WorcsWuss

Risky strategy....! A friend of mine did that and ended up with his accounts frozen by the revenue and losing his business! [Although I don't think the accountant was actually any good..... ]

It's not so much the pulley as the friction hitch you use with it which makes it easy.... The 'hitchclimber' is essentially a tending function but the arrangement of the holes on the pulley allows everything to stay nicely in-line and be connected thus.... A VT or distel are much smoother running hitches than a prusik or a blakes.... I've not climbed on a proper HC yet but I've researched it quite heavily and would really like to try..... I've tried to set up a 'faux HC' using the components I have to see if I should invest in the pulley & E2E cord....

That's how I understand it.... so if the buyer of the trailer in the OP is VAT registered and buys it 'with no VAT', they can't claim it back nor add it on if they sell it. The VAT has been paid on the new price, the revenue are happy because they've retained VAT at it's highest value, once it's 'dropped out' of the system it can't then become 'VAT-able' again...?

Mad as a wheel....

This thread feels like logjam..... There's no doubting that this kid is an a-hole, he's got no manners or respect and is fairly typical of the sort of indifference we're producing in our youth. But no-one can argue that the big guy wasn't TECHNICALLY and LEGALLY in the wrong. Sadly 'morally' carries very little weight in present legal thinking.... However, while what the big guy did in this instance can easily be argued for, the kid was openly vile, there is every chance that what he did may have been wholly inappropriate or could have had tragic consequences. I don't want to sound like a liberal.... I'm so far to the right I've fallen off the edge, however, the way this country operates is NOT the way of the 'vigilante' - it's the same reason that the riots achieved nothing, you can't get your way by throwing your weight around. It was easy to foresee this outcome the second this story came to light. Punishment is in the hands of the law, however effective - or ineffective - that may be...... I still maintain that the route cause of this whole debacle was the guard on the train handling the situation in a wholly inappropriate way and if I had my way, he'd be sacked for allowing one of his passengers to 1, lay a finger on another and 2, do his job for him in a way that I'm pretty sure isn't in the staff handbook anymore... If he had said, 'No thanks' the big guy wouldn't now be in the pot. I don't dispute that the police are generally a waste of time. But the big guy set himself up for a fall the second he got 'physically' involved. It's really difficult to argue in a court of law that not being able to present a ticket for a train is a greater crime than picking someone up and throwing him off said train.... Whether you agree with it or not you have to accept that this was the only possible outcome from the legal system we have in place..... All that is open to debate is whether you think that's right or wrong. Personally I think in THIS INSTANCE it's wrong, however generally it would be a very dangerous direction to take.... who draws the line... if you run over a few days on your car tax is it OK for someone bigger than you to drag you out of your car and take the keys off you....?

Hang around outside a 6th form college and chat up some students.... kill or cure.....

Get yourself a split tail then rather than lengths of friction cord. 2m is quite a lot... the friction cord I use for my VT is less than a metre. If you're climbing open the basics are thus: Climbing line Split tail A crab That will get you in the tree, but it's MIGHTY hard work, and you have to untie your line to get off the rope, add another crab [1 for the split tail & 1 for the line] and you can clip in and out at will. You should consider adding self tending to your hitch [small pulley, another crab & a short prusik loop]. That way all you have to concentrate on is body thrusting rather than thrusting AND advancing your hitch. Good vid on DdRT open hitch set up here..... [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1RSzKkBOWc]Ascending - Doubled Rope Technique - YouTube[/ame]

That was my thought... 2 Ultra O's. How are you going to climb, open or closed hitch? If you start open [split tail, blakes hitch] and then progress onto a closed hitch [with eye to eye friction cord & hitch climber for instance] your original split tail will go into your aerial rescue kit, the 2 ovals will migrate to the HC. I would suggest you get a little swing cheek pulley, an couple of offset D crabs, a short length of prusik [60cm ish loop] and a figure 8 as well. An 8 is always useful to have on for descents [for a cup of tea!] to save your hitch cord from unecessary wear, and a crab, cord & pulley can be set up to self tend your hitch. A foot loop is always handy to have as well, but you can use a length of your friction cord for that. I tied mine together with a series of fisherman's knots to create a wide knot which holds the loop open to slip my foot into and I stand on the knot. I eventually did away with the prusik knot and choked it onto a Petzl Croll instead, kind of a 'remote Pantin' set up... the prusik was a pain to advance, the Croll just runs so well.... Sounds odd but it works well... Oh, and the HB lanyard kit is really good.

