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Cafetiere??????? Atrocious. Smash them all. A complete waste of coffee.

I had it at a restaurant long ago and it was a revelation to me - no bitterness, no aftertaste, so smooth, with a sweet taste, as if It had sugar in it. I didn't know an espresso could taste like that. Never had anything resembling it since.

Can you even buy locally roasted JBM?

What if I sneakily time his shots...would that tell me anything. and how long should they be?

Ir's roasted in Jamaica. (It's the real thing - I checked the labels on the bags.)

I am becoming friends with him by helping him get on Google Maps. Also said I would write reviews for Tripadvisor and Google Maps. But this was after the first good shot. After the sour shot I'm not so keen. I think I'll send the next bad one back and hope for the best. Maybe the coffee machine rental people will steer him in the right direction?

Need some advice with a delicate situation. New cafe has opened near me. A one man band so far, but hiring a staff member soon. The guy has real Jamaica Blue Mountain beans and a £4k machine.But I don't think he's had proper training. The first JBM espresso I had was good, the second was sour and horrible. (I drank it, and said it wasn't as good as the first. He didn't say anything.)

I'd really like the cafe to succeed. Real JBM at an affordable price on my doorstep is quite an asset. Would the sour taste definitely be because it was under extracted, because he didn't adjust the grind to allow for the beans absorbing moisture? And how can I nudge him towards training? Is there a good free training video somewhere? I don't want to give bad advice, and I don't want to give good advice in a patronising manner.

You're not English, are you? Snobbery is the biggest factor. Snobbery doesn't prevent conceptual understanding, but it instructs you to ignore it and to stay behind the barriers between you and the ordinary people. The barriers are expensive - living in certain areas, private education for your children, business class on planes, private doctors, private hospitals, au pairs and maids and housekeepers to go to the supermarket for you. That whole package of barriers costs a fortune in London, and there is great peer pressure and parental pressure to make enough money to afford it all. If you can't afford it you share some of your existence with the common herd, which is unforgivable. It forces you to be ruthless and self-serving.

It's exactly the same mindset of the colonial administrators whose job was to exploit the natives throughout the British Empire. The same schools, the same families. Now they have to find other ways to get to the top of the pyramid.

I'm afraid it's much worse than that...this is the majority view of ambitious privately educated men in highly paid jobs. They've been taught to think like this and they don't have a higher than average incidence of personal problems. Boris Johnson is typical of this group.

He does, but he can't empathise. I'm the one person he knows who used to be rich and is now ill and can't work and lost everything. After the 2008 crash I was homeless and shoplifting for a spell, but I survived, unlike many, and I've raided my meagre pension to buy a 3rd hand Parlee and Lightweight wheels. So now I feel blessed. What a bike...it's a magic carpet. Thank god I never had children. I don't drink/smoke or go to restaurants/cinemas/anywhere, so all my money goes on the bike and the cat.

But along the way I noticed that the well off people I used to know are very ruthless. I suppose they mostly earn 300-750k a year. Some of them are in a higher bracket...multimillionaires. Maybe you don't get there unless you're ruthless? They are completely uncaring about so many things...refugees drowning in the Med, benefits claimants who are sanctioned and die of hunger...such a long, long list, which I'm sure the typical LFGSS bod is well aware of. In their mind I'm history, a non-person, down there with the Big Issue seller.

Anyway, I haven't seen him for a year, we're meeting soon, and I just hope we don't fall out over Brexit, all the untreated mental illness, landlords who reject benefit claimants, Tory rape of the NHS, the increase in NI...fuck, I hate this country sometimes.

What with cycling being the new golf, and dentists having not just one £15,000 superbike but three, there are a surprising number of excloooosive dealers catering to the rich. Which ones are pleasant to those of us who are not rich, and which ones are cunts? That is my question. In my experience Cyclefit are wonderful and lovely, and B*spoke Cycling are cunts.

I have a pro-Brexit friend. He voted remain, but now thinks Brexit is marvellous. He's some sort of venture capital private equity person, and rich. If I say Brexit is a criminal disaster he's got all these numbers about money wasted by Eurocrats, and how all the aggro in the UK with higher prices, empty shelves etc is because of Covid and/or China. He's got so many numbers in his head that I can't keep up. (Actually I have ME so my brane can't keep up with lots of things.) Anyway, he's one of my best friends, so all this is very upsetting. Being rich he's also self-centred and doesn't care about poor people or farmers or fishermen. If he benefits from Brexit, Brexit=good.

Crikey. someone made a 227g tent. The materials cost 300 euros. Whatever they are. https://old.reddit.com/r/myog/comments/ldynph/how_light_can_a_full_feature_dcf_tent_get_8oz/

Anyone considered making their own tent from Dyneema? The Big Agnes
Tiger Wall 2 Carbon weighs 656g and costs £880, so make one for a bit less. Just an idea.

https://www.ultralightoutdoorgear.co.uk/equipment-c3/tents-shelters-c25/two-person-tents-c26/tiger-wall-2-carbon-with-dyneema-tent-p12703

Just been booted off Nextdoor after a few hours of membership. You're supposed to use your real, full name! Fuck that. I annoyed the anti-LTN nutters with some logic, so they reported me. I suppose it's heartening that their tactics are so desperate. The argument is over. They really are such ignorant, ill-educated vermin.

