Just had the price cap email from Shell – the estimated bill has gone up by another £920 a year. Oof!

If the trv is on the floor the radiator will be as well. There are 2 potential issues:

1. No access under the rad to clean it
2. If the rad is touching the floor it may rust due to standing in water

I wrap a carrier bag round the lock bar of my New York lock – combined with an occasional squirt of GT85 it seems to avoid the rust / jamming issues that come from leaving a lock outdoors all year round

The “place of work” will usually be defined in the employment contract – so go from that not what happens in practice.

Also worth mentioning that sometimes it’s easier just to claim back the mileage on HMRC self assessment at the end of the year – just submit a file showing dates, to/from, vehicle registration and mileage. In some cases the HMRC rates will actually be higher than the amount reimbursed by the employer.

“I think the most severe and targeted seizure sanctions against privately-held Russian assets in Europe is the only possible recourse that our governments have at this point. “

There are plenty of other tools in the box but it’s worth mentioning that the issue or oligarch cash isn’t unique to the Uk – it’s an issue in France, Germany and Spain as well.

The other measures we could deploy include:

– terminating the access of Russian banks to the swift / international payments network (which would pretty much guarantee the collapse of the Russian economy)
– legislating to prevent western companies from trading with Russian legal entities either in Russia or the new “independent states”
– travel bans
– refusal to allow inbound flights from Russian points of departure – although Russia would reciprocate by refusing access to their airspace for international flights.

“Definitely well planned. How would you know what is in that tatty shipping container“

Customs declaration form or access to something like Shippeo showing real time freight visibility – or the transport management system used to book the overland freight

If there’s property to be sold a court may be willing to put a legal charge on the property to prevent it being sold without the money owed to the OP being paid as part of the sale. A good solicitor should be able to advise on this.

I’ve got one of their stretch waterproof jackets and it’s been great. Also have a fohn insulated Parka jacket and the quality on that is more suited to a jacket £1-200 more expensive.

Awesome – thanks Chrishc

People have short memories. In 2008 at the height of the Georgia crisis, the Russians / General Lavrov were similarly denigrating to David Milliband – telling “who the F are you to lecture us”

The only consistent thing is Russia’s attitude to Britain – irrespective of the political party in government.

Edit – managed to find something that references this:

Russian minister: ‘Who are you to f****** lecture me?’

Chrishc – what would be your top 5 pub recommendations on the island? For food / family visit rather than a good old booze up..?

Thanks in advance.

The type 22 will probably be deeper with the valve holes further away from the wall. If the pipe work comes up from the floor that means bending it to the new position and / or lowering the rad slightly to enable that.

I’m quite happy bodging things (look on YouTube first for how to do it) but I’d be a bit reluctant to give radiators a go without the system drained first.

I’ve only watched part of then first one but even the opening scene isn’t Reacher- he’s walking along with his boots undone and one trouser leg half way up his leg like a rapper.

The actor is:

– too young
– too good looking
– too perfect – no scars etc
– too big – gym / protein shake “big” not “army” / street fighting big
– too metrosexual – I half expected him to pull out some organic hemp & chia seed hand moisturiser while he was waiting for the peach pie

It went downhill from there but I’m sure will be good entertainment for anyone who hasn’t read the books and the majority of people that are less grumpy than me today :-)

Buy / borrow a microwave and an air fryer – the combination of the two is low faff and enables good healthy meals to be prepared even when there’s no “kitchen”.

I did dry January and it’s morphed into dry until Easter, possibly longer.

I haven’t had any issues cutting it out but need to lose some weight so it seemed like a good move.

My sampling of non—Alc and low-Alc beers and spirits has been pretty extensive though – I’m quite happy with the following:

Tanqueray non-Alc gin
Sol non-Alc lager
Lucky Saint low-Alc lager
Drop Bear Yuzu Pale Ale low-Alc beer
Drop Bear Tripical IPA low-Alc beer
Tiny Rebel Tropical IPA low-Alc beer

One of the posts above is a good call – when you’re on the booze alternate every drink with a soft drink or low alc alternative.

