La Flamme Rouge **off topic discussion**

magicbastarder

this is why we don't let our cats outdoors.

Lumen

magicbastarder wrote: »

this is why we don't let our cats outdoors.

I'd just like to say how proud I am of the small part I had to play in bringing cat shaming to this thread after only around 1000 posts.

magicbastarder

Our two cats are bizarrely obsessed with my pannier bag. Constantly trying to climb in, and I don't know why. I have to hide the damn thing. They don't do it with other similar sized bags.

magicbastarder

a lot of the gardening/cats talk has been moved in here. apols if it's a little messy.

Eamonnator

President Trump has been talking about curing and preventing Covid 19 with hydroxychloroquine.This is a form of quinine.
There's quinine in Tonic Water and hey, it even has the word tonic in it's name, so it must be good.
Anyway, I've just had a pre dinner gin and tonic.
I feel better already.

Pigeon Reaper

Eamonnator wrote: »

President Trump has been talking about curing and preventing Covid 19 with hydroxychloroquine.This is a form of quinine.
There's quinine in Tonic Water and hey, it even has the word tonic in it's name, so it must be good.
Anyway, I've just had a pre dinner gin and tonic.
I feel better already.

G&T were traditionally drunk by colonists in malarial areas as the tonic water was believed to have medicinal benefits due to the quine. However there is a side effect called black water fever so make sure you use more gin to try and avoid this.

Eamonnator

Pigeon Reaper wrote: »

G&T were traditionally drunk by colonists in malarial areas as the tonic water was believed to have medicinal benefits due to the quine. However there is a side effect called black water fever so make sure you use more gin to try and avoid this.

I ran out of gin last night.
I had to to resort to Black Bush and water this evening.
Funny thing, it had the exact same effect as the G&T.
Should I ring Trump and tell him about the positives of Bushmills?

Boscoirl

No Point, Trump doesnt have shares in Bushmills

tomasrojo

This is probably a long-established thing I just never noticed, but you can get rear derailleurs that under minimum tension are on the big sprocket, instead of the little one:
https://bikesnobnyc.com/2020/04/09/1149/

magicbastarder

what are the benefits? i guess if a cable snaps, you might not find yourself grinding away. but i would assume that the standard we're used to is mechanically simpler or more reliable?

Idleater

magicbastarder wrote: »

what are the benefits?

For the MTB anyway, having the tension reversed means easier shifts when you most need it.

tomasrojo

It *is* a long-established thing:

Low normal or rapid rise rear derailleurs return the chain to the largest sprocket on the cassette when no cable tension is applied. While this was once a common design for rear derailleurs, it is relatively uncommon today. In mountain biking and off-road cycling, the most critical gear changes occur on uphill sections, where riders must cope with obstacles and difficult turns while pedalling under heavy load. This derailleur type provides an advantage over high normal derailleurs because gear changes to lower gears occur in the direction of the loaded spring, making these shifts easier during high load pedalling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derailleur_gears

magicbastarder

bad experiences with PE in school can lead to people taking less exercise later in life.

http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/22163/

eeeee

magicbastarder wrote: »

bad experiences with PE in school can lead to people taking less exercise later in life.

http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/22163/

I went to an all girls convent school. PE was virtually non existent. There were no pitches, but there was one basketball court and a gym which was used for exams etc. I can't remember doing any physical exercise in there. For double PE once, we had a nun instruct us to walk up and down the school avenue without bending our knees :rolleyes: And we had to wear skirts and tights and weren't allowed wear runners! (and this was the 2000's, not the 50's!) :rolleyes::rolleyes:
There was a basketball team in fairness, and I got on it because I was taller than everyone else. I just stood by the net and popped the ball in because I couldn't run :pac::pac:

I really wish there had been decent PE. Thank flip for farming or I wouldn't have had a physical outlet at all as a young one!

Daroxtar

Postman arrived today with a package . "Draft Animals" by Phil Gaimon. 20 pages in and it's a cracker. He's one funny fkr

magicbastarder

More in the 'at least they're not talking about us' change of focus to joggers.

https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/health-family/fitness/joggers-vs-walkers-as-a-runner-i-m-aware-of-everything-around-me-why-aren-t-walkers-1.4224053

I don't think I buy a lot of her argument. Joggers *should* be more vigilant than walkers.

cletus

magicbastarder wrote: »

bad experiences with PE in school can lead to people taking less exercise later in life.

http://eprints.mdx.ac.uk/22163/

That's interesting. As a PE teacher, I would say that anecdotally, those students I teach who do not do PE, would profess to have bad experiences of PE in school, or at least be of the opinion that they don't like PE. Most of these students are also sedentary in other areas of their life.

Perhaps a more accurate assessment would that people who don't like being physically active, dislike PE and have negative experiences (in their opinion), grow up as sedentary adults who remember disliking PE...all anecdotal and supposition of course

magicbastarder

my PE teacher was an asshole (late 80s/early 90s). he was quite old school with a bit of a drill instructor approach, not exactly a man to give positive feedback to the kids at the back of the pack.

reminiscent of eeeee's story, my mother's PE teacher was known to take the class into the concert hall where she was at school and get them to jump off the stage onto the parquet floor about three foot below, and land without bending their knees. we joke with her that that's the reason why she's about half an inch shy of five foot.

cletus

I could post an exhaustive list of the activities, sports and exercise we teach, along with the methodologies used, but I'm not going to bore anyone. Suffice to say, PE is a different animal now than it was when I was in school (I'm the best part of 40 now).

