In the news

A potential budget option to a (Transit ?) camper van conversion.

Useful when the old people he gave creative fictional invoices to carked it I would imagine

Useful when the old people he gave creative fictional invoices to carked it I would imagine

Apart from the carking - is this from personnel experience ?

No but it's a given he'd be quoting up the wazoo

There’s a modded hearse car meet a few times a year in the US, some of the builds/coversions are excellent.
Didn’t Pitor(sp?) from lufguss have one for a while when he was building bikes?

Not the kind of news we need.

Thousands of giant spiders that can grow to the size of a human hand are thriving in the UK, thanks to a successful breeding programme from Chester zoo.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/nov/05/giant-spiders-that-can-grow-to-size-of-human-hand-thriving-in-the-uk

Former Tory ministers are reportedly very excited about the programme’s possibilities for the livestock feed and school breakfast club industries.

I'd be surprised if they took notice, as they tend to have more of an affinity with slimier, slitherier things... :)

APILN

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/24695765.dibden-purlieu-ruined-new-crossing-cycle-lane/

what a depressing day.

"unclear cycle markings" - with a photo of a very clearly marked lane and other signage...

Maybe one of the things that really ruins their lives is bad eyesight?

This one looked a bit weird

If I understand the article right, the issue is that it’s just some paint delineating the cycle lane from the pavement. In normal times these are rubbish but at school chucking out time they’re worse than useless.

Cyclist comes along thinking they’re on the cycle lane so full speed, 100 kids spill across pavement and cycle lane, car drivers taken by surprise when cyclists suddenly swerves onto car lane , etc

Sounds to me like cyclists not doing so with due care and attention. Just because you're on a cycle lane doesn't mean you can be a dick.

^ & ^^ it sounds like the design has built in conflict rather than designing it out.

I have family near there, sent the article to them and they report near misses with cyclists whilst driving past here. I'm guessing it is 'rejoining conflict' but have asked for more details.

Has anyone ridden a cycle lane anywhere in the UK that didn't just chuck you out into some kind of harms way? They're not fucking velodromes.

It’s just more shit infrastructure. The country is littered with it.

"Great bit of cycle lane planned along this section!"
"What do we do at these conflict points?"
"I dunno, let's just end it and start it again after that point."

^ For the most part I would rather deal with (mostly) predictable risk sharing the road rather than a lot of cycle lanes.

Understandable. The existence of cycling infrastructure means that many other road users are unwilling to share road space with cyclists though.

Evidenced by all the folks who don't understand Highway Code rule 61

While such facilities are provided for reasons of safety, cyclists may exercise their judgement and are not obliged to use them.

It’s just more shit infrastructure. The country is littered with it.

Anyone had the pleasure of navigating the redesigned junction in Dulwich village? 😱

Yeah for a long time I was anti segregated lanes for exactly this reason as I was skeptical they would see any meaningful use.

I've been pleasantly surprised by the uptake in London, but that still leaves outliers of appalling design, like the run all the way to Stratford which loops through the pavement behind every bus stop

This.

Bad cycle lanes are often worse than no cycle lanes.

There's fuck all out west. I think in the almost 20 years I've been in London the only bit of cycle lane I actually started using totals maybe 1km on a 15-20k commute and 90% of that is the lane that runs across the top of Ealing Common.

20 months for £10k damage to a picture frame.

WTF is a picture frame worth £28k?

The cost is probably measured in hours of labour cleaning it. Doesn't mean you could sell the frame for that much. Van Gogh himself never framed a single painting, so they are of zero value artistically. They might be "period correct" or installed by an original owner, giving them historical significance and cultural value. The national gallery also install frames in keeping with their collection and internal decor, so the criteria outlined above have moveable goalposts depending on a curator's taste. My dad was head of conservation at the NG for 40 years and we have interesting conversations about these protests. His main problem is that the extra security makes it harder to get in now, and I see his point.

The sentence is absurd and disgusting.