Isn’t one of the reasons for the upswing in Op income due to Shimano’s main Malaysia factory returning to full capacity after covid controls limited the workforce size to 60% of usual headcount?

The video seems to show the tyres weren’t punctured.

The yoofs also claimed there was no room to park it outside of the Farmer’s property yet in the video there’s clearly enough room outside of the gate for it to be dumped.

A lot of rural communities are blighted by these sort of yoofs so the farmer gets my vote. Had he not tipped the car over it’s reasonable to assume the yoofs would have driven it 52 miles whilst absolutely leathered.

My place is pretty old and split over 3 floors – our family is young kids and pets. I’ve insulated the ground floor and 1st floor voids but can’t get to much of the 2nd floor loft space because the struts are too close together to crawl through. I’ve also fitted smart catches to the windows so when the family open the windows the heating cuts out automatically.

I’ve tweaked quite a bit of our elec and gas usage over the last few years including the obvious stuff:

– radiators off on the floors / rooms not used in the day
– max temp of 19 for a few hours in the evening but other than that 18 in the daytime and 15 overnight
– turned down the flow on hot water taps and dialled hot water back to 15 mins a day on the timer
– installed smart timers to turn off some devices overnight / when we’re out

Winter has been a tiny bit cold at times but I’ve worn extra thick socks and an extra layer of jumpers. It’s not been too bad even working at a desk for long periods – having a hot meal for lunch definitely helps.

Our current energy use is about £5 a day including the standing charge – with a 2/3 split of elec to gas.

Based on what some neighbours / friends say, we use about 1/3 of similar families but even though it’s pretty easy to dial back usage many folk just can’t be bothered.

That said, for people renting in uninsulated homes or old folk who are infirm / can’t go out the latest rises are brutal – so it’s good to see some offsets in place through council tax etc.

Based on friends in far flung places the huge inflation of gas prices seems to have hit everyone – it’s a tragedy that the UK’s politicians and energy regulator failed to plan for this scenario for the last 20 years – and let it be compounded by allowing uk production of nuclear / gas to fall before reliable alternatives were in place.

The quote above / Radio 4 commentary is probably untrue.

The corporation tax next year is 25% for profits on UK subsidiaries – in Ireland it’s 12.5%

Most of the driver behind Shell moving to the UK was about removal of dual share classes / listings and a move to the London market where trading volumes are higher.

Shell will likely pay more tax in the Uk than if they had retained a dual Dutch / uk listing.

I’d also disagree that “ we wont be part of the developed world much longer” on the basis that the economy has now returned to pre-covid size.

The Uk is now attracting record inward investment and has a disproportionate share of tech unicorns that will ultimately drive further economic growth. We actually have more tech unicorns than France and Germany combined.

“ Meanwhile Shell announce record profits and dividends”

… on which they will pay record corporation tax and shareholders will pay record dividend tax.

Also worth mentioning that when Shell dived to a $20b loss and implemented a huge headcount reduction programme in 2019/20 that no-one was calling for a bailout.

“Really the answer is a wealth component to annual income tax ”

wbo – but that’s what we have:

– receive rent from a property -> pay tax at the marginal rate irrespective of any costs incurred – even if that means you pay tax and insure a massive loss
– make a capital gain from shares / property -> pay tax at the marginal rate
– receive a dividend -> pay tax at the marginal rate based on other earnings
– receive pay -> pay tax per income thresholds
– earn over £12.5K -> pay 20% tax
– earn over £37k -> pay 40% tax
– earn over £65K -> lose entitlement to child benefit etc
– earn over £100K – > lose entitlement to state funded childcare and your personal allowance as well
– earn over £150K -> pay 45% tax

What other “wealth component” do you have in mind?

The problem is supply and demand.

The population has been growing by 400-600k ish people a year since the early 2000s but even record house building volumes have failed to keep pace with that.

People rightly expect local controls on what can be built, and in many areas protest against tall buildings where the density of new dwellings is higher.

Unless we’re willing to limit the growth in population size to allow house building to “catch up” or accept less control on what can be built / where it’s built the house price inflation will remain.

