[Richard]

It would be wise to reconsider for anyone thinking of visiting the football bash scheduled for a little later. the combination of air travel and Russia and its known bands of thugs gearing up for repeats of previous battles should make for interesting times of the wrong kind.

Ed, yes the Middle East (or as some used to term it the muddled beast) is considerably more unstable than it ever was with Iran trying to dominate the Muslim world with its Shia empire dreams and its tendency to play proxy wars out with the Sunni side on any turf it can occupy. Often known as being Shia agony on the Sunni side of the street, (referring to the Gulf as a street). The Shias were often very uncomfortable on the Saudi, (Sunni) side of the Gulf.

Alan I venture to suggest that there are already considerable problems caused by using Russian energy. Most of Europe are right where Putin wants them, beholden to his call. I well remember the Greeks tried to play the Russia card when they were having a bit of trouble with the German Finance Ministry. To become reliant on an unstable and undesirable like Russia is to mortgage yourself and your country to an unwanted, but currently unwisely accepted set of risks. Why else would Russia be so keen to sow doubt in other countries and use tools like the anti fracking mobs, sometimes trading on the so call ‘anti establishment’ anarchist lot.

[Richard]

dwynnehugh That is the problem when you allow free flow of bullying peasants from such backward bigoted dumb places as Tsar Putin land.

Why the heck does anyone try to do any business with thug Russia, let alone rely on them for critical energy supplies? Could it just be stupidity by many in Europe?

[Richard]

Ed, I realise that you would do anything to protect Tzar Putin, but what about the other 14 dodgy deaths of Russian outcasts  in UK, not the mention the wholesale killings back home?

We do need to be rather more skilled and careful at dealing with really unpleasant items like him.

[Richard]

The recent reports say that the policeman who has been affected was searching the house. It has been suggested that the agent that has affected all three might have been delivered to the house with various speculative mechanisms being touted usually by those with no idea anyway.

The USE believes that 14 suspicious deaths of ex Russians might have been at the swing of a foreign hand, an idea made more believable by Moscow TV issuing veiled threats against anyone who is seen as a threat to (poisonous)* Russia.

Nerve agents are not usually freely available to ‘ordinary’ folk. ‘Sarin R Us ‘is not listed in any readily available directory.

Is there anyone who does not believe that the poisonous dwarf Tzar Putin, the recently gay icon would not support murdering anyone he does not like?

*More accurate translation provided.

 

[Richard]

I am glad that it has settle down, however I have known the default OS drivers to use fewer of the capabilities of the hardware and I am concerned that this could be the issue. I had that issue some years back with a desk top and had to replace the graphics card as the artefacts just got worse and worse. I wish you good luck with this one.

[Richard]

It started off nice, bright and sunny; then I went out and realised that the wind was throwing knives, cold nasty knives about the place. I took Daughter to her volunteering at the foodbank, but before I was half way back towards home I was summoned to collect her. The day was not going at all well. At least my wife got her urgent appointment at the hospital well within the set out time scale, otherwise it is a crap cold and from time to time wet day. It is time to hibernate I feel.

[Richard]

Bob, you make me jealous, just a bit really, damned good luck to him I say. He has done it he has earned it. Not been a great evening here at home. Maybe I’ll explain later.

[Richard]

I am surprised that you found the car MPG so different from that actually achieved. With mine the difference has only been one or two miles per gallon on both of the cars. I check the figures every tank full as part of my accounting for the charges so it is not really a special effort. Mostly the cars are only doing short trips these days, supermarket, Screwfix, doctor or daughter’s volunteering twice a week. A busy day might one or other do car ‘as much’ as 30 miles so a tank of fuel might last 2 months in the more frequently used one or 4 months in the other. Cold weather and short trips do really slaughter the average performance, but the gauge reveals all including the effects of a local council’s traffic jam creating, never ending party for the mud pie men.

[Richard]

Steve, I don’t think I have a need for one at the moment but that appears to be a more sensible price for what is really little more than a louvred plastic pipe with a low power fan. You might need to lubricate the motor bearings from time to time, I have to strip our room fans and soak the brass bearing bushes every year or so as they start to stiffen up. As for the fan noise, my wife cannot now sleep without it as she is now so used to the sound. Yours might get noisier if it picks up dust on the blades as it has the radiator to act as a sound board.

[Richard]

Could you have ever so slightly disturbed the connection to the screen when fitting the SSD? The fact that two different OS types produce the same symptoms suggests to me that there is a hardware rather than software issue, though I am happy to be shot down.

[Richard]

All you need is a pen, paper, (clipboard optional) and a spreadsheet. Since the dumb squad screwed up readings in the energy company I take irregular, (due to circumstances) readings and a simple spread sheet works out my daily average consumption between record points. Originally it was intended to find and correct meter reading errors by the contractor, but interestingly the recent winter has barely moved our average daily consumption, (which some might find to lie on the horrendous side of considerable).

