttle black" mentality, particularly of events of around a millenia ago are two fold.. First, it sort of legitimises what is happening today bit and therefore emboldens those who use it to justify their stance to do it. That is never a good thing. Secondly, that legitimising of one side of the hate argument justifies and emboldens the other side of the hate argument as being persecuted for events long gone before they were twinkles in their parent's eyes. And the vicious circle intensifies and society polarises. Also on that logic, Jews have suffered at the hands of pertrators of religious wars for millenia, too. Therefore, they have many more wars to start before they sqaure the ledger. Do you agree that would be the right thing to do? I don't.

I didn't know whether to give a sad or like or a thanks to the post; I went with the thanks in the end because of the gist of the post, but hope SWMBO's op goes well and she gets better soon. Also, hope you have your hearing aid back by the time you read this! (And I usually find a new engine solves all my old engine issues - hope Perkins pistons come out soon).

I am not having a great run with vehicles lately. First the deer and the mini.. And on the weekend, the Volvo decided to emit clunky noises from its rear end. So off to the local mechanic, and since it is the only one around after their competitor retired, I am in for a wait as there is a solid pipeline of work to be done ahead of mine. No probs. Thought I would hire a car for a week. This evening, driving through the village down the road, I hit a massive pot hole at low speed but enough to cause some rumblings coming from its front end. FFS, another damaged vehicle. Thankkfully I took full fat insurance, but crickey, I have just had enough of cars at the moment. Have to be thankful of small mercies - although I got my medical, I am not flying yet.

That is not to say the vast majority of Muslims (or anyone in general) wants to perform the barbaric acts that have been performed in recent times, mainly my Islamic terrorists. But, to put in into perspective, we must remember, there have been a fair few perpatrators on barbaric killings by non Muslims as well. Every country, every race, every religion has them. An example is here: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/u-marshal-revisits-burial-most-154338909.html It seems more often we read of someone who has been stabbed many 10s if not hundreds of times, burned to death, tortured, etc.. and nary a Muslim in sight. I am sure if I do some research, I will find some non-Islamioc terrorist or oppressive government (e.g. Myanmar?) committing systematic barbarism - sadly they have graduated from hijacking planes. But at the moment, and it may be the media, the perception is most of the terrorist groups are Islamic. .

The problem with time lapse is that in order to give the impression it is just sped up, the shutter speed is effective slowed down and it chops out bits. The bike came to a full stop and I leaned to the left, inadvertently moving the bike to the right. Foot down to hold it, onto loose stones in the wet and over it went. I tried to stop it falling. I guess I was thinking soft tissue injury will heal for free v. fixing damage on the bike. The front types are about 18 months old and have 1/2 life tread left in them - maybe a touch less. They handle and grip well in the wet - apart from my own stupidity in this case, I have yet to have an oh-ship moment and I have ridden the bike in all but warm conditions so far - including some fairly torrential rainfall. With any luck I will be back on it this week, as the leg is healing quite nicely. I tried a lean on my right foot while sitting on the bike with the foce expected that would slightly exceed normal loads for city riding and I felt no pain. Of course, if my right leg is called for materially more strength/stretch, it will not yet end well.

Its a free country, right?

OK.. here is the evidence of one of the most embarrassing moments I have had: Thankfully I inadvertently put the gopro into timelpase. Weather has been ship.. Wait until the next vid from today's ride (as I can now handle the car, it is all from the car). The reason the end is looking up to the heavens is because I had the gopro on a chin mount - on a flip front helmet, and obviously, I flipped the front up.

Farq And the boats they displayed multiple engines with didn't look that big

Be careful what you disclose - I may be your neighbour and devalue your property 😉 BTW, when we moved in here, we got a uite for a ground source heat pumpo.. £150K.. I'll stick with the boiler and a couple of weeks of shivering when it fails.

Look up behavioural economics.. It isn't really economics at all; it is a term, I imagine couched to hide its true intent as some academic branch of economics, that is about using psychological techniques of marketing to maximise selling people stuff they don't need or really want. It wouldn't do to call that branch of marekting, "manipulative marketing", now, would it?

I think you are being paranoid

Why can't Australia make cars? OK, Slovakia probablky has a lower wage.. But you really don't need an army of people to make cars anymore.

FFS! Despite spending an amount that would materially add to my pension on the heating in this place, it has bloody well gone again, just when we need it most (so far this winter). In the 7 years we have been here, we have had two winters without any heating; and 4 with a decent interruption to it. This time, there is something wrong with the boiler and it is blowing fumes back into the house. The CO2 detectors aren't ringing, but there is that smell of burnt jet fuel (they are oil burners). A plumber came out and issued a safety notice, so it is illegal to ignite the boiler until it is repaired and signed off.. and he can't come out until the end of next week! Marble Bar, WA, here I come!

It is a great video..

Looks like Albo has started a trend to resuce u/16s. https://www.theregister.com/2026/01/22/house_of_lords_votes_to_ban_under_16_socmed/?td=rt-3a Good on him.

I have had a bit of experience on trail bikes.. mainly Honda XL's (75, then 250) In time for the lad, as we want to do a fairly decent adventure.. DR650s (Suzuki) may be the order of the day.

Although my phone as no real links to my social media, I am hesitant to visit the USA, which pains me a bit because a good mate has recently contracted Parkinsons and I would dearly like to visit him.

Well, I still can't ride the CBF, but I can ride the little Yamaha YZF-R125 that belongs to the boy. The reason is it is a hell of a lot lighter than the CBF, and I can support the lean on my right leg to get the leg stand down. Unf, I took the rain cover off the CBF to show the boy something or other, and by the time we finished, it started raining and hasn't stopped since (crikey, it's wet!) So, the poor bike has been rained on for about three days now. As soon as the leg is better enough, I will get it into the garage, which is at the bottom of our steep drive. In the mean time, the lad's confidence is growing and we are planning our first weekend ride to Exmouth, which isn't far, but has some great twisties. Hopefully in two weeks time we can do it.

OK.. Back to the thread.. though this is more the effects of what el Chumpo has done. Mark Carney, distinguished economist, ex governor of the Bank of England (RBA equivalent) and now Canadian PM has made a candid speech at Davos: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-01-21/carney-blasts-trump-canada-davos-world-economic-forum/106252354 OK, he has struck deals with China and Qatar, both not high on the human rights records, but importantly, Canadian pension funds are invested heavily in US government debt, and if they offload it and stop buying it, el Chumpo may need to increase those tariffs a little more anyway. Lucky Canada has successive governments that have taken a fairer slice of the wealth from the resources, unlike successive Aussie givernments that seem hell-bent on giving ours away for almost nothing in comparison (then compare to Qatar, Norway, and even Alaska, which are even better at retaining wealth). Imagine the leverage we would have if we accunulated the wealth from our resources properly. Anyway, Carney's speech I think officially heralds the beginning of the end of US domination.

Leave lovely Susan alone. She is a pilot - didn't succeed commercially, which I guess is why she went into politics. (I haven't watched this, but I remeber reading an article in The Age about it).

I resisted the urge to answer to avoid thread drift... Ahh, it's not just me 😉 I guess sooner or later the orange one will grace this thread without the drift. I know some want sooner, but I don't with that on anyone until their time has come to a natural end. Out of respect to those listed above on this thread, I will leave it there. (Also out of respect to those listed above, I would prefer a separate thread when the oramnge one kicks the bucket).