Retired Climber

We obviously can't give a professional opinion based on a couple of photos. What I would say is that if that was my house I wouldn't be worried about that tree in the slightest 

26 minutes ago, Steph-B said:

Oh gosh, sounds complicated and expensive. Hope I can find someone who can do this. Many thanks for your help.

 

It need not be expensive, but you should find someone who knows what they are doing. A lot of people call themselves tree surgeons, with not much more than a few NPTC certificates by way of qualifications. It's a very quick job for someone who will quickly understand the problem, and then do the necessary. 

What's at the bottom of the tree? Is it planted in a gap in paving? 

13 hours ago, Mark J said:

Making sense of bitcoin and blockchain technology: PwC

WWW.PWC.COM

---

Understand how Blockchain works, what cryptocurrency is and the potential blockchain applications beyond Bitcoin and cryptocurrency to improve business processes.

 

A perfect.demonstration of the fact that you can only dumb something down so much, before it becomes of no use to anyone. Blockchain tech is complicated by it's very nature, but we don't actually need to understand how it works. The general public aren't supposed to understand cryptocurrency, and there is very little benefit to doing so. Just treat investing in such things in the same way as you would bet on a horse, and you won't go too far wrong. Following the gambling theme, anyone who claims to be an expert, with the ability to advise others how to make money from it, is a charlatan. 

2 hours ago, openspaceman said:

When the new queens leave the nest so do the drones and they compete for the queen by flying the highest with her, the queen then consummates the affair by ripping the gonads off the winning male and thereafter using that to fertilise her eggs for the rest of her life. All the remaining drones die along with the workers.

I think I've been out with her. 😆

1 hour ago, trigger_andy said:

Why do you still find it ironic? 

Because he didn't think it through. Let it go man, you are like a dog with a bone. 😀

I normally just bang the logs together as I pick them up. Anything that can hold on tight enough not to fall off is welcomed into the house. 

16 minutes ago, Joe Newton said:

I imagine the replies in this thread is a reason a lot of people don't bother posting any more. 

The only time this place is busy is when there's an argument going on. If it were not for the small group of very prolific posters, there would be nothing new to read. 

4 minutes ago, Stere said:

 

Even a book about it:

 

The Shock Doctrine - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

 

 

 

Isn't it a zero sum game though?

 

Sure possible for some to make money but at the expense of the majority?

 

Fuel is a flat tax which always harms the  poor more.

I wouldn't call it a traditional zero sum game, but agree that it can be seen in that way. If so, it's an excellent reason to look after you and yours, and stop worrying too much about the wider problems. 

I don't agree that we need to sacrifice the majority to look after ourselves. Often money is made by those who offer the best value to the majority. 

Fuel costs will be a problem for the poor, I agree. However, my comment was really aimed at members here. If your truck and saws are costing more in fuel, so are those of every other arb. 

9 hours ago, trigger_andy said:

There's a lot of truth in this. Not an easy pill for many to take though. 

That's because it's easier to winge and moan like a little girl about inflation, Brexit, Covid, the government etc, than realise that you need to look after yourself. 

The rising cost of living is a difficult situation for some, but many seem to think that fantasising about the lower classes somehow rising up, and taking power from the elite is a good use of their time. 

Whilst the natural born victims are moaning, people are making money out of the situation. You can decide yourself if you want to be a victim or an opportunist. 

Most aspects of the cost of living 'crisis' aren't a problem anyway. Problems only occur when something happens that puts you at a disadvantage. The cost of fuel has gone up for everyone; so nobody is disadvantaged. On the rare occasion they are, it's due to the fact that they have formerly been leveraging a fuel dependent advantage. 

Money is there for the taking, for anyone willing to go and get it. 

11 minutes ago, eggsarascal said:

I've always had you down as a bit of a tool, you've now confirmed it.

Thanks for letting me know. 

7 minutes ago, eggsarascal said:

Really! 10% inflation is bearable when wages are stagnating? I've a feeling the put up and shut up attitude isn't going to last. Barristers, medical staff, rail workers, et el are on strike or being balloted to go on strike. It is not bearable for lots of people.

You don't need to put up and shut up. It has literally, never in the history of humanity, been so easy to make money. Money is just a token we all use to play a game. Obviously some people are better at the game than others, but anyone can do well. 

We are nowhere near hyper inflation. I think it has to be 50 % per month or 1000% per year. Figures may not be accurate, but you get the idea. 

10 hours ago, AHPP said:

It's the increase in the money supply. Say there's £100 in the country. You have £1. You have 1% of the money and therefore 1% of the spending power. Then the central bank (BoE here) prints another £100. You now have 0.5% of the money and spending power.

 

The confusing bollocks about the price of milk, interest rates etc is put about to keep people talking about them when they should be more aggrieved at central banks making the pound in their pocket worth less.

