Mark Bolam

The offer still stands mate!

Mull, you’re a sharp bloke. You know the difference between overloaded and overloaded. Jack, take a lesson here mate. The blokes who have advised you have a few miles on the clock between them. Just plan things better. You’ll make more money, not less.

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Good stuff. Nice when something works as well as you hoped it would. It’s a rare occurrence for me!

Your pond is looking great Marcus. Sorry to hear your woes Spandit, you should get some kind of award, not a load of ballache! The fire brigade access thing gave me a good laugh though. It could be very useful for them to pump from, I suppose. Good work Matthew. Some really nice projects. We dammed a tiny dyke when I was a nipper and made a pool big enough to canoe in. That was before planning was invented, mind. I love ponds.

I’d say do it for a year, then the rest of your life will seem easy.

Eucalyptus are always good for guaranteeing future work.

I ditched the Pantin years ago and got a CT which is much better. Now got a Notch which is better again and tends right from the floor, although I find the straps a bit fussy.

100gb is a lot of porn, sorry, data J!

Mast sharing was going on in the 90's when I worked for Mercury/One2One/T-Mobile mate.

And all for under £20k!

With a 4x4 diff for some serious pavement mounting action.

When we leave the EU hopefully all phones can just move towards a system of network sharing. Like they have in Europe.

Maybe it's because I live in the sticks and knock about with a load of hicks and builders, who all gripe about how generally poor today's offerings are in terms of real working performance and reliability.

That might be the reality, but it's also good that they didn't say that. You have to price every job as standalone or you become a charity not a business.

I know the 4x4 market is all geared towards Chelsea tractor bling these days, but there would still be a big market for a tough, simple, powerful not too many frills pick up, surely? I can't believe not one of the manufacturers has looked at this. There are still enough people out there who need a proper working vehicle to make it viable. This and a few other threads has helped me realise that not everyone wants a leather lined chromed up poncemobile with a 1.2l engine tweaked to 200bhp with 300 ECUs.

No internet in his caravan, obviously.

I’ve always liked that truck Alex. I’m happy to look after it for you if you like.

It’s all in the attic, behind the water tank.

I’m clean Kev.

It won’t be the ones pricing doing the work in most cases Eggs. That easy one day tree won’t be easy anymore.

We would all like a safer industry, better paid, better recognised, better regulated, right? I’ve listened to whinging on here for a decade about plumbers, sparkies etc. earning more than us, but the fact is they are better trained. No one is Gas Safe after a month. No problem. Increase training times, raise standards. The problem is you will be competing against people who have no standards in the first place, and the HSE let them operate with impunity. A lot of domestic customers have no idea what treework costs. Why would they? We lose. I’ve spent tens of thousands of pounds over the years on training and insurance, and I sometimes wonder why I bothered. Buying a top handle without proof of competence? Ebay is your friend there. Any comment on that HSE? Travellers with flash signwritten trucks doing treework, no tickets, no insurance, top handles everywhere. Any comment on that HSE? Big companies underbidding tree maintenance contracts to balance the books then sending out young guys on £80/day to do medium takedowns the spreadsheet says are worth £120. Any comment on that HSE? Thought not. You’re not only ignorant, you’re spineless. [email protected] if you want to take it outside.

I think that there has been a bit of stick dished out unfairly on this thread, to the AA and Minty in particular, so I did a bit of research today.

I don’t see remote anchors as a problem when accessing SRT. You can route your line easily so you have plenty of backup from lower limbs if the top point were to fail. Experience and sound choices help, if we are still allowed to think.

Meanwhile every unqualified, unticketed, uninsured ‘mobile’ tree surgeon will be having a field day raping all the trees in the domestic sector. Perhaps HSE should look in that direction for a change?