Squaredy

As it happens a refugee boat crisis did start when Maggie was in charge (from Vietnam). But as soon as we started deporting them to a third country the flow stopped.

I mainly judge by my personal experiences. I have spent entire nights in our local A&E with my elderly mother, being ignored, while she spews her guts out. One occasion she went to the hospital on her own and it was left to other patients and their friends/relatives to help her as she struggled with acute pain. Yes sometimes the NHS works great, I am aware of that, but in my area it is a lottery to say the least. If I or any of my family need emergency help now we will either go to Bristol or Cardiff as the service in the local hospitals is just so poor. It may be better for you if you are in England - don't forget that in Wales we have had muppets managing the health services for 25 years or so. My dad was let down badly by his GP and then when he had a fall at home he could not summon help and when the neighbours raised the alarm it was too late. If his GP had actually seen him instead of just giving him repeat prescription month after month he might still be here. My wife had a terrible battle with our local GP to get her mum assessed for dementia. Finally after eighteen months she got referred, and the memory clinic said there would have been more help available for her Alzheimer's if they had seen her earlier. I could go on, but in my area health services are terrible and don't work. Also bear in mind that there are many alternative funding systems available. NHS Wales has a budget of £9 billion. The best part of one billion of that goes on free prescriptions. This is partly a waste of money, and if they followed the model in England (where it is means tested) they might be able to afford one or two more nurses in my local A&E (it works out the Newport area spends £53 million on free prescriptions - if even a tenth of them had to be paid for that could potentially pay for an extra 40 nurses and thirty nursing assistants). Why do we in Wales give everyone free prescriptions? And that is just one example of terrible waste - I bet there are more... As for the BBC, I think they make a lot of good programmes, and I love listening to the cricket on the BBC radio. But what I object to is having no choice but to fund them. I think they have a very strong political agenda. So do many other organisations - but I choose not to fund them if I don't agree with their point. Why am I forced to pay for the BBC? If the funding model changed to subscription then as long as lots of people like the output they would still be well funded.

About time the NHS was shaken up, so let’s hope something like this happens. I deeply resent having to fund the NHS and the BBC (amongst others). They don’t work and the reason there are no real choices (with health anyway) is the very fact that we are all forced to fund them. As for higher national debt, press censorship and incompetence, how would you describe the current and previous government?! The only reason that Farage is flying in the polls is the huge unrest with the current system brought about by our two main parties.

As was mentioned above you probably need to sell the timber standing. Of course this will only work if there is good access, and good tracks, or if it is not too steep for a harvester and forwarder. Have you estimated the total volume? It will have to be above a certain level to be viable. You could speak to Roger at Mendip Forestry. He knows what he is doing with regards to harvesting and marketing and covers your area. Also you could put some photos up here and then us Arbtalkers can tell you that the access is no good, or the trees are no good, or that there is some other technical problem which means you will have to pay someone to remove them for you....

Yes I could do this, though I am low on larch right now. I should have some in a few weeks if that helps. I would charge you £43 each. You might find it cheaper to use imported oak, though I could be out of date with this, but you used to be able to pick up French sleepers for around £25 I think. There used to be people who specialised in sleepers, one near Hereford if I remember rightly. Hope this helps.

It would need probably three or four trips with an estate car, and every piece would need to be cross cut to go in the car. Many pieces are eight feet long but many are twelve. Plenty of bark but also plenty of timber. And yes mixed species. I cut about 70% hardwoods, but each bundle will vary.

My business is a sawmill. We find very little demand for our waste. As has been said a lot of it is rather thin. It is all unseasoned and in long lengths, so needs a lot of processing and drying for a year. Most people just can’t be bothered. Even at £25 per ton bundle we can’t get rid of it all. If I were prepared to deliver I might get more takers, but at that price it is just not worth it. So lots of good potential firewood, but not enough people willing to put in the effort to convert and dry.

Government subsidised restaurants. This is the latest idea to get disfunctional people to eat well apparently. Being rolled out from next year. Let me see if I can get this link to work: https://www.thecaterer.com/news/government-to-pilot-state-subsidised-restaurants Whatever next? Government sponsored relationships?

Every time I come to the Scillies I love the Elms everywhere. Today though I was totally blown away by the Monterey Pines. This is my 12 year old with one, and a remarkable rope swing that has been set up on another.

Well I am not much of a gardener, and only nature can take the credit for these; but the wild strawberries on my site this year are laden with fruit. My dogs were loving these today (right level for miniature dachshunds!). This lot were growing just behind my office.

This one is totally lost on me. Maybe someone can explain...?

Don’t forget qualifications are not always written. Not everything can be proven in a test environment. If they are the type of organisation that is going to want everything on paper they might not be worth having as customers.

Changing the subject a little, how do you Arbtalkers feel about the de-criminalisation of late abortion? For those who don’t know, the amendment passed yesterday does not allow the UK medical profession to assist in late term abortions; it just allows a mother to order pills by post, and carry out her own abortion at any time before birth. What she does then I have no idea. Take the abortion pill then call an ambulance?

Funny this should come up. Apparently the only reason that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction as the west claimed in order to justify the war, is because Israel had taken them out.

Well our Prime Minister for one. Look back to the reaction of the government at the beginning of the year on this issue.

And as has already been linked in this thread, finally we can stop being called racist for pointing out that the rape gangs are overwhelmingly Pakistani men. After years of denial this is now acknowledged. In some cases young girls were convicted of child prostitution whilst rapists got off scott free. It makes me ashamed of my country.

The mainstream media tend to portray the Palestinians as the victims. When Hamas slaughtered over a thousand Israelis on 7 October Israel were hardly going to just demand an apology. To be fair ordinary Palestinians are of course the victims, they need to overthrow Hamas and learn to live in peace with their neighbour. Hamas do not want peace - they want to totally destroy Israel. That is what they have said for decades. But the BBC will not tell you this.

As I said I don’t condone everything Israel are doing, but it is probably fair to say they take better care of the Palestinians than Hamas. It is Hamas who stop the aid reaching the people in need. Yes, they steal aid from their own people and then accuse Israel of causing famine. They use the aid to fund the war.

You do know that the ruling regime in Iran wants to carry on where the Nazis left off don't you? I don't support all Israel are doing, but I struggle to see how anyone could voice support for wiping out all Jews.

It looks to me as if reversing lights not working is NOT an MOT failure. I suggest you check, but that is what a quick Google search suggests.

Well you can’t see the leaves close enough in the picture to confirm if it is an oak. The general form looks nothing like native UK oak trees. Am I right I’m guessing that this tree is not in the UK?

From what I hear there is now a new method of distributing the aid. The Americans are doing it directly. Finally the people who actually are in need of food may actually get it. I find it difficult to criticise the Israeli government for not allowing aid through knowing that it was not distributed by Hamas but sold to raise money to fund the war. Why should Israel go to lengths to look after the Palestinian people when their own government don’t?

Whilst your suggestion is probably unnecessarily harsh, I suspect the majority of people now finally agree with you in principle. What used to really annoy me when the wife and I watched the BBC or ITV news (we no longer bother with main-stream media) was that no-one ever said ‘But they are coming from France’. We were expected to buy the narrative that they were escaping persecution and war. What a stupid thing to do: cross a dangerous busy shipping lane in a totally unsuitable boat. No wonder the government at one point wondered whether they could just ‘push them back’.

Lucky dogs! I like that you got the butchers block to use as a butchers block! They usually get turned into a trendy island these days from what I gather.

It’s beech. The medullary rays are what I wanted to look for. I trust you also will be having some of the muntjac?