Steven P

All he has to do is keep his head down and do nothing controversial, be less mental than Liz truss and less corrupt than Boris Johnson. Suppose we just need to wait till he goes proper fruit loop then ( I say from a position of despair, all Labour need is a leader with some charisma - any charisma).

Water companies use it every now and then so must be a thing

Not sure, I have bricks round my stove, the nearest normal plaster is just above it on the lintel and 10 year later is still gong strong. Perhaps the installer doesn't have the years of experience a plasterer would have to plaster heat resistant plaster>? Not sure, however the lady on the phone at Victas was able to answer a problem I had straight away, give them a call for advice maybe

Size... years ago there was a spate of UFO sighting, turns out to be night light hot air balloons. No terms of reference in the sky, but the wind blows the burner about making them 'dart about the sky really quickly'. Turns out Father Ted was right - those UFOs are far away, these hot air balloons are close. Nessie was famously a model but photo taken close up with no background to give scale. Same for big cats, you need a term of reference for size - so when you say things like single track road that gives more credibility. As above, there have been a few shot but that doesn't prove or disprove a breeding population - most of the sightings are adults but that makes sense too since the babies are often hidden away. Sitting on the fence with big cats Big foot however... IF you were in the US and IF you were out hunting and IF you accidentally shot one and IF you pit it into your truck you'd be set for life, the hunting types know this, and yet, none have ever had this kind of accident.... wonder why

Could also look at a heat resistant plaster rather than the stuff from the DIY superstores, give them a call and see Heat Resistant Plaster | Superior Refractory Materials | VITCAS WWW.VITCAS.COM Detailed specification of heat resistant plaster made by Vitcas ➤ Top quality and wide range of applications. Fireproof smooth finish ➤ Check our offer now!

If they are river loving trees they might want a little longer to season, however sounds like the best kind there is

Comment about big footprints, one of the comments about the Yeti foot prints is that as they thaw they get larger - the edge of the imprint works outwards, print gets bigger. However, for cats you'd loose the detail i think Plenty of footage of big cat attacks in cities - India mostly

Takes a long time to dry, can be quite smoky, and the smoke can be acrid - if there were other woods available I'd prefer them

All good and free better Scots pine for a softwood, a bit messy at times though Beech for a hardwood - though if I can get it. any thorn is good. Got an alder drying so will know this time next year if that is any good. Would give some a miss, I'd take most other things in preference to oak for exampe.

I must have missed that part on this thread....

Missed this one the other day.. - Big Cats in Britain - reckon there are a couple of pockets of them though like a lot of stuff never anywhere near anyone with a half decent camera (or a phone camera), just a 1kb 20 year old digital camera on its last legs. - UFOs (but not little green men on earth, just the people on the ground or pilots doing 900mph can't work out what a weather balloon looks like. Little green men somewhere else, yup, loads of them.) - Yeti (sort of, there is a big ape species yet to be identified by science, likewise, the 'little men' - a little ape species is out there) - Ghosts - wasn't sure whether to move this up a bit. A memory of a being exists I think however a sentient 'ghost' with a mind of it/s own like in Ghostbusters? maybe not. Getting less sceptical as I get older, perhaps a hope that I'll linger and not just stop. - A new world order... is the old world order of ££. The power behind the thrones is the cash that slips them a bung. Not a coordinated effort globally though - Facebook and Twatter arn't giving Putin wads of fivers, the Russian oil barons arn't giving Sunak or Biden the same (Trump maybe...) - Nessie - not as a big fish thing except on a Friday night.

Only watched part of the video, once I thought "He looks a lot like Mr Bean", I couldn't take him seriously. Essentially the video is 'pay per mile' is coming.. which to be honest is no surprise. Fuel duty is a kind of tax like that anyway, the more we drive, the more fuel we use, the more tax we pay. If we all get Electric vehicles in 2035? or within 5 years after, the government won't be getting any tax revenue from fuel (about £25 billion in 2022/23 though it has peaked at about £28 billion) . That is a lot of lost revenue isn't it. So where to make up the shortfall - has to be from drivers I think. If you add the tax to electricity in the traditional tax-road-fuel model then this becomes a "being in poverty tax" since that is the demographic who don't have cars but would have to pay anyway. So what to do? I think pence per mile is the fairest way. There might be a period of pain where there is a cross over (petrol car paying petrol taxes plus pence per mile for example, but electric car will only pay pence per mile). Domestic users might be winners, charge at home for short journeys. Business and heavy users might lose out a bit having to use commercial charging sockets away from home. Over all though, so long as the tax take is about the same I don't think we will be better or worse off.

