The school where Indiana Jones teaches in at the beginning of ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ is the same school that Supergirl goes to in, erm, ‘Supergirl’

I think a lot of people might be unaware of what they actualyl can and can’t drive. You see people towing trailers and caravans and assume everyone can. I’ve got a friend who used to work in land conservation which involved using 12 seat landrovers and trailers. It came to light one day that almost all of the staff were driving both illegally and were totally unaware of it.

Add up the time it takes to get to the airport, queue through checkin/security/boarding, fly, then get form the airport into edinburgh. The train might still be quicker if you are going between city centres.

Not had to claim for a bike, but have made a claim recently with them and was massively impressed – your first call to them is effectively the claim – they record the call and thats it, no waiting for forms to arrive to fill out and post back.

I called them once, a direct replacement co called me back, called again to check I was happy with what they would supply. Within a week or so it was all done, dusted and forgotten about.

The last time I had to make a home insurance claim the whole thing dragged for 9 months, time mostly spent with me having to hound people and replacements turning up in dribs and drabs.

With regards to bike its best just to call them and chat so you’re straight in your head as to what is and isn’t covered. I was pretty sceptical because bikes aren’t specifically mentioned in their blurb and compared to the mountains of conditions and exclusions you get with specialist cycle insurers – locks from an approved list, where the bike can and can’t be over night etc. I didn’t want to think I was covered for certain things and find out I wasn’t

When I spoke to them they basically said – if you walk to the shops and you drop your wallet and it gets taken/lost we cover it. If you cycled to the shops and ‘drop’ your bike and it gets taken/lost we cover that too. Same with a laptop or ming vase or anything else.

I can’t imagine flies consider anything to be repellent. I think Lavender is a general insect repellent and theres a list of natural insect repellents here – although you’ll see few of them mention flies.

If the house is new / new to you and has been unheated for a while then putting the heating on might have caused hibernating bugs to think its spring.

I stayed in a self catering cottage out of season a few years back and it hadn’t been booked out for a while. Switched the heating on and with a few hours things started to get a bit Amityville as dozens and dozens of flies started appearing. It was fine after a day or two though.

Difficult to demonstrate zero involvement if evidence is all around when the door comes down. As above the police might be the least of worries.

I know a gentleman who looks like he’s been hit in the face with and axe. And the reason he looks like that is because someone hit him in the face with an axe.

So what you are saying is that he is targeting your auctions specifically? Or are you Bolton based too and he’s mucking about with auctions that are local to you.

If any of his actions are genuinely abusive record them and report it to eBay and the the police. If it seems like its your eBay ID specifically that he’s targetting then I think you can change your ID while retaining your feedback / rating, which might stop him from being able to seek out your future auctions

Soak the mix in Buckfast, equivalent to about 4 cans of redbull. Gives you a bit of Dutch Courage as well.

True

You can only guess at the likelyhood of either your present or the future company getting into bother. If a company is actively recruiting you could take some assurance that they have a fairly sunny disposition at the moment. Are your current employers doing the same?

If you look at things more pessimistically when it comes to the crunch it can be a bit last-in-first-out when choosing who to give the boot too. And a redundancy packages reflect the time served.

Traveling with work can get you down, but I’d make any decisions while you’re not travelling. I used to spend a fair bit of time away from home when I first set up in business, it could get me into quite a glum state, but doing it was what made all the rest of my work viable.

Now- A large quantity of ivy and nextdoors conservatory which has rippled glass that makes the kids toys inside look like distorted mutants

From next month – A big pink 14th century castle and the River Ayr

Hello Ducky

While people are saying you should look for a stake in the company rather than ‘just’ a job, keep in mind that employers don’t always treat themselves as well as their employees, especially during the early stages of a new business. A stake in the company is a stake in everything, the risks and hardships and loses as well as the rewards. Are you prepared to do that? Will you pay yourself peanuts in order to make sure your employees get paid in full and on time? This month, next month and for as far into the future as you can see? Are you going to forego holidays and be checking your emails and calling into the office when you do take time off?

