Jim Neal

Clickers cost a couple of quid off eBay and need less counting up afterwards I enjoyed the report, thanks

Thanks for that. Studying the blurb on them, they appear to simply be paracord with an aglet on the ends? I've ordered 15m of paracord for £8 so will see how that goes, can live without the aglets I think. If not up to scratch I might check out the laces in your link, cheers

Thanks, I get what you're saying but the hooks, by nature, are destructive to the laces, particularly the first pair as you pull up the tension. I've heavily waxed my laces to minimise it, some laces last a little while, some less! Thanks, will see how I get on with paracord and maybe go there if I need to.

Thanks guys, never thought of paracord! Ordered 20m so can always use it for something else as well

Can anyone recommend where to buy decent boot laces from that don't snap the first time you tie them up? I've tried several lots off eBay and they're all absolute cr....

Don't mention the PROXY war!

£30-odd quid for a face mower, keeps the bush at bay for minimal electricity cost!

I've got a few wire coat hangers, it'll be fine....

Yep, all of that noted Lloyd but if £50k is not enough for people to live on then they've made some incorrect decisions somewhere along the line. There's a lot of people who simply refuse to admit that their lifestyle of added luxuries could easily be altered to make the essentials affordable.

Seriously who's up for this? We set up a crowd-fund for Mungler and Rewulf: three days in a Premier Inn of their mutual agreement somewhere between Nottingham and Essex (Weirdly, that's around Kettering). Separate single rooms, bar and food bill paid for. Someone neutral acts as the referee (OK I'll do it as long as I'm included on the bar tab). Some sort of conclusion is reached about where each of them stands on this, and they agree to cement their mutual respect, albeit with different opinions, into the annals of history. A moderator locks this topic with a definitive final statement.

If anyone on £50k is "struggling" let me know. I'll come round there and give you a massive kick in the goolies, should sort you out.

I've got a 35mm gerbil going spare if you're interested?

Sneaky, I see what you did there.... checking whether the moderators will go as far as correcting spelling and typos 😄

Not woke, just a bit worried about having a hamster shoved up my bum by a wild-eyed stranger!

The last proper Free House pub in my local town announced today they are shutting in a couple of weeks. They've already pared their costs down to the bone but their next energy bill is going to sink them 🥺

If this was a conversation I overheard in a pub, I'd leave my pint on the bar and walk out pretty sharpish......

The underlying trouble is that fools are not system-proof.

Fat Sarah's bigger, uglier sister?

Dammit I was £300 out! I'd already subtracted the projected £4k average energy cost before I got to the £2.4k/month figure - that's what you'd be left with after paying your energy bill. If £2.4k a month isn't enough for anyone to pay all their other costs of living after energy they sit well and truly in the category of "overstretched". This is a dangerous financial position to put oneself in. This is the absolute crux of the matter. It's also the exact reason why I'll very likely be buying someone's repossessed house in the next year or so and turning it into another revenue stream by means of renting it out. People don't seem to understand that they need to keep their expenditure BELOW their income stream. Times aren't always good. I certainly don't take home anywhere near £45k a year, and my "household" income isn't much higher than my own personal income because my mrs seems to think I run a free hotel for her enjoyment. But I'm not anywhere near thinking it's going to sink me, it's just going to get a bit tight. Until the repo houses start coming onto the market......

Alas..... Anyway don't worry. The Rasputitsa is coming. It changed the tide in two world wars previously so I'm pretty sure it's going to have an effect on this one. It rarely favours the attacking/advancing side.

What is the source of this figure and statement? Taking an "average" household as an example, you're looking at a worst case scenario of around £4k annually for a typical family home's energy bills once the prices go up. Presuming the £45k is gross, tax allowance is I think around the £13k mark so you'd be taxed at 20% on £32k of it, so take another £6400 away bringing you down to £34,600. I can't decipher the HMRC gobbledegook to work out what % NI is payable for a salary of £45k but I'll go with 9% as an example, so take off another £4k or so, leaving £30k Divide that by 12 and you've got £2,400 a month to pay for everything else. That's a decent bit of pocket money. With that much spare change, who the hell has got the nerve to claim poverty and demand help with paying their gas bill? Many of us survive on a lot less without assistance.

Apocalypse Now. Fantastic film, you may have inspired me to dig out the DVD tonight 👍

All rechargeable batteries get warm during charging, shouldn't be anything to worry about. To help, maybe place the machine upside down if not being used when charging.

Just one possible theory on that: you may well both have had the Omicron variant, which by all accounts is not a big deal to 99.99% of people in terms of symptoms/lethality. If it had been Delta it may have been a different story and the effect of the jabs may have made more difference? As I said, just one possible theory.

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/01/14/1072504127/fact-check-the-theory-that-sars-cov-2-is-becoming-milder?t=1661206835677 "There's this story that we're going to have variants that are progressively less severe," says Dr. Roby Bhattacharyya, who's an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. But that's completely untrue...." The article is a little long in the tooth by now but as far as I'm aware is still current in terms of what the experts are saying.