Any advice for cutting carbon fibre? I want to trim some dropped bars to make bullhorns. Got a hacksaw with an ordinary blade, and a very small vice. I've read this https://www.pinkbike.com/news/tech-tuesday-cutting-carbon.html and don't want to bother with getting a fine tooth blade. I thought I might put gaffer tape on the handlebars first, and cut through it to reduce splintering.

N.B. I'm not buying ready made bullhorns because my bars are somewhat unique. They have TT extensions which slot into sleeves on the bars. No heavy bracketry. I am a weight weenie. These bars are the ones.

They retain the item until the next time they are in the saddle, and fling it behind them, converting the momentum of the item into forward thrust. It's worth about 7 to 10 watts.

I've found it but I need a better reason to go to such a dump.

Fuck it, I was there an hour ago! I might have beaten you if I hadn't gone into Bespoke Cycling for an argument.

Well.

Budget £7 - £10k. I ruled out anything non-ULEZ. No Euro 6 diesels because too expensive and I don't want diesel, I want to be green. Hybrid or EV obviously too expensive. It had to be petrol, with the option of LPG and bioLPG.

Bongo size would be too small because I want to take my motorbike and bicycle and have a fairly big proper mattress, not a rock n roll bed. And a composting toilet. Nothing terribly long or high because I couldn't get a Lambeth parking permit and I want to be stealth.

4WD highly desirable for wild camping off road.

So my shortlist was very short. Elgrand or Alphard or Mercedes V Class at a Japanese auction. Or a Hyundai i800 in the UK. Those are all a very similar boxy shape, which gives more volume than the other more aero MPVs like the Estima or the Elysion. And there aren't so many Elysions going through the auctions. There's a huge choice of Elgrands and Alphards - both are very popular in Japan, which ought to be a good sign?

V Class are easily the best buy, they're almost giving them away in Japan. Hyundai in the UK also a very good buy. But I ruled both out because they're RWD only.

So it was Elgrand vs Alphard. Elgrand are cheaper and said to be better as a camper conversion, with a bit more space and a bigger flat area, whereas the Alphard has more angles and slopey bits. Elgrand not as reliable or well built as Alphard, but if you know that before you start you can hope to overcome it with preventive maintenance. And mine's the V6 which has a better track record for huge mileages than the 4 cylinder one. The Elgrand has a part time 4WD which cuts in when you lose grip. I can't remember what the Alphard's 4WD is like.

"Unfortunately your registration at The Paceline Forum did not meet our membership requirements. Therefore your registration was deleted."

Banned by a celebrity! You are a conduit to stardom. Can I touch your bib shorts?

It's great to finally have contact with you! Actually the auction house has promised a full refund if I don't get the car by the end of the month. They have insurance to cover shipping losses, and apparently the premium was included in the commission I paid. So if you send me £500 and make sure the car doesn't get here in the next 2 weeks, I'll give you 30% of my insurance payout. That's a £2000 profit for you.

Are you a troublemaker? Too clever for your own good? Nobody gets your sense of humour? Or American? Confess which forums (or fora if you went to Eton) you have flounced/been banned from.

I'm on my last warning at fake Rolex forum rwg.bz. And I was banned from another fake Rolex forum, replica-watch.info, for telling a mod to stick his watch collection up his arse. I've flounced from two cycling fora, and been refused registration at paceline.net. I didn't even post there, but they didn't like the look of my username for some reason. And I'm on my fifth username at urban75 after having arguments with people and wanting a fresh start, because stress.

Are you my shipping agent?

I bought a Nissan Elgrand at an auction in Japan. I was hoping to convert it into a campervan, but it's been 22 weeks and it's still not arrived. Shipping is supposed to take 8-10 weeks, but nobody even knows what ship it's on, because pandemic.

Who won't let you?

I bought a fine poo shovel for my last big trip. Only 52 grams. https://www.ultralightoutdoorgear.co.uk/equipment-c3/washroom-c14/washroom-accessories-c20/backpackers-trowel-p268

But it was huge, so I gave it to a couchsurfing host (without ever using it) because I was carting far too much junk around. My strategy for the next big trip is to have a small pocket knife for best, and big cheap one to be abused. And a sharpening stone and a strop to achieve peak sharpness. I've got the strop all worked out. It's this. https://www.rockstead.jp/maintenance/ I made one and it's BRILLIANT. For travelling I'll carry the denim and drawing pins and a small bottle of polish, and make a rough single use board when necessary.

I don't have a sharpening stone yet - I'm going to get a Sharpening Lesson. So every time I dig a hole with my big knife I'll have the satisfaction of using my sharpening skilz. And if I meet anyone with a metal trowel I'll put an edge on it so they can use it to decapitate foes.