Man, you have got to let it go.... you're going to end up looking like David Gest, and that's NOT a good look.... Embrace the belly dude.... get some nice comfy slacks, hush puppies, string back driving gloves..... hmmmmm, pint of mild.....

Should be fine, 13mm is still 'normal' size.... HC will take up to 14mm rope...

VAT.... perpetually confusing.... Just read the catalogue for Brightwells 4x4 auction... some VAT reg'd vendors sell vehicles with VAT included [the sale price includes 20% VAT which can be claimed back if you're registered], PLUS VAT, [20% will be added to the sale price which you can claim back if registered] or, most interestingly, NO VAT. I think this is something perculiar to traders in that if a vehicle is purchased by a non-VAT registered individual or organisation originally, the VAT is paid and the revenue take no interest in it from then on, just like a normal car, but the fact that the trader is VAT registered is irrelevant..... With commercial vehicles it seems that once VAT has been paid and not reclaimed, the revenue are happy, I don't believe that VAT can be claimed by the revenue [or rather 'not reclaimed'] more than once on a commercial vehicle. Curiously, a vehicle which starts off as a commercial [Discovery Commercial for instance] is liable for VAT if converted back to a passenger car for the first 14 months or 2 years [i forget exactly what] of it's life. So, you can buy a Disco commercial as a business and claim the VAT back. If you add seats & windows in the first year or so then technically you owe the revenue the VAT. After that period though then you don't so for the first owner it's a good way of claiming the VAT back on a 'car'.

Blakes is a great friction hitch to start on. It's a piece of cake to tie and is quite steady, use a split tail with 1 spliced or sewn eye. The way it sits when dressed makes it quite easy to set up self tending too. I've about come to the end of my time on a blakes, I've been trying out a helical but it's a bit of a pain to tie and set right so I'm moving over to a VT now [with a length of cord with a fisherman's knot each end] which I really like, quite quick running and ties easily, but I think I need an HC & spliced eye to eye cord to get the best from it. Then I watched the Spiderjack 2.1 video and friction hitches are dead to me.....!

If that's the case and I've heard wrong then I stand corrected. The rest of my post stands though!

You are of course correct Steve, but the fact remains that irrespective of how badly this kid came across to everyone on the train, he had every right to be there. I know that there is a great case for clipping these gobsh**es round the ear, however, quite often a more diplomatic approach needs to be taken to protect those who have good intentions but perhaps don't think through the consequences properly. This is a case in point and thus far has panned out exactly as I suspected it would do.... it's a shame but it was tragically predictable....

No... if not VAT reg don't mention VAT

Jesus... something that big shouldn't wobble that much from a someone working on it! That's well outside my comfort zone!

I know Selly Park, refurbed the day care centre at the hospice last winter.... I'll have a think...

Where exactly in Brum...?

Nothing like someone ending up in hospital to prove you've partied really hard...

Oh man I gotta get me one of those.... never really looked at them before but that is ace....

Home with the kids, wife is bloody working... booo.... think we're having a new year's eve eve party the night before with some friends at home. As it goes I've never found NYE that exciting, perpetually grumpy me.... I remember playing 'drink while you think' one NYE with friends in the Oak in Tenbury [Drew will know them]... one mate from college was a paranoid manic depressive with a drink problem - he held his mum at knifepoint once because he thought she was working for the Russians and had come to get him - another guy who hadn't met him before was excitedly forcing him to drink while he took not inconsiderable time to think with his unusually wired brain.... there was terrified silence around the table waiting for the bloodshed.....

I'm pretty sure I have my PA1 ticket, but I don't think I've ever had call to wave it in front of anyone.... I must dig that out....!

Not arb work but at the moment the best bonus we can all hope at our firm for is to be able to come back to work after christmas!

Incidentally, I have a couple of 35m lengths of Marlow Aeris [1 to climb on and a spare if something bad happens!] 35m is enough rope to access 17 vertical metres DdRT, 50 odd feet, which is probably plenty for a beginner. I've certainly never been able to get my throwbag high enough to use it all up from the floor anyway! Simon

I reckon a 50m rope bag is probably more like 25 litres, mine's pretty big.....