The problem with Psychologists, is that most of them are women – so every man that comes through there door ends up being labeled on the “spectrum” – because if you’re not a touchy feely cuddly person and have an interest in inanimate objects it must be because you’re autistic.

Way off the mark… Sorry 😉

We’ve had a few fires. Old house, so a fire in the grate helps to warm the walls etc

Blow torch 😉

Always been a bit dubious, as my old man burnt the roof off our house she I was a kid…

That said, I’ve used them on boats, doors, inside and outside. The benefit is the level of control you have – you give it as little / much heat as necessary or as it can take

mrs rkk01 works with youngsters with ASD, incl Aspergers – she was of the opinion that many of my colleagues (me included 😉 ) showed some signs of being on the “spectrum”…

It would be easy to dismiss her for ribbing our science / engineering staff base (and the stereotypical personalities involved), but she does have a point – many teens / adults manage those (otherwise negative) aspects of their personality by using them as strengths: obsession with data, detail, quality, order, routines, less bothered about social norms etc are traits that can be seen.

My wife suggests an over-representation of such traits – the question is, do people with those attributes seek out science / engineering, or does the profession emphasise those behaviours???

From my own experience, I’d suspect a bit of both…

Back to the OP though – whatever the truth of my ramblings ^^^^, being in an environment that’s comfortable / suits your outlook (whatever the cause) could well be a big part of “management”

[thread hijack]
We’ve just moved to a larger, older house – but with fewer (albeit larger) rooms and less storage.

We’ve also given up our off street parking 🙁 and the garage is, obviously, not for car storage…

So – not an extension, but wondering whether the STW hive mind can advise on cost / regs / difficulty in building a separate garage?
Top of my head, I’m thinking brick built, double width, maybe with a storage room within the roof pitch???
[/thread hijack]

Well done… You’ve not shared your reasons, but the commitment is strong.

For many of us there is a zone between teetotal, sober, “a few”, inebriated, bingeing and “too many” that we may stray into (or across) from time to time, but we can / think we can come back to the straight and narrow. The margins may get thin now and again…

However, I’m reminded of a family gathering about 10 years ago. We were celebrating the 100th birthday of a greatly respected, but steadfastly straight-laced family member, who maintained a sharp wit and intellect for many years after the “ton”. Naturally, he gave a speech, and attributed his longevity to very little meat and no alcohol.

His far more wayward (60 something) son stood up mid speech and interjected “bugger that for a game of soldiers”* 😉

* actual words might have been slightly different, but effect conveyed…!

Interesting question from molgrips, and I’ll turn it around to where it started…

When we all voted, I was a Cornishman living and working in Cardiff / valleys. I love S Wales – the people, landscape, industrial heritage etc, but…

I’ve often posted on here about the inequities of rural versus city, people selling in (mainly) England, buying in the countryside, and pricing out the rural unskilled / poor / unfortunate not to have capital, of their home communities – or the making of economic exiles of those of us with the ability to go elsewhere and earn a crust…

“Stop whinging”, “get on with it”, “it’s a free market” has been the general response – from those (mainly) English with the wherewithal and general (English?) sense of self-righteousness / self-entitlement to take themselves into any community that their money allows them too. I’m not a Welsh speaker, but for those Welsh communities of the Lleyn concerned about their linguistic identity, I totally agree that uncontrolled English immigration is a huge threat to your traditions, culture, language and lifestyle.

Which is one reason why the Brexit “immigration” issue made me very, very angry. Irony? Hypocrisy? Or just mind numbed stupidity?

Hhhmmm, auto vs manual preference might be the decider…

Personally, auto drives me up the wall. Much rather have a manual

In that situation – I chose neither…

Was tempted by both, but the Audi salesman in Cardiff was a cock.

I wondered why Hinkley C got the go-ahead…!

Been with plusnet for years and they’ve been very good…

… until this year. Moved house and their transfer advise was wrong, resulting in 1 month absence of service and about the same of slow internet… Poor customer service trying to sort problems and no rebate on the bill (yet)

^^ took 7 minutes to upload, sat in a city centre mainline station.