Despite that, we still have a sizeable number of students who have to be convinced every week to take part in class, because "PE is stupid, sir", or who pick and choose when they'll take part depending on the activity, or who don't take part at all.

Not unconnected, we run fitness assessments a couple of times a year with every class, usually group cardio testing. I have many students unable to get past, say, level 4.2 on the Beep test.

Level 4.2 when converted for age and sex to V02 max, would generally give a poor to very poor score

tomasrojo

magicbastarder wrote: »

my PE teacher was an asshole (late 80s/early 90s). he was quite old school with a bit of a drill instructor approach, not exactly a man to give positive feedback to the kids at the back of the pack.

Yes, from your description, he was even making you do goose steps! (I mean, walking without bending your knees.)

tomasrojo

I remember being admonished by a teacher in school for my lack of interest in sports, and yet I was reasonably fit at the time, and I've been fit ever since. It's been utility cycling all the time for me.

My school didn't do PE, and I really don't enjoy competitions, and I find physical activity in Ireland keeps getting turned into some sort of competition, or used to. Might be the case in all countries, I don't know. But in the Netherlands, for example, kids do seem to get a fair bit of exercise just getting to and from school.

magicbastarder

i was never any good at team sports, but certainly wasn't unfit - i didn't and don't have the co-ordination or physical reflexes for it, and have never been competitive in that way. but most PE and sport back then seemed to be based around competition. the bit i liked was when the rugby trainers decided to make life easy on themselves and tell us to do a lap of the school, which i liked much more than most others.

LollipopJimmy

Our PE was football against another class, class size of about 30 and one 11 v 11 match. So 22 out of the 60 got PE, well maybe 2 subs each too. The rest sat and watched.

RobertFoster

In my school the last few years of PE turned into a weekly indoor football match for the boys, while the girls got to try out different sports at the other end of the hall. I think it was just easier for the teachers as the football was fairly self regulated so didn't require much supervision.

The lack of choice was a bit boring week in week out but it was still a nice break from other subjects. The facilities bothered me more than the PE itself. Our schoolbags ended up in the showers more often than the students. For some reason the boys showers were communal (the girls had cubicles) so no one ever used them. If it wasn't for the copious amounts of Lynx Africa I'm sure the remaining classes after PE would've been quite funky.

eeeee

RobertFoster wrote: »

. For some reason the boys showers were communal (the girls had cubicles) so no one ever used them. If it wasn't for the copious amounts of Lynx Africa I'm sure the remaining classes after PE would've been quite funky.

Good jaysus :eek: :eek: :eek:

Pretty shyte they split the two, would they not just work as a whole class together? For the different sports and football?

magicbastarder

is it not reasonably common for the showers to have been differentiated like that?

reminds me of the time we were getting changed after swimming (we had a swimming pool, but not used between halloween and easter due to the cost of heating it); our P.E. teacher walked into the changing room when we were starkers and boomed out in his north of england accent 'MY WORD, **** ****Y, I NEVER REALISED YOU WERE SUCH A BIG LAD'.

talk about killing the atmosphere stone dead.

RobertFoster

eeeee wrote: »

Good jaysus :eek: :eek: :eek:

Pretty shyte they split the two, would they not just work as a whole class together? For the different sports and football?

I don't think it was a deliberate gender split, it just occurred naturally over time. The (vocal) popular boys wanted just-football and the popular girls wanted not-football. Everyone else followed along (including the teachers) or did what their friends were doing.

magicbastarder wrote: »

talk about killing the atmosphere stone dead.

Oof. Are those the sort of things the "political correctness gone mad!" people miss? Back in my day you could compliment a sixteen-year-old on the size of his penis, now you can't even go into a changing room without another supervising adult!

CramCycle

Our PE teacher was an "alleged" gun runner for the IRA. Gardai raided his place and the school gym. He was fired and then rehired after he wasn't found guilty. He was actually a really good gym teacher and nothing in his demenaour suggested he was a staunch republican/terrorist. He got us to try different sports, made everyone do the class and was generally a good teacher.

magicbastarder

cletus wrote: »

I could post an exhaustive list of the activities, sports and exercise we teach, along with the methodologies used, but I'm not going to bore anyone. Suffice to say, PE is a different animal now than it was when I was in school (I'm the best part of 40 now).

i guess one of the limitations of the time window available to you with each class is that it's hard to work with or cater for kids who might tend towards long distance or endurance sports? i'd have possibly been one of those kids (though i never excelled at anything physically), who as mentioned, was not suited to team sports and didn't (and don't) have the physique for most field athletics.

cletus

magicbastarder wrote: »

i guess one of the limitations of the time window available to you with each class is that it's hard to work with or cater for kids who might tend towards long distance or endurance sports? i'd have possibly been one of those kids (though i never excelled at anything physically), who as mentioned, was not suited to team sports and didn't (and don't) have the physique for most field athletics.

We do athletics, but PE also includes dance, gymnastics, orienteering, Health Related Activities (basically showing kids how to train properly).

We've had instructors in to teach yoga, self defence, Zumba and meditation.

It's a long way off throwing in a ball these days