AHPP

I use birch bark in the kelly kettle. Paper is dreadful. I had to douse some newspaper with WD40 to get a fire going at a friend’s new place the other day. The previous owner’s dog had left a handy supply of other fuel by the front door, filed under S for sticks.

Sawdust and engine oil. Lives in an old saucepan (with lid) on the hearth. Doesn’t smell.

I need kids to bore really. I instead regale my younger university friends with these tales and anecdotes. They all got office jobs straight away so my fairly tame adventures are like Gulliver’s Travels to them.

Only as likely as they were to try having her dog shot or children taken away.

A very pleasant elevenses chatting with a pair of Syrians renovating a house that I was killing trees in the garden of. They had funny foreign teabags and I happened to have milk in the van. We were brothers in arms. I’m now sat in a motorway services off the M62, where I pulled in to avoid falling asleep on a piss wet, dark motorway. Someone had shit spectacularly up the toilet cubicle wall in Welcome Break. They don’t have an M&S, who do the sweets I like and I don’t fancy my chances of surviving the next two hours without a snooze in the cab, ideally once stationary. The front left brake is dragging but it goes away when you’re up to speed and the back left bearing drowns it out. That’s not as loud as usual though because I have the cab floor battery compartment lid off in case I need to jump my old and tired Bosch lead acid. I can listen to the turbo instead. Gypsies btw. Didn’t get the second climbing line out. Eight-year-old bit of three strand for rigging (only when I wasn’t using my climbing line though). £400, and a Big Mac for lunch. Oh, freelancing.

He needs two batteries, not four and any other cost difference will be soaked up by one avoided trip to a saw shop to fix/learn about an engine.

A Stihl MSA120 fits beautifully in the bag a £10 camping chair comes in.

Battery. All the building tool brands (Dewalt, Makita, Milwaukee etc) do saws so that makes sense if you already have batteries. Otherwise look at the main chainsaw brands' offerings, pick a battery system and go from there. 1/4" picco chains are very cheap and found on the Stihl AK and AP battery saws.

I'm beginning my attempt to bankrupt British Gas tomorrow. Will keep you all apprised.

Two tenths of **************** all then.

Yep. Completely plausible.

I wrote half a song about immigration last night. Contains this: If Bradford sounds like a masterplan, then the alternative must be pretty ****************ing bad. It rains two hundred days a year, like a cold and shit Islamabad. No apologies to the people of Bradford. You should be bloody ashamed.

I'm undecided on this. I always make my main anchor bomber and then give myself a lot more latitude on any subsequent ones. I certainly don't compromise on the main one if I'm already planning a second one but then I do force myself to be very present and deliberate building the main to avoid exactly the sort of thing you describe. There will be people like me but also aware there will be people who aren't. Lower or lowest common denominator planning is a different issue.

There is some seriously dodgy gear around at the moment. I've always been suspicious of swivels and now have more foundation than ever to be. The Petzl Eject is just a ridiculous deathtrap, the only piece of gear I can think of that I wouldn't allow someone in my care to use. And I'm currently in the process of finding the cretin in Germany who put the on/off switch on the 220T so that it can be programmed out and he be flogged.

Post a pic and I'll show my flipline I've done god-knows-what to.

Mark's life.

Can't you just seal it up with a lighter?

The other night I watched a car quite peacefully pull into a petrol station, shortly followed by two police cars and one van. They blocked him in, cuffed him immediately and gave not one word of explanation over a good three minutes while one of them talked on the radio. Everyone else, including the detainee just stood around in silence. They had ample time to give the required info. The guy was outrageously restrained considering the lack of reason given for the boot on his face. It hacked me right off and I mentally prepared a line of questioning, broadly comprising of why they thought sections 2 or 28 of PACE didn’t apply to them but section 117 did, whether any of them could remember or could at least google the appropriate caution and whether they fancied using it, etc. Before speaking up though, I remembered I’d been drinking so just paid for my fuel and left. I’ll have to be a knight in shining armour another day.

An answer like shit AI but without the thermodynamic efficiency.

£84k. Same as the dolescum MPs.

Is the thinking to identify the frequencies and fire back the same frequency out of phase to neutralise it?

Right, cheers. I've been rather spoiled by the Hobbs. It's built solidly enough that you can strap it tight and not bend the frame. And you always have the winching option right there. That is useful. Back on the Smartwinch, I was similarly disappointed by not being able to (cleanly) run two lines at once. Does seem like a hole in the design that could have been filled before it hit the shops.

What's the difference between coal tar soap and carbolic soap? Wider internet not providing clear answer. Looks a bit like all coal tar is carbolic but not all carbolic is coal tar, or similar. Either way, I bought a load of both (Wrights and Lifebuoy) the other day, as well as twenty bars of Pears and forty quid of razor blades. Shouldn't need to think about that for another decade.

So just hard to strap to the tree if I'm reading that correctly. Once it's on well enough though, slick enough to switch between bollard and winch etc?

He'll get a copy of the post anyway so why don't you put it back up so everyone can see how nasty (and wrong) I am? If Paul's such a saint and benevolent, his character will be untouched.