Peasgood

That's a Buzz dual cab pickup btw

I found pear splits quite readily, especially if you are using it for knife scales and after spending a lot of time of effort carving and shaping etc you think the brass pin could do with just one more very light tap.

Since when has that bothered them? Knowing the road, if it was rush hour the traffic would be mostly going the other way on the very seperate part of the dual carriageway. That's assuming it was pm rush hour rather than am but they never seem bothered in the slightest about such things anyway.

It is definitely not a spectator sport and it would certainly introduce a whole new set of potential disasters with all those folk on site. I do pull things with chains, steel ropes and a big ships rope I have but not when there are any spectators in range. A difficult thing to organise with this situation as I expect there was nobody there in overall control. I also expect each person there assumed the other people there were competent at their particular job and therefore less likely to step in. ie. the tractor driver probably never even noticed where any of the climbers anchor points were, just as the climber wouldn't be checking the pins on the tractor should they have been used.

The tractor is strong enough but I would be surprised if they had a rope strong enough or long enough.

Not my area of expertise at all so can't give anything other than a non professional opinion. Do I think you could have safely got the tree down without climbing, yes I do. I don't think the issue was entirely a climb/not climb thing. If he hadn't tied himself to the bit he cut off events would be very different and there would be a tiktok video with lots of views for a completely different reason. Top and tail of it is he completely ****************ed up and is now sadly paying a very high price.

I know that stretch of road very well and can only think of bad luck coming from it. This poor guy had a terrible experience and I sincerely hope for his rapid recovery. There are traffic cameras there and it is a 40mph limit that everyone knows about yet loads of people I know get caught there including my aunt getting caught twice! Even she can't explain that one. There used to be a petrol station next to the pub that is now a Premier Inn. My childhood sweetheart ran off with a lad that worked there and completely broke my heart when I was 18. I guess it was meant to be, as far as I know I think she is still married to him. Even worse, less than a mile along the road a woman was clubbed to death while out walking her dog. They never did find the killer. About 100 yards away from this incident is a sandstone tower, looks like a miniature castle and always seems an odd thing for it's location. Some years back a woman somehow crashed her car into it and wrecked it. It's in the 40 limit and a split dual carriageway so it took a bit of doing. The council decided it was too expensive to repair (I think it was the council) and completely demolished it. The locals went mental and made them completely rebuild it, so the miniature (20-30' tall) sandstone castle that is there today is actually about 10 years old. Amazes me how such a small, very rural area can have so many bad events. I don't want to detract from the gravity of what took place and very much hope for a speedy recovery. I also hope those that witnessed it weren't too badly affected, not the sort of thing you want to see.

My post wasn't related to your chimney @openspaceman, your post reminded me of that question my Dad used to ask me when I was a kid. The answer is an umbrella.

What will go up a chimney down but won't go down a chimney up?

On an unlined chimney it will be fine. Those type of brushes act as wispy things that knock the soot off, they shouldn't be in chimneys so tight as the middle bit makes any difference. The brushes for lined chimneys are much stiffer and are more aimed at scrubbing the soot off rather than just dislodging it and as such are a much tighter fit. For lined chimneys you should have the appropriate size brush, a 6" brush isn't suitable for a 5" liner for example. The bristly thing you speak of will pretty much do any size of unlined chimney. (All references to lined in this post refer to flexible metal liners rather than premade ceramic section liners.)

It's got a face like a smacked arse, hardly cheery.

What makes you think the first one is cheery? Doesn't look it to me.

He must have known because those particular employees were the ones you'd expect to be gifted with extras to start with.

I have had employees that can override it