My (limited) understanding is that the transport networks have their own data networks set up (for route / timetable info on local bus networks)

GSMR (?) on the rail network??? Presumably the paywall wifi services (x country) piggyback onto the GSMR network… It’s never going to be practicable to get the regular networks network coverage in place for such an extensive linear infrastructure…

BUT, if my local £1.50 bus ticket can get me free access on my local bus network wifi, then I’m totally ffffin baffled why £300 can’t get me modern comms on a train 😡

Good on them…

should be a basic franchise requiement

I was always under the mistaken belief that one advantage that the German tanks held over the Sherman was diesel vs petrol engines – and therefore a lower propensity to burn (as per S-Boot vs MTB)

But it seems that the T34 claims this accolade, not the Panzers. Who the hell thought a petrol engine would be a good idea in a tank 😐

And that Sherman engine – WTF…?

Didn’t the Focus ST run with a Volvo derived 5 at some stage…?

Always fancied the VFR800 – just to say that I do recognise that some 4s are interesting 😉

I also liked the small Mercedes 4 with the supercharger, well I liked the blower whine

Bike motors on my “like to have a play” wish list
2 – lots to choose from 🙂 Ducati, Rotax (from the Millie), BMW 800…
3 – Triumph
4 – VFR
5 – unlikely
6 – too scared

Cars:
2 – Fiat Twinair – but in something stripped out & very light
3 – ???
4 – too much choice. The Abarth tuned Fiat 1.4 is fun, wouldn’t mind trying that in the 124
5 – Fiat Coupe 20v (still – tell me if you see a good one)
6 – something German, but silky smooth inline or entertaining flat 6…? nope: that insane new Alfa V6 😈

Twins are getting more common in cars – Mrs rkk01’s Fiat has their turbocharged twinair engine

Yes, I deliberately pitched at 20th Century tech…

Tried a BMW i3 a while back – hugely impressive, but it’s too small for our current needs and the pricing really doesn’t work at the mo.

think some people yearn for 205 GTi

309GTi for me

wife’s recent Abarth 500 was very reminiscent actually – just about the same weight and power, quick go-cart steering and great great fun at legal speeds… Only fell short of the 205 / 309 “smiles per mile” on steering feel

We DO NOT want to end up like this…

Depends on what you do for a living and where you are in life…

Stressful job, long hours and kids in school will have the previously resilient dropping like flies

ETA – may not be as bad if one parent is staying at home for the kids / house / family needs. Both parents working + living life at a dead run + kids + no local family support = exhaustion and increased sick time

My better half is American and she said when she first came to the UK it wasn’t the swearing that surprised here but the way friends take the piss and call each other names without trying to offend.

This. Even without the ribald p!ss taking. About 7 or 8 yrs ago we had a senior US colleague over to deliver a couple of days training. IIRC I think she was somewhere around / not much below VP level, and most of the audience were fairly senior. For the first day I think she was really troubled / didn’t understand what the hell was going on. As she got her bearings she made reference that the language (normal banter, not swearing) really was a barrier – took her a while to work out that what we were saying wasn’t anger, or disgust, or hostility – but just British joshing around, which she had taken literally.

And that word summed up a trip to N Carolina a few years ago. They really do tend to take things literally 🙄

What I really don’t want ever again however is front wheel drive.

New Abarth 124…

Or Giulia?

Best ones I’ve owned, in no particular order:

500 Abarth, Golf V GTi, 156 TS, 309GTi

Would need something nice to persuade me out of my current van though

We’ve got a Tarpon 130T (tandem).

Great boat for family days out & exploring – river, estuary, beach… Not done any major coastal / sea kayaking on it, but it’s very stable – been rolled coming in through surf, lol, as the stern lifts and the flared bow sheers off to one side.

We tend to use it as a “safety boat”, with 2 in sit ins and 2 on the Tarpon.

Grizzly bear(s?) bumping the tent one dark night in the Yukon. So shit scared I would have voluntarily stopped breathing if I thought it would have made me quieter…

Fiction, but I recently enjoyed Coffin Road by Peter May. Factual / topical premise set largely in the Outer Hebrides.

