Mike Dempsey

I fail to understand why 50 or 60% of the kids leaving school today need a degree, and even worse need in degree in media studies (switching on the telly or doing facebook), fashion (putting on matching shoes and a shirt), tourism (knowing the difference between a castle and a theme park), hospitality (making a cup of tea) and some other silly ones. The trouble is that Universities are all businesses now instead of seats of learning and have to maximise their income. Selling silly degrees to kids who can barely tie their shoes brings in good money. At least in Scotland they dont need to pay nine grand a year for the privilige. Hundreds of thousands of kids a year getting into massive debt to fund their education isnt a good way for our society to invest in the future. Proper apprenticeships, with day or block release will give any young person a good grounding in what ever subject they wish to pursue. Least my first 2 have picked subjects with good employment prospects, web coding and social work. Both them by the way have funded their own way by working part time during term and full time during the holidays and I havent had to put my hand in my pocket apart from maybe transport duties when there has been some awkward shift times. Proud of them both.

Vat is a tax on sales. Corporation tax is a tax on profit. Vat is collected by the seller on behalf of the taxman if they are registered for vat. Whilst it is hard to dodge vat if you are physically based and selling in this country, like Starbucks etc, it is easy to be creative with your accounts in order to minimise your profits and thereby your corporation tax. In the case of Apple they were saying that all their sales in Europe were going through Ireland who were setting a very low rate of corporation tax in order to attract businesses to the country. The Irish Govt dont want to collect this enormous sum of money as it like them admitting to this practice which is illegal under EU taxation rules and will force them to set the proper rate. When this happens all these companies will move to some other tax haven. The Irish people will then realise that they actually dont have a sustainable economy and will rapidly go bust. There are strong rumours now going around about an Irish referendum on EU membership, which if they werent part of Europe they could set their own rates of corporation tax and stick two fingers up to Merkel et al. The funny thing about this is that all these thousands of people who have applied for joint Irish /UK citizenship will have wasted their money and time because if the Irish wish to leave the EU they will need to be very quick about it in order to keep Apple and the other tax parasites.

Just do what the French do when a company gets its back up. Every Apple phone has to be inspected individually by a little office in the middle of nowhere staffed by one part time person. A maximum of 3 phones can be inspected in a day so about 10 can be sold in a week. Job sorted. When we have Brexit and running our own country again we can make the rules to suit ourselves. Apple, Starbucks, Amazon etc if they want to do business here they should be paying corporation tax based on the value of their sales here without the fancy accounting which currently goes on. With the same respect though British companies should be paying their taxes to foreign countries.

And the repercussions from the yanks will be more British and European companies will be 'invited to fill Washington's coffers' again. Lets hope the next ones up are Amazon and Starbucks!

I have read about ideas for a hydro electric scheme which would dwarf everything built in the UK so far. Planned for up near Inverness iirc the return canal to get the water back up to the top loch would be a lot bigger than the Panama Canal the figures for the output were massive and it would cost a packet to build. Will probably not be built due to the investment required from the government/public sector. If it was to be built it would secure a large percentage if not all Scotland's power needs. Still be a lot better than nuclear though. Its just a pity the Scottish government don't have the balls to do this themselves and secure future electricity needs for the country without the greedy power companies being involved.

I can see there being a court case looming to recover all the costs. Its going to be running into several millions. Just hope somebody remembered to pay the premiums

And he will have his finger on the nuclear button. That is really scarey. Isis will want to provoke him into pressing it so they can all be martyrs at the same time.

Not done with a laser as there are no burn marks. Possibly sandblasted using a mylar mask. Mike

I did a training course on finance for small businesses a few years ago. The fact that cheques could bounce up to 6 months later opened my eyes up. Cant remember exact details now but its something to do with stolen chequbooks and the bank account holder not noticing that it has been stolen and used. Not such a big problem nowadays but was a few years ago. I much prefer bacs payments these days and have only accepted one cheque in the last 5 years or so. Mike

Do not ask for a cheque. They can still bounce up to 6 months later. Bacs payment with you actually checking it has been received into your account and not relying on him telling you it has been put in.

Now that Andy Murray's mum has sorted out the tennis for Scotland, can someone please ask Judy to sort out our national football team urgently!

