[Richard]

Ed, you mean that the CIA behave a tiny bit like the Russians and the Chinese, though quite what that has to do with Europe I am not sure. Ah I get the link Soros has the Eu with its Euro and Putin’s Friends has the Mad-Uro in Venezuela, got it; only in those cases the love affairs are the reciprocal of each other. I am surprised no one has munched on that shining beacon of achievement Italy where things have been well and truly ‘Euroed’. Don’t tell me all those nasty Italians are also working for the CIA, or are they.

[Richard]

I am unclear why you should need to involve anyone. A neighbour’s visitor did the same sort of thing to my car and gladly* paid up for the repairs. (A slightly dented plastic bumper and scratches to its paintwork.) I got several quotes and settled for the easiest to use, which was also the best priced one. One outfit clearly wanted to bulk up the work and it left a slight aroma of decaying ‘padding’.

If it was a personal injury case where you had been injured or your garden wall had been knocked down, why would any other party be drawn into the issue, (e.g. your life insurer?). I would really like to understand that one. I smell a underhand motive like trying to recover the payout through an increase in your premium in the next and subsequent years.

Their insurance should put you back where you should be without the other party’s misadventure, no more no less

*Perhaps not really gladly, sheepishly perhaps but still readily via the neighbour, his son.

[Richard]

I saw that report and had to applaud the two for jumping on the problem, I just hope they are now doing well. The trauma can affect people long after such an event, no matter how well they appear to handle it at the time. It was a shame that the scrote only got a short slap. I felt no sorrow that the couple involved in the aggravated burglary in Harrow and then messed up the railings and the front of a coach, will not now be troubling the prison service. I just hope their victims are doing well after their trauma which will have a significant effect on them for some time.

[Richard]

Wheels-Of-Fire wrote:

Unfortunately OR employs a few actual telephone engineers they have left over from the BT days and then they have a whole bunch of cable contractors that have had a two week training course.

Possible correction, should that not read ‘too weak training course’?

[Richard]

I believe that the classic car values were based on an agreed insurance value for the car as is/was, though that may have changed. Pardon me if I have less than zero appreciation for the wriggle capabilities of the insurance industry. In my opinion they can make the proverbial dog’s hind leg look like a perfect straight edge.

[Richard]

Wow, I have just been really impressed. Following the trouble with my hand I was awaiting a chose and book follow up, it came in today with 5 choices. The most distant places were 80 days and 50 days with the others ranging down to 14 days for the closest, which I promptly took. I can walk to and from that one in less than 20 minutes. Even better the chose and book application can synchronise with my diary and automatically complete the time and date details. I was well impressed. However, the survey option then promptly crashed. You cannot win them all.

[Richard]

Too true Ed. A neighbour was waiting at some of those damned temporary lights while the mud pie men played drink my tea. The person behind forgot to stop in time so a small dent in the rear door of the car and a split bumper resulted, the door and all four others was still fully functional. The next day they received an offer on the car in full and final settlement – oh was there any personal injury element waiting? When told there was not, the driver was shaken rather than severely jolted the offer was confirmed and they went out and bought an automatic replacement that was 5 years younger and had done about 50,000 miles. The ‘scrapped’ car was drivable and in all other respects immaculate, I wonder how much they will get for all the parted out bits.

[Richard]

Thank you Lee, I guess everyone got a tug from the moron.

[Richard]

There were no constraints about the boiler hanging, just other issues with showers, plumbing layout, additional power for possible flash heater shower pumps, etc. Additionally the problems others encountered with water demand in a multi tap situation where if one uses hot water and another starts a demand flowing then all taps suffer, etc. we can run appliances, showers and or baths simultaneously as and when needed.

The new boiler’s condensate pipe was an issue a year or two back as the installed drain arrangement allowed condensate drips to freeze and build up due to sluggish flow. I sorted that out in the minus 10 degrees cold weather; cutting the installed outlet pipe and substituting a 45 degree down pipe to the drain. Since then, no more problems. I could have re-engineered an internal drain, but it would have needed difficult carpentry to the kitchen cabinets.

[Richard]

