Steven P

Drugs, sugar, plastic bags, tobacco, alcohol, some dogs, vaping? are all put in the governments "Too hard to deal with it in this parliament, lets ban it" bucket. Take a longer term approach and education, good habits, social acceptance and so on you don't need to ban nearly as much. But... that means you have to fix the early years education system, the primary school years education system, the secondary education system to fit that in, provide or encourage alternatives, and then wait 20 or 30 years for those children to become adults, and then parents to pass all that on to the next generation and change society. So it goes into the too hard bucket, no political gain in a 30 year program to do good, ban it all. So not sure a ban is a good thing, educate and let us work it out. As for drugs - I could support some sort of legalisation to remove them from criminality, but am not sure this would work - we have had years of no education just blanket "Zammo says don't", if they legalised a lot of drugs I could see the UK going on a massive bender for a couple of years. The alternatives to tobacco and alcohol (that we would do instead) are not good sources of tax income - take away the 22 billion or so from Tobacco and Alcohol duty (plus a couple of billion on sugar taxes) and we are looking at 25 billion in fuel duties going when we all get electric cars.... I might also wonder if the chancellor is as keen as the prime ministers say they are to ban everything./

Going back a couple of posts, as Tesco says "Every Little Helps". Some countries have a lot of rivers, hydro power, some have a lot of sun, some a lot of wind (we are quite windy), got to make the most of what we have. Interconnectors are useful - we can take Norwegian Hydro in the UK, California takes Canadian hydro electric (also in the UK a connection to France and the rest of Europe so could be tied into their nuclear power as well). Interconnector to Ireland allows that to pass through. Since Europe is so large this helps balance power so we don't all need spare generators spinning taking power and can be more efficient. I've seen the one about a swimming pool on top of a data centre which costs the council nothing to heat (and saves the data centre money with better cooling) - like I said, every little helps!

Curious here - how many deer would typically be in 25,000 acres, 6 farms?

If it was mine... Does the lady have children / likely to have children / young grand children who would appreciate a flat outdoor space to run around in? If not then I'd go with the other answer and have some stepped level changes through the garden to add interest to it. Looks like the 3rd fence panel down is a high spot so lower that a bit and use the soil to build up as necessary... but if you are doing all of that then yes, get rid of the stumps

I was going to add that some specialised fibre optics also have a LV pwer cable in them or are routed along side one. If you have the budget to do the training then it will add a confidence to the customer

Vaguely that rings a bell, and young ferns are OK for sheep too - vague memory.

That's a lido then - posh outdoor swimming pools all the rage now

Yes, Southport did that when they got around to it.

Ahh, one of those hairy horny beasts?

Slit as soon as you get it, leylandii for me are usually good to in a year. Mind same for all woods... split as soon as you get it. I can't comment on 3 year old logs, never kept any that long but never really had a soot problem off them

She should have the decency to clap along in time I reckon. However guilty as charged... I wasn't in Shropshire but guess what I was doing this morning? Got to encourage them to run faster so I can find whoever has the flask of luke walk tea. (I was in the woods this morning, bottom of a slippery slope watching them style it out as they slid, less clapping but more piss taking really)

I can't ever remember expressing an opinion of her on this forum, though Mick has seriously disturbed my evening now. Watching her thatch and whilst gently mooing. Makes me shiver. I might have mis-quoted him.

A rare chance to agree with you there! There are very few politicians who are engineers or project mangers who can understand how to deliver a project on time (these ferries, the trains to Birmingham, Hinkley power station....), but they understand that throw enough money at something it will all go OK However... Scottish Daily Express.... you need to change your morning papers, but at least there is a headline there that isn't reminiscing that the world went wrong in 1997.

Bigger problem that Asda doesn't have a runway yet..... (a lot by the way)

True, but I don't think you could cover all aspects all at once. Could add in a portion onto new tyres and brakes but then people might leave them longer before replacing them. EVs arn't quite as bad as reported with regenerative braking not using brake pads, however I get the point on them focussing on the wrong pollution for now. Certainly a problem for those that create taxes to replace fuel taxes and not penalise those who don't have cars with taxes on domestic electric bills, same with car tax, what to do. I am just thinking that 5 to 10 years time the charging system will be different to what we have today - what to do to keep it reasonable, and unbiased.

I'd tend to agree with that, it covers miles = more fuel but also environmental, more efficient = less fuel. I would have gone for a basic charge, £30 or £50 or something to cover the admin side of things registering the vehicles, up to date MOT check, the websites and so on and the rest on fuel. However electric vehicles complicate that model. It is possible to read the milometer annually and charge for that (after the car is old enough for an MOT), but sure if you can do this with modern cars but disconnect the cable and no speedo or milometer. Likewise a GPS thing in the car, a simple faradays cage over that will block the signal. So if they want to go pay per mile then guess it is cameras and split the roads into some sort of cell system... the size of the cell can alter depending on the congestion, in the extremes of the country larger cells, travel further before triggering a camera, in the cities, smaller cells so you might only drive a couple of miles.

Didn't know that, thanks.

Beech will coppice so if it is cut low should regrow? Not sure the best time of year for that though - might be leaving it a bit late this year.

Exactly, how can he do it and not us?

Not sure if this should go in UK politics or world news: He can build a 450 mile railway, and fight a war, in only a couple of years. We can half build a railway nearly all the way to Birmingham from nearly London and not have it finished in 15. By comparison, 450 miles is central Scotland all the way to Dover Putin’s railway through occupied Ukraine ‘almost complete’, says Kyiv’s spy chief UK.YAHOO.COM A 450-mile railway line Russia is building through occupied Ukraine is almost complete, Kyiv’s military intelligence chief has warned.

If you are driving by the chances are you forget the phone number by the time you pull over somewhere safe to call.... if you are in the market to buy that day of course, otherwise all you will remember is maybe the name. Can you remember any number from "wasps destroyed" boards you see all the time (I'll help, start 07 ) Board outside the job site and maybe leave a card or leaflet with the customer ("Someone is bound to ask who did this, do you mind if I leave a couple of fliers for them"). Park up your van for a morning brew somewhere leafy for the School runs maybe.

how 'free' is free, for example is contributing to petrol money for delivery acceptable to you?

10' is 10 log lengths? Not excessive but not sure it is worth a whole new saw just for that.. but of course, the n+1 rule applies (n = how many you need / how many your partner thinks you have). I'd be tempted to cut 1' wide slot in the top, as far down as you can (10"?). take it out with the saw or axe, should give you enough to go all the way after that from the centre of that slot, might put a notch in the base? Depends who the log is lying and where the pressures are that will catch the chain depends to cut from the top or bottom

Best deterrent I ever found as a grown up was to grab 3 or 4 mates, a few beers and join them. They don't come back after a couple of social visits

A bit disturbing if anyone takes the bury barbed wire where people can't see it / more powerful electrify fences comments seriously, got to also keep within the law. If you set out to harm someone trying to enter your land chances are you will be in court and will be paying them compensation from your pocket or insurance. Make it a deterrent that is visible from the other side of the river, so they don't start to cross in the first place. Is there space for a thick hedge of something spiky, visible before people start to swim over?