snowflake

you think?

You pay for a service, you don’t get it, you (I) expect some acknowledgement they’ve made a mistake

The bit about Amazon was just an adjunct to how well I thought the other company handled it.

However, if I’m in the minority here, I’ll bow gracefully out.

what did you expect them to do?

an apology would have been nice.

I love this american one – you can get it here, but it can be pricey

here you go – 35 in stock

two weeks in one on the ile de re is definitely do-able.

but you don’t have to stay in one location. Do a week in La Rochelle area, then motor up to Brittany for another week.

I always liked the idea of these planet x ones.

https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/CLPX365ILMJ/planet-x-365-illuminati-jacket

similar ones may be available elsewhere.

surely there is room for both keg and cask

west berks (cask) set up renegade (keg) to get around the camra restrictions

they’re just integrating the two together. I think things are changing

we’ve been with them since day one (actually before they went ‘live’).

no issues at all. No restrictions on downloads, fast enough (although that isn’t specific to them of course), good enough router .

And now you get a sonos 1. We didn’t!

“the myth of the artisan”

if someone made a decent flavoured beer in bulk, and cheap, I’d buy it.

Unfortunately most people prefer lager, or cider made with 35% apple juice and artificial fruit flavours

If you want 100% juice cider, or a beer that isn’t to the taste of the vast majority, you’ll have to pay. Otherwise it’s not worth the supplier making it.

Having said that, I do buy a lot of cans of IPA from Asda for £1.50 each, and get the Lidl rebranded Westons cider for £1.15. It’s knowing where to look. Both of those are still vastly more expensive than carlsberg or strongbow however. But at least – to me! – they taste of something.

good to see Inn at Home mentioned

The shop is the main reason I go to Newbury (although to be fair the town has improved immensely recently). Great selection, and there are some amazing local providers. The taproom at WestBerks is superb, and if you ever get the chance to go and see Tim at TuttsClump cider in his car workshop – leap at it. Lovely chap, who started off making 25 litres a year. He’s now up to about 100000.

maybe not £8, but I’ve paid a lot. Just been around California, and the selection there was amazing. Think the strongest was 9.5%, and even the wife got into a 8.5% Orange Wheat Beer. They were a bit more than the average Bud Light.

But it is only one an evening, savoured.

Here we’re lucky to have two shops nearby, one in Newbury and one in Reading, and even the local brewer has now got a craft beer subsidiary selling DIPA or a pineapple pale ale.

I also work for a can producer, so quite frankly the more cans we sell the better. And the cans we produce for them are winning awards

I never said PAYG, neither did the OP, hence the post.

no animosity, just pointing out a data cap need isn’t universal

Data cap.

you don’t need a data cap on PAYG. Run out of data, it won’t take any more money. You just won’t be able to use it.

You’ll need one on Pay Monthly of course. But my daughter is remarkably adept at finding free wi-fi everywhere.

Shame it’s on Voda, mind.

could be why it’s under a new brand…

for the best will in the world, the most of the above deals are rubbish.

Voxi will give you 6Gb a month for £10, and anything you do on facebook/twitter/instagram/snapchat/whatsapp etc doesn’t get included in the 6Gb – it’s free.

no contract. Comes with unlimited calls and texts

Only available to people under 30, which sounds a bit ageist to me, but there you go

i have a 59 plate, so not the most recent style.

it’s only the second car, and generally used to get me to work and back (20 miles each way).

There are two routes; one in the valley, and one in the hills. It can struggle a bit in the hills (especially with more than one person in). The valley route i can cruise at 60mph with no issues.

And I get c55mpg, it’s small, feels nippy (probably as it’s small and close to the action), has aircon, radio etc. It does the job. Can be nerve wracking on the motorway (shudders a bit at 70mph). It’s only got four seat belts. It’s great for nipping around towns, or a quick 5 mile trip to the shops. Had it 5 years, nothing really gone wrong. It’s also cheap, and basic, so I don’t really care about damage

Put it this way, when I actually have the choice of which car to drive to work, I will use the panda.

Most importantly though I can get a roadbike in by only taking the front wheel off.

I’ve been using one of these titanium babies (although a bit cheaper when I got it). Coupled with feathers, although I’ve just ordered a load of these . I like titanium anyway (great metal for bikes!), and it never rusts. Looks lovely too.

It’s great. Recently come back from America, and didn’t want to take it in case it got lost in the hold, so took a merkur 34c. The difference was really noticeable – actually couldn’t wait to come back and shave. Sad I know.

Wondering it’s worth looking at any more razors. I’d like a stainless one (just for the weight difference), either a Mamba or a Rockwell. I’ll probably bite the bullet at some point.

leg of lamb, butterflied.

Just bung it on for 5 hours, off the heat

marvellous

we had a couple of these

cheaper, and have paddles etc…which you will need!

they don’t last forever but i’ve never had any trouble getting the company to replace them.

the sevylor would be better, but one with a canvas cover would be better still

or even https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/datapoint/product/historical-station-obs

having said mine is working fine, it’s been a bit funny since one recent update.

in tablet (portrait) mode, on certain sites, the touch doesn’t seem to work; where it ‘clicks’ is nowhere near where my finger is.

It seems to be worse with AdBlock on. And only on certain websites (presumably those with vast numbers of adverts; it’s clicking where I would be if the adverts were visible).

Not the end of the world, and I’m sure it will be fine with another update, but…..

mine is working fine I’m afraid

The grammar and spelling types would be all over that..