My brother and two colleagues set up their own business when the company they worked for crashed an burned. However one of the partners was treating the business like a job, he would do what was asked of him but wouldn’t take liability for the whole. In the end they had to pay him off and cut him loose, he’d been a great guy to work with, but not a great guy to be in business with.

Unless you are of a mind to go into business then you’d be better off to settle for a job, a steady wage while you employers are remorgaging their homes to pay your wages and the rent, and the bargaining power of being their most valued and longest serving employee when they hit the bit time.

This might surprise you, but if your household income (thats two combined incomes or one if only one works) is £35k after tax, then you are withing the top 10% of earners.

People who earn more than £50k are a negligible proportion of the population.

The main flaw with the proposal is that the majority of the people who received a lump sum of £20K would just stick it in bank account and save it, put aside for college fees or some other rainy day strategy. A large proportion of the hand out wouldn’t be circulating so it would have very little effect.

Hand outs and tax breaks to the well off don’t work, as the well off don’t spend all they have from one month to the next, so they’ll just have more surplus to put by for a rainy day, and when that rainy day comes they’ll just emigrate to Spain, mumbling about immigrants under their breath. (They will if they listen to Jeremy Vine anyway)

Handouts / breaks to the the poorest have the most benefit to the wider economy as the poor inevitably spend all the money they have, so with things like the VAT cut might only put a few extra quid in most people’s pockets, but they’ll spend those few extra quid. And there are many many more poor people than rich people.

Dewalt has been part of Black and Decker since 1960. People seem to assume that Dewalt is/was a german brand. Mr Dewalt, inventor of the Radial Arm Saw (or the Wonder Worker as he called it) started his company in Pennsylvania back in the 1920’s. B&D bought Elu in the 90s and applied Dewalt branding to some of their lines.

If you’ve no paperwork with you perhaps you could try calling a former employer, if there are any you’re on conversational terms with. They should still have your payroll stuff.

If you lift your flap you’ll find its tattooed underneath. Its a bit difficult to reach, you might need someone to lift your flap for you. A torch can be handy, and something to blow the fluff out.

Second the makita impact drivers, fab, very light and very powerful. Make a fricking racket though, good for making it seem like you are doing an awful lot more work than you actually are. The tool to reach for when the client in in earshot.

I’ve been really disappointed with recent dewalt stuff, I find it heavy and clumsy to use, and you can get stung with non-EU market mexican made guff if you buy online. Only worth considering if you have small hands, as the battery design allows for a smaller grip.

Makita and Bosch stuff has always been good value for me, even the cheaper green bosch stuff.

With the newer Li-ion batteries on the scene the older technology Ni-Cad and Ni-Mh stuff is very well priced at the moment with either higher amp/hr batteries or more batteries then you would have got in the past.

I generally lean toward Makita stuff, maybe its just what I’m used to but I find their stuff quite controllable, certainly more so than Dewalt. Screwfix’s own brand "Site" tools might be worth a look – made by Makita, seemingly with their older technology and very keanly priced just now. If you’re not using drill drivers an awful lot they might be worth a look.

Also been known to snack on capers or gherkins straight from jar. Is that unorthodox?

capers from the jar is a bit weird, gherkins from the jar is the only way to eat them

I went out with a girl who would eat a who jar of pickled jalapinos and then drink the vinegar.

My GF bought me a magnetic tool/parts bowl for my birthday a few years back. She wrapped it an put it on top of the TV with my cards and other pressies.

As the evening wore on the world of television got slowly more and more purple

No Simon, they’re not ‘pulling’ pants they’re "pull up" pants.

They’re what you need when you’re getting up in years

Oh and let’s not get started on the "peeing while in the shower" debate

At least wait til I’ve finished!

Not that its any excuse but….. if something is a common fault there is going to be a lot of demand for those repairs and those parts. I’d be expecting a bit of a rebate though if its taking that long.

wilco

It’s just for fun, before I sell it

It its an XL frame I might like to buy it

I’ve got the bits to put together a road bike that is going to be truly shocking, like the the fish you only find in deep sea trenches.

The frame and forks must have been a thing of beauty when it was made in in 1958, but since then its suffered every kind of hamfisted, half arse butchery that you can’t even imagine. I’ve collected a whole bunch of sale bucket and ebay guff, non of which is in keeping, to build it up with and then I’m going to post in on here at just the right moment to make you choke on your coffee.

