djbobbins

Or, perhaps frying pan to fire... 'arry Redknapp?

What an utter cock up. I wouldn't normally use partly crude language for fear of being told off by the mods, but "shambles" doesn't seem sufficient. Not much choice of English managers to go at either, I don't particularly rate Pardew. What are the odds on Klinsmann?

It's alright gents, all you log sellers will be fine as I sold my winter wheels and tyres in early February when I decided the space and £100 were worth more than their company. As such it is guaranteed to be brass monkeys, snowy and generally Arctic from about November to March this winter.

It's fairly close to me and when I'm done dieting, I might have to check out some of these fine establishments. Been to Becketts Farm for a kids birthday party (highly recommended for anyone in this neck of the woods with young daughter) but not brekky. Our other once-in-a-while treat for breakfast is Toby Carvery, £4.49 for all you can eat cooked breakfast. I guess they are not going to be home made butchers sausages, but what it misses on quality it makes up for in the ability to sort you out for most of the day!

Not sure about the performance targets for schools but the (broadly) "one size fits all" assessment for kids is a flaw in my opinion. The German system works in a different way and I think has some merit, although is perhaps a bit over prescriptive inasmuch as kids are destined from about the age of 12 to a certain type of education and this will set the course for their whole life. From Wikipedia: German secondary education includes five types of school. The Gymnasium is designed to prepare pupils for higher education and finishes with the final examination Abitur, after grade 12, mostly year 13. The Realschule has a broader range of emphasis for intermediate pupils and finishes with the final examination Mittlere Reife, after grade 10; the Hauptschule prepares pupils for vocational education and finishes with the final examination Hauptschulabschluss, after grade 9 and the Realschulabschluss after grade 10. There are a couple more different types but the above I believe are the main ones.

Is this what being in Saudi does to people when they can't get a beer on a Friday night? https://youtu.be/MQm5BnhTBEQ

Sounds ready for properly laying.

It does happen in a few places already and at different scales, for example Dinorwig in Wales and I think Cruachan in Scotland. There are plans IIRC to convert a quarry somewhere into a pumped storage facility. Other technologies that have been looked at in the past are compressed air storage but the efficiency is low and only a small range of compression can be used (i.e. once the pressure drops below e.g. 50bar it's no good for running a turbine). I think ecotricity looked at clifftop storage tanks a while back - pump seawater up the cliffs when electricity is available, generate when power is needed. Two of the more recent ideas are power to gas (creation of hydrogen for injection into the gas grid) and demonstration projects are currently operating for commercial scale battery storage. Battery projects are getting built which will store up to 5MWh of power; whilst this would be enough to power an average household for 10 years the main reason is for providing short term frequency response. Some of the energy suppliers in Europe are also offering domestic battery packs - about the size of a kitchen wall cupboard. Personally I think one of the best things that should happen is a combination of smart metering, aggregation of battery storage and the roll-out of electric cars. My theory is that most people with an electric vehicle won't use the full charge for their journey, so the car would still be useful if 60% charged at 7:30am. Therefore if cheap power can be put into the battery at 2am when there's no demand, then sold back to the grid when it is required at 7am, 1000s of car batteries across the country can be used as aggregated storage. Smarter appliances are also coming - freezers that will have intelligent controls to switch on and off dependent on electricity grid conditions as well as temperature - e.g. to get themselves really cold overnight then not use any electricity during the morning demand peak.

http://inhabitat.com/green-a-go-go-at-londons-first-eco-disco/ It's been done, a few years back...

Yes, there's another thread on here about them somewhere. I have had one since 2012, only gets domestic use but still going up to now.

You have to maintain equipment sometimes, no? Likewise turbines have gearboxes, generator etc that need to be taken out of service for inspection or repair. Conventional power stations likewise - boiler tube leaks, pump failures, fuel handling equipment, emissions control etc. Sometimes renewable (and conventional) plant gets paid to reduce output because there is more electricity being produced in the local area than can be transported to where it is needed - but that is the fault of the system constraints of National Grid, not the wind farm owner.

