McSpredder

Back in 2016, Cameron wanted the international community to provide more support for education of Syria’s children, encouraging them to stay in that region rather than flocking to Europe. "A generation of refugees left out of school means a generation of young adults not only unable to get work but also more vulnerable to extremism and radicalisation,” Cameron warns. Unless the international community does more to help the countries on the border of Syria, he warns, hundreds of thousands of Syrians will continue to “fear they have no alternative but to put their lives in the hands of evil people-smugglers and risk the prospect of freezing to death in the Balkans or drowning in the waters of the Aegean in search of a future." I am not a great fan of his, but I do think he was correct on that point.

No, no, that is an anachronism - something that you might have used long ago, but can now only read about in history books.

You could be overcharged if the the system got wet. Maybe it was the wrong sort of rain. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-67361998

I was told, quite a long time ago, that a windscreen can usually be repaired if the damaged area is no larger than a one pound coin. Can anybody say whether that is still a reasinable guide?

Are they seeking a total ban on imports of meat and other animal products? Or is it considered OK to import a carcase if people want to eat it, but not if they want to look at it?

Shotgun prices from the same 1958 catalogue. That year I paid a retired headkeeper £4 for a Harrington & Richardson S/B .410 (big step up from my BSA Cadet).

.... as published in the Parker Hale 1958 catalogue: Right hand columns show basic price & purchase tax.

Is Khan suggesting that muslims in Greater London (said to number around 1.3 million) ought not celebrate Eid-el-Adha and Eid-el-Fitr with a feast of meat? Bad news for all the Halal butchers. How are populations such as the Masai and the Sami expected to survive in future? Do the anti-meat campaigners have much experience of growing food crops in places where the climate is hot and dry, or very cold?

Perhaps easiest to use either OpenOffice or LibreOffice instead. Both are free downloads, and containmany of the extra features that have been added to later versions of the Microsoft products. I generally work with MS Office 2010, but occasionally need to use OpenOffice if somebody has sent me an email attachment created in the latest MS software.

Nostalgia - come on holiday from the land of Ballykissangel to the land of Heartbeat. To invert the OP’s question, where would one go to find “Old Ireland”, that paradise described in Gerald Fitzgerald’s book “Pot Luck - Rough shooting in the West of Ireland”, where snipe and duck shooting seemed to be so readily available? Has it disappeared, like the earlier world of “The Irish RM” as portrayed by Somerville and Ross?

For the benefit of those who have a pair of guns and a loader, here is an extract from “The Shotgun”, by T D S Purdey and Capt J A Purdey (first published 1936). I am definitely not qualified to comment further, as I have no personal experience of double gunning, or of top quality hardware. I hesitate to question the words of Messrs Purdey, but I would have thought that if one barrel had been fired, the other lock would still be cocked, regardless of the position of the safety catch. The gun I generally use would be better described as “Eiber Unadorned” rather than “London Best” (an AYA No3 magnum, with a beavertail to prevent the left hand from getting too hot). However, I did in student days (mid 1960s) possess a tweed sports jacket with knobbly leather buttons.

What’s all this? Driven game, grouse butts, double gunning, without any mention of walking up, roost shooting, decoying, wildfowling? Has Scully joined the gentry? Returning to the serious point, I am sure at least one old book mentioned auto safety catches in relation to the risk of triggers catching on a twig (yes, ought to have unloaded before pushing through that sort of vegetation) or on those knobbly leather buttons that were once commonly found on tweed jackets. Presumably such accidental discharges have occurred, but do any PW members know of actual instances?

Perhaps worth considering: Is it probable that you did actually make the crossings on that day? Have you been provided with copies of the original demand and any reminders? What dates are shown on those copies, and to which address were they sent? Was post being redirected by Royal Mail, or was there just an informal arrangement with another person?

Father, I cannot tell a lie, I did it because I wanted to become famous. Check out social media to watch the video of me with my chainsaw.

Is private security the way ahead? Do security firms improve the situation for the whole community, or just persuade criminals to concentrate on people who cannot afford to pay for protection? https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/local-news/cambs-town-hired-private-security-27780714 When I was growing up in that area the village had its own bobby who lived in the police house, knew nearly everybody by their first names, and rode out on his LE Velocette (at any time of day or night) in response to phone calls from farms in the area. Not much serious crime in those days, all a bit like “Heartbeat”. Perhaps fewer people had anything worth stealing (Kimbolton has become rather gentrified since I left, almost 60 years ago), and the light-fingered locals probably had only a push bike for a get-away vehicle. Shoplifting wasn’t so easy when the goods were kept behind the counter, and I imagine it still wouldn't be much problem for Argos or Screwfix. The situation with supermarkets and shoplifters reminds me of what George Bernard Shaw said about marriage - it combines the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.

Re-cock the gun (as explained by JohnfromUK), and hopefully the problem will be solved. If the firing pin still sticks out, try pushing it back. It might go back fairly easily, in which case the little retracting spring is probably broken. A new spring wouldn’t cost much, but unscrewing the retaining disc (the one with three holes, shown in your photo) can be a tricky job. Needs a three-pronged key to match, and attempts to do the job using a hammer and punch can make a nasty mess.

Has anybody considered casting a female thread around the male thread? The fitting for a standard lamp would not be very highly stressed, and would only occasionally be removed and replaced. I would be inclined to wrap the male thread in clingfilm, wind copper wire loosely around it, and fill the gaps with Araldite. Any available tube could be used for the outer mould - ideally something that was a snug fit over the circular base below the male thread. I have repaired lots of broken objects using Araldite reinforced with wire. It might or might not prove satisfactory for this tripod thread, but the cost of trying would be negligible.

Nitro proofing won’t make it stronger. Even if it passes, the abnormally high proof pressures may actually weaken it. If it failed, what would you do with it? In the worst case, a beautiful example of the gunmaker’s craft could have been converted in to a heap of scrap metal. If it was returned intact, you might perhaps continue using it with black powder, or else hang it on the wall, but it wouldn’t be saleable with defaced proof marks.

An average of 24 miles per day is totally irrelevant to the potential purchaser of a vehicle. It would be equally true (and equally useless) to point out that a car’s average speed over the course of a day is therefore only one mile per hour. A much more important consideration is how far a person might need to travel at short notice. An EV plugