not really – people are inherently lazy and the vast majority would rather get in debt than do some graft.

also missing the point that not everyone lives in a village with a garden and a chap who delivers a load of logs or space for a heat/ground source pump or even the likelihood of ever getting permission.

There are an awful lot of properties that cannot have solar/woodburner/air or ground source heat pumps.
My current flat does not have a big enough outside space for a heat pump, the dormers and East facing roof mean no solar (and the flats below have no roof) no chimney.
Partners flat is conservation area/listed so no new glazing, solid walls so no obliterating internal features if you insulate inside (not that it would be allowed) no owned outside space for ground source, no roof for solar unless the 3 freeholders agree to share then not enough space to benefit 3 properties (not that it would be allowed) and burning wood/coal in a city is a definate no.
flat we are buying is again in conservation area not allowed to remove crittal windows but can do internal insulation, no solar space (there is a roof but not enough to work for 32 flats, heat pumps are not allowed but they will have to give in at some point. slight possibility of a big ground source unit in the communal grounds but each flat would have convert to wet heating (currently a mix of wet and warm air gas) this would potentially be £20-40k per flat and they would all have to agree.

so it’s get into debt and stay as you are or take on a huge debt to save money down the line, how many households can afford that? go tell them they are lazy…

Great so we’re saddled with increased bills for the next 20 years. What happens when this happens again, and it will, keep adding to the debt, no thanks.

Shareholders still get paid yeah?

And people think this is a good idea? FFS can you not see the narrative of ‘we have to get through this’ ‘it’s going to be tough’ ’the wholesale price has skyrocketed’ is to con you into thinking it’s all on you the customer while the profits/dividends/executive pay reach record highs?
being bailed out with your (taxpayers) money and asked to pay for it with higher bills in the future??

i’m starting to think some of you actually deserve what’s coming, talk about boiling frogs.

Isn’t EDF owned by the french? amazing that we (UK) are subsidising french energy bills.
I also found out that Spanish company Iberdrola (who own Scottish power) charge € 0.23 plus tax so €0.28 per kWh in mainland Spain on variable contract. How much is it in Scotland?

We are all being conned and it’s sanctioned/enabled by our government.

“Someone needs to find a way of getting rid of Putin”
you drank that Kool-aid then? what makes you think this is all his fault?

2022 and unless you are on double the average income you have to walk round hugging a water bottle because heating is the same as a mortgage/rent payment.
What a time to be alive.

Never stop this chat. It’s the best pro independence campaign ever

Grab it with both hands (if you get the opportunity again)

Hopefully the independent government can deal with this :

SCOTTISHPOWER which has been pushing for a taxpayer-backed £100bn fund to help energy firms freeze energy bills has handed over nearly £7bn in dividends to its foreign owners since being taken over, it can be revealed.The payout bonanza to its Spanish owners, Iberdola over its 14 years of control of the Glasgow-based company has been revealed as its high profile chief executive Keith Anderson has seen his pay soar by £200,000 to £1.35m in a year. Six years ago, Scottish Power Limited’s highest paid director was getting almost half that at £687,000ScottishPower’s dividend payments to Iberdola have amounted to nearly one billion pounds in the past two years alone as customers face energy bills soaring by three-and-a-half times in a year.

And the issue of the higher standing charge in scotland is indicative of a system that isn’t working when multiple companies and agencies are involved. Ofgen has obviously failed or is too weak to influence for the benefit of customers.

a less nationalistic view on price differences:
https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/bills/article-10667939/Energy-standing-charges-regions-pay-60-others.html

We do, every day, all those public transport subsidies for London and surroundings because too many people live in such a small area. Try public transport up north. No doubt the north will be paying for the lack of infrastructure for water supplies in the south.

