Cycling UK Forum

For me it's got to be the greatest philosophical mind and political economist ever to be born in these Isles, Adam Smith. Adam Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher, pioneer of political economy, and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Like all great philosophical thinkers, his ideas have been...

Or maybe: John Loudon McAdam (was a Scottish engineer and road-builder. He invented a new process, "macadamisation", for building roads with a smooth hard surface, using controlled materials of mixed particle size and predetermined structure, that would be more durable and less muddy than ...

Hi 53, Didn't need the family history of JLB, I wasn't disputing the location of his birth! No, just the claim that he invented television. I think a read of the book called "Eureka", by Edward De Bono, that would set things straight. A bit like the pneumatic tyre history, common falacy t...

Ah, you're thinking of Dunlop, that he was the bloke who first patented the pneumatic tyre...? I'm afraid it was another Scotsman beat him to it: Dunlop then put pneumatics on both rear wheels of the tricycle. That too rolled better, and Dunlop moved on to larger tyres for a bicycle "with even ...

Hi there, Can someone please explain to me who the Scotsman was that invented television? If one is referring to John Logie Baird then I say Poppycock! His concept of television was nothing remotely like what the first working system was. His "Electrically Heated Socks" worked though :lol...

I cycled on Rhodes a few years back when they were having a particularly hot summer. We were in the north of the island where it was 51C, cycling to the south it peaked at 55C but we had a lovely strong sea breeze to cool us. Even so, if you stopped for 30 seconds it was oven like and the only optio...

Now that all the hoohah is over and we face the high wall of mind-numbing complexity, that may or may not take us out of Europe (nothing is certain in this fluid period we dumbs ourselves) what's your favourite song for Brexit? Here's one, the Remain supporter Theresa May is probably considering eve...

It's true that CO2 has had fluctuations and variations over the eons, and well recorded in ice sampling, but it's rate of change that's completely unprecedented. Basically we're seeing a similar rate of change that would have take c. 5000 years to occur, in less than 100 years. That's not something ...

+1 The English do seem to have an inordinate amount of racial insults to hurl at the Scottish, (much like the Eskimos have for snow) but my wife is currently racking her brains to think of similar Scots /English. Perhaps the Scots are more circumspect about who they insult? Mind you, the Scots have ...

Except it will be long term economic grief.. "Corbyn calls it austerity, we call it living within your means!" <moderated> Al That's the second time you've used your 'Sporran' joke. I think once was more than enough. My wife's Scottish and she's had it up to 'here' with Jock, Porridge hea...

What stone the rUK can use to bash them with next time round (and there WILL be a next time) is beyond my ken. Fool them once... It's an SNP MP saying Scottish public assets would be required to finance a currency and that the deficit would need tax rises or spending cuts. It isn't bashing it's sta...

In what way have these two (non terrorist attacks, no one terror group admitted nor was ascribed responsibility) made anyone change the way they act? They are simply the result of persons with extreme mental illness lashing out at unfortunate and tragic victims. Tanveer Ahmed attacked and killed th...

It works both ways. Last time the SNP made some fantasy economic projections based on the high price of oil amongst other things. Two years on and Scotland had a deficit of 14.9Bn in 2015, per capita twice that of the UK. Meanwhile in The Herald today George Kerovan, part of an SNP group looking at...

Vorpal wrote:I'm really looking forward to the UK taking control of it's unitary systems again and reverting to fahrenheit and shillings.

Oh for a return to the days of cubits and perches.

As Jack Taylor was once quoted saying 'I don't like progress'!

Going back to Nice - TV showed a copy of the attacker's residence permit, so doesn't that mean he was a non-EU national who passed whatever checks to live in France? As France and the UK currently have broadly harmonised visa processes, is there any reason to suspect he wouldn't have been about as ...