wrsni

Well I've burnt all the Castlewellan Golds that I planted around the place 20 odd year ago. But that's not really a proper answer to the question is it? Truth is I'm as curious myself, third summer for the woodland coming up and this is the one that I'm looking for some proper growth for the first time. A nice wet warm summer or two would be just the ticket.

By "Arb work" I assume you actually mean "tree surgery" which is indeed a service industry. Arboriculture is much more diverse however so it would be incorrect to assume that everyone who feels they have a place on an arboriculture forum or indeed can label themselves as an arboriculturalist is a tree surgeon. I am definately an arboriculturalist (admittedly part time) but I'm not a tree surgeon and there are quite a few others who could probably say the same.

Good post, fully agree with all of that.

Thanks for that, but with the utmost respect, I don't think you'll top that video back on page 4 or whatever. It really was most enlightening. Thanks again.

Really? Well it was actually two brothers who took over a disused production facility (a shirt factory actually) and decided to make a go of building up a modern day manufacturing facility in the UK. Exactly just the sort of place that everybody (quite rightly) claims the country needs, offering proper jobs that used UK raw materials to produce an exportable product. But the economic viability of the place depended on fine, fine, margins and would be a serious eye opener to most of those cruising through on deficit funded public money in some form or another. It was real world, something that worryingly few in this country have ANY concept of.

...................and all of that as well!

There's only one score that really matters and that is, H&S - 1 UK industry - 0 The country is in the state it is because we don't produce enough, and we don't produce enough because we have far too many unproductive people, and that's not just fat over-weight chavs lying around council estates eating pizza and watching Jeremy Kyle. Nobody is advocating people getting killed and maimed left right and center, that's just typical of the type of bollocks point expressed by people when they can't muster a decent counter argument. When I worked in the power station in the late seventies there was ONE full time health and safety man for the whole site, and he had no difficulty saying all that was needed and could actually get the necessary messages across very well. But the entire concept has just run amok, partly due to the ridiculous burgeoning of our public sector but then an equally unnecessary growth of a private dimension on the back of that. In fact not only is the whole thing unnecessary but utterly counter-productive and damaging. Both of them need to be addressed before the country starts to make any headway again.

No chance, they weren't interested in paper exercises one way or the other. As with any manual production in the UK they had to run a really tight ship to survive, even someone leaving a machine for 5 minutes to get a sticking plaster on a cut had the production manager reaching for the Gaviscon for himself. Someone having to go to A&E for a stitch or even just a steri-strip on a cut caused absolute mayhem. That's the point, they needed proper practical effective solutions, the entire H&S industry was unable to deliver it. They could charge though, boy could they charge!

Few "accidents" just happen, they are as a result of carelessness. H&S doesn't prevent carelessness, it's a massive unproductive industry built up around human nature. The last factory I worked at complied with all H&S criteria, brought in consultants, etc, etc. I should know as I was in charge of it weirdly enough. But they were still having too many minor injuries which really disrupted the production line. So the bosses came up with an idea that if there were no reportable injuries over a four week period, on the Friday of the fourth week they would stop a couple of hours early, send out to the local Chinese and the staff would have a take away at their expense. The number of reportable accidents fell by over 90%, no consultants, no surveys, no expense other than a take away bill on the months when they achieved it and that was more than covered in increased productivity.

Health and safety "professionals" along with the modern "legal profession" are two of the most parasitic scourges of modern society. Anything that could be done to change that would be good for all of us.

I fitted a stove over a year ago in the hope that it would heat the entire house from a central location so fully intended to fit the stove with a fan from the start. However I was busy with work, busy with getting the stove itself installed and busy with a Christmas charity that I help, so we got the stove installed ok but I hadn't the time to research the fans and the stove was fired up without the fan. Inside a couple of days it became obvious that the stove would heat the whole house anyway without a fan. I'm quite surprised as it's a bungalow and has to move the air quite a bit to the furthest bedrooms, but it does it and does it very well. No doubt if the fan had been fitted from the start I'd have been attributing the success of the entire operation, incorrectly, to it. Whereas it seems if the stove is hot enough it'll set up quite an airflow in the space anyway and not just upwards.

