daltontrees

Sorry Mr fergusontreesurgery but I did try to keep it on subject for a while, then gave up. But as long as the curent debate on the wider political issues is open-minded, constructive and good-natured I think it is dong no harm to let it run. Any contributions on the effect of independence on the industry welcome anytime though.

Rather nicely put, sir.

See, there's going to be a vote anyway, and not voting is not an option. Anyone who doesn't vote is a blethering idiot who is giving his vote to another person. I will vote even if it is just to beat the politicians at their own game.

As used earlier in the thread FUK means Former. If you prefer RUK, call it what you want but as it would no longer be united. How about LAP (London And Provinces)? Or SORE (Subjects of Royal England)? Only having a laugh, by the way!

Using stick/eye and paces is just a simplified version of hypsometry, or strictly speaking it would be called tacheometry. Most clinometers these days not only give you angles in degrees but they also give you percentages. If you look through the clinometer to the top of the tree you can read off a percentage. Do the same to the base of the tree and add this to the top angle. Multiply this by your distance to the centre of the tree. Example, you pace 20 metres away from the tree, stop and turn around. The top of tree measures 100% (the same as 45 degees) and the bottom measures 20% (about 11 degrees). Add the two together 120%. Multiply by your distance of 20 metres, gives you 24m. You can use any distance, it is just easier to do the mental arithmetic if the distance is multiples of 10m. The laser hypsometer uses a laser to measure and record the distance to the tree. trHEN IT RECORDS THE ANGLE TO TEH TOP, THEN TO TEH BOTTOM. pRESS A BUTTON AND IT DOES THE ABOVE CALCULATIONS FOR YOU AND DISPLAYS A HEIGHT. Sounds more precise but it's only as good as the care that goes into using it. The Suunto one piece clinometer is almost indestructible, needs no batteries, needs no maintenance and no button pushing with cold gloved hands. I wouldn't use anything else for standard surveys. About £100 new or £50 second-hand. Height measurement of a 20 metre-ish tree takes about 1 minute, less if you count the paces as you walk away to examine the crown.

Just now we have MPs in westminster and MSPs in Holyrood. IF the MSPs could handle the additoinal work of independence, the net saving would be the salaries and overheads of all the scottish MPs and their entourages.

Nonsense! If scots taxes have been paying towards scottish infrastructure for 300 years, why will the FUK own the infrastructure it didn't pay for? What's it going to do, chop faslane off, float it down the west coast and weld it to wales? Personally |I quite like the idea of Britains prime military trget being a bit further away, even if it is closer to the population centres that benefit from it and paid for it. I think your use of the word 'fact' is erroneous. If there is a Yes vote all preconceptions and assumptions will have to be set aside as part of a negotiated and legally binding separation agreement.

Are you referring to me? My knickers are currently perfectly straight. I've thought about it and read about it and looked at my policy and liaised with brokers and know what the answer is. If I've got it wrokng I will be punished by having wasted £250 of my £60k turnover on unnecessary insurance. If i've got it right I won't lose my house if someone gets killed.

Funnily enough, I am still undecided alyhough my sympathies lie with Independence and then vote all the b***ards out and start with a fresh bunch. I have had such a bad experience over the new High Hedges Act and the way the scottish Parliament handled it and is handling the guidance that I am very worried what they would get up to if their heads got any bigger and their brains any smaller. I am more or less putting my decision on how they perform on my test-issue Updates - High Hedges Scotland help advice representation over the next 2 months.

OK I had forgotten about the NATO difficulty. A bit awkward to resolve. Or not even try. If anyone invades we'll all charge down teh hillsidew with claymores in the time-honoured tradition of scots as cannon-fodder.

Personally I don't see that even as one of the reasons. And the following poitns are personal views also, an individual scot's perspective. Scotland would like to diverge its economy and society from that of England. It aspires to be able to manipulate the economy differently from how Westminster manipulates it. The current parliament with its SNP majority has aligned the government deprtments around its five Strategic Objectives that it says underpins its Purpose and describes the kind of Scotland it wants to live in - a Scotland that is Wealthier and Fairer, Smarter, Healthier, Safer and Stronger. It then brings its every action and decision back to one or more of those. Whehther it achieves it or not is a different matter, but it really is quite refreshing to be able to point to its manifesto and judge its progress. The scottish parliament is 'unicameral', decisions made in the parliament are final, there is no House of Lords of hereditary or politically appointed peers to interfere with the will of the peoples' elected representatives. The parliament has partial proportional representation so that parties like the greens (and even the tories) are able to have a say and a seat at the table. It's really quite a civilised advance on the UK system. And after me saying on here that it shouldn't be about individuals, quite frankly I cringe when I see William Hague representing Britain abroad, or that buffoon Michael Goave meddling with the education system, and (personally) I find Cameron slimy, disingenuous and he might as well be on Mars for all he means to me. We would like the right to choose our own slimy gits, thanks, and to be able to get rid of them when they don't do our bidding. As for Cameron-clone-Clegg, the U-turn meister, oddly I think his party is doing some good in holdiing the fascist elements of the coalition in check, but he does seem to have sold (no, given away) the LDP jerseys to get his snout in the trough. I have held my tongue when the opposition to nationalism has cropped up on the Forum, I see England as having a deeply unsavoury nationalistic aspect (as evidenced by UKIP) which but for the lack of proportional representation would probably have a good few MPs by now. They want to get out of Europe. So do some of the tories. I would rather be in an independent scotland applying to get into the EU than be dragged under by a UK trying to get out of it. Independence could be a nightmare, it could go badly wrong at first, but like a boy named Sue, it would have to get tough or die. Scots are tough. I think it would be OK in the long run. When you've no-one to blame but yourself it makes you a man.