Except 3 regions (inc London) in the SE run a surplus which goes elsewhere..
If you really think the top half of the country is putting it’s hand in it’s pocket for the bottom half you need to put the jingoism aside and look at the numbers, yes London received over double per head on transport (£700 v 300) but you have to look at that against the surplus generated per head and where it ends up

£15000 per head spent in scotland
£14693 per head spent in London

£18600 per head raised in London
£12100 per head raised in scotland

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/articles/countryandregionalpublicsectorfinances/financialyearending2020

wind yer wee necks in, I don’t want to derail the thread just point out that the idea of paying more for power in the south to subsidise the north is moronic, however there is merit in the very well off paying more or rather the less well off paying less but not with taxpayers money but the insane profits from the wholesale energy companies. (not the distributors as their margins are tiny)

Yep, we can obviously rely on the builders and planners to do things right…

Well they didn’t do things right in the bottom half of the country so will the top half pay for that?…

There’s a geographical element to all this too. The milder south of the UK will fare easier during the winter than the frozen north. I’ve seen folk suggesting a reverse “London Weighting” to take account of higher energy requirements.

Surely Northern property should be constructed to reflect the different weather, they do this in Spain/Italy where there is a significant difference north to south and it’s not like it’s suddenly just got colder in the north, there have been centuries to understand this
Why should the south pay for the inefficiency and poor planning of the north when it has it’s own buildings to deal with?

I love the look oh McNair shirts, but I’d rather not sell my house to buy one.

Does anyone know of anything similar but cheaper?

swanndri the original and not £300.

It’s now just about usable on my out of date ipod, on my up to date iPhone it crashes and reloads the page less and you can scroll to the bottom without having to constantly refresh to actually fill the page with the missing content so i guess you could call it an improvement.

Just find the sportful product and click on the green square with “what’s my size?” next to it.

For sizing just use the ‘will it fit’ thing on Sigmasport.

I’m now constantly worrying it’s too good to be true and that the buyers will pull out. We appear to be in a great position, I really hope it all works out.

Same here, it’s been a right pigs ear of errors and delays including 10 weeks of Barclays sitting on our buyers mortgage and it being paused by an underwriter and not being able to ‘un-pause’ it?? ended up with our seller re-listing her property due to the delay, our mortgage deal ending in 12 days time, promises and deadlines came and went with no resolution. All this has meant 8 months of stress which came to head on Friday when the plug was about to be pulled on everything and the mortgage gets approved!
Now it’s a mad rush to exchange tomorrow or wednesday and complete on the 25th.

We still expect it all to come crashing down like a house of cards and have not celebrated as it’s wrung out any emotions we had long ago.

@Piemonster.
Kamil Galleve and Anton Barbashin are worth reading on twitter, if anything they help westerners understand the Russian way of thinking which we have very little grasp of.

My Mrs remembers martial law in Soviet block poland and travelled all over the USSR with her parents work and a friend of mine lived/worked for a news agency in Moscow and then Riga pre the fall of communism, so i get the gist from them, they understand we (your average brit) really have no idea.

@TiRed

“Both Moderna and Pfizer are seeking approval for an Omicron-specific booster based on antibodies raised in volunteer studies rather than the large efficacy trials previously run against placebo. I’ll take one when available. GSK/Sanofi have a beta variant spike protein vaccine (beta being closer to omicron than WT is), which is also likely to seek approval using the same comparative methodology.
“

Do you have any intel on Novavax for the autumn booster? it’s been approved and is made in the north east but no mention of what we over 50’s will be getting in the Autumn and no announcement on large pre-orders of Moderna/Pfizer either.

i’ll take an old version of a booster as i know it will offer some improved protection against hospitalisation/death if not actually catching it again but would obviously be good to get something more up to BA5 especially for the older and more vulnerable.

I chatted to a Boeing service engineer at a party and he said the issue was staffing.
Getting rid of ground staff during covid and those people getting other jobs that paid the same or more money with better working conditions and no need to work silly hours and live near the airport, the other issue was any new hire has to be background/security checked.

Now it’s coming down from the top, looked at 2 posts including this one while doing a back-up (i’m working today) and closed the ad 6 times already!?

any reputable Jewellers who deals in watches.

