Fighting to preserve Finedon Slabs for future generations. 

Whenever some scrotty tottering chosspile of an obscure Lancashire quarry is threatened by further quarrying, housing development, or simply the vegetation reaching such a level of luxuriance than it is no longer possible even to find the crag, Activist will be fighting to save it. His “Save Running Sore Quarry” thread will be universally ignored, but he will keep bumping it regardless since he knows, deep inside himself, that someone out there cares. Eventually, he will persuade like-minded Activists to form a working party and turn out, armed with machetes, helmets, body armour, flamethrowers and riot shields, to remove the excess vegetation, trundle the loose rock, and render Running Sore Quarry a safe and attractive place to climb. Having taken several casualties among the neck-high nettles, rampant brambles and the occasional escaped triffid, they will finally succeed in approaching the base of the crag where they will trundle the loose rock, removing most of the existing routes in the process, climb a new route on what holds remain and then return triumphant to the forum boasting of the progress so far and appealing for more volunteers to join in next weekend. This will be greeted with widespread apathy, which only confirms to the Activist that he is uniquely and praiseworthily dedicated in his desire to give up his spare time, sanity and quite possibly life to preserve this important and interesting venue for future generations of climbers. When he eventually gets squashed by a falling block, eaten by an escaped big cat or buried under the three million tons of landfill he is trying to divert, the forum will breathe a sigh of relief and quietly dispose of the “Save Running Sore Quarry” petition in the recycle bin.

The survivors of this process will end up running the BMC. Someone has to.

 U wot?

Txt-spk iz gr8! It’s qix 2 typ, it’s EZ 2 rED, it sAvz b&width & U don’t evN hav 2 b abL 2 spL. It mAkz U L%k kewl & modern jst lIk aL d hip & hapNn ppl, n fact it mAkz U L%k so modern dat U do aL yor communic8ing by txt msg & nevr actually TLK 2 anybody. It’s gr8 cuz othRwIz U wud L%k lIk U wrte lIk letRz on lIk papR lIk wot dey Usd 2 do bak n olden dAz. Bsidez, it shOz evry1 dat U’ve got a mob fone & dat’s imprtnt cuz not havN a mob wud b jst so utterly unkewl. hA, Y R U guys trEtN me lIk som sort of illiter8 LUG kid?!

No, I didn’t understand it either. Thank God.

My leg has just fallen off. Would glucosamine help? 

Health is important. This is, of course, why, in the event of illness or accident, many people would prefer to seek the advice of a group of strangers on the internet rather than do something so revolutionary as see a doctor. While the queue at the local casualty department may be so long that by the time you get to the head of it you will have either died or got better, an x-ray is still a better method of telling whether it was broken (as if having magically developed an extra knee was not a fairly obvious hint in itself) than asking someone who has never met the casualty or seen the injury and has no medical qualifications other than an auntie whose best friend was a midwife in the Great War. There is, however, the danger that a suitably qualified professional might suggest something totally unacceptable (such as “stop climbing and rest it for a few weeks”), and so a steady stream of the sickly and semi-crippled will continue to seek medical advice on the forum, where they will receive a bewildering variety of suggestions from leeches to magnets and feng shui and, of course, glucosamine. According to the forum, you can cure anything with glucosamine. Even death.

Just see a doctor. And while you’re waiting, here’s a garlic-and-horse-dropping poultice and some glucosamine.