Paul

Soundings, you show a terrifying ignorance of national park processes and responsibilities when you suggest a "tweaked" Sandford Principle might be applied to a Norfok & Suffolk Broads as a full National Park. Sandford is absolute, it is what prevails when all other compromise has failed and rules wholly in favour of conservation. Sandford would end navigation on the broads. What your comments advocate is exactly what you have now? I can understand Dajen's comments as you seem to say one thing but advocate another .

very Mackerel like

I was rather hoping Dave had taken it on

Great credit to the England cricketers. I didn't this series was a foregone conclusion but I thought it would be an uphill struggle. In the end they have destroyed Australia. I certainly never saw that coming. Cook has struggle for form and he and Bell are still looking very scratchy but they have grafted through.

not even 99% this time Dave, it appears I was mistaken about Lathams being listed, it is not on the list posted. I thought I had read it on the "history" page of their website but happy to be corrected.

I thought it worthwhile posting this image of th Broadshaven from streetview, this is 2012. Look at the building and you will see it is well kept, in good order. The lawn is smart and tables laid out nicely. There is nothing wrong as such. I would hate people reading this to think that the building was unkempt or run down (it might have been once, but has been renovated very well). The problem is that shacks, bijou sheds, nissen huts or whatever you want to call them are just not attractive.

Before we started boating we used to holiday in the bungalows along the river banks at Potter Heigham for the October half term. This was a pure fishing holiday, my sisters were old enough to stay home but I was not, so was dragged along. I walked miles around the Upper Thurne System, there was little else to do. In those days you could be gone all day but as long as you were home for tea nobody really worried. Potter was a wonderful place then. Ken Latham owned Lathams and stocked excellent tackle and bait, if fishing was your thing. The rest of the shop offered good quality merchandise as well as the most fabulous sweet counter you ever saw. It was always a conundrum how to divide my daily pocket money between the pinball machines in the arcade, my favourites as a kid, and the sweet shop at Lathams. The Bridge Store was best for Ice Cream and pop. You could sit by the bridge and watch the pilots, usually two or three taking boats back and forth. The riverside was always bustling, always something going on to maintain your interest. Sadly the years have not been kind to that small part of Potter which sits by the river. Lets be honest, "Lathams" is a dump. It's not even cheap any more. A lot of water has flowed under the Old Bridge since a bargain was found in that miserable place. The building is, I believe listed which makes any attempt at renovation much more difficult, and most probably more expensive too. It does need something doing to it but what is a point for debate. Demolition of the store is the best hope but that would need all kind of consents. An out of town store might do well, a courtyard type craft centre perhaps with a mix of arty type craft shops and local interest shops like a garden centre (lathams garden centre is quite popular with locals), a chandlery perhaps. Lathams tackle shop has plummed depths unkown to most anglers. I have been in once since it moved. Cheap, uninspiring rubbish. Little if any quality tackle for the real fisherman (or do fisherman all use cheap junk nowdays?). The Broadshaven is a tragedy of Shakesperean proportion. I have great sympathy for those who have taken the place on in recent years and tried hard, damn hard to update it. The sad thing is you can change decor but never the character that comes from the very fabric of the place. I often wonder is the correct building was torched? If only that "stray match" had blown over the bridge it might have done us all a favour. Nothing short of total deomlition will make any notable improvement. What to replace it with? I would like to see a hotel, broadland is desperately short of riverfront hotel accommodation. A couple of dozen rooms over a couple of floors above a decent bar, lunge/dining room offering food for residents and non residents. A good quality grocer in the bridge stores building. Do gastronomy on the thurne a hge favour and bulldoze the chip shop and make a car park on that side of the bridge. Close the bridge to traffic and pedestrianise the area from HW car park entrance, over the bridge to the car park. perhaps a wooden chalet style ice cream stall on the riverside above the bridge. Oh, new public toilets!

btw, well done to whoever is keeping the thread title updated, almost a full time job that., are, were, are ... what comes next

Just an aside, a Bill Frindall moment. The last time Australia were bowled out before lunch on the first day of a test match, W.G. Grace made 66 leading Englands reply, which totalled 292 and there were five balls per over.

Stuart Broad will usually produce one match winning, or at least match changing performance during a test series. He's not been at his best for the last couple of years, largely down to injury but he's someone you'd have in your test side. I watched Willis take 8/43 at Headingly in that great test of '81, still the best test I have ever seen and have always rated that as the best bowling performance I ever saw. Willis was a man possessed that day. Totally focused on taking wickets. He wanted nothing to do with anyone else on the pitch. When fielders tried to congratulate him he turned away and started walking back to his mark (which for big Bob was a long walk, he ran in from the boundary almost). His eyes were like the proverbial wee wee holes in the snow. He was on another planet that day. Broad's approach was very different but that performance is right up there.

well, she's getting it fair and square up the ...... ah yes, 60 all out, Broady 8/15, what a bowling effort. Jimmy who?

