djbobbins

So my practical advice is that it might be worth looking for one with free lifetime map updates as part of the purchase price!

We've got TomTom and it's good but map upgrades are silly expensive (about £40 IIRC) and won't fit the upgraded maps onto the device. I bought a satnav with maps of the whole of Europe on it to be able to drive around a lot, now the maps are updated I can only choose between different areas of Europe on it at once. So couldn't, for example, take the satnav to drive through mainland Europe to Italy, without taking a laptop and changing the maps over to the "Southern Europe" pack before I left Switzerland. Rant over!

Seems like a farce if the Beeb give him the shove from Top Gear for punching someone, then immediately take him on to do something else. Or is HIGNFY outsourced and produced by Hat Trick or similar?

Strong in which direction though? Concrete blocks will resist compressive force to a huge extent (ie load bearing) but will crack easily under tension. That's why steel is used to reinforce, as steel is much better at not snapping when pulled. I assume you are meaning strong as in to be able to withstand a sideways force rather than downwards weight? In which case my main thought would be to get as much steel into it as possible, whichever option you go for! However you will need steel running horizontally as well as vertically ( no good just putting rebar rods down the cavities inside the blocks as that will just give strong "pillars" IMO. As an alternative to blocks, could you not consider getting some steel mesh reinforcement and plywood, then shuttering a wall out of solid concrete with at least one layer of steel mesh inside?

Aren't Matadors made of ash frame and plywood skin though? That'd make a fair blaze once it got going!!

We went decaff after Mrs Bobbins had irregular heartbeat / palpitations, suspected as a result of coffee drinking. So sadly it's Sainsbury's decaff. Donkey's years ago I lived in France for a year whilst working as a student; we made filter coffee in the lab I worked in. One heaped dessert spoon of ground coffee per cup of water; by cup I mean about 1/3 of the way up a small plastic disposable cup. My French colleagues used to reckon it wasn't strong enough if when held up in a see-through cup, you could see anything at all through the liquid. I can't remember too much about the coffee, must have been the crates of 33 Export that we got through as well, but I do miss going to work with a view of the Mediterranean then sloping off to the beach at the end of the day for a swim!

The good news is that the England Under 20 side won their Six Nations; team included my nephew so I'm feeling very proud!

At risk of being political Jon, I think he's done a bloody good job in the last five years given the pile of shite state that the government finances were left in. (In 2010 I mean). I know it's by no means popular with everyone, me included for certain aspects which affect me and my family, but at the heart of it all sooner or later the country has got to live within its means rather than constantly borrow. Strange no-one seems to remember Gordon Brown's quote about putting an end to boom and bust, what a load of crap that was!

Hence the reason for the name of the beer, Riggwelter. Puts you on you back!

Not right wing enough to replace Clarkson!

Guy Martin. Or Jason Plato. Or Tiff Needell. Or the bloke off American Top Gear. At least all of them can drive better than Clarkson...

Can I pay 99p, take the aluminium stepladders and leave the rest of the sh17e behind?!

Can't see how to copy a normal hyperlink, but go to http://www.mod-sales.com then look at lot 1077 in the auction section. It's this and is currently at £1100.

Cheap(ish) way to put logs to the top of a tall stack?! http://whitelabel.globalauctionplatform.com/en-gb/auction-catalogues/wca/catalogue-id-witham1-10000/lot-37efd8c5-3e30-4102-bdd5-a4530104e965

Just had a pro roofing company strip and replace all lead flashing around our chimney, plus replace some tiles, chop out a couple or worn bricks from the chimney and repoint it. It's a two storey house and they did the lot off ladders.

Guy who installed our stove swore by WD40 for polishing slate.

Tank done and was as dear as expected :-( However, had 1000 litres of kerosene today and paid 35.2 ppl including VAT, delivered. I think that's the cheapest we've bought it in all the time we've lived here.

And elder, such brilliant firewood too! You'd have a roaring blaze going with that... If you'd got five gallons of red diesel to get it going with!

If it's green now I very much doubt it will be seasoned by next winter if drying naturally, mine was better after at least two years...

In our house he's getting a mince pie, a bit of gingerbread and a whisky mac to wash it down with... The reindeers get a carrot to share!

We've got oil in the current house, been here coming up for 8 years. The house is a four bed 70's detached with double glazing, loft insulation and cavity wall insulation. We use about 1100 litres of oil a year in a Worcester boiler, although a few years ago when it was properly cold we went through a full tank in two months in the middle of winter. Up to now maintenance costs have been fairly good (local company does a standard boiler service for 67.50 plus vat) but recently our tank was found to be developing cracks. That's going to be two grand to replace 😢

Done.

Reckon you'd need more than just the one Jerry can for jungle juice though!

Cynical, but if a farmer is claiming £40 a metre then £80 is probably about right...

We live in a 4 bed 1970's detached with cavity wall insulation, loft insulation and double glazing. For the first four years we were in the house, we had an open fire, then decided to have it ripped out and installed a 4.9kW DRU 44MF. The reduction in drafts through the house by getting rid of the open fire is phenomenal. We burn about as much wood as we used to, to be honest, but in three years have gone through perhaps four shovels of coal. Keep thinking I ought to go and get some smokeless fuel in "just in case" we run out of logs but it's not come to that yet. There are a couple of things that I do miss about the open fire though. Firstly, the stove does not give out the same fierce heat that the open fire did with a log and a shovel of housecoat, secondly the old fireplace was York stone, so once that and the masonry chimney were hot, they retained heat through the house overnight. But all in all, I would very much recommend a stove ahead of the open fire!