I tend to go for factual – military history etc, but this got me back into fiction – a real page turner

and energy levels through the floor… Which prompts coffee, chocolate, sugar, less sleep and less fitness 😐

Electric – unless away from mains or in need of a longer chain guide

Interesting…

Always associated “brain fog” / difficulty in focusing with physical and or mental exhaustion – after big rides, 24hr races, cumulative days of work travel or periods of silly long work hours. Resilience to long hours / hard work has definitely reduced over my 40s. I can put the extra effort in (exercise or work) but definitely pay more for longer afterwards 🙁

Never really considered anxiety (same as stress?) as a cause – but would certainly contribute to poor sleep when otherwise dog-tired, but unable to get meaningful rest and recovery. It’s recognisable in colleagues as well, but difficult to remedy… with any line manager intervention often contributing to more anxiety 🙁

And a generation before that they were leaving school at 14 and going to work in a mine or at the docks…

Which shows, precisely, the level of ignorance. Both were skilled jobs requiring nous as well as nerve…
That’s my fathers generation – a Royal Navy Dockyard shipwrights, fully conversant with how to work out the centre of gravity and centre of buoyancy of a warship (damaged or not) and calculate how she is going to settle onto the blocks during a dry-docking. And not a calculator of computer in sight.

And as for mining, well, mining geology is my speciality. I can show you any number of mine plans from 100 or so years ago where the survey accuracy is as good as you’d expect today – survey accuracy to the nearest millimetre (and I do mean mm, in an era when the rest of the U.K. were using imperial units!

from what I’ve read so far it might appear that the 5 unfortunate chaps in camber this week could not swim at all. The conditions were good, no rip but a fast moving tide and soggy sand making walking difficult

Sh!t, that’s dreadful 🙁

Will Karndean go down on top of existing ceramic floor tiles?

Floor was levelled (with levelling compound) before tiles were laid and is level and even.

Interesting.

Potentially looking to get a sea boat myself. Half tempted to pick up a plastic one on eBay and get some use out of it – although part of me says hang tight and look at a few over a year or so. Tiderace look very nice…!

My position was neither for or against…

I do shoot, but too tight to pay 😉

I can immediately see the cause of our office argument – price per shoot vs price per gun

Anything good? (-:

I’m sure there would be a full range of opinions on that…!

Lots of sim stuff – EF2000, F22 TAW, various Silent Hunter, CFS 1&2

Have done a little more research into what’s needed – for shower, pump and hot / cold water system…

As often on STW, the draw of the high spec item is strong – with Grundfos* looking to offer good quality (but at a price!)

Anyone had good service out of a cheaper brand? We’ve had 10 yrs+ out of a plastic B&Q shower pump, but at 2 bar it’s going to be marginal with the larger shower head that we intend to fit in the proposed new shower – looking for 3 bar min

* Grundfos is a brand that is familiar to me through work, so their reputation for reliability is persuasive…

Yep

what type of oil fired cooker is it?

Rayburn OF22, I believe…

Some require a gravity circuit to the hot water cylinder, making unvented much harder to accomodate, thermal store would be suitable though.

No intention of changing the hot water circuit for the Rayburn

Also cylinders connected in series, surely you mean parallel? If not they should be with each pipe the same length for hot supply, cold feed, flow and return.

Hhhm, will need to check – but pretty sure in series. Original tank has the hot take off and immersion heater. Rayburn used to boil the tank, so a second was added (late 70s???). Take off for tank 2 feeds base of tank 1. Cold water feed is to base of tank 2.

if you are looking at pumped check the maximum temperature of the hot inlet to the pump either external or integral pump. If it is a gravity system then the maximum temperature may be exceeded.

A good point

Also check the duty cycle if you are looking at pumped, some are not continuously rated.

Pumps I’m looking at are continuously rated

Negative head pump required?

. No.
those are just a few I could think of…..

Some useful responses, thanks.

I don’t want to be too drastic with changing the existing setup – too integral to the house fabric. So the oil fired HW heating and twin tank system needs to stay in use…

On that basis, presumably no point using a pump on the cold supply as mains pressure sufficient? Just a single impeller positive head pump for the hot water feed?