Steven P

Emissions, could get an electric one? Old Trumpy, the US president (and hero of The JohnsonD) is flogging them now.

Still no answer. Simples. How many times does JohnsonD use his vanity van as a necessity for his work? We should have a poll I think.

That is why I am asking you, the expert on these things for clarity. Still ignorant an why this is hitting you so hard when your salary, 3 or 4 times every elses should cover this easily, yet the guys out there grafting are not whinging.

So your lack of clarity leads me to believe that you need to use your van for 20 days a year for a business vehicle, the rest of the time a taxi to the airport would be sufficient ? Noting that your need this vehicle for its 3 1/2 ton towing capacity (previous posts, another thread if anyone missed that) - very doubtful you take that much kit with you swimming

Fairly clear that shouldn't be on a META owned platform and someone should have verified the audience.

JohnsonD, you are taking particular exception to these business vehicles being taxed more. Just to give us an understanding, how much of your £120k salary do you earn using one, how many days business use does it get? Correct me if I am wrong but they are not submersible and useless when you are out swimming? The reason I ask is that most of the guys I see round here - granted more tree surgeons than forest operations - are using tipper vans for preference - I'd be guessing that they don't appreciate the level of your hardship given this thread isn't a 50 pages long rant. More the occasional 1 or 2 venting and that is it really.

Not really Gareth, was it Boris Johnson most recently and his cabinet who fell foul from using whatsapp ? Lost a lot of very important messages (from sender and receiver) when one of them lost their phone access? Not sure about the US government, I assume they are similar but at least in the UK official communications shouldn't go through systems such as whatsapp: Meta (their owners) claim that 'most' communications use end to end security... but not all and the system allows the communications to be 'intercepted' (not quite the right word) and saved on their servers... and so can be viewed on their by anyone with access or snooping about There is no control once you get the message, there is no paper trail easily available if you want to forward that message onwards. With in email systems there is an audit trail as to where e-mails are forwarded and these are saved For the government, and the US government does this too, there is no record keeping, no accountability, the messages bypass the official systems (as we found that the Johnson enquiries were unable to acquire copies of government messeges sent via whatsapp). Now lets consider that they have been in charge for 2 months now, that security brief must have been quite recent, so either they are very stupid to have used the system despite security briefs.... or they did it purposefully to bypass all checks and accountability. Stupid both ways. And then to add in a reporter, and no one took a moment to ask who everyone was on the message? Double stupid. It is OK though, Trump wasn't involved there so you should be OK to say "Yes, the guys are idiots"

Cannot go wrong with a VW

I'd agree with that, 3 of you in the cab, the tax increases would add something like £5 to £10 onto their day rate (220 day or 150 day working year), which is nothing in the grand scheme of things. The tax paid there would of course be offset against tax on company profits. Fag packet sums: £200 day hire for a double cab - something like that, and compared purchase cost, maintenance, tax, insurance, depreciation and so on. To justify owning a double cab you'd need something like 80 days use a year, 6 days a month -business use with 3+ employees in it-, else it is cheaper just to hire one in as and when - and they clean it for you! Most of them I see are very clean, never been off road, vanity vans, or single occupant 'boss mans' vans as a perk.

I just remember the teenage Steven P playing bows and arrows - a couple of spare kite spars, and a steel head we'd forged we're bloody lethal (100m away we were getting a good 'thunk' into a door), cannot imagine what we'd done with the proper kit. I'm recommending about 38 for my boys based on that. Serious - 8 would sound OK to me - that's when they go to Cub Scouts and do stuff like that. Axes, no problem of course. Much safer (based on 16 year old Steven P never had them to misuse)

'and arrows', I put my foot down at archery out the back, not completely irresponsible. 'Cheaper' depends who you know and what local trees they are working on I guess. We found the axes were mostly vertical. Not sure here with the targets if vertical grain would be better or worse if the axe is at an angle - would be worse I guess if the axe angle was lines up with the centre of a log? Yes, Steve I found out distance and rotation relate last year and I think I have it right - just technique fails perhaps that I am putting down to the target?

Can't make the target too easy for them!! Was thinking to treat myself to a Fiskars hatchet.... will let you know how that goes - B&Q hatchet wasn't so good but the one I found in the hedgerow a few years back did the job as well as the purpose bought ones last summer. Coming back to this thread, all the handles are now a bit more Hi-Vis coloured so I don't loose them in the undergrowth so much (natural barrier, stops them getting too close behind the target) It is good fun though, trickier than it looks

Cheers!! I'll get the tape and saw out later though think the biggest pine that came down this winter is perhaps only 2" diameter. Half a thought to do 4 rings, 2 flat edges on each and butt them together. Good tip for the water, I'll try that.

