coppice cutter

That bad?

Self-build mortgages were almost impossible to obtain even before the latest carry-on. Daughter and Son-in-law are nearing the end of their own build which they've had to do without a mortgage, and that despite having over £70k of savings to begin with and owning the site. Every application they made for self-build finance was refused. There's been a lot of juggling and gathering up to get them to the end of the build.

Equally, some older cars will still be going long after lots of the stuff sitting in the showrooms today has gone in the crusher. The 'quality' of some newbuilds is atrocious.

Talking of which, does anyone else see red at the modern adoption of curb instead of kerb? You kerb a driveway, vehicles have a kerb weight, circuit racers use the kerbs to maximise lap times, old roads still have kerb stones. So how did a verb meaning to control or limit end up being substituted for it?

Well I was talking purely in societal terms, as per the thread starter. But think about it, no fumes, no noise, swift, silent, clean, deep lacerations (or worse!) at the press of a button. Seems like something that could catch on with a certain section of society. And nowadays, they don't even have to be able to wire a plug* to avail of this ability. * - a skill which would no doubt be beyond many of them anyway, and indeed, possibly a source of potential injury in itself should they have to try.

I wouldn't worry too much. Most middle class types are too limp wristed to be able to actually start anything that could harm them. Although electric, both corded and cordless, do admittedly give cause for concern. Axes could lead to problems as well I suppose.

Turned off at the minute. But busting it permanently removes the option of them using it as an income stream again in future. It also removes opening it up again as a bargaining tool in any potential future Ukrainian settlement deal. All the above assuming that it actually is catastrophically damaged as we are being told, which in itself could be complete or even partial bollocks.

Not fussed, don't ever see that it makes a lot of difference to be honest. Swap Truss and Starmer over and as regards governance and policy would anyone notice? "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". Just thought it odd that there was 3% missing.

There's 3% missing there.

Echo introduced a new battery system this spring, the eForce. I was particularly interested in the new 2500 blower. So I emailed and asked if they could give me any info on when this would be brought in to the UK. They replied and pointed me to the existing range on their website. I thanked them for reply but stressed that I was interested in the new range and pointed them towards the precise items I was interested in on the ECHO USA site, said I was interested in the blower, and would be further interested in the brushcutter, hedgetrimmer, and possibly the new 5000 saw in future. I received no further reply until several weeks later which said they were looking at their range for spring 2023, but gave no further detail. By that time however I had invested in the new 40v Makita blower with batteries and charger, but would probably have waited on the Echo if they could have given me any sort of encouragement whatsoever. I thought it was very poor communication, at best!

I recently had an email exchange with the new Echo importer regarding Echo's battery equipment which didn't exactly inspire confidence. So I purchased Makita instead and will probably go that way with future purchases. Can't see the present Echo importer having any greater impact here than past ones to be honest. Then again, maybe it's just too Stihl/Husqvarna orientated for anything else to get a foothold no matter what.

A lot of what is deleted is merely opinion. Something which everyone should be entitled to hold.

I wouldn't judge Putin by what we've been told about him. How many times has it been reported that the Russian troops were on the run, loosing ground, etc. Well they're still there! It's always a huge mistake to brand and treat someone you don't like, or is a threat, as an idiot or a madman, you just make their job so much easier. We'll (as in, us plebs) probably never know who bust the pipeline, any side involved in this east/west battle is well capable as they are all essentially as power hungry as each other and will stop at very little to achieve their aims. But if you try to view it with a preset "goodies and baddies" perspective, you're probably just playing in to the hands of one side or the other from the word go.

There is definitely suppression, Twitter bans, Facebook accounts 'suspended', certain information and websites removed from Google search results, etc. None of the above would affect me in any way as I avail of none of them but then I'm unashamedly odd. Sadly however, remove a message or viewpoint from the above nowadays and it will indisputably have been suppressed, or in many cases, effectively vanishes.

You do have to wonder, if all this right wing/WEF conspiracy theory stuff is such totally groundless paranoid tripe, why does the mainstream go to such lengths to suppress it? Why not let it be exposed to the full gaze of public opinion and scrutiny? Just sayin'.

Must've gotten the idea from "Fargo".

Not going to happen due to a combination of apathy on one hand, and on the other the indoctrination by mainstream media, etc, that the only people who talk like that are head cases. Therefore they don't even consider it a possibility and therefore don't look closely at what's happening, it's possible causes and outcomes, and who always benefits no matter what the event. Another factor which increases over time is that to admit to even the possibility of there being a global agenda is to admit that (a) you may have been taken for a fool, and (b) those that you poured scorn on as being idiots, may in some cases actually be a better thinker than you. Therefore people just fix their gaze on the latest media distraction (there's always one somewhere) while the wheels of the global agenda just keep turning away. All the above merely conjecture of-course, I don't have a feckin' clue what's actually happening!

I would suggest that possibly the main reason that Brexit is struggling to fulfil it's potential is because it hasn't actually happened. Our either inept, or ulterior motivated, politicians, have succeeded in dragging us in to a sort of weird political "no-mans-land" where we have kinda left the EU, but not really, yet we have certainly failed so far to rejoin the rest of the world. But then that was always the big catch 22 afflicting the "remain" campaign, they're biggest selling point would have been to come out and tell us what a complete world of shit we'd be getting ourselves in to by trying to leave the EU, yet to do so would also have been an admission of the degree to which our lives have been taken over by them.

Someone with a much greater knowledge of such things than I, recently told me that the very concept of the "internet forum" is very much in decline due to the increasing use of other forms of (un?)social media. That being the case, what we have here is very much worth looking after and maybe even worth making a wee bit of effort to sustain. Without such, there is a danger that your statement simply becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Which would be a great pity. Personally, I wouldn't like what's here not to be here. *edit* - warts and all!

To try and get back to something more interesting, what y'all make of the situation in Italy? Will it amount to anything or will the EU snuff it out and get back control before it gets the chance to build momentum?

No, not worried about building regs. However, if someone can give me a practical reason why it would be better avoided I'll certainly listen and take it onboard.

With my own lot yes. But I can't be content with the state of the world as it is. A young fella hung himself on my in-laws estate a couple of days ago while his parents were on holiday. Turns out now that the day before it happened he'd been out in the road "arguing with himself", plenty seen him but nobody done anything, except probably lock their doors. Such things sadden and depress me, and they're happening everywhere, everyday, and nobody gives a shit, not really. Hard to be content with all that's going on.

I'm pretty much directly in the middle of that scale, haven't a lot of money and don't earn much nowadays, but ain't got tuppence of debt. Should I be happy or sad?

That's a good point actually, it is indeed possible that most of what it leaks is while still warm after use.

I've been prone to white finger for probably the past 20yrs or so, haven't much hassle with it now as I've learned how to manage it pretty well. I've used the Dolmar a fair bit on a number of days and had no trouble. OK, that's not having it going constantly in your hands from morning to evening every day for a few weeks, but you'll not be buying a secondhand 100 quid saw for that job anyway.