One other thing to try is slightly increasing the engine speed (by adjusting the governor arm) seem to recall my mower hunted a bit at certain speed settings.

My guess would be the governor mechanism / spring. You could test this by holding the throttle manually in a fixed position.

No immersion unfortunately and didn’t really want to tip the tank as I’d need to take the bricks out when we left and new owners would be out if oil

There are 4200 different religions in existence. This tells me 2 things.

A. Followers of any particular religion have a 0.02% chance of being right.

B. It is part of human nature to want to believe in something.

This leads me to conclude the existence of any gods/supreme beings is highly unlikely.

They are ridiculously expensive, but due to the 7-8 months waiting time for a new one and VW hiking the price by £2-3K every year they will cost a lot less in depreciation that a passat/mondeo. Well that’s the man maths I used to justify mine.

Edit – You see a lot of 1 year old californias that have never been camped in, mattresses still in the plastic wrappers etc. The reason being is some people have realised if they buy with a good discount, go through a few VW price rises you can sell for a small profit

I logged into icloud on the pc and I only have photos showing until the end of 2016 unforunately

Was going to try downloading “phonerescue” but from what you are saying I’m basically knackered

Thanks for the link tjagain.

Not sure these would work though – after reading the leaflet they are for hypertrophic scars – i.e. Scars that stick out due to excess collagen production. The CP scars my daughter has are mini craters and I think the way they become flat again is by the body hopefully producing more collagen to raise the indentation back up.

No replies, ok will throw it open to armchair dermatologists and anyone who has experience of their own kids getting this horrible illness.

Really hoping the indentations will fill in over time but I’ve read a lot of people saying they don’t go.

Thanks for the tips, will check out the suggestions

Main questions are for me, wired smokes, protected stairway, access egress ability via velux or dorma whichever it may have?
Is it priced locally as an x amount of bedroom house or less than current market trend for that number of bedrooms?

It has wired alarms and veluxes you could get out of (albeit onto a fairly steeply pitched roof). I’d feel confident about getting out in a fire, but not sure I’d be 100% happy about my kids given the potential drop from the roof.

It’s a fairly quirky house so not really a going rate that could be applied for the number of beds. Even without the regs the loft would still add value I guess and I’ll probably use it as an office rather than a bedroom.

What ways isn’t it regs compliant now and do you think those are an issue?

It’s not got the self closing fire doors downstairs and it’s a spiral staircase – I don’t think its a big deal practically, but maybe an issue for future buyers. Also not sure if the veluxes are the right height off the ground.

Well it definitely wouldn’t pass todays regs, but I think it possibly would have been ok 25 years ago when it was done.

Am I right in thinking if we got the inspector in they would apply todays regs rather than what was in place 25 years ago.

I don’t think the council hold records much beyond 10-15 years so it genuinely could have had them but no way of knowing. Structurally it looks ok with deeper 8″ joists, but I think it could cause us issues when we sell (unless we don’t count it as a bedroom).

Phew, thanks guys.

Looks like I’m in the clear.

Thanks Moses. The house we are buying isn’t listed do I still need listed consent?

Sold with housenetwork in less than 4 weeks. Pretty happy with the service and of course the saving!

3% stamp duty is a pain, but you can claim it back when you sell your original house.

Not looking at bridging loans which have pretty high interest rates – just standard “no ERC” mortgages. Just wondered if there are any issues with doing this. I’d imagine the mortgage companies wouldn’t be keen especially if they are banking on getting 25 years interest payments and only get a few weeks.

I assume you’d have a load of charges to pay wether you needed the 2nd mortgage or not.

Shouldn’t be any charges with a no early redemption mortgage if I pay a load off. Well that is what I was hoping anyway!

Some bulbs will do power factor correction and the voltage step down in a single stage and they will have a inherent 2x mains frequency ripple (100Hz) which would cause strobe effects. The cheapo dial LED filament bulbs I bought from b&q a while back didn’t have power factor correction and were therefore ripple free.

You’ll probably have to buy a few different types and test them.

Have viewer arriving shortly…. should I a. Acknowledge the flag and explain neighbour is a harmless old buffer who collects flags or b. Ignore the elephant in the room and not draw attention to it

Allthepies – Don’t do that, it will most probably end in tears. Why should he lower that flag ? It’s insulting to ask him IMO.

Don’t see what the problem is personally
Strange thing is he was giving me some tips on things to do in the garden to make it more presentable to buyers, then in the last week he’s been flying his bloody flags. Would it really be that offensive to ask him to bring them down for a few days?

Sounds like it would put a lot of people off. So should I go around this morning and ask if he’d mind lowering the flag at least while we had viewings or will that end in tears.