It is one of teh great attractions of independence that Scotland would do away with nuclear weapons and would not participate in the expensive and blood-soaked invasions of Iraq/Afghanistan that make Britain a target for hatred form so many parts of the world. And the cost saving of a revised bit-part stance on the world stage would be enormous. What's the benefit really of being a big hitter politically as long as you have a sound economy? It's just politicians beating their metaphorical chests in the jungel clearing that is world politics.

I don't believe it! Someone wants to debate the effect of scottish independence on the tree industry? If SCotland's no part of europe and has no arrangement with FUK about employment, no-one from Scotland will eb allowed to work in FUK and vice versa without a visa. So scottish trees will be cut by scottish workers and FUK trees by FUK workers. Then if scotland's economy goes horribly wrong the scots tree workers will present themselves at Berwick as asylum seekers and then do all the rubbish jobs in FUK that no-one wants to do there, like branch dragging and chipping and sharpening saws.

“Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.” ― James Bovard Of course no-one really believes the scots are oppressed, I think my original choice of word was suppressed and I was referring to their democratic will.

I half heard the thing about named guardians on the radio, thought it was a wind-up for a few seconds. Not a good way to go for civil liberties. All politicians want power. That's why they're politicians, right? They are there to be used the way they use us. Anyone that believes them is a sucker. By now on this thread you can probably tell that my real grievance is english presumptuousness (is that a real word or is the right word presumption). Even if Scotland votes no I had hoped that it might raise awareness of the issue and prompt an english assembly. I recently pointed out to the AA a wee mistake they had made on their website about scottish TPO law compared to english TPO law; they said they would correct it. So what'd they do? They removed all reference to Scotland. There's erring on the safe side, and there's contempt. How united are we? I'm off to bed, it's the weekend and believe it or not I do have a life...

I've had this on Ash a few times, after cutting a section off and getting ready to do teh enxt one then suddenly there's a bang and a crack appears. Or it could be the start of a downward barbers chair because the hinge is close to the middle of the stem. Was the piece you just remoived pretty big and did it have a gnarly bit in it?

Look in the Insurance Forum for recent debate and also recent thread in the Chat Forum about verifying climbers. The answer, if there is one, is there. I haven't the energy to say another word on the subject.

I'm not suggesting anything except thaty if the vote goes the no direction the anti-english rhetoric will not be swallowed by the 1.7 million people who don't want to be ruled by England. And I use the E word deliberately, in teh absence of anyone here addressing the pointed enquiry in my earlier posts about the english assembly. I was brought up mostly in Northern Ireland and know/knew people who were shot dead, burned from their homes, tortured, falsely imprisoned. I can forgive them a little chaos in their growing pains, they have come a long way from a couple of decades ago when the country was run by mobsters on both sides. The history of Irish separation from Britain (the republic, that is) gives some thought-provoking insights into what forces stir when democracy is masked by subordination. And what happened when the residue was strongly divided. Honestly I am not making any point about Irish politics, there is no condoning the atrocities over there over the century and no-one has clean hands. But if one only sees the issue as one of first-past-the-post democracy one cannot understand that resentment will linger.

Good point.

Poeple are having difficulty separating Salmond from the real issues. Jusrt as they are with Cameron. Of whom I would say he barely can relate to the english public and really doesn't have the ear of the scottish public and deosn't even have a mandate to run the country. What a mess British politics is. Whether the politics or economics add up or not there is clearly an issue. Rhetoric like this doesn't go away. So if 30% of Scotland votes for independence, with a disproportionately high part of the younger voters wanting it, the Yes vote might have lost but it would hardly show contentment if a third or more of future electorate of Scotland doersn't want to be part of the UK. The rhetoric will become resentment, embedded as never before. I have almost given up on trying to debate the non-political issues on this thread. The debate keeps being dragged back to the politics. And in that respect I am finding it very disappointing that no-one here has been willing to address the question of why England doesn't have an assembly. If it did the UK government could be run as a federal one, where decisions made for it by its parliament would be made for the benefit of the UK. This solution is so very very obvious and the current set-up is bizarre, anachronistic and productive of the sort of resentment that has raised the independence issue. The if-it-aint-broke-don't-try-to-fix-it argument only washes outside scotland.

Mostly willow. Take it!

Amazing but much potential to go horribly wrong in a real tree situation. Might be easier to put a cambium saver up first and put the ART in once you get up there?

I spotted that, thanks. Cheap so far, but now you've told everybody.... My top cover is cracked too and a missing O ring on my petrol cap, so it would be useful to have. It looks a bit knackered though.

Thanks. There's nothing on their website but I may give them a ring.

I think the purpose of the tapering off of the weld might have been to reduce this risk. Or would the heat of the welding weaken the adjacent area?