A few caravans in the forest near me at the moment - sociably spaced about half mile apart. One job I had long term we booked a static caravan on a site, get sick of hotel meals every day of the week, pocketed the change (we had a basic uplift to salary, sort accommodation yourself job), nearer the end of that job was in a hotel week to week (rather than a commitment on the caravan) - weird Saturday mornings being the4 only guest and letting the staff in to make my breakfast/

Aliens.... with anything that the internet tells me, always ask "What would the Russians say", Fake moon landings and they wold have squealed so loud you wouldn't be able to hear the Australians doing the same. So for Aliens.... what are the rest of the world saying? They are certainly very picky preferring nations that watch US films. A million light year journey and they land in the US - either preprogramed and a massive coincidence or they decide where to land last minute... and in that case China, Pakistan and India would be my target being the most densly populated areas of the world... and yet, they don't rank in alien sightings. Else you would target quieter areas like the steppes of Russia... but not the mid populated areas like Europe or the US. Then consider how long it takes to get here, many many year, factors of 1000 since we started talking on the radio, pure luck that the chose earth then? Highly unlikely overall - just because a pilot drove past something at 900mph and didn't identify what it was in the second it was in sight doesn't make it out of this world though Aliens as a concept though, it would be inconceivable if there was no other life in the universe anywhere, we are not alone, just they arn't here.

Reading this all again, what is the timescale that you want? Next week or next year? The longer you have the more options you have. In a years time you could have taken on the new owner to show them the ropes (as it were), the contact list, introduced them to the clients, and profitable areas, working as a partnership - they throw in some cash upfront to buy half (else they will just get all your knowledge for free and set up anyway). Want out next week and then it is a fire sale on your used kit. The profit is in the knowledge, your name and contacts but got to make them work I think for the new owner. Last option is selling to a competitor but if they know you are just walking away whatever they might not be interested, pickup the work anyway. Loyal staff are tricky to pass on legally - they have to retain some terms and conditions I think - but to a competitor or new owner pretty invaluable. Good staff are worth a bit.

That's nice,

Saves double handling it. If you have an open sided shed to put it in this is good - plenty of air flow, a roof over the top for the winter and rain. If all you have is a garden shed then you need to dry it outside to get the air flow and then handle it all again to move it under cover in the autumn. Just shoving wet wood in an enclosed space is asking for mould and wet wood in the winter

Get an air flow around it and it is not important, the air blows through the stack Often the bark will fall of certain species, it burns OK so can be dried to use - it is no effort to put to one side and throw on the top once the pile is complete. However OP is for domestic use, not sure they will have an open sided shed, splitter, few IBC cages and a tractor?

Can also use pieces of bark that falloff as you split - some species the whole ring of bark can come off in1 piece as 'roof tiles'.. and once dry burn OK too

In the winter some sort of cover is useful - log shed, half the garage, tarpaulin. Drying wood is more about air flow than heat though, a windy spot will dry wood quicker than not - I have 3 sides I can use on he drive, lengthways along the house, wind blows along it will fry far quicker than at the end of the house where the wind just hits (same amount of sun), other side of the drive is shaded and will need 2 seasons to dry anything

Rac Man - thought this was jokes and not Johnsons phone in current affairs. Whoops. Not current affairs, that would be a in poor taste for a recently married man.

Yup. However I will qualify that - they get moved inside at the end of the summer and before September rains start. A lot depends on the stacking too - for a few years I made a double / triple log thickness walled den for The Boys in the garden, with log roof. Even in January the inside walls were pretty close to 20%. 1m cubes will get their outer layers wet with rain but if you can angle them downwards a bit the rains runs off the stack. Also helps lifting the stacks off the ground (mine are on bricks, old habits, brick in each corner, long split branch between the, and logs stacked on top). All about air flow.# Logs dens have stopped now, they wanted a skate board ramp (which also has a den underneath - they like hiding>)

.. feck em... seriously though, my neighbour gets a ton of logs thrown over her wall in September, makes up for a lot of my idiosyncrasies (and she is best buddies with the next neighbour)

Might be good to give advice where to spend the ££ and where you can buy the less expensive stuff? Then when the OP is shopping they can make a decision based on what they are looking at?

I tihnk we're taling about 2 different news stories here. One last comment on electriciy, India nad Africa are much wealthier than the uk... so who is going to win the bidding wars when the oil starts to run dry, and here we are arguing that the UK should have no alternatives..