There’s also the issue of people’s willingness (or lack of it) to move to new areas where housing can be a lot more affordable. In many cases even moving 5 miles can make a massive difference to affordability.

op – hop over to broadband genie and sign up for shell broadband. With the vouchers on offer it works out around £13 a month for 18 months – for the 67Mb speed package.

Also – there’s no tethering limit in contracts now – ofcom blocked it. 3 uk doesn’t have a fair usage policy either so if you want to download 3 terrabytes of cat videos a month you’re free to do that.

Mid way through the first pandemic wave I concluded that the fatties would soon be chasing sausage rolls and booze to make up for lost time.

I bought as much Greggs and Diageo as I could from my SIPP and both massively outperformed any of the managed funds – £12 to £33 for beige food and £24 to £42 for booze. I sold both and then bought Fundsmith when it dropped by 10%.

Unfortunately because it’s locked in a SIPP I can’t waste it on stuff I don’t need 😂

Rotate it slowly in a bath of water to see where the air is leaking out. If the rims are alloy, it could be the pinning on the rims.

iOS doesn’t do what most people think on 5g.

iPhones will show the “5G” icon when the connected cell site has 5G or other local cell sites have it. It simply means 5G is available.

All of the Uk networks have rolled out 5G in an NSA / Non Stand Alone mode – which means devices remain connected to 4g for the purposes of negotiating how to transfer data.

For data transfer, network configuration will determine whether the data bearer is 4g/5G – so the phone may well actually be using 4g but still show 5g. 4g can now achieve speeds of 600Mbps and above on 3 and EE so a fast download and 5G icon may still be a 4g connection underneath.

At some point this year, uk networks may rollout SA / stand-alone mode for 5G – which will enable devices to connect directly to 4G first. Vodafone reportedly have a couple of cell sites operating that way for test purposes and I’m sure 3 / EE will be doing the same.

Johndoh above is correct – the uk is 31st “worst” in the world on deaths per million population.

A couple of other things to throw into the mix:

– the uk covid death rate records deaths where covid is given as a main cause of death
– the death rate has been over recorded by around 25% according to the ONS fieldwork I.e. the real uk death rate is around 40-50th worst
– the uk has very good systems for death recording – which is not the case in many countries – again pointing to the UK’s performance on deaths being better
– the uk has a more elderly and more diverse population – and is thus more likely to experience a higher death than countries with a younger / less diverse population
– the comparison with Australia is a not a credible one. Oz receives no food or imports by truck with the result that closing its airports to inbound passengers effectively isolated the country.

In the Uk with thousands of inbound / outbound lorries carried by ferries every day, any attempt to isolate the Uk would simply have resulted in us starving and our export industries collapsing in short order.

It’s a shame the BBC don’t also run a “Sports Ar*ewhole of the year” award

Yep – varifocal Oakley iridiums when the sun is out and “normal” glasses with Oakley clear VF lenses when the sun’s not out. Both work fine for riding.

I got mine through an online optician and the Oakley iridiums inc. frame were about £200 less than the high street going rate.

We have a 4 “zones” neff unit and it’s been repaired twice in 8 years – with the repairs totalling £1300 on a unit that only cost £800 to begin with.

Both times the failure has been the same – two zones have “blown” and no longer worked. The rings are paired in the unit and this is a common problem with Neff and the other related brands (Siemens, Bosch, Bosch, Siemens & Gaggenau) that use the same components.

Neff refused to confirm either way but my hunch is that there’s a design fault and the neff indication controllers get confused when a big saucepan/ tray is placed across 2 x zones on the same controller. The product blurb says that’s ok but the unit has stopped working shortly after being used that way.

Based on our experience of all the Neff appliances we bought (all of which have required multiple repairs or been replaced in the same 8 years) I would never buy them again.

If the reliability isn’t enough to put the OP off then the dishonesty of Neff uk and their service network should be – it feels akin to dealing with a bunch of shysters.

By contrast, the cheapo MFI and ikea own label kitchen equipment I installed in two flats nearly 20 years ago is still working fine. So much for “German engineering”.