This, in my opinion, is the best answer. 

The government inject a load of QE money into the economy, which makes the money you have less rare, so less powerful. 

31 minutes ago, Topper said:

This survey is for an MA……seriously??? I would be resubmitting this back to a student at level 2/3 without hesitation, for many of the reasons already mentioned above.

 

For all such research work never forget that Garbage in = Garbage out, sorry Ryan I won’t be helping you with this version. 

 

 

 

I don't think it's for a Master's level course. Thinking back to my own post grad courses, I needed quite a decent level of ability to design and execute research in order to pass the course. What we've seen here would be laughed at, even at Prof Cert / Prof Dip level. 

1 minute ago, john87 said:

But ARE they an "employee" I think you will find that they most definitely are...

 

john..

I deliberately avoided that particular can of worms and just concentrated on the question asked. 

Just now, Steve Bullman said:

Think you’ll be hard pushed to find a freelancer in the uk who had any sort of a contract in place with anyone they work for.

 

Comes down to decency at the end of the day. If either party are disgruntled and an agreement isn’t reached then they simply won’t work together again 

Everyone has a contract. However, I agree that it's unlikely that this would be covered. It's the easiest way to avoid any ambiguity should the situation arise though. 

Personally, I'd let common sense prevail. If the freelancer does something daft, they pay, if an employee does something daft, the employer pays. If nobody does anything daft and something is damaged anyway, maybe 50 / 50. The only rule really is that an employee never pays, as that's a can of worms and a half (especially if they are earning close to minimum wage). 

It's entirely down to the contract between the freelancer and the business. As the freelancer is not an employee, employment law does not apply; as both parties are businesses, consumer law does not apply. The answer will be in the contract. What 'usually' happens is of little relevance. 

9 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

I would totally disagree with that mate.

A Spiderjack won’t make you quicker, that’s just sales bull.

They are a brilliant device, watch Joe Harris in the ‘Spiderjackery’ vid on youtube. Stupidly quick.

Joe admits he’s as quick on a VT.

 

Not knocking them, just too many young lads thinking they’ll be the bollocks if they get one and realising they’re still average.

 

That's a bit ageist. I can be just a crap with a load of shiny kit as with a length of old rope and a couple of prussick loops. 

41 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

You were very restrained - I couldn't get past first page:

I chose to pick up on the technical issues rather than the English as I presumed that it had been written by a foreign student. I always give a bit of slack to anyone not using their first language, as my own foreign language skills are embarrassingly low. 

That survey will give you very little useful data. It seems like you are 'going through the motions' rather than actually trying to get useful responses. I'd expect a much more polished survey for a Masters course. Several of the questions lead the respondent, some of the options are very limiting, and the ratio of qualitative to quantitative questioning is poor. 

Sorry to be negative, but if you are going to get responses you need to make sure they will be useful, significant and genuine. 

1 hour ago, PeteB said:

But he knows 'business'. That's why you employ his services. 

Accounting and business are very different things. Obviously we don't know exactly what type of assistance the OP requires, but I can't think of any circumstances in which I would take business advice from my accountants. 

2 minutes ago, PeteB said:

Your accountant would wish to know why you aren't going to him for advice!

That's easy; because he's an accountant. 

13 minutes ago, John Shutler said:

unfortunately I beg to differ, £300 is to cheap. The reality of it is that 3hrs is the best part of half a day so if your then aim to do another "3hr" job afterwards your buisness has only made £600 for the day. Which is not sustainable.

but seeing as your a retired climber you might not be up on current pricing

 

as a side point I started my buisness when £350.00 a day for a two man team with truck and chipper was the norm

We should probably agree to disagree. I was going to use the point that 2 blokes can take 600 quid a day as a point to bolster my own argument. Doing those sort of jobs needs nothing more than a cheap truck, a ladder, a couple of hedge cutters and a blower. I don't think the bloke on the hedge had a helmet and I reckon PPE, method statements and risk assessments might be a bit thin on the ground too. I mean no disrespect to the OP, but if 2 unskilled labourers can consistently bring in 600 quid a day I think they are doing alright. 

I take your point regarding my pricing knowledge being a little out of date. I started charging £275 quid a day for a two man team. 

2 minutes ago, John Shutler said:

That may well be the case, however, if it was a couple of my blokes a ladder and a hedge cutter there would still potentially be two valtras, a Unimog, two diggers, a heizohack, big diesel stump grinder and Merlo roto with grapple saw plus numerous other pieces of kit sat in the yard that need paying for so my rate would still be £150-£165 an hour 🙄

The last conifer hedge we "trimmed" I took away 90 cube of woodchip

The value of the job is about 300 quid. The job isn't a good fit for your business.