AS in the onus is on YOU to work out what your needs are and who is the most competitive. We all do this with car insurance …it really is not that difficult.

Really, if you can’t even use a simple comparison website then you don’t deserve competitive utility prices.

Stupid people pay more – I have no problem with that!

Rail is different. That relies on a government subsidy which muddies the water.

Network Rail is a good private model, i.e. not for profit. There needs to be some thought on how the train operating companies (TOC’s) can be reformed but the model does actually work reasonablty well. Certainly much better than the Railtrack model.

Rusty Spanner et al – you are all incredibly naieve and simple.

Nationalised industries may not profiteer but they are incredibly inefficient, there are countless examples all over the world. Overall the consumer has beenfited from privatisation.

Ignore the you can’t leave them for a weekend. Get an auto feeder, two pockets with timer release. You can get really expensive 5 pocket ones too! Although much cheaper and less disruptive than a cattery.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=automatic+cat+feeders&tag=googhydr-21&index=aps&hvadid=9037073821&ref=pd_sl_99dul80vef_b

I’ve left mine for four days over christmas and they were fine. They don’t always travel well but I have had them over at the folks at Christmas before and they were fine!

Sale of Goods Act – If less than 6 months old the onus is on the manufacturer tp prove that the defect is not a manuafacturing defect – in effect a 6 month warranty.

After 6 months and up to 6 years (I think) there is still redress in that if you can prove the defect if due to a manufacturing defect / unfit design you can still obtain a repair or replacement.

A manufacturers warranty is however at the discretion of the manufacturer and infers no rights other than those stipulated in the warranty agreement. Hence yes they can restrict the warranty to original owners only. This does not copromise your statutory rights as described above

Long term average about 52mpg (from trip computer).

Calculated the old fashion way over a 70ltr tabk full always just over 50mpg. I can normally get 60mpg on the way to work and about 48mpg on the way back (its slightly uphill and heavier traffic).

Think the combined figure is about 57?

Get a diesel. Passat, 2.0ltr 140bhp does between 50 and 60mpg …and its a chuffin big car!

Its also about the driving style as well though …if I thrash it ….down to 45mpg. About 40mpg with bikes on the roof too.

Having crashed my Passat in style I can confirm that it really looks after you in a smash.

Both air bags deployed, seat belt tensioner etc. No injuries, whiplash or other injuries. Damage to car was relatively superficial, i.e. no damage to ‘structure’.

The other cars roof was buckled.

New Mills – Cheap houses, fantastic riding on your door step and two stations that will get you into Manchester in 30 – 40mins. The best of both worlds!

If you have insurnace on another vehicle then temporarily insure a second vehicle. I did that when my car was in the garage for a few weeks, cost about £25 a week.

When I was at school we had to build a bridge out of paper, which ever team could support the most paper won. There were some really creative schemes using ridges folded in paper (to increase the neutral axis i presume). HOwever my team won …we used single sheets of a4 strung out and reinforced with sellotape!

Its already being done …see pet pals.

ourmaninthenorth: Thats not really the point though is it?

If you wan’t to be a teckie you don’t wan’t to be an entrepreneur? What a lot of people are saying is that engineering gives you many skills that are highly desirable in the city/accounting/buissness etc.

Hence if you have an engineer who is motivated to do buissness then they have an excellent skills base to make it. In my buissness the best managers are engineers that have gone to the commercial side …not QS’s who know the cost of everything and the vale of nowt!

Had my Endura baggies for ….5 years. Had to sew up the crotch that went but still going strong. They were bought in the good old days though!

There are engineers and engineers. As has been said if you wan’t to have medical treatment you want a Dr accredited by the BMA.

Proffessional Engineers are accredited by the Engineering council.

The skills I need to be a Charterred Engineer are as below…

http://www.ice.org.uk/mgn3

Note that its not all teckie, I have to have commercial and leadership skills to. That is the difference between a proffesionally qualified engineer and …. well an engineer. No disrespect to Engineers as we all do a craxcking job.

If Al Sugar had said he’s never met a engineer that can turn his hand to buissness, well for some engineers that may be true (although I doubt it would be a fair comment). To say that a proffessionally qualified engineer can’t turn his hand to bussiness is ridiculus …as that is what we are trained to do (as well as the teckie stuff!)

So is Coputer Software engineering science or engineering. Basically if it is an applied science then it is tending towards engineering.

“Engineer – has the ability to think creatively when the above doesn’t work. i.e. milling a part to fix the car…”

No thats a good mechanic as opposed to a fitter.

To engineer you have to understand the forces and then design a solution rather than just making something fit or using trial and error.

Right come on then when is someone an engineer:

Someone who fiex cars – mechanic.
Someone who fixes your washing machine – mechanic.
Someone who produces technical drawings – technician.
Someone who operates a lathe – still not an engineer……

crazy-legs: What we need to distinguish here are between technicians and engineers. Technicians being those that can do the techy stuff only.

