Best thing we ever had (15 years ago) was an alu McLaren stroller…thing of an old style push chair from the 80’s
Fold up one handed, weighs nothing, easily handles any city/town situation. We got the cargo net for underneath the urchin seat and that was invaluable. I really don’t understand the expensive “system” buggys. A small light foldable push chair wins every time for me.

Reims is lovely. Needs some time to see. Heading south I can recommend Gaudriller champagne, we passed en route to the Charente region last year and it’s good champagne and sensibly priced. So many good caves in that area!

So many good pubs in Leeds:
North Bar
Crowd of Favours
Whitelocks
The Ship
Lamb and Flag
The Palace
Duck and Drake (music…acquired taste!)
The Pack Horse
The Angel

That’s less than half a mile of Leeds centre pubs and should see you drunk on nice beer and not stabbed or molested :-)

Audi and Volvo brakes need a 7mm one too. Never used a 7mm anywhere else though.

There are lots of options for conventional CCTV. At the moment I also have an unusual installation, which is a welcome addition and might be a cheap way to get you started.
Got an old iPhone? Then buy a bar mount waterproof case and install an app called “manything”. obviously you need to get power to the phone too, but for £3 a month I have live streaming, web recording and instant notifications to my actual phone if any movement is detected.

Hebdencyclist talks sense. There are some coasting schools and some where teaching is nearly impossible because the teachers spend more time sorting out disruptive pupils than teaching. Both my two urchins went to a “Good” local school, and I believe that provided the school can get a nationally average set of results, with a few kids getting stellar results then you can trust that the teaching (content) is there. I know some schools where less than 30% get 5A-C and where A and A* are virtually unheard of. Schools like this I would not send my children to, but your local comprehensive is probably better than you think. Look at the GCSE results and provided they get some kids to A and A* then trust that the teaching quality is good. It’s a hard job being a teacher and I am in awe of those that can take a class of 30 teach to each the content they need.

My preference would be for similar threads NOT to be closed down and just be allowed to run their course until energy is lost and another (similar perhaps) topic replaces it. These threads with 20 or more pages are more offputting to me than a similar sounding but fresher topic. At least if I click on something in the first 2-4 pages then chances are some aspect of the original question/statement/topic remain.
Obviously when folk double post an identical thread, or when its a PSA or dead celeb announcement where folk think they are the first to start a topic, but miss the one a few rows below then it makes sense to just have one thread, but for everything else I wish things would just be left to run their course. Not losing any sleep over this though!

Bought my daughter a Nikon D3300…£260 and a proper camera. The fact she then “stole” my 18-200 zoom is not significant! I am sure canon or Sony or Olympus or Pentax have an equivalent camera, but Nikon is the choice in our household.

Kimbers sums it up for me. Keeping your cards close is one thing, but she is turning into a series of vacuous sound bites like Gordon Brown did as PM. At least Blair, Clegg, Gove, David Miliband,Alan Johnson etc say something with conviction in a way that you know where they stand. May is not the woman our country needs right now. Good job we have an effective vibrant credible opposition….oh wait, poo!

andyfla: stonking knives, even more stonking prices. There’s a lovely bloke on this forum (forget his name, something like “smartskywalker”), does cracking knives for cracking prices. :-)
(Though the Blok punk knife is stunning!)

Onion pakora: pence to make a huge amount.

Amefa sell some great knives.

My favourite knife.

my go to every day knife.

Use it as a security webcam, download Manything.

Just devoured our M&S turkey. Didn’t check the date, but is smelt just fine, especially with the rosemary, garlic and stuffing added.

Santa had a large glass on Amarone in this house. Delivered early. Has anyone else noticed how Santa puts the best present at the bottom of the present pile?

Another fan of the Toro Loco Reserve at Aldi. Normally get the Argentine Malbec. Looking out for good deals on Amarone or Barollo.

Eloquently put. And no insinuation intended. Hope my **** remains unviolated.

Hope you can give some support, both financially and parentally. If your ex is on benefits then your kids will be classed as FSM/disadvantaged in the system. The educational outcomes for FSM kids is way behind those with more affluent and supportive parents. Relationship breakdowns are a mess, and the kids are always the losers. Hope you can buck the stats. :-)

Extensive travel around the world, and I can say that conductors are a thing of the past. OK they still have them on some trains in India (Hyderabad to Bhadrachalam overnight anyone?), but then this train also has a hole in the floor to poo through, so I think they are still holding onto Victorian ways of doing things.

I have the micra on two of my keyrings. Great scissors, rubbish knife, but I would replace in a second if I ever lost it.

I was in Sri Lanka six months before the Tsunami. I cried on boxing day knowing that so much of what I had just seen had gone. We went back again (family) in 2010 and hotels on the coast still had tide marks on the second floor where the water had hit them.

