John in Leeds

Been looking forward to this for a long time

For our friends across the 'pond' From the Flat Track mob A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray-Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, 'If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?' Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, 'Sure,Why not?' The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra high resolution photo. The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany. Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. Finally, he prints out a full color, 150 page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP Laser-Jet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, 'You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.' 'That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,' says Bud. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on amused as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. Then Bud says to the young man, 'Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?' The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, 'Okay, why not?' 'You're a Congressman for the US Government,' says Bud. 'Wow! That's correct,' says the yuppie, 'but how did you guess that?' 'No guessing required,' answered the cowboy. 'You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows... This is a herd of sheep. Now give me back my dog.

You may find this useful Speed Cameras Thought you might be interested to know that following the UK Government's freedom of information act you can now get access to ALL speed camera offences registered in the last 12 months. Did you know that every time your car goes past a speed camera,even 1mph over the set limit, it is registered and put on a database? You only get a ticket if you are way over the limit or, (this is the bit that I didn't know) if you receive over 10 near misses, you will be classed as a serial offender and get a ticket the next time you go just over the limit. This is why you hear of people being done for 34mph in a 30mph limit area, whilst others doing 39 do not. You can check what has been registered against your vehicle at the following web address: http://www.i-database.co.uk You will be asked for a password, but just click on the need a Password link and you will be given one for future use. Or just enter your car registration. If there is any data on your vehicle you can click on the camera window to see a copy of the photograph. Hope it's useful. BTW JRT you might want to transfer this to the Joke Thread (beat ya to it Keith )

More Yorkshire ramblings Two London businessmen were sitting down for a break in their soon-to-be new store. As yet, the store wasn't ready, with only a few shelves set up. One said to the other, "I bet any minute now some thick tourist is going to walk by, put his face to the window and ask what we're selling." No sooner were the words out of his mouth when, sure enough, a curious Yorkshireman walked to the window, had a peek, and in a broad Yorkshire accent asked "What's tha sellin' ere?" One of the men replied sarcastically, "We're selling arse-holes." Without skipping a beat, the Yorkshireman said, "Tha's doing well ... Only two left!" The moral for Southerners - Don't mess with Yorkshiremen!

Me too - really took me back, thanks. Mr Eastwood just would not let go of the throttle

Oooh Matron! JRT send the sprog out until you finish reading - oops, too late

I certainly get the point of that Hooligan!

Just because others do not clean their houses and service their equipment doesn't mean that I /we shouldn't. It is the right thing to do. Consume less of limited resources and think about the legacy for our children. And Greg is absolutely right echoing, we should be looking at how we adapt to the possibility of climate change.

I remember Pride and Clarke having loads of those Panther outfits for sale new, it seemed they were relatively cheap at the time. What a piss off, spares rotting away - equivalent to putting the torch through those E-type chrome wire wheels in the '70s The Ner-a-car, didn't that have hub centre steering?

Get your gigs on Helen! I've seen you and you would have to have at least another 30 years of professional tripe pie eating and the same time with your head in the ferret fighting bag before you could aspire to the loveliness of our Nora

Well you can't take with you ( we both know that )

Hobbits they 'aint. Seem to see a few Shrek look alikes about though - plenty of big rough types. They tell me blokes can be even bigger. I think Ogri from Bike magazine was probably a good example

I wonder if they knew it was a Yorkshire outfit - the Cleckheaton Panther a real Thumper Anyone know of any other Yorkshire bikes beside the howling Scott?

We don't do that sort of thing round 'ere - Yorkshire Lasses see to that

Just to upset a few folks but I am a born Southerner NORTHERNERS Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days. Eventually, Archangel Michael found him on the seventh day resting. He enquired of God, 'Where have you been?' God pointed downwards through the clouds. Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, 'What is it?' 'It's a planet,' replied God, 'and I've put LIFE on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance.' 'Balance?' inquired Michael, still confused. God explained, pointing down to different parts of the Earth. 'For example, North America will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while South America is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot, and Russia will be a cold spot. Over there I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people.' God continued, pointing to the different countries. This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.' The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to another area of land and asked, 'What's that?' 'Ah,' said God. That's the North of England, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful people, seven Premiership football teams in the North West alone, and many impressive cities; it is the home of the world's finest artists, musicians, writers, thinkers, explorers and politicians. The people from the North of England are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they're going to be found travelling the world. They'll be extremely sociable, hard-working and high-achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as speakers of truth.' Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, 'What about balance God, you said there will be BALANCE!' God replied very wisely, 'Wait till you see the bunch of tossers I'm putting down South!

Yorkshire You might wonder at the disproportionate representation of people from Yorkshire on this forum, I think Yorkshire folk link well with this group of Guzzi riding forum members. Yorkshire people are known for their forthright manner, 'tell you how it is' way of speaking. They are tough, independent and resourceful yet will stand shoulder to shoulder with their community in a just cause. Supporters of sport, football (soccer), cricket and rugby (league and union), they are enduring in their loyalty as teams rise and fall over the years. Tradition is important even to food with pie and peas, fish and chips and the appreciation of good beer (although curry is coming up well). That's just the women, the men have all these qualities but more so. So you would think that after 45 years of living in Yorkshire, playing rugby for my school in York, working the land in North and East Ridings, forging steel in the Aire valley, running gangs of men building pipelines and motorways in the West Riding, sewers and a dam in South Yorkshire, worked with the hooligans in the inner city of Leeds I would now be a Yorkshireman. No chance! I open my mouth and they say 'you're not from round here are you' then sympathetically follow it with 'well you don't do bad for one of those southern softies', praise indeed. Please have a look at this sideways view of people from God's country. Fly Yorkshire Airlines

He knows everything this guy - he even mentioned 'snake oil' It also shows how valuable a good teacher is

Shamelessly taken from the Flat track forum - thank Kevin Take a chance

Any moderators out there - wait for hours then 3 come along at once

I think he's following you around Pete - Sickum!

Yeh, but think of the POWER

I'd do it just for the power However, it wouldn't really be a forum with just me left on it would it?

It's a redneck sledge - wait till the snow comes. This guy will own the runs

Asking questions of a government assumes your government will listen (two million people on the streets of London demonstrating their will to prevent war before the start of the Iraq invasion). Fat chance I get the feeling that modern governments (or should I say the people in control) really benefit from the fear generated by crime, unemployment, so called terrorism or conflict. The continual vapourware initiatives keep people thinking that solutions are afoot yet our wealth and freedoms are squandered. Keep people ignorant, scared and confused - they then do not seriously question, will fight for that rubbish job and will greatfully eat or consume anything that is put in front of them. Woe, Woe and thrice Woe What a miserable sod Sorry, I mean Whoo Hoo it's snowing, I'm going to get the sledge out and there's more to come tonight

I've saved the last 3 pages in case they get pulled. Lots in here to get my head around when I sort out 'the my facts your opinion' smoke in the middle from the information. Thanks to all