AHPP

I've just shut the door on a twenty-five year friendship because he became a taxman. These people need to starve, for friendship, in trade and ideally totally.

Previous poor decisions don't need to cause future bad decisions. Ostracise people who so nakedly take advantage of people under the gun. They're the kid standing behind the bully, who hopes he'll get one of your sweets

I understand you'll be sick of the whole exercise by now but remember that dolescum in gilets are still dolescum. If you can tick the box more cheaply, do so and spend the difference on a pitchfork.

I've got all the above sorted but if anyone sees this and might fancy a (half)day at the weekend, please private message me with your mobile number and I'll have you as a backup.

Are you a robot or computer?

He who dares, Rodney. He who dares.

Take him for lunch, away from the melting pot of the workplace and have a fatherly word about it. It could be quite a formative experience for him and nobody need lose any teeth.

Because you get put in prison if you don't buy what they sell.

Are you using sheathed or unsheathed dyneema?

I can't believe what I'm reading. If you want to be doing windblow and similarly buggery stuff, you're going to be winching a large proportion of the day. You'd be mad to not apply petrol to doing so. Recommending a tirfor is like recommending a pump trolley instead of a locomotive. Cost difference is negligible. Productivity difference is VAST. Tirfors are a fiddle and you have to crank the handle like a slave. A capstan, you'll be deftly flicking the rope off the drum before the tree's down and moving on. Quick resets wherever you are in the line vs paying a tirfor cable back out. Sod that. And the thought of running steel cable around a hillside turns my stomach too. 13mm Novoleen or whatever Eder sell are the textbook rope recommendations. Snatch block installed in seconds for double power. Massive plus for the Eder is you can get off the line and hide behind a tree while engaging the remote throttle. Way safer than cranking where something might ping at you (you should be employing anti-pinging measures of course but if you can get off the line, get off the line). Get the Eder 1800. If the windblow doesn't take off, you've still got a self recovery winch for any vehicle (see their videos).

@Mick Dempsey Got Dummy on for the first time in a while. Go on. Give the next one (self titled, 1997) a go. Very similar. Also great.

Behave.

Do it. Pass costs onto the consumer. Until they riot. Do you think Unilever absorb insurance costs because it would make things seem a bit steep otherwise? My band played a gig in Newcastle a few weeks ago. While organising, I pointed out to my guitarist, who booked it and was doing the gear logistics, that if I needed to use my van to get drums etc to the venue, there would be a £25 surcharge on our usual fee (£0) to cover the clean air zone charge. I was the world's worst arsehole for suggesting such a thing. It was my fault for driving an old van and it's not the venue's fault that they now operate in a clean air zone. Well it's not my fault they operate in a clean air zone either. Consumers always end up paying for this sort of bullshit. I'm fully for that. They're the majority and I want them angry.

Last time round, whoever I'm insured with e-mailed me, subject line: "We're going to auto renew your policy." "Oh aye? For a fortune no doubt. Are you fyuck, you chancing bastards." Only £12 more than last year, less than inflation. Couldn't believe it. Let them do it. Highly unlike me. Hope they make the same mistake this year. Actually I hope they die but you know what I mean.

Facebook keeps showing me this when all I really want to see is video adverts for leafblower qualifications.

Mileage makes a massive difference. Let's tag the conspiracy theorists into this thread to point out that this seemingly small aspect of car insurance is part of a larger, sinister agenda to keep people from going very far and seeing much outside their village etc.

One of my first (tree) climbing jobs was pruning some stuff away from those tall nets that stop golf driving range balls swerving onto roads. I used my rock harness; belay loop for main climbing system and a 120cm sling round the back and clove hitched at the hips for side Ds. Not especially comfortable but got the job done. On rock, I've never been fast and light. Very British mentality. Same with trees. Have loads of tat on my harness, just in case.

I've taken my tree harness rock climbing a few times. Hard to go back to something so skinny when you've got used to a tree one.

You come across like a pain. You did ask.

Emphatically, do it. A guy I work for has an electric one. Handiest thing ever.

Government workers will tick whichever box generates them more busywork and job security. "He's just naughty. Go away and give him the belt more often." generates little future work. "He's got a list of eponymous psychiatric conditions as long as my arm. You'll need these pills and four consultations a year." yields a long career of writing and talking about badly behaved but not especially mental children.

£90 a tonne.

A lot of Munchausen by proxy goes unnoticed.

Yeah, this. Except you get a motability car now instead of being lobotomised.

Steve and Mick, They get more dole if they're autistic. That's why more people get paperwork saying they're autistic.