Albear

A sad day, just got home from my 81yo dad's partners funeral in Barnsley and I'm nearly as sad to hear Richard is going. He has done the most fantastic job when you consider the age at which he started this site off and the incredible maturity he has shown. I have come and gone a few times but have never had anything but the utmost respect for his efforts to stay fair. Time for Albear to bite the dust too. Goodbye Richard my very best wishes to you and your good lady.

I'll second that!

My word what lovely pigeons, I don't like chocolates but would love to have the first two in my stock loft.

Hiya not sure I understand what you are saying Sue. But there are malicious bits of software that can hijack your address book and send e mails without you knowing? If this is appropriate put an address in your address book of aaaaaaaaaaa@noreply.aa It will be the first entry in your mail book and because it is an invalid address, will scupper the program from cycling through the rest of your addresses. If I got it wrong, sorry.

Yes, thanks

A fantastic opportunity, prices would be way out of my range but well worth a visit just to put my glass on some fantstic birds I've no doubt, hope i can get over the bridge

Hope Rose intends flying again, she'd be an asset to any club

Now your getting my blood pressure up!

Andy you need to get the black ones out, mine are on standby http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8376053.stm

Enjoy and all the very best for your racing to your new loft, exciting times!

That's not an issue but he should dress up and put his wellies on when he's active

Yes I would agree I've asked for 18mm on standard. Having said that most of the lower end are 12mm ( I think :-/)

Good to know

Hi anyone heard from Rose of late, is she OK see she has not been on a while??

If you can afford them I would agree 100%, I couldn't! So I went to his recomendation ecco!

Have you finished paying for it yet, I didn't fancy taking a mortgage out!

I'm jealous, hope you got your wellies on Andy

I've had ecco and Barnsley in the past, both good lofts but Barnsley has priced itself out of the market for me. I've done quite a bit of research lately and come to the conclusion that Blake's is at the bottom end of the scale, ecco is much better, however it depnds on budget, if you can afford the ecoo loft dearer I think than Blakes but cheaper than the 'premier' loft suppliers, I would go with ecco lofts. I will also tell you that I spoke to one of the dearer suppliers who is well respected, he reccomended ecco lofts as the only supplier he would go to at the lower end of the market. Just my opinion but genuine I have nothing to gain from it. Check ecco loft's spec on their website and ask the others for their spec's.

The debate about early lib throws up some interesting views a) Perception is often not reality as Glen cameron shows it was not possible to lib early but Walter insists he would, don't get it, when the facts are clear how can you contradict them? Early libs happened in an age gone by but the world is such a different place . The race control team are under so much more pressure . Back in the 70's & 80's when technoligy was not what it is now, you could liberate poorly and be scrutinised and still get away with it, not today anyone can get as much information as the liberating team and easily find if they've made a horlicks of it. The environment is so different, weather patterns , fronts and global warming has changed early morning weather, we have mobile phone amsts, radio waves of incredible intensity and you don't in my opinion have the quality birds or perhaps I'll rephrase the homers of years ago, now you have fast pigeons up to 550 miles and if you look at the Dutch at Barcelona they have birds doing 12/1300 at 750+ miles. It all adds up to a nightmare for a conscientious controller who wants to get it right as best for everyone, I thought what a contradiction, Walter is saying he's got the balls to let them go at 4, 'cause he believes in it and he ain't bothered about those that won't be happy with a snorter/smash is that fair? and in the next breath wants fair play for all {mid day lib]. Somehow the two statements don't tie in, perhaps Walter will explain if I'm misinterpreting him. c) Mid day lib this is a real problem for the NFC too with its length of membership, someone was saying they thought that the birds would be fesher getting up next morning by having a late lib? Not sure this is right if you had a 1pm lib the birds would still have the posibility of 9hrs on the wing and then have to roost for the night and stiffen up, are they really fresh next morning, perhps fresher for sure. So what's th choice early as possible with the chance of many day birds or mid day making it a 2 day race. And if you make it a two day race many will say the advantage is with the longer fancier whose birds always fly 2 days anyway and are more likley from experience to crack off earlier than others. I agree with Walter the earlier the better, look at Tarbes this year Denney had one at 700+ at 10pm on the day what a fantastic acheivement. But whereas I agree with Walter, I go back to the point above, decision making is so much more difficult today, cause make no mistake about it, if the controllers go early and make the wrong decision, there are very few that wouldn't be calling for blood! I 'm a coward I ain't got the guts to do it and I take my hat off to every single one who does cause you'll always be on a hiding! Best distance men , Paul Woolis, Mick Mcgrevy, Chri Gordon, Impett, Alan Parker, Hinchcliffe of Glossop, Geoff Cooper, Jimmy Shepherd, Deacon, Terry Johnson, the father & son partnership in Kent who have ben phenominal, the Buddles , Joe Raeburn, the list is endless , would be interested in a league table based on co eficients, does anyone think that would highlight the best ?

Two 600 milers terrific, wish we had them in our program, but when you live way down south, that's the problem, mind youdevon's beautiful place to live but the most difficult I've had to fly to and I've flown north rd to S Wales and south road to Yorkshire, neither with distinction may I add)!

Tony who is it?

Hi Gareth, now that is a top top program and I take my hat off to you, that is I would say the best national distance program in the UK having said that if you fly the NFC to the North of England you have similar distances I would think, the BICC has similar capability but is much more an 'elite' club in my opinion, are those Fraserburgh distances or yours?

Aye but do you want sterile threads? Ths in imo has developed into a very interesting thread, with some great debate.

The top men in the North for me when I started up were Ritchie & Whyte and Walter Masson. Perception is a funny thing. I would suggest that you are right that there are other top menequaklly as good as Donaldson but being human we build a mystique around them. I believe this has grown up through the way modern journalism has developed. Journalists today tend to 'create' the stories rather than the stories develop, we are more interested in 'celebrity'. This happened in the pigeon game the man who exploited this was Lycett and also Bigwood who were great friends (don't know whether as a result of commercialisation or knew each other before they became commercial). So there are lots of claims about long distance flying in to the ene of Scotland (and I think an incredibly tough area to fly into) BUT can someone please spell out the distances to fly to Fraserburgh say from the four SNFC races this past year. And who are the top men besides Donaldson at the distance, that stops speculation.

Jimmy what I was thinking of was completley different came back to me Helicobacter pylori... they usedto have ops to close up the 'holes' in the stoach lining of ulcers my dad had some nasty ones , he had duldena ('breeding ones'), however some brilliant oz docs found that the route cause was a bacteria (as above) and they found prescribing anti biotics didn't work, until they gave two different types of anti biotic and bingo!! Ulcer treatment is now completley different