If your a proffessional engineer (i.e. Chartered Engineer) then you really do need to be more rounded. And that is the main problem with engineering as a profession. There is no clear divide between the ‘Engineer’ and the ‘Technician’.

Jim, heck of a salesman but does he have any other qualities? Certainly seemed lacking in commercial acumen. The wrong man got binned.

It is if thats your sole reason for firing someone.

I’m having an interesting fight with a garage that repaired my car after an accident. Their view is that their warranty only covers the individual items that they have actually repaired.

This doesn’t correspond with my view that they contracted to ‘repair’ the car.

So currently going to court over the costs of additional work that I had to instruct the VW garage to undertake. £180 in court fees already ….if it wasn’t for over a grand I don’t think I would bother.

Morality can exist without religeon. Religeon is simply a way for people to frame rules. If you look at the Bible, Q'ran or any holy text the rules were creasted at the time it was written which is why many seem out of place now but at the time would have made perfect sense. For example the treatment of women and selection of allowable food etc ….

Our morality has evolved with us and the need to cooperate and look after one another. The zeitgeist has generally become more caring and colective as the human species has developed. Look at modern britain compared to the dark ages, eqaulity in law, the NHS and welfare state. Exacly as religen is dimishing as an influence on modern life.

All I can say is lets not let religeon and fundamentalists to drag us back to the dark ages.

I normally stay out of these dicussions as they always end up the same way …polarised.

I will however make a single point!

Faith requires a suspension of reason. The common mistake being that as you cannot prove neither the existance or non-existance of God then the theory of God is just as valid as say the 'big bang' theory.

I belive in the big bang theory because the evidence points me in that direction and of all the answers it is the most probable. This does not mean that I would not revise my belief if the evidence were to change.

For this reason faith is incompatible with science.

So if you like going to church and praying five times a day? Well good on you if it makes you happy. But please don't try to tell me that I will burn in hell for not having faith. I'm happy to take that chance.

Mr Frodo

****, just weighed myself 13.5st, not good as a shortarse at 5'8. Looks like I need to get out on the bike more.

Target 11st! (I was only 11.5st before breaking my leg in March so def achieviable).

They say that Robbies doen't travel well. Unfortunately it gets travel sick at the brewery gates.

ahem ….nice pint of robbies?

What you need is nice pint of Ale Force, Macc's finest!

The driving is not so bad anyway, about an hour each way from New Mills to Manchester city centre. Best to leave no later than 7am though.

Having done it both ways, down Jacobs ladder is the best way! If your doing a loop round the PBW the decent down rushop edge and then into Hayfield is ace!

Ok who do we owe it too? Well lots of people/institutions/countries etc. We are however in a better poistion than Greece as our debt matures over much longer periods and hence any pain can be spread.

Government debt is bought by many different institutions, these include other countries who may have a surplus (at the time of purchase), equity firms and crucially pensions/ If the government simply turned round and said sod yeh! … then not only would our credit rating collapse (making it impossible to borrow in the future) but pension funds would also suffer significantly (thats your pension). Now I'm no economist so there are also probably more subtle consequences (as well as quite enourmous political ones).

Remember that the unsustainable investement in publiuc services was only unsustainable in the first place as much of it was paid for by borrowing.

Frodo

who do we owe them too??? FFS go back to school.

Well …err yes it is a neccessary evil. The public sector was simply unsustainable in its current form.

I do however wonder whether the ratio of spending cuts to tax rises needed to be so severe or indeed whether the pain could have been spread over a longer period.

…though anyone who says that spending cuts were not needed is clearly in cloud cuckoo land.

As for acting immediately I do very much agree with that ….we could have started slower but it definitely needed to be immediately. ….otherwise w could be another Greece.

£168 worse off incidentally.

I also loved the bit about the single mother complaining that housing benefit was being cut …her benefit was more than my mortgage!

Ok I live in a slum in the north, but only a slum by comparison.

Yes it will feel only as though you never got that promotion 🙂

Of course you know how I brokew my leg?? In was on a treat ski mountaineering ho9liday prior to starting my new job ….went down well!

Pah, thats nothing! Still another 7 weeks with my leg in a cast.

Mr Frodo (Suffering serious cabin fever in new Mills)

Its old, high mileage and a corsa.To justify anything over a grand it needs to be in mint condition.

Also small engines are not great high mileage. Still its normally other bits of the car that go first.

Note that engine size is not the only issue that insurers look at. A bigger engine without any turbo may actually have a smaller output and a more reliable engine.

Is there a decimal point in that price! Madness!!

8 years old with over a 100k, bin it.

As a general guide my first car was an n registered Astra, then 6 years old with 65k on the clock. bought for £2k autotrader.

You can do a lot better.

update:

new employer = spot on.

working from home on laptop for first few weeks. there even going to deliver the hardware to home. cant say fairer than that! actually looking forward to getting stuck in now!

nice 😀