Although I am into alaskan milling trees up in a big way my favourite tree is the silver birch. I have only milled up one which was 28" in dia and there arent many of them about. I think its a beautiful tree to look at, both in the winter and summer. I planted one in the garden when my son, Joshua, was born 21 years ago. Although we are tight for space we havent pruned it and its a magnificent specimen.

If you are planning on cutting up wet oak you would be better with the aluminium one as the steel one will rust easily and leave black stains on the oak.

I use the Stihl ripping chain on my 36" bar with the 066. I have followed the advice given by BobL on Arboristsite with regards to setting the raker depth heights and it works very well.

I bought my original Alaskan mill in 2001 and have milled up a couple of hundred trees with it and I am still using it today. If the chinese version lasts nearly as long I will be impressed but I doubt it will. Mine has paid for itself quite a few times over and for the saws and kiln and quite a bit else in the workshop. The bonus is I am still pretty fit for a 52 year old and can chop firewood all day long with my fiskars x27.

Get your wood store extension built now Stuart before you plank up any more. It wont be long before you cant move in the workshop.

I cant just get interested in these olympics. Loved London 2012 but with the huge time difference, drugs cheating/not being available, golfers pulling out I think it needs to get back to basics such as only being for amateurs. There is too much money involved and big business dictating everything. Might watch the occasional highlight prog but thats about it. Mike

Should be renamed the 'dishonours list'. Politictians wonder why the public think they are all corrupt and bent, maybe its because they are!

I use Osmo polyx oil, 3032 for all my outdoor and indoor wood now. Its the best there is although expensive compared to Danish oil, its far superior imo. You don't say what the tree stump is. If its something like oak or sweet chestnut it should last for years. Other timber aren't so good so a good but a liberal coating of osmo oil should help preserve it for a while. Probably depends though if it has any rot.

I milled some pop up last year when I needed some hardwoods that would laser engrave quite well and also dry in the kiln pretty quickly. Poplar ticked both boxes there. I have some left and I am using it to make some portable and rustic looking display stands for a clothing manufacturer. They like it because its nice and light (its mainly lassies who are building up the stands) and it doesn't look like the b&q crap pine they normally use when making their own stands. I have made 2 so far and will possibly be making some more. I am only using it because I have it. I would rather spend my time milling oak, beech or sycamore which is more valuable though.

You'd get quite a few matches out of it:thumbup:

my first business workshop was on a small industrial estate that had been there for 50 years. There were a few factories that had shut down about 100m away and they built posh houses on them. I phoned up the planning department of the council to query why they had let them build houses there and they said there had been a change of use for that part of the estate. There was a council bin lorry yard in between the houses and our small units which went up for sale. If it was sold they had given it outline planning permission for more houses. I queried this with the planning officer who said if they put houses there and someone makes a complaint about noise they would enforce noise regulations. I only used a chainsaw occasionally there but used all sorts of woodworking machinery up to ten at night and sometimes through the night if I had an urgent order to complete. I had to move workshops to a bigger industrial estate to get away from this possibility and now can make as much noise as I like whenever I like because its all factories and garage workshops surrounding me. It still annoys me though that one part of the council can help the other part by changing the designated use without any consultation to nearby users. The yard is still sitting empty and unsold and puts a smile on my face every time I see it. The area where they first built the houses is also known as Bin Lorry Lane instead of the posh name they gave it originally which probably wont do the house prices much good.

Its sometimes a mag for the police or fire service. Its all a con and you will just waste your money. Stick your money into developing your website. Mike

And it would be safer as I imagine the alligator count would be lower

I have only used 50:1 on all my saws for crosscutting or milling. My 066 and 880 have been run on 50:1 since they were bought many years ago and have done hundreds of hours milling. One thing I always do though is brush around the petrol spout on my can before refuelling and brush around the fuel and oil caps. For the 880 I also use a heavy duty air filter to help keep out the fine dust and that is also cleaned regularly. Raker height is critical as is not milling a log with side to side swinging of the mill. Arboristsite has a section on milling and there is a sticky on sharpening. I follow the sticky's advice on sharpening and get boards as good as I have seen come off a bandmill. Time taken to sharpen the chain properly and with good care and attention is easily paid back with faster milling and better end product.