He’s an old guy and believe he has a collection of flags from around the world, but at the moment we are stuck on the George’s cross

He was flying the Union jack the other week for the queens birthday – am I correct that is a little less chavtastic than the George’s cross?

I’m on with an online agent at the moment, but sounds like a good plan to instruct the same agent that is selling the house I want to sell ours too.

Reading between the lines here but that suggests you will have to drop the asking price a fair bit as it obviously had no takers beforehand?

Had it briefly on for a couple of weeks well over a year ago, but took it off due to possible redundancy (that didn’t happen in the end)

Great attitude Wilbert – the world would be a better place if it was filled with people like you.

the toxocariasis parasite in dog shite is responsible for a number of kids losing their sight in one or more eye every year, but I guess you don’t give a fk about that either.

When off the beaten track I’ll probably choose to kick a little bit into the deep undergrowth rather than bag it

great when you have kids who love to run in the undergrowth.

Seems to be an explosion of dog shite in my area. Instead of enjoying the scenery I spend most of my time looking down at the path immediately in front of me and steering my kids out of the undergrowth / verges.

Promised the kids a country walk to a local pub for lunch last weekend, we got about half way when my 6 year old stood in a massive runny dog slick. Got it everywhere – trainers, trousers and hands when he went to wipe it off. Had to abort the trip, was flippin furious.

That is absolutely great news!

Been thinking about your situation a fair amount since you first posted. It has certainly put my minor woes into perspective.

I can’t imagine how dreadful it must be to think your time is up, but it looks like there is now real hope and a good chance you can pull through this and live to see your daughter grow up.

Best wishes and good luck!

Leaning towards “nice” side in, just cos it will be easier to mow and hopefully will be more attractive to buyers. Still seems a bit wrong though, almost like being fenced out of the garden if that makes sense.

But you can’t get DNA from faeces.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-35363991

Mandatory DNA database for all dogs.

Any dog mess found in a public place is tested.

Owner get £1000 fine and the specimen returned and thinly spread on their living room carpet.

Problem solved.

https://www.ibdna.com/tests/dog-poop-dna-testing/

Next door is rented, landlord doesn’t want to pay. Not bothered about pissing anyone off, just want to get the best price / fastest sale for my house.

Looks like opinion is split 50/50 ish

I cut half way into mine with some nail clippers, then pulled the flap off with tweezers, which took the root with it. My god did it bleed. It was so brilliant I walk round manky public swimming baths hoping to get another.

Don’t think I’ll be looking to get another, it’s flippin painful and I’ve not been able to walk any distance the last couple of months.

Suspect my refusal to wear crocks when we went camping end of last year has something to do with my predicament. The standard treatments, salycilic acid, duct tape etc. have failed. Off to hobby craft first thing tomorrow to get tooled up.

First day of Plusnet broadband (under the John Lewis name)

They forgot to post me the router, so no internet the last 3 days.

Used to get 2-3Mb with BT, but so far the last 4-5 speed tests have given me 0.4Mb.

Just spent 45minutes on hold to be told to give it a week to let the router settle down.

Seriously unimpressed so far.

Regardless of the rights or wrongs of the new employers actions, there’s one thing obvious.
You are going to be working for a bunch of arseholes.
When the shit hose comes out, you will be sprayed with it liberally. Your self esteem will suffer, you’ll probably get depressed, and then find it difficult to present a confident competent image to a prospective employer.
So the best thing is to get out now before it happens. You have a legitimate reason.

That is what I’m thinking. A lot of the people I’ve met in the new company from previous acquisitions fit that description. I worked pretty hard in the last place and had a good reputation, but get the feeling I could cut my hours and effort right back and no one would really notice or care. I guess if they want to realign my pay and benefits with their UK staff, I can also realign my effort and attainment to match. Not healthy long term though.

4. Stay calm, let them sweat the details. They should know the law. See if they do, but in a polite way

I get the feeling they don’t know the law, the HR people aren’t in the UK and think they are unaware of all the differences between the different European locations.

Have got legal cover on my home insurance, but not sure how comprehensive this is given it is only an extra £20.

All seems like a strange business strategy to me. They’ll lose the best people and the people who do stay are so resentful they arent exactly working too hard

Think they would struggle to prove my job was redundant when they have given me a new contract.

I read there was something called interim relief for “automatically unfair” dismissal which I think this could be, in which case you can apply to an emergency tribunal within 7 days to get your job reinstated – or at least full pay reinstated until the full tribunal. I guess I could try and string it out for 6-7 months until the tribunal on full pay then ask for a years salary in the tribunal.

Does the large company begin with the letter A by any chance? Sounds just like my ex-employer!

No but I think a lot of these US companies behave in this way unfortunately.

Have you got anything from management alluding to this in writing?

No, they have been quite careful, however have made it clear it will end badly for me if I don’t accept