My Forum

N'thing getting the proper tick removal tool and keeping it with your first aid kit.

 I spent many years thinking the tweezers on my swiss army knife would do the job if I ever got a tick on me. Then I did, and discovered they were useless - just won't get hold of them the right way - exactly the wrong thing to use.

Gotta be a good candidate for inclusion on the next generation of SAKs - are you listening Victorinox!!

You asked for online retailers.

These guys advertise quite widely in the cycling press. Seem quite good value & a big choice of frames and lenses. I've been thinking of investing in a pair for cycling.

>>> I want a rucksack that puts the weight mainly on the hips instead of the shoulders.

If that's top priority for you,  I think that does rule out the Jiri. You're going to need  something with some sort of a frame, which the Jiri doesn't have. There is no stiffness in it at all.  With careful packing it's true that you can get a lot of the weight onto your hips, but it's always going to be a bit dependent on what you're carrying, and the hip belt really isn't designed to support a lot of weight.

 I love mine. Use it for fairly minimal backpacking and can get a weekend's worth of gear in/on it.

Hi George

 Can't answer your questions, but try emailing their distributors at 'info@betaclimbingdesigns.com'. They were really helpful when I was buying a Jirishanca a couple of years ago.

 Ian

Mr. Carder wrote (see)

 We rarely, if ever, include all those millions of German dead in our commemorations do we? They were gulled too after all. 

You're right.

I visited the German military cemetery at Langemark, Belgium when I was staying in Ypres.

The Belgians, understandably, were not willing to give the defeated Germans large areas of their country to bury their dead after the war, but there is this one, very large, cemetery the far side of Passendale where countless numbers of Germans, victims of the war around Ypres, are buried in mass graves.

I found the place as full of poppy wreaths (OUR symbol of remembrance) as any British war cemetery. Reading the inscriptions on them, it was clear that Langemark is on the itinerary of many British school trips to the Western front, and receives numerous other British visitors.

 There was nothing  vaunting or celebratory about any of the inscriptions. Brits seem to visit this cemetery in the same mood that they visit their own side's cemeteries - as, I suppose, I had, so I don't know why this really surprised me.

I found this hopeful.