Mr Ed

18 years without any issues apart from a few injuries. I always reckon climbing keeps you nice and supple. My father was still climbing at 60...

Why this talk of ripping people off?! This sounds like its coming from a job specification sheet. Ben might not agree with it, but he's certainly not ripping them off by giving them a fair price to undertake the work.

Piling rig? Depends on specification, but anywhere between £130 - £500k Not bad when you think that 2 guys with that rig can install a ringbeam house foundation in 8 hours and charge £5500......

Butch, its totally forbidden to build on whats called greenbelt land here. If you imagine that there are 56 million people in the UK, and about 50 million of those in England itself (exclude Wales and Scotland), then forbid those 50 million people from building anywhere outside urban zoned areas, it gives you an idea of the pressure.

Osteopath's are a much higher trained, and know chiropracy. Chiropraticy is a narrow field.

just pop it in the washing machine. I've never needed to 'butter' a sapped rope yet...

I find it quite pointless trying to discuss anything with you. You continually tell me how I feel, and dont pay any attention to my posts. I do not live in fear. It does'nt bother me that much. I do not try to convince you that your point of view is invalid. Caio.

'Guns dont kill people, Rappers do I'm a F****** Rapper, and I might kill you!' What really ticks me off is the Arrogant, Patronizing, Condecending tone that Tim and Tony Have taken. I'm not some paranoid maniac scared of everybody. If you dont like guns, fair do's to you. I dont believe in giving guns to everybody, but I equaly dont believe that the government / police are capable of protecting me should something bad happen. If you live in the country like we do, then your well out of range of police help. We are an hours drive from the nearest 24 hour manned police station. Its a fact that manchester and liverpool gangs of theives target north wales and cheshire farms for stealing equipment. And these guy's are NOT friendly. Just recently in a local small town a woman was severely raped and beaten in front of her 2 children by a guy who'd driven down the coast specifically to target a quiet neighbourhood. Are firearms the answer? probably not. Do I feel safer knowing I can protect my family as a last resort? Yes. Dont kid yourselves that Britain is safe, or that your anything more than a statistic to the Government.

Sorry Tony, I'm not quite following you. I appreciate your patronizing tone, but dont quite get your point

Er... Yes? ( and I assume you mean an illegaly purchased gun) If a criminal is caught with an illegal weapon, whats he got to loose? I, on the other hand, loose everything.

Tim, I agree with a lot of your sentiments on gun ownership, but that last statement is completly ludicrous On the east side of the Atlantic, we have the British Home Office and the British Crime Survey for 2005/2006. The UK does not use a calendar-year reporting scheme, but reports on a September-to-September time-frame. (These figures do NOT represent two years' worth of data.) The first problem is that there appear to be two separate figures for the crime rate. If we look at the tables supporting Chapter 5, on Violent Crime, (this is an Excel Workbook) we are told that there was a total of 2,420,000 violent crimes in the time-frame covered by the report. If we take the word of the CIA Factbook the UK had a population of 60,609,153 (July 2006 est.) This gives a rate of violent crime per 100,000 inhabitants as 3992.8. However in Chapter 7, (Table 7a) of the BCS, the total violent crime rate per 1000 inhabitants is listed as 23, which is equivalent to 2300 per 100,000 inhabitants. Even this lower number is an astonishing figure when compared to the US data. On the west side of the Atlantic we have the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Uniform Crime Report for 2005. (2005 is the last year for which the data are not preliminary.) In table 1, we see that in 2005, the violent crime rate per 100,000 inhabitants was 469.2. I recently broke out some of the state-by-state numbers. I repeat them here. State Violent Crime Rate per 100,0000 murder rate per 100,000 South Dakota 175.7 2.3 California 526.3 6.9 New York 445.8 4.5 Massachusetts 456.9 2.7 Wisconsin 241.5 3.5 District of Columbia 1459.0 35.4 The UK numbers make Washington, D.C. look good.

Tim, I DONT CARE ABOUT CRIMINALS ALWAYS HAVING THE UPPER HAND! I want the right to meet them with superior force should they threaten me... Dagmar, Thank you for your eloquent and succinct argument. you put my feelings into words. Like that Ruger too.

A shredder or tub grinder will produce a valuable resource, compost. how much is shitloads then?

Who am I to dissagree with the great Freud...?

Your quite right - Criminals usually do have the upper hand. But I believe it should be my right to protect me and mine from the lawless scum that litter this sceptic Isle. I live in a very rural area, I leave my trucks parked in my yard with the keys in them etc., But there is no way I would walk across town in any of our local small towns at closing time. The criminal classes in this country have become far to used to pathetic policing, and getting away with a slap on the wrist for their violent behaviour.

A registration system gun law - the Firearms Act - was first introduced to Great Britain in 1920, spurred on partly due to fears of a surge in crime that might have resulted from the large number of guns available following World War I and in part due to fears of working class unrest in this period Cant have the plebs arming themselves, can we!? This overturned the right to keep and bear arms that had originated in England during the reign of Henry II with the 1181 Assize of Arms, and developed as part of Common Law. It comes back to the fact that the UK is a nanny fascist state, where the government decides whats best for you. I am all in favour of extremely strict gun controls, but not the outright banning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland

I think the insurance 'crisis' was engineered. I just got my PL and EL through the NFU, and saved myself a huge chunk.

No, Consultants get an AA tie, usefull for garroting the competition...

Good job I have a CF working for me eh?

We can fully refurb chippers. We have a precision engineering shop at Measham, jct 11 M42.

Ehrm... When I was there, I was just a hired gun. I did'nt ask if a tree was protected, I just killed 'em.

Blocking the move by HSE to make all arborists wear full body harnesses. I thnk the best thing the AA provide is the approved contractor / Consultant register. You may not like it, but it does set a high (recognizable!)standard for our industry.

Surely you Jest? It cracks me up the way people feel about the AA. at least they are trying to do some good. If you dont like them, dont join them, and stop whinging about them.

Sorry Lee, but I checked this out. if you do a search for Tree development controls in NSW, it comes up with lots of different councils (Shires) and all have a different plan. This one obviously is a bit more lenient - http://www.begavalley.nsw.gov.au/Environment/tree_management/tree_management.htm