Heh. Your comment has been noted.
There was an army cadet base just up the road from my (convent) school.
Many of the poor, uniformed lads were preparing to be posted to northern Ireland, and before they went we figured they should get to know some catholics.
Well I say 'we', but I was mostly doing that Liz Jones hair-flicking thing in the background (which I didn't have the right kind of hair for) and praying that I wouldn't have to speak.

I'm not even going to go into the getting to know part there

_________________
There never was a golden age Mike, it's all an illusion

The Third Doctor Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974)

Thinking back to a couple of trips out that way, the unfortunate outsiders are usually US Airforce personnel or contractors building Sizewell B (or is it C now).

Now it's apparently cheap-hire Poles and Lithuanians working the land and home-brewing. Plus our friends at Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Driving back from Norfolk one sunny afternoon I accidently took a road onto the Fens. It took half an hour to get back onto the main road and I have never been so frightened while driving. I'm sure the sun didn't go in, it vanished.

My Mum grew up in Spalding, Lincolnshire. My (Irish) dad used to recall his reaction the first time he was taken home to meet her folks as, "Flat boring countryside full of flat boring people".

My Mum seems to have had quite a nice time with outsiders as a schoolgirl (in the form of aircrew) during the war. I've heard stories about one Pole, a couple of New Zealanders and a Canadian. It seems it was anyone but a local, presumably part of the attraction was the prospect of escape far, far away from Spalding.

_________________
That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

At the risk of sounding like the Four Yorkshiremen, in the town where I went to school, people aspired to live in Spalding (or Norwich. But not Peterborough). However (at the risk of returning this thread to the topic at hand), there's the problem for the planners. Who in their right mind would want to be young in Spalding? What would they do for a living? Why wouldn't they just get pregnant for a council house, or drink and smash things up every weekend?

I like how this has become a hating on East Anglia thread. There's one thing I'll say in defence of the place: cross-country wasn't too hard. I still walked most of the way, of course, but that was because I had attitude.

I used to be in the cross country team. Our home course in Gloucs was bad enough, but Malvern College's course was even worse.

Great Malvern itself is dementedly hilly. One of the main streets is like the South Face of the Eiger.

I worked for a couple of years in Northampton and one of my colleagues was from Peterborough. One of the favourite staffroom games was to refer to her as a Fenny and then sit back and enjoy her indignant rage for the next hour or so.

Once, on a hot day, she kicked her shoes off so we all pointedly stared at her feet. She twigged after a bit, "You bastards are checking to see if they're webbed aren't you?"

_________________
That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

I went mountain biking there the other week, winch up a cliff face for half an hour, barrel back down the other side in 20 seconds,winch up the next cliff face for half an hour......

_________________
The upper hand is on the other foot now.

I hope you did a risk assessment, wore hi-viz, coned off the area and carried out community consultation to ensure a Muslim wasn't offended

_________________
Soppy anti-British, pro-crime, anti-education, pro-immigration, anti-family nonentity

The silly thing is, the bike forum I go on has plenty of people who believe all the "health and safety means you can't do X" stories, despite the fact that most trail centres are on goverment/Forestry Commision land and are free to use, with only a "This trail is recommended for:...." guidance sign at the start, no compulsory helmets/body armour, no risk assessments, the trails are being made progressively more difficult, more rocks, more drops, faster, more fun , in line with more capable bikes.

So they spend all weekend doing stuff like this (skip to 2mins)and then moan about not being allowed to do anything interesting

_________________
The upper hand is on the other foot now.

My grandparents are from Holbeach, Lincs.

I know...

_________________
MY COMMENTS ARE FROM THE HORSES MOUTH AND ARE ALL FACTS

Christ. Those "bridge" bits were a bit narrrow, weren't they?

Do people who do that kind of thing invariably like heavy metal?

Also, surprised to see no tarmac road has been built up the mountain, as at Snowdon.

1. That's all part of the fun That vid is of the World Championship Downhill course, so pretty damn tricky on the scale of things, but there's a fair amount of stuff like that about:
again, either built by the FC themselves, or built by a volunteer group with their support.

2. I think the amount of 'respectable' middle aged blokes doing it is quite suprising, probably explainable by just how expensive it can get. There probably is a 'rocky' side to a lot of MTBers, but it's certainly not as definable as skate culture appears to be. It seems to be a fun escape from the 9-5 drag for a lot of people, rather than something that defines how you dress, what music you listen to etc.

3. Well, that was all blown out of proportion wasn't it At fort bill I think they use the ski lift anyway, so no need for a road!

_________________
The upper hand is on the other foot now.