For me there is one clear answer, Pacific Princess, originally built as Mediterranean Sea by John Williams at Stalham . We were regulars at Pacific Cruisers long before Princess, firstly as a family group then latterly as the "second generation" architypal "lad's group", for which we had special permission from Tony and Val who owned the yard at the time. One particular year we needed to hire Friday - Friday, something Pacific didn't offer at te time, as one of our crew's sisters had selfishly decided to get married on the Saturday following the August Bank Holiday, one of our regular boating weeks and so we hired from Richardson's that year. We still headed down to Loddon for a night out and to say hello, and on arrival at Pacific's yard Med Sea was moored on their frontage. At that time she was still quite new and the style one of the latest on the Broads. I jokingly said to the crew "I see Tony is buying me a new boat". Little did I know that was exactly what was happening, there and then on board, with the papers being signed as we pulled in. Valerie, never one to miss an opportunity to take a booking interrupted the negotiations to give us a show around and her first booking as a Pacific boat was made, almost before the ink was dry. We could hardly wait, but had a whole year which we spent planning and saving and arrived the following August for the first of many great holidays on board, sometime two, three or even four times a year, before the lads group finally drifted apart as trival things like marriage and families got in the way. She's not the best boat on the broads, although Richard and Fiona who own the yard now have looked after her very well and made number of improvements. She has a nice new, quiet Nani diesel under the floor, bow thrusters, new galley and flooring. She still has a lot to offer as an older boat and is great value and so remains our first choice of hire boat. She doesn't get under bridges very well. Potter, Wroxham and Wayford are not possible. She will pass under Thorpe and Beccles on the correct tide but the risk of getting stuck make it prudent for the yard to exclude these too. The pay back for this is the excellent view from the upper deck of course. When we feel the need for a few days on the Upper Thurne we book Bittern from John at Whispering Reeds. The ferry from Beccles to Geldeston allows us our essential fix of the Locks Inn. This year we decided to stay north side, having stayed south last year and so have booked Contessa from Clive, she is a sister ship and also looks in very good condition. She may not suit everyone but she has done us nicely for many years now, from holidaying with my parents, through holidaying with friends to now taking my own family. A good part of my life has been spent on that boat. Hopefully we'll be out on her again next year, and if we do it will be the forty first time we have hired the same boat and out sixtieth boating holiday on the broads.

I think Marshman makes a very valid point, one which we often underestimate. We all live our lives in a cyber goldfish bowl like never before and every little transgression, every little error or foolish decision is seized upon and proliferated via shutyourfacebook.com and such sites. In such an environment it is easy to think the world has gone mad, when in fact it is only social media which is mad.

Not big headed at all Wonderwall, just realistic. Most of the boats in that picture would go through sideways with my five year old at the helm (actually if he were at the helm they probably would be going sidewards, but you get my meaning) Petty the poor bugga who has to take that thing with the steps up to the top through though, that's going to take some work! Like you i remember helming boats through regulalry when we hired boats that would fit, and if we didn't we moored in the sadly long gone Brister yard. it seems a bit daft that people have to stop, pick up, and pay for a pilot to take a Hampton, or a bounty through.

I see from the BBC website that my prediction was spot on, Chelsea could not breach the defences. Told you that Mr Cech was very good. Now who did he used to play for? That ends a miserable pre season for Chelski, played five, won none. Sadly it's only pre season and it rarely has any relevance to the league season. I can sense Mr Abramovich getting a little twitchy though. It's only a matter of time until he sacks Jose ...... again.

Yep, give them credit, a stunning comeback. I told you Bell would come good! Now, let's rap the series up at Trent Bridge.

actually, Germany were the last team to win at the "old" Wembley stadium, beating England 1-0 on the 7th of October 2000 with a goal by Dietmar Hamann, the last goal to be scored at the old stadium. IIRC that was Kevin Keegans last game in charge. As for tomorrow I never attached any importance to the Charity Shield, now it has lost the Charity aspect it matters even less. Not sure Chelski have any strikers good enough to beat that Petr Cech bloke though, damn fine keeper he is. Whoever wins I shall probably find something more interesting to do, like watching paint dry or counting rain drops on the kitchen window.

Of course. For years the OED definition was "a meal or gathering at which meat, fish, or other food is cooked out of doors on a rack over an open fire" Recently they have added "or on a special appliance" but for me gas is not a barbecue. I do have an "outdoor gas grill", which says barbecue on the box, a very good, expensive one. It's very handy for cooking outdoors midweek when I don't have time to get a proper barbie going but no amount of special lava rocks, wood chips etc etc can match charcoal.

One wierd did thing happen. I ran Ubuntu on my main laptop, from the flash drive to make sure the iso file was OK, and it loaded and ran fine. It also activated the bluetooth which has not worked on my laptop since upgrading W8 to 8.1, and no amount of new drivers ever fixed it. But on Ubuntu bluetooth worked fine. The strange bit is that when I booted back to 8.1 bluetooth still works. It's almost like the Ubuntu switched it back on. Since upgrading to W10 bluetooth has been fine

Spot on Warp, it will not run Ubuntu. When I plug the USB flash drive in and try to boot it gives me the menu but when I select an option, be it run from the drive or install it thinks for a few seconds then a multi coloured band appears at the top of the screen. I have tried Xubuntu too, same thing. I have a list from the www of the "lite" versions of Linux and will try one of those tomorrow. It does boot and run Win 7, it will just about do something. I think the problem is the 600mhz processor.

the download took me just under five minutes, the install was done in less than twenty. are you still using steam power?

there are plenty of post about boats, you don't have to read those that don't interest you. That's the idea of "The Lounge" You may be in luck, it looks like this could well be done and dusted today.

got my 10 and so far quite impressed.

sunny day supposedly tomorrow, losing Brll was a bit of a downer but hopefully some runs to come

I'm a bit confused by the reference to Windows 8.2, which was never released? Windows 10 is a replacement for the planned Windows 8.2. What MS have done, in effect is rebadged 8.2 as windows 10 to distance it from the flop that was 8 / 8.1 I'll go for 10 as the compatibility system promises to be much better than 8.1, and as the platform is the same anything which works on 8 should work on 10. In addition 10 restores the more familiar appearance of 7 for those who prefer it, you'll no longer have to run Win Store apps in full screen mode but windowed on the traditional desk top. the proper start menu returns, not the rehashed version in 8.1 and a number of security issues are adressed.