Yes, I'm working on it. I have to be honest and say that I have not as yet achieved that state of "thoughtlessness", for want of a better word, that is the aim but I'll keep at it. I now know that there's no great secret or magic recipe to it all, just patience and time.

I'll go along with that, especially given that I didn't see much wrong with his comments in the first place. It was just an observation as I read it.

No problem, but just keep it to yourself eh, don't want them getting too popular and prices going up!

Get a local sign company to make the top bit out of whatever thickness of aluminium you want and then bolt it to a bit of steel pipe or even a good brush shaft. Probably won't even work out that much, if any, dearer.

We've had most of them over the years in various vehicles. Never had a V6, although I've driven a couple of them, was about to buy one a year ago but got foolishly distracted at the last minute by a 3.2 DiD Shogun, wish I'd stuck to my guns and bought the GV! The other engine I've no experience of yet although it won't be relevant to you is the new 2.4 which has replaced both the V6 and the 2L, cracking engine by all accounts and some of us will probably end up with one of them in something sooner or later. In truth the engines are all pretty similar, pull well, have a bit of a rasp to them, ridiculously reliable (cam chain so no need to change timing belts even!), about the only noticable difference is that any of the v-tec's have a bit less pull low down but a bit more go higher up, which is just what you'd expect anyway.

Only cobbled together to satisfy the European obsession for diesel cars. Europe got a poxy Renault diesel engine, the Yanks got the latest Suzuki 3.2l petrol V6.

Well it's not their own engine so don't expect the same level of reliability as the petrols. Also, although I've never owned a diesel Suzuki of any description, from what I can gather they don't seem to be as easy to service and look after. Presumably because they're fitted with an engine that wasn't actually designed to be there in the first place!

SORN it and pay the fine, you've no choice really. Obviously if they've your contact details then you're the registered keeper and it should have been either taxed or SORN'ed anyway, and as stated at least now if you SORN a vehicle you only do it once. I've a collection of older type motorcycles and used to have to re-SORN them all every year. An absolute pain just to keep people in a job! So at least one change for the better I have to concede to the Tories!

If you haven't an awful miles to do you could pick up a nice V6 one for that money. Great driving things, especially with the auto box, not that easy on fuel but then no proper 4 by 4 is. Big tyres, lots of diffs driveshafts and couplings to turn is never going to equate to an especially efficient vehicle. But the whole thing with Suzukis is robustness and reliability. I've been driving Japanese since the mid-70's so I'm used to reliability but even by Japanese standards, Suzukis are truly exceptional. Oh, providing you steer clear of the diesels of-course.

Thanks for that fine representation in my absence. Indeed I was simply making the point that a decent briquette was better than a poor bit of firewood, and that in turn was a response to a log seller asking, "I think a lot more brickette type things are being sold this year than ever., is it because they are easier to store/use/?" So as a sort of part-time briquette user I was simply giving our reason for using them. I was NOT implying that any of the log sellers on this thread sell anything other than an impeccable product, nor was I suggesting than any briquette would be a substitute for a good well seasoned bit of natural firing. Hope that clears it up to everyones pleasement!

Big Suzuki fan here, we've three in the family at the minute, probably soon to be four. No GV but have had in the past and the new edition will certainly be as well. What year and model are you after?

Either that or it'll give many undecided voters (and maybe some of their stalwarts) the final reason they need NOT to vote for Labour this time around. I think Labour are playing with fire on this one!

I don't disagree, however that's not what I compared them with.

..............and to be honest I doubt any of the briquettes could compete with such a product. However, as I'm sure you are aware, not all logs are sold so scrupulously!