The americans (south africans?) don’t understand ligatures, so miss out the A. Similar to Coeliac, or Diarrhoea

stayed here one year for a couple of days to show the kids around. We stayed in a gypsy caravan – which was great fun for them.

Lovely natural swimming pool and if you’re there on a thursday they have the most amazing moules et frites night

It is a very relaxed spot. We loved it.

we had a brown ‘mahogany’ stair banister when we moved in. Obviously not to the wife’s taste (or mine to be honest, it was very dark). Stripping it would have been a pain, so a quick couple of applications of http://www.zinsseruk.com/product/b-i-n/ then a couple of coats of normal gloss.

Looks perfect. It’s amazing stuff

Mr Google says

https://www.whisky-onlineauctions.com/edradour-10-year-old-ceramic-single-malt-scotch-whisky.html

the ground is rock hard and dusty…scarily so.

CycleCare was the go to place twenty five years ago. they’re still going, so may know someone, if they don’t do it.

otherwise there’s this in Halton

Question…

I’d assumed it was different parameters to be honest. Otherwise it’s an incredibly badly bit of code (bleeding developers)!

course, too many indices (indexes?) can make things worse. They take up a lot of space (unless they’re CSIs) and obviously on any insertion/update/delete the indexes will all have to update themselves.

Developers love indexes. DBAs hate too many (a lot of the time the script can be written in a better way…)

That’s with MSSQL at least. I’m guessing MySQL is pretty similar.

Another thing that helps would be to defrag the underlying discs.

And too many left joins with all the predicates in them will also slow things down a bit.

bum @littlerob already mentioned too many indexes.

I was over in Norfolk on the beach near Holkham Hall

they’ve been up there a couple of years now; if that’s one part of the world that needs a raptor (more than a few marsh harriers), it’s there. I’ve never cycled around so many rabbits/hares/pheasants etc on the road.

have a look on here https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/outlet/

My wife uses one; just a basic spark. Obviously not as good as a garmin\suunto etc, but seems accurate enough. They were doing free spare straps recently as TomTom have given up on watches (hence the reductions).

And for ladies (or men!) of smaller stature, you can get two different sizes of strap.

Rarely see a buzzard around Newbury I often wonder if thats due to all the Kites.

we’re just north-east of Newbury, and have a family of five buzzards in the surrounding woods. Coupled with the kites (14 of them over the garden this afternoon). As we’re at the top of the hill in the thames valley, there’s a lot of thermals, and the raptors all love it

The buzzards and kites ignore each other. It’s the corvids that hassle them both. Despite seeing them all day every day, I still can’t get enough of them.

Course, you’ll always get some one like this….http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/16308494.letter-red-kite-singing-is-keeping-us-awake/?ref=mr&lp=8

go to the razor blade club for your, um, razor blades

here

more blades than you can shake a stick at. Quick bit of maths shows there’s 113 different types to choose.

Look at them all, and then just buy the Feathers (although, having said that, I quite like the Lord Cool)

funnily enough, just had a tweet from them saying it’s now £40 a month interest free credit

https://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/CBOOPICKAPEXMECH1/on-one-pickenflick-sram-apex-1-mechanical-disc-cyclocross-bike

be quick before the price doubles tomorrow

I have an older PX titanium one, and I’m a large. I’m 184cm tall.

we’ve been here once or twice; very close to oxford, but lovely part of the river, and great for campfires

we get a lot in our garden (borders the woods)

I’ve made my own acaricide  – citronella oil, mixed with a cheap moisturiser. Lathered on. Stops them coming near you. If you’re really going for it, add some cedar oil (link for study), or rose geranium

they do work. You might smell a bit funny…

the other thing – for my gardening clothes – is to get some 10% permethrin (cheaper from america, but amazon.fr sell some pre-made sprays). Dilute it, soak the clothes for an hour or so, and then drip dry. Clothes then have the ability to kill anything that does try and get on, which stops the crawling up the shorts malarky (and you can use the remaining liquid as a spray). It lasts for a few washes, and doesn’t degrade in sunlight.

The natural equivalent (pyrethrum) breaks down in UV light…so won’t last, but you could wash in a mixture of it after a ride. Perfectly safe for humans.

I climbed a mountain with the family for my 40th. My choice. It was lovely

My 50th will be the day after my daughter’s 21st. I’m guessing anything for me my well be subsumed in the maelstrom. Which is good!

However, if other people want to have parties for their 40th/50th/whatever, good. Means I get to go to decent parties without having to worry about tidying up

SSE tried to install an overhead power line (for next door, +2) on our drive. It would block our view, and could restrict access.

For which we’d get £120. In total.

They gave the impression we had no choice. You do, their ‘offer’ is an opening gambit. You can ask for more money, or you can say no. They can go all the way to court, and force you to do it. It’s generally not worth it on their behalf.

Course, as it’s fibre broadband, you might actually want it in your locale. So bargain with them. Ask for more money etc etc

EtA – are you sure it’s a wayleave? That implies no payment. Easements do

http://www.boundary-problems.co.uk/boundary-problems/easements.html

interestingly that dewalt stuff appears to have the same batteries as the Clas Ohlson ones. I always thought they’re just rebranded stuff…think i know where from now

i use the Clas Ohlson LXC range of stuff. Very good, and five year guarantee means I can generally break them and take them back.

Got hedge trimmers (a long one and a normal one), lights (x2), a drill, and a strimmer

Just need to get the hammer drill now.