To be honest myti, this is not the best thing for sharpening blades on anything you want to be properly sharp. The contact area is small, so it’s hard to get an even edge. It’s brilliant for sharpening hoes, lawnmower blades or getting a rough edge on stuff, but I would never use it to sharpen a proper knife. Dremels are great for many other things where you need to grind or cut. This dremel comes with the quick click mandrel and two cutting discs.

If you have an old iPhone (who doesn’t) then check out an app called “Manything”. I am using it at the moment and the free version is pretty usable as realtime monitoring using an old phone as an IP camera. Also many NAS servers have IP camera software built in. There are also many stand alone systems. I have a slightly aged analogue Swann system with 4 cameras, but newer IP systems are what I would go for now.

If you look at the vendors, there is still an Amazon option for £47. It’s out of stock right now, but they will honour the price when the stock arrives (which in my experience of Amazon is pretty soon).

Pretty dreadful film.

Love my Makita impact drivers. I have a small 7.2v one and a bigger LXT 18V brushless thing. Much easier for putting screws into anything.

Love those baxter robots, and some great applications. I will have to Google how they keep safe in a collaborative environment.

Thanks Richmars. The ABB website is very interesting!

thanks wobbliscott. Main areas of interest are in mixed use robots. I have seen specific robots (mainly arms) used with great effect in end of line (palletisation, stacking etc). I have also seen (again not cutting edge) visual inspection camera systems where products are inspected in real time to track and eliminate defects.
I suspect that with increases in CPU processing power, and better cheaper camera systems (like the thing in a PS4 motion camera) that robots will be more easily configurable to picking, packing and forming materials. I am fairly familiar with CNC machines, and definitely consider them a robot, the ability to not just repeat a set of pre given instructions, but to use sensors and situational awareness to stop if unsafe, and adapt to different roles and have positive feedback of succsess of operation n before commencing step n+1.

Pure pick and place might be quite simple, but what if you want the same robot to do 150 different products and configurations and be easy to configure/teach for the 151st. I know camera systems are coming into self driving cars, has much been done in manufacturing environment to use these type of systems instead of light beams and pressure sensors for safety?

IA (and others). The kind of robotics I am interested in (I think) are automated pick and place, and robots that can either transport and move stuff or be easily configurable for a range of jobs that would have been done by hand previously. So info on ease of programming/adaptability. Sensor technology to allow safe integration without excessive guarding. Drive systems (motors,servos, stepper motors?) reliability and maintenance. General robots (and I think I am talking arms) that can be turned to a wide range of adaptable uses. Also interested in things like the cool robotic conveyor belt (that uses camera systems and 360 degree steering to move and sort products).

I am well aware of Moores law and Asimov’s rules. There was a robot in Battlestar???? I only noticed Wilma!!! But really what I want is to know about is what kind of kit is likely to transform 1st world manufacturing in the next 5-15 years. Deployment of robots in a mixed human/robotic environment etc.

Facom are the best I have had. There is a Bahco set on Amazon for about £12 that is very good too, I have two of those sets!
I have tried Wera and Bondhus, but the tools I have had from them have not been as good as I expected.

I work in procurement, in fact something I bought is in millions of homes in the UK right now. Not all procurement is the same. My advice would be to go down the technical procurement route. Niche knowledge of a group of products and the supply chains and suppliers of that can (and in my case is!) very rewarding. I get an input into the creative element as the suppliers I choose and the materials that are affordable are ultimately governed by me.
Buying for a big retailer is soul destroying as all you have to do is buy something designed by someone else and then stand firm on the price. Also don’t mix up procurement with purchase admin. There is a big difference between ringing round finding the cheapest widget from a series of catalogues and working with great suppliers to design and commission a widget from scratch!

I was only 12 at the time. From what I have read since it looks like the NUM vs GOV was a battle that was inevitable. The unions in the 70’s were too strong and too militant. Thatcher felt she had to take them on. Orgreave was just the miners strike equivalent of Goose Green.

Drat…half price sale on middle tool chests PLUS 10% now mean I have to collect a black industrial and a red professional chest tomorrow!! £134 for the pair. These PSA’s can be expensive.

Thanks all

PAYG sim for phone and maybe a THREE £30 12 month 12GB data sim and WIFI thing for data heavy days?

Hammerite rust cure. Looks like milk, but turns rust into a hard black surface that is well protected from further rust. I have used it for years and even if you use other coatings on top, this reacts with the rust and turns it into a protective hard layer that is durable.

UK tourism will probably be one of the few beneficiaries of this clusterfook.
We were in France this summer and talking to tourist spots in places like Reims and St Emillion they were saying the USA tourists were just staying away France and Europe in general. The attacks in Paris and not realising that Europe is not on the doorstep of Syria quite in the way they imagine.
I think the UK is seen as safer than the rest of Europe (probably for valid reasons).