If I’ve got my sums right Lawman, your dog is now about 11/12 weeks old. You didn’t say for how long but that’s potentially way too young to be tagging along on a lead by a bike.

As a guide, puppies need around 5 mins of exercise per month of age – twice a day. So even a 15 minute walk tagging along by a bike is possibly too much.

Over exercising young dogs can cause health problems jn later life so go easy on Parker!

There’s probably two STW personas – the one above and shared by around 5% of members who regularly contribute to the forum and the other 95% of members who just read the forum comments and roll their eyes 😂

“That’s word for word my experience of dog ownership. The constant stream of McD’s / Costa / Monster /Red bull rubbish, drug dealers operating with impunity, Saturday night personal safety if there are pubs in your area – fag butts being flicked at your dog. ‘Bike Lifers’ riding ‘crossers over the playing grounds, Surron’s ragging silently past. Fly tipping, popping and banging boy racers.”

I’ll add to that list – idiots throwing chicken bones from their KFC for the dog to eat before I could intervene. This after a £3500 operation because the dog ate a bone and it splintered in its stomach.

Wife when riding a mountain bike – in the highest gear and getting angry at how hard it is peddling up a hill:
me: “change gear to an easier one”
her: (shouting at me) “the bike’s not listening to what I’m telling it”
me: “press the big shifter button by your right thumb”
her: (now close to a Michael Douglas / Falling Down moment) ” STOP TREATING ME LIKE I’M STUPID!!)

Wife when the heating’s on:
me: “you’ve got the heating on and all the windows open”
her: “it was too hot”
me: “you’ve turned the thermostat to 28 degrees”
her: (shouting at me) “YES… BECAUSE IT WAS COLD”
me: “why not shut the windows then?”
her: (now close to a Michael Douglas / Falling Down moment) ” STOP TREATING ME LIKE I’M STUPID!!)

Wife when the house is 19 degrees (thermostat temperature target):
her: “the heating isn’t working”
me: “yes it is – it’s 19 degrees”
her: (shouting at me) ” WELL THE RADIATORS AREN’T HOT SO IT CAN’T BE”
me: “they will only come on if it goes below 19 – the trv valve checks the temperature”
her: (now close to a Michael Douglas / Falling Down moment) ” STOP TREATING ME LIKE I’M STUPID!!)

Wife when she’s rammed 22kg of washing in the 7kg tumble drier drum”
her: “the tumble drier is broken – it’s not getting the washing dry – you need to buy a new one:”
me: “it won’t dry if there’s too much stuff in it – the washing needs to be able to move round in the air inside”
her: “BUT IT’S BEEN ON FOR 15 HOURS AND STILL ISN’T DRY”
me: “you need to take some of the washing out”
her: (now close to a Michael Douglas / Falling Down moment) ” STOP TREATING ME LIKE I’M STUPID!!)

I won’t even start on why the car stalls trying to move off in 3rd or the reaction to trying to go from 5th to 2nd.

It could be switching between frequencies on the router. If it drops to 800Mhz it will still show a good signal but will be really slow.

A different router, an external antenna or locking
it to a higher frequency could all help.

The forums on ispreview.Co.uk are worth a quick check – there have been a couple of posts there on the three 4g routers.

Random fact: Nicholas Cage has a holiday / second home near Glastonbury and has spent quite a bit of time there over the last 15 years. Nothing fancy either – a small cottage in walking distance of a country pub that he goes to quite a lot.

There’s no brake on it.

Most decent balance bikes have one and our kids definitely made use of the brakes on theirs.

Just be careful leaving anything with xylitol in (sweets, chewing gum etc) lying round where a dog could get it – it’s massively poisonous to dogs which kind of makes you wonder whether it’s any good for us.

I’m pretty sure Theresa Mays husband owns Europe’s largest cannabis medical facility (grow room) and she had the cheek to try and enforce a zero tolerance drugs policy when she was PM.“

Donks has been spending too much time on Facebook.

The guy that owns it is called Stephen Clarke. He used to work in recruitment and set it up last year I think.

I think it works on the basis of pile it high, sell it cheap – with a fair proportion of “compatible” equipment now that OEM stuff is so hard to source.