Revising an old thread.... Short on time this morning to look in case this has been covered, but does anyone know what the best trees to make the targets from? I'm thinking something big and softwood? The Boys had a go last summer, cobbled together something using pallet spacers (1m square) but that didn't quite do the job, they had a go at the weekend from a target made of 'planks' - too springy and it bounced the axes back (I didn't see it). Before the summer starts I'd like a new target for them - more excuses to get them outside. Thinking a decent size hunk of something - but what should that something be... (I've got a bit of beech but think that will be too hard for the axes, might be better for a table top)

Woohoo!!! 25 years!! and then what? We'll be dead, won't care, and in my dying breath I'll whisper to The Boys "Your fecked"

At a risk of distraction from the headline thread there is a correction. It is the Europeans we don't like, mostly the Belgians, Europe is OK as a land mass - the whole premise of Brexit was we don't want the Europeans working in the UK (though hypocritically we are OK with British workers working in the EU), we don't want them popping over here freely for holidays (though hypocritically we are OK to pop over there freely for holidays), and we don't want them stealing 'our' fish (though hypocritically the fish we want, cod, tend to hang out in EU waters more than ours). Brexit made it clear however that we don't like the Europeans but much prefer those from further afield to fill the gaps they emptied. Though yes, got to go with the thought of "that man is bad so this man is OK despite also being bad" with respect to Biden being a smokescreen for Trumps discretions.

and to add your pictures above the first one 'Democrate and Chronicle" article puts his approval at 47%.. 53% of US Americans do not approve. An 'All time high' for him The Economic time headline this week (2nd part of your image) "Donald Trump hits a hostoric low....approval rating worse than any modern president in decades" Your last image, fro 9 days ago, New York Post is the New York equivalent of The daily Mail mashed up with the Star, and is well known for its journalistic standards... low standards and deviation from the truth which doesn't bother its readers.

Cannot hack that your hero, The Rapist and appolgist for child rapists is gettng a bad time here? Here is an actual link and not a picture you can make on photoshop.. Approval rating lower than any of his predecessors at this time but correct at -2 approval (more people dissaprove) it is higher than it was this at 2 months in, first time around: The 2nd link summarises a few polls... all saying that his aproval rating is negative.. more Americans (US Amerians) dissaprove of him. So far from the commenters on this thread going against the thoughts in the US, they align with them! Why is it that only you cannot see the man, sorry rapist and child abuser appologist, he is not a man, do any wrong? Donald Trump hits historic low as new poll shows his net approval rating worse than any modern president in decades ECONOMICTIMES.INDIATIMES.COM Donald Trumps net approval rating has hit a historic low in 2025, worse than any modern U.S. president over the last 70... Trump approval ratings: What polls show after first 2 months of term EU.USATODAY.COM Donald Trump has bulldozed through the first two months of his second presidency. Here's what Americans think of his job so...

I might be typing out of turn here but that portrait does him good, 'soft focus' is his friend, far better than 'Orange Skin HD' in all it's pockmarked glory and colouring

Gut feeling is hot air rises and depending on the set up it could be possible to 'stall' the chimney - where the external air acts like the chimney, reversing the expected air flow and making the fire very tricky to get going. Particularly overnight at winter when the fire is out, chimney pots are at say -5 deg C, loft at 5 deg C could see this happening. Smoke, fumes and any heat is pumped into the loft, best worse case is the smoke alarm goes off at silly o'clock in the morning with a false alarm, worst worse case is it isn't a false alarm. Related to this is having a down draught of cold air next to the chimney cooling the exhaust fumes more than usual you might find the draw is reduced from this. Not an expert in this though, just gut feeling.

Reading the last page about how most oils are from the same base with scientifically experimented and calculated additives in to make it do the right stuff and then "Yeah, but, I just bung diesel in it to make it work right"

but your not all over the forum banging on about how ludicrous the idea is and in the next breath bragging of your hypocrisy and earnings from it

Net Zero is only a rebrand of being green - or did you miss that bit? The conversion from an oil based electricity system to green energy, net zero energy has accelerated with technology advances, but has always been a goal - pretty much since north sea oil took off and they realised that there was only limited supplies, certainly all my working life. So then got to ask is it the branding you oppose then if the end result is the same? Still happy to be taking that shiny shilling whatever they call it, it is the same thing. Still the same hypocrisy to apparently get angry about it and accept it as a wage earner

Nothing to do with me. You. You are on here constantly ripping into 'Net Zero', Windfarms, solar farms, electric vehicles et al and in the next breath are out there taking that bucket of shiny windfarm shillings straight into your bank acount. Pure hypocrisy. "Bad things but I'll take the cash anyway"

and their profits are pouring onto the pockets of the likes of you for their maintenance. Don't forget that most of your £10k monthly salary is coming from windfarms this month. Or is that hypocrisy too much for you?