150mm version for £30, but out of stock at the moment.

Aldi had some 24 year old single malt on offer recently – link[/url] – similar to an offer from a year ago that got good reviews.

A leisurely lunch with the team at the local Chinese restaurant today; another “do” tomorrow lunchtime with a wider group of work colleagues which may (if past experience is anything to go by) eventually develop into a significant drinking session, helped by the fact that tomorrow is pay day.

This[/url] if you just want something to carry it around in that is properly robust, and are not too fussed about a bit of extra bulk and weight.

Very little 4K content available, so you’re paying an early-adopters premium for something that you won’t get much benefit from and that’ll get way cheaper when the content becomes more readily available.

Another vote here for the Amazon Basics ones – seem to be a good balance between cost and robustness/quality.

Get a flight to Chiang Rai in Thailand, then head out on your bike in a roughly north easterly direction via Laos until you reach the Chinese border in NE Vietnam. Should be able to do this in maybe three weeks, but two months would be much more of an experience.

Could always use some standard concrete blocks laid flat to make up the step height – 2 courses of 75mm blocks laid flat + a bit of mortar should get you to roughly the right height so that when you top them with a slab you’ll get to half of the existing step height. Take out any slope of the driveway under the lowest step with a thicker bed of mortar under the lowest block.

This is a cracking deal for a Panasonic Milano @ £27 including delivery – something that Tesco are currently offering at RRP of £90. Have been using mine for a couple of months now – very happy.

I see that as a safety risk if there is a fire and you want to get out quick, so I’ve filled the inside key hole with araldite so you can’t lock the inside handle and use a separate deadlock if we go out.

Not a problem for me – I leave the key hanging on a hook within easy reach on my route to the door (and before anyone says, no, the keys can’t be seen or reached via the letterbox by anyone who is outside the door).

The extra step of having to use the key to get out helps avoid the problem of letting yourself out only to realise that you’ve left your keys indoors. I’ve had one of those Yale locks on the front door for the last 20 years and I always leave the inside handle locked – to get out I HAVE to have my keys with me.

I think an auto deadlocking nightlatch might suit – something like this one – can be set so that you need the key to turn the handle on the inside, but will then lock closed behind you automatically.

As an aside, Lidl recently had (and might still have) a reasonable deal on 1kg packs of Lavazza Cremoso beans @ £9.99; makes a perfectly acceptable brew in my AeroPress.

Bangladesh has a long history of pollution problems related to arsenic in the groundwater; certain parts of Cambodia and Laos also suffer. Not so much of an issue if the water used for irrigation is from surface run-off (rain), but more intensive agriculture is leading to more water extracted from boreholes being used for irrigation, hence a rise in arsenic-related issues.

Wonder if, in 2018 to mark the 100th Armistice, they could do the same but with white poppies . . . .

Thanks for the info alanl.

Apologies for the slight thread hijack, but I have a question – is there a limit to how far apart the meter can be from the consumer unit?

Reason I ask is I am looking at a 1970’s 2 bed single storey cottage where the meter and consumer unit are in a detached garage, with all of the wiring for the various household circuits then running into the property via a dodgy-looking timber lash-up between the garage and the property. Place could do with a complete rewire (there’s nowhere near enough sockets for today’s gadgets) and am thinking that it would be good to get the consumer unit inside the property itself, but having read the earlier bits in this thread it would appear that not moving the meter could save some money.

Will struggle to beat here for good value underlay – I bought a load of coir matting from this company about a year ago and the service was very efficient, with rapid delivery exactly on the day promised.

Well happy with the Alpkit made-to-measure Stingray frame bag I got a couple of years ago – one of these; I can get a surprisingly good amount of stuff inside it, and so far the bag is showing absolutely no signs of wear and tear. Use it on a Cotic Roadrat.

Is there no guidance available from the OU or the course tutors ?

Would something like these do the job ?

45kg for a new TV ? – must be HUGE – 65″ are typically only around 25kg – which is still heavy, but actually no more than a shelf of books or a kitchen-wall-cabinet-full of tins. If the plasterboard is well fixed to decent studding and is in reasonable condition then some gravity toggle fixings from someone like Fischer Fixings should do the job.

. . . . one of several uninspiringly hideous buildings which currently “grace” Plymouth.

Companies like this sell off used industrial-grade eurobox containers – much stronger than Really Useful boxes, and available in a whole range of stackable sizes. If you just need the boxes for the move then you can always sell them on again afterwards . . . .

DMF explained[/url]

Motorola Moto E might be a better bet – cheaper (£90) and can add up to 32Gb memory; can’t add memory to the original Moto G, although I must admit I haven’t found this to be an issue (I have an 8Gb unlocked Moto G).

Thanks – ordered – they appear to still have stock.

Edinburgh Bicycle Coop have the Volt 300 on special offer @ £37.50 – which Evans will price match if you have a branch near you. EBC also have the 300 front/50 rear package for £67.49

Volt 50 rear light is definitely not suitable for bag-mounting, but the supplied bracket can be bolted straight to a rack mounting boss if your frame has such a thing – this works very elegantly on my RoadRat.

Pair of Cateyes here – Volt 300 at the front, Volt 50 at the back. Well made, rechargeable from the office PC via USB and plenty bright enough for the daily commute . . . . the Troutie Darkness Dominator only comes out to play now when there’s some nighttime off-road fun to be had.

mymemory have some deals on multipacks – 4 @ Kingston GE9 16Gb for £18.89 delivered.

Stayed in the Du Hung Hotel 2 in Ha Tien just before Christmas – very reasonably priced, and perfectly OK for an overnight stop.

Worth a visit to Carpenter Oak if you’re in the SW. Also worth considering instead of solid timber are materials such as Glulam and Kerto – can get large section sizes and thus big spans.

Knock down price you say ? . . . . check the warranty/returns process carefully, otherwise that knock down bargain could quickly become an expensive paperweight/ornament.

Currently on my second replacement XE6 – which shows that the warranty is good, but only because its been needed – some of the small parts in the XE6 (specifically the spring bits which provide the resistance to opening/closing the blades) are too fragile and break rather too easily. Latest replacement seems to be lasting better than the original and the first replacement, so perhaps Leatherman have finally sorted things.

Quiet last night, but wind gusting 45 knots now in Plymouth.

Not sure that I’d park it away in a quiet corner – where a would-be thief could work away at little risk of being disturbed. As others have said – clear plastic or perspex or similar to keep the weather out.

Local to me, so will keep eyes peeled.

Very happy so far with my “original version” 3G 8Gb version. Note that there are a couple of new variants imminent – a 4G version which also has a memory card slot, and a lower spec 3G one.

On an iMax you’ll only see real sharp detail over a pretty small area – to see what I mean look at anything which is about an arm’s length away – you’ll “see” a central area about the size of a newspaper in sharp detail, but everything else around it will be lacking detail until you actually LOOK at it. . . move further out to the sides and you’ll again see something, but not in any great detail. Move right to the extremes of your peripheral vision and you’ll only really be aware of stuff that moves in that area – you won’t know what it is that you’ve seen moving, but you will see something – this is a hang-over from history where your peripheral vision kept you from being eaten by wild beasts creeping up on your from the sides/rear.

Rule of thumb for screen diagonal size always used to be to divide the distance you were sitting from the screen by 3, and that was the biggest diagonal screen you should get – your eyes have a limited width vision “sweet spot” and if you’re too close to a big screen your brain/eyes can’t process quickly enough what’s happening at the edges of the screen – your eyes then have to “hunt” side-to-side to see everything, which can be mentally tiring and lead to headaches.