[Richard]

Happily for me after several operations my spinal issues have been largely mitigated and though I have some arthritis issues as a result of both decay and damage none of them are that serious for the moment. I do have a possible legacy from my time in the Middle East and will see the skin people early next month. Unfortunately with one hospital within a mile, two more within 5 miles and a further couple within 10 miles they only exist in a location nearer to 20 miles away to which driving provides the only practical access. Since my wife’s issues are becoming ever more limiting asking her to drive me is out of the question. So in the event of needing an operation beyond a quick freeze dry is a none starter. My wife has started her long awaited treatment after two years of delays while other issues were explored, though there is some blunting of her original symptoms other new ‘early days’ side effects are affecting her.

I stress, that none of these issues rival those suffered by others on here, but it does make for a depressing read all round. Because of the need to heat the house to a constant warm temperature today’s latest meter readings do not make the happiest read. In spite of the cold spell daily gas consumption is only marginally higher than last year and the electricity is actually very slightly lower, though not by enough to get excited about. I use a SMART METER READER (me), not the numbskull from Morrisons Meter Readings, whose reading last September has only very recently been reached two winter quarters after his efforts to read summer consumption.

[Richard]

Tippon, That does sound like a sensible way forward, though do your homework first and get a plumber who does not feel you are the lottery payout office. It is never worth the call out fee for small jobs but what you want done is a chain of smallish jobs so perhaps half a day’s work. One call out and half a day’s pay should see most of them done. I had some tricky work done under the kitchen sink done a few weeks back with my hand eye coordination and general lack of flexibility I found it best to call someone out, but they certainly knew how to charge as a two man team who made two visits. One day to do the main job and then to replace a stopcock that had to be specially ordered, – pipe sizes and all that.

[Richard]

Thank goodness the folks round where I live have a little more civic sense than in some places. We did not have the amount of snow that some had and only a few cleared their drives. All of those who went out to clear the couple of inches of snow on their drives cleared it to the side of their own properties. Still it all gone now I am happy to say. The ice finally melted from the old condensate pipe and I used a bit cut from it to complete the newly routed more direct version.

[Richard]

PM, sorry to learn of your trails and tribulations, over the abscess. Now that it has burst I guess there is still some way to go before all will be recovered, though hopefully the treatment will ease the way forward. The weather is a factor for many but you have caught the really rough end of this one. I can only trust that you are able to keep warm and have full access to the  required treatment.

[Richard]

Tippon, I hope that the water has drained outside now. The weather has warmed up here and most of the ice is departing. I went out and completed a new install this morning, but I found the bending and cutting to be harder than I expected/hoped. The old pipe work had a vertical fall of about 3 feet, followed by a horizontal run of about 4 feet or so, before it dropped into the drain. It appears that with night time temperatures of minus five or six any overnight trickles from the boiler froze in the horizontal leg until it became totally blocked and a number of pints, if not a gallon or to backed right through the system into the boiler, which then objected. Following this morning’s activity there is a 45degree angle to the down leg with just a 6 inch horizontal drop into the drain. Hopefully better flow and less chance to cool should ensure minimal future issues.

Is your plan to take the wavy line pipe back and graft it into the existing stack pipe? I hope it is not a high level section or, if it is that you can use a stable tower to complete the work. Maintaining a good, constant fall and an obstruction free run with proper supports should avoid future issues, dips and troughs are a very bad idea. I wonder if Bill Bodger provided the correct ventilation to his epic waste pipe run. Will you get a skilled person to do the remediation? Ladders, troublesome work and time consuming tasks are no longer a suitable set up for me to enjoy. The installation might not be compliant with current regulations as I found the following two quotes. Connection into the soil stack does require a specialist part or two, so it is wise the check what is needed before starting work…

(a) Modern regulations require waste water from above ground level to join into the stack pipe, however with the replacement of baths etc where the original waste fed into a hopper, this method may be reused. (b) Every appliance feeding waste water into a stack must have its own waste trap to provide a water seal.

[Richard]

Well it is an almost tropical 2.3 degrees now so I took out the recycling to its bin and unscrewed the frozen solid boiler drain, a meter and a half of 32 mm pipe filled with ice is a surprisingly heavy item. The permanent replacement will wait for warmer weather.

[Richard]

Yes warmer for me as well, it is a positive 1.5C this morning and I really want to get out and sort out the revised route for the boiler condensate pipe to avoid future freeze up problems. The temporary solution works well enough as a very temporary solution if you accept zero points for style. Though perhaps the creative use of a couple of bricks to sort out the drain angles might be worth a decimal part of a point. I do not feel the urge to go too far afield until the threat of hidden ice with a covering of water has been lifted. It is worse than just black ice.

[Richard]

The situation appears to change almost by the minute. Freezing rain/hail has now given way to a small blizzard that has recovered everything in a thin blanket of snow. I have no plans to go out tonight, but I am not too keen on the prospects for tomorrow either. As PM said thawing out the outside cars will be a real treat – NOT!

[Richard]

Well I’m quite a bit further east than you Dave, we never had that much snow and it has been coming and going all week with only the side roads really affected. Today we had small size hail which was freezing to the car when I last looked Our daughter’s support worked cried off from visiting this morning as she does not have the use of her car due to the snow. I have not ventured out except to revise the temporary boiler drain installation to ensure the water has the fastest rout out into the drain. The old pipe has about 5 feet of ice blocking it now, so that has to go if the weather ever improves and I can set up a better fix. Much more of this and I will be going stir crazy.

[Author]

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