I disagree unless they have a resident Rolex expert, there are so many variations ‘fat font’ ‘maxi dial’ ‘gilt dial’ ‘matte dial’. correct bracelets and end links then you are into service dials and hands, tritium, papers, service papers, polished, over polished.

all of the above could vary the price from 8k to 25k

I suspect it’s probably entirely counter productive, it pisses off a load of people who then hate / want to spite the protestors by not making any changes etc.

Just goes to show how passively accept when smoke from a grass/forest fire blocks a motorway and they have to sit in 40º heat for an hour.

it seems that having peoples homes burn down is the only surefire way of making them take notice of climate change.

And btw you are also wrong about wildfires – there were apparently two in Croydon yesterday, no one expects wildfires to be a routine part of a hot summer’s day in Croydon.

He’s wrong but then nobody with any sense would take him seriously, the person to listen to and take seriously is this fireman:

THREAD 1. ‘What the hell just happened?’ – My partner (a 999 Fire Control supervisor) and I both used exactly the same phrase as we got home from work today. The true story of today will not become clear until incidents are debriefed, call and incident numbers are reconciled, and

— Dave Walton (@WYFRSDaveWalton) July 19, 2022

There are wildfires pretty much every single summer

Apart from the blitz and the great fire this is the first time 41 homes in London have been burnt to the ground in a single day.

So when (not if) we get longer periods of 40° heat this will become the norm.

if there is one positive from the weather/climate change it’s the fact that people might finally see that conservatories were never a good idea.
that and south facing huge bifold doors without low-E glazing or sunshades.

This country has never built decent housing, it’s about time it started.

There is a roaster in italy (Gardelli) with ‘acidity is not a crime’ as their mantra, think they might do T-shirts but not bumper stickers :-)

Recently got a bespoke suit from Moss Bros and very happy with it. Loads of options. Almost too many.

Did you? Moss Bros don’t do bespoke tailoring, there is a big difference between bespoke/MTM/RTW.
unless you had an in person measure, individual pattern cut, baste fitting, second fitting etc you had MTM.

I have the sutro-s with prism trail torch lenses, the standard sutro is too wide for me.
i certainly wouldn’t ride under the trees on a sunny summer day with the prism road lenses which is why i went for the trail torch, have found them perfect for road riding.

MTB is in the loft so haven’t ridden them off road for ages :-/

According to an article in the Big Issue from Governt Council tax statistics there are 288,000 houses in the UK which have been empty for six months or more (Oct 2021)

that’s a small number and a lot of those will be empty and waiting to be sold, just like the flat my partner is buying for us to both live in, owners have relocated to Scotland and the buying/selling process is now over six months.

the bigger issue is probably ‘executive developments’ owned by overseas investors or those wealthy foreign nationals with family at universities

just like to add thats rent not income once mortgage paid.
though looking at sold prices from 15-20 years ago round here you really would be rolling in it if you were a professional landlord who started buying back then, but thats due to ‘up and coming’ price rises that have levelled off now and i see them being single digit/flat for a while.

i probably couldn’t afford to buy this flat now on my own though it would still be affordable for a working couple to buy or rent (in London).

I genuinely don’t understand the drive to own a house.

My Mortgage: £600
income if i rent flat out: £1100

That will be taxed and not the reason i bought it but it made good financial sense to buy it as really wouldn’t want to be paying to rent a place just like it.

the answer is more good quality social housing.

if you don’t want to walk in town then there is always Herne Hill for a looksee at the velodrome then up through Dulwich village past the college and then sydenham hill wood round to the Horniman museum then back via Dulwich park. (maybe avoid Crystal Palace park as they are building a festival stage unless you like victorian dinosaur sculptures and faded 70’s athletics venues)

failing that then the river and the city which i find quite interesting and less touristy (as a Londoner) Postman’s park is quite interesting and there are plenty of old pubs hidden away.