I am slightly in a position like that of the unfortunates on those USN boats. I went to bed at 05:00 this morning after driving through much of the night and spending yesterday dealing with issues arising from my wife’s health. So sorry if I ramble a bit.
The use of mashed paper ‘bricks’ has been popular from time to time during my life time, yet it has never really caught on. In every case the issues turned out to be the huge amount of labour required to mash and press the paper into bricks, their short burn life if they were not compressed enough and the very hard work collecting enough paper to make them viable for more than a day a year. In theory burning messy/contaminated paper that is not suited to main paper stream recycling would be sound, but in turn if can result in adverse pollution issues.
Dry well seasoned hard wood can answer many of those issues, whether consumed as logs or chipped and dried into pellets, but wet resinous wood is a real killer. Just look at the result of countless bonfires in autumn.
Since almost everyone has personal profiles that are largely or completely uniquely theirs, no one set up will meet everyone’s needs. For example, last night, we were out of the house for a period that almost perfectly aligned with the off time of our boiler. Having had seen the problems with combie installation used by others. I rejected all proposals suggesting their use to replace our 25 year old boiler, in practice no one proposed them due to their incomparability issues. A combie would require extensive plumbing and electrical rework, the new one was a slip in replacement that ensures the hot water header is kept filled with hot water. The key persuader was that the present set up is fully compatible with both the size of the building and crucially the showers in the bathrooms. I freely accept that this is my personal situation and applicable only to me. We are almost constantly set up with consistent, unchanging demand profiles so a thermostat coupled with bog standard TRVs and a ‘bog standard’ style ‘programmer’. Set up 4 years ago when the boiler and programmer were replaced, it has never been reset. I am considering replacing the 27 year old thermostat as I suspect that the ‘builder grade’ item is on the cusp of its sell by date. Improved room stats sound attractive, but costs and annual battery changes for around 20 radiators do not!
I upgraded the roof insulation 15 years or so back, though a few areas could perhaps do with an upgrade and the whole roof might justify a further upgrade. However, the cost upwards of £300 plus a barely double digit per annum saving looks unattractive, as does the work to clear the loft ready for any upgrade. Medical issues play a major part in our DIY, usage and demand profiles.
Like Steve solar panels look unlikely to yield any real net financial benefit to us as the roof profile faces east, west with a chopped up segment, (dormer style windows)facing south, with another fuller segment facing due north. Once again a personal set of issues breaks the one size fits all approach. The amortisation period was likely to exceed any maintenance free period, always suggesting a negative return profile. Life expectancy of the occupants is yet another key personal profile issue.

 

 

[Richard]

I should declare a ‘sort of passing connection from the last century’.

I have visited the Yokosuka base and knew some of the then personnel, this gives it a slight personal connection though those who I knew best have long since severed their connection with the base and the US navy.

Accidents are one thing, but I struggle to find any evidence that this was in fact anything related to an accident.

[Richard]

I am aware that the issue was gestated far away from the site of its happening. The poor sods at the sharp end (of another ship) were the product of a long train of stupidity that stretch to far back not to end up at ‘the hill. What put it in train was, well a total lack of the politicians to pay for the job to be done right in the first place. Without in anyway demeaning those caught in this total wreak if the political squad pay for a few untrained monkeys because their paymasters demand the cash goes elsewhere that is, in effect what they get. 22 ~24 hour shifts produce little better than unskilled zombies add in that training became an unused ‘optional extra’ and that unmaintained kits did not work because getting a quart out of a cup is the name of the capitol game and you have the sorry mess they cooked up. Remarkably they all look likely to get away scot free, unlike the dead and disgraced who carry the can.

‘Defence is currently a politician’s dirty word and no money should be wasted in its support’.

[Richard]

An appalling list of failures, for a bit it read like a rejected script from The Navy lark  but with a far too dark twist. The account was prepared for readability and not in the dry language of an official report. It made me wonder how much has changed as a result, clearly the crap radar will continue to be a happy item for those ‘lucky’ enough to suffer its failings.

[Richard]

Bob, you mean the old ‘run out of fingers’ issue?

[Richard]

I think the real problem is that when I click on the tag for the latest post in this thread, I end up on post page 1  and have to go searching. Is this a plot to slow down the rate of posting new material I wonder?

[Richard]

Wot Abat the fiasco that is increasingly erupting in a place called Italy? Will that one end well?

Apparently Corbyn thinks of the EU in glowing(?) terms, as a ‘European empire’, oh dear. Perhaps it really is popcorn and beer time

[Richard]

Tippon, that was a bad saga, though I am not sure where it has left you. My wife lost some teeth during a bicycle accident many years  ago and we paid for a fixed plate to replace the lost teeth also many years ago. She was told it should last 25 years, but so far about 40 years later it has survived countless operations, chemo, and other intense pressures.

Though I neglected my oral situation for some years I escaped quite lightly. I did need one or two quite extensive fillings, only then to find much of one of the teeth then crumbled requiring a furthe intervention and a couple of painless root canal jobs but so far all are still present and correct though a couple have been painlessly capped.

[Richard]

@PM I can and do understand the reasons behind your personal concerns and accept that you must work with them to achieve what balance you can. I thought that eyes would be the most terrifying operation site, but they were not and it was all sorted in minutes. Perhaps if they were not done in general hospitals but in dedicated through put ‘tunnels’ the cancellation rate for operations might be lower and the satisfaction rates for those patients (and other operations suited to such a new way of thinking) would be far higher. As far as I can remember my eye surgeon did about 16 such operations on his ‘operation day’ each week.

[Richard]

PM, thank god I did not have that attitude, the cataract operation on my eyes has been magical. I can drive and day or night I can see anything from about 30 inches to nearly infinity and colours have a sharpness I did not know I had lost. For closer work I do use reading glasses.

As for teeth, I admit I did neglect them for about 20 years but more or less got away with that though I have had a few issues. Impacted wisdom teeth were a real issue and required a fairly major lights out operation to dig them out of their hiding place where they were starting to cause real issues. However I still have my knashers and they work just fine for their intended function.

[Richard]

I signed up in about 1992~3 and have been with the same practice ever since – just not the same dentist. My wife and I are scheduled for a check up this week, the kids are still registered there as well though we might/will face a few logistical issues with one of them. We heard that some had problems but the village has at least two dental practices with 200 yards of each other.

[Author]

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