No fatal for who? I think if you where hit by a cat hard enough it would be pretty serious

group of long tailed tits

The Bullingdon Club?

In thats case you’ll need a copy of Who’s Who to identify them

What things sell for has absolutely no relevance to what the cost. Why should the rising or falling value of aluminum have any bearing of the cost of a bike frame? If a £1000 bike frame was made from half a ton of alu I’d expect alu prices to be significant. Take your new frame and weigh it in for scrap and see how much you get offered.

The price is set by the market and the price is the price is the price. Where or how or from what you make something out of effects your margins, and a manufacturer makes their own decisions but the price remains the same, because consumers set the price not the manufacturer.

Location Location Location

early ride pic before CFH and myself logged on

I like the hanging basket low-riders on the bike second from the right. Winner of the 1908 ‘Bike in Bloom’

Anyway once I move I can dig my own moat and fill it with sharks and winged monkeys.

or water

I live in a nice bit of Glasgow though, rather than smash one of the windows to get in the back, one thief carefully removed the whole window, seals and all, and left all the bits in a neat pile on the pavement. What a gent. If only there was some way of giving accreditation to polite scum.

Gave Garrison a quick call, you’re right the do make them, but will only sell them in sets of four for quite an eye watering amount of money.

As it happens Zokes I am moving to nicer area, thanks to the xmas stw hack attack I went out and did something less boring instead, which was a spot of inpromptu house hunting, and as a result I’m moving to the grounds of a rather lovely castle in the countryside. With lots and lots of lovely riding on the doorstep. I’ll still need to park in glasgow fairly often though.

as is the comparison with some 3rd world countries who apparently do not have the problem.

Not really a meaningful statement for the MP to make, as dyslexia only exists statistically if you are prepared to define it. And anyone can choose their own definition and choose to ‘see’ it or not. My brother is dyslexic but when my folks raised concerns with his primary school head, he stated "nobody in this school is working-class enough to be dyslexic or middle-class enough to be autistic". Charmer.

If you don’t have a definition for dyslexia then its easy to define someone as being anything else, the headteacher used the euphemism ‘nice’ as a way of saying that my bro was thick. For along time there has been a not-too-helpful definition of dyslexia in this country, which is to define it as someone who is otherwise intellectually bright but has specific difficulties in reading and writing. That assumes that difficulties with reading and writing amongst the less intelligent is a result in them being too thick to read and write.

Reading and writing isn’t a higher intellectual function – people with Downs Syndrome can read and write. Chimps can be taught to write. Its a skill set that is independent of intellect and has only been part of human history for a short time. Just a few hundred years in some societies. So up until recently reading difficulties amongst the less academic kids have been overlooked.

Its part of our schooling so because such a large part of our childhood involves being taught to read and write we assume its a long and difficult skill to learn. North american indians had no history of written language, but on introduction to it by settlers the whole society was literate within a year.

But whats quite amusing is that dyslexia can be overcome, and one of the ways of overcoming it are through different methods of learning that compensate for the obstacles that that those students face. So by suggesting implementing those methods multilaterally, as our friendly MP is suggesting, you have to accept that dyslexia exists because his proposed methods directly address it.

He’s proving not disproving its existence, further proof that his ability to write is not a measure of his own intellectual abilities.

I’m also using a 6 year old 12" powerbook. And running the latest OS too. I had to replace a drive last year, but it was a cheap and (delicate) DIY job. They hold a good price second hand too, so any premium over other machines is ofset by the service life and the resale

I’d echo spooky’s advice – turn off everything in the house and see if the meter is still spinning. However you might have already nailed the problem with the high unit charge for elec. Time to shop around for a new supplier if thats the case. A friend of mine did that to discover the MOT garage behind his house was running off his meter.

All our bikes are custom builds so a pain to explain a value for them in the event of anything happening, what I’ve done is whenever one of them goes into a shop for some work I’ve done the work of listing and valuing all the parts myself and then asked the LBS to verify it rather than ask them to spend an afternoon googling. Easiest is to email it to them so they can then print it out on their own letterhead for you.