From what I remember of contract law, the basics are offer, acceptance, exchange and reward, i.e.: Offer - you have got to be willing Acceptance - the buyer has got to be willing Exchange - something has got to be done Reward - there has got to be some kind of reward (not necessarily monetary) Once you have got those four elements in place, even if it was only verbal, it's a contract. Verbal is obviously harder to prove as it's usually one person's word against the other. In your case if you have got an email trail, you are on stronger ground, unless there was a conversation within which a specific delivery deadline was agreed, beyond which it was made clear the items would not be required. Not been down that route myself (am 'fortunate' to work for a big company with in-house tame lawyers) but I say small claims court.

We had a 3-4 year rescue collie that had been assessed by (national dog rescue organisation) as suitable for living with kids of any age. He was good as gold with the vets but very protective over food (fair enough). However after he'd nipped me and snapped at my 7 year-old daughter for no particular reason, at Christmas my nephew (also from a dog owning family) was giving him a stroke when the next thing we heard was a yelp, a scream and the dog had its jaws right around my nephew's forearm. That was enough of a warning signal for me, too much to risk with two young kids at home and their friends coming around occasionally. When we returned the dog to the rescue centre, they basically said it's not uncommon behaviour from collies although having grown up in a dairy / sheep farming community with a lot of working collies, I never remember one being a biting dog. Sorry to hear your news, Eggs.

I got mine, didn't think to look on YouTube for a "how to" video but still managed to set it up and have sharpened a fair few chains, so it can't be that hard. That being said, I suspect I take too much off each tooth so am now off to find a YouTube vid to see how to do it properly (allegedly!)

Hot day, towing, only gets towards the red when hauling uphill... doesn't sound like there's a major problem but maybe a good clean out wouldn't do any harm. I'd suggest dropping the bottom hose, giving it a good flush and refilling with fresh coolant before touching the thermostat.

Not fussy about what logs I burn but am fully stocked with conny and pop ready for the winter; be happy to come and get some come winter time if you've still got anything knocking around.

I was about to say the same, with oil prices where they are at the moment and a working setup, there's no financial reason to change. Maybe save some sponds, take the time to plan and only switch if oil goes in price or the oil boiler goes up in smoke?

Looks good to me, maybe a bit more like a meths drinker than a wine connoisseur?! I wouldn't know where to start on something like that so more power to you...

I was sitting in the pub beer garden this evening and for some reason the answer to your problem came to my mind. It involves a bit of carrot and stick. My suggestion would be that you carry on providing the tools, fuel etc (so no minefield about whether your people are employees or self employed) but consider: 1) dropping base pay by (say) 50p/ hour 2) paying them all an equipment bonus when stuff doesn't get trashed (say £1 per hour) - or proportion thereof, reduced from the top whack by the amount you have had to spend on broken or lost kit. You might need to tweak the numbers a bit; it's got to be meaningful to the crew but likewise you should make sure you end up saving money overall compared to your current level of equipment replacement costs. This way the team get a common incentive to look after the gear and you should save money.

Hoping you opened them first...

We had one in the kitchen of the pub I worked in as a teenage skivvy. Flies made a quick bzzzt, on the summer evenings when it was hot and we had a window open, moths and crane flies really lit the place up.

We made one and ran it on lighter gas, opted for a smarter projectile than spuds though. Spud = need to cut them to size / risk of getting jammed / propulsion gases passing round the outside. Get 40mm pipe, use most of it to make the barrel and cut the rest into 60mm lengths, stand them all upright in a flat tub of water 50mm deep then freeze it all. Hey presto, perfectly fitting disposable projectiles 😜

Not sure there are many cheap petrol golf carts knocking around this side of the pond, plus it probably needs some guards, but I like the ingenuity...

I know... but let's not even start with the tonne bag thing!

Oh God, please let's not start the discussion that a builders bag which will hold a tonne OF SAND, WHICH IS DENSE AND HAS NO BIG AIR GAPS will also hold a tonne of thrown logs!