“We’ll see a wave of BA4/5. Hospitalisation rate is about 1% of cases,”

is that 1% of reported cases or 1% of the weekly ONS survey cases?
there must be plenty of unreported and unknown cases out there with little or no symptoms.

I was on a shoot on Friday and the set stylist had covid twice, both times with zero symptoms and only picked up by testing by the production company before a shoot commences.

‘there’s a lot of it about’ as they say..

I rode with Raoul and others once in the Surrey hills, he had dark hair and the bike was yellow and he was a nice bloke, cant’ remember how or why the ride happened, could have been through here, dialled bikes, chocolate foot or just mates i rode with back then.

halcyon days…

An additional hoop is you need an explosives licence for the black powder, which (bizarrely) you don’t for smokeless powders.

it’s not bizarre at all. smokeless is a lot more stable and not as easy to ignite as black powder, you need a wood lined box for a ‘Mode B store’ for black powder and when i used to load i definitely didn’t wear any synthetic fibres in case of a static spark!

smokeless isn’t going to ignite just by looking at it :-)

Thanks for the bump, just ordered 2 28’s i have the Hutchinson’s on my winter bike and the rear has a second anchovy in it that’s not really working to seal quite a big hole, for 20 quid i can just fit a new one and have a look at the hole later and see if it’s repairable.

they get a decent review:
https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/road-bike-reviews/mavic-yksion-pro-ust-2018

Its Wedi board for bathrooms if you are going to tile.
insulated and waterproof.

am contemplating doing this (if we ever exchange and complete) on a 1950’s flat, it has cavity walls but the main lounge wall is single brick solid with tile facings and a 5m long critall window so the U value of that wall is terrible, hoping that new aluminium (if we get permission) and 40mm of insulated board will at least make that wall as good as the other cavity walls, the decision i have to make is do we do all the other walls? the quote for that will help us decide as the refurb fund isn’t infinite.

what i’m not sure about is do you make it breathable or do you seal it all off so the air gap cannot get condensation inside? (dot and dab)
i guess if you are doing an old solid wall it’s different to what you do with brick/block cavity?

we can’t insulate the cavity as the insulation will just fall down and fill up the ground floor!? so unless everyone can agree to having it done it’s never going to happen which is annoying as it’s probably the most effective and cheapest way to lower the U value.

£6 per day for lunch. Done

a cheap loaf of sliced white and nick some of the little jam pots/wrapped butter from the restaurant the night before?
thats got to leave five pounds to put aside for a rainy day or give to your wife to take the kids out for a treat?

I think you completely missed the point… I think it’s the waste that he finds so distasteful.
I’d imagine that extends to throwing away food not just overpaying for it in the first place.

I personally find throwing perfectly edible away food is something that makes me feel pretty much physically ill, far more than wasting money to start with.

same here, i can’t stand waste or buying tat that’s thrown away.
i still have anxiety about the bag of shopping i left on the bus as a child, i can see the bright orange bag of own brand wotsits sat on the top and the multi pack of those pink and white coconut biscuits.

i do think the OP should reframe his thinking on spending and simply spend better not more, i will buy stuff in Lidl (like the bags of unsalted cashews or the passata) but i’ll also go to waitrose and buy the loin of iberico ham to cook with some nice pasta covered in a bit of Parmesan and some very good (expensive) olive oil.
not something i eat every day but we both enjoy nice food and see that as having value rather than simply being expensive, there is a difference.

not an expert in these things but if you can get an optical out from your streaming device into the dac then you should have unmolested bit perfect data.
but personally it’s all a bit moot if your source files are not high res, in the past i have done spotify/apple music using an airport express with an optical out into a beresford dac so it was bypassing the dac in the apple chain, sound was fine but not stellar.

now i’m using Tidal (cd quality) with NAIM unitiQute or a audio quest dragonfly/Beyerdynamic and the results are ‘music’ rather than background noise.

if your source is spotify then i’m not sure if it’s worth upgrading the dac or finding a way of streaming that is bit perfect.

The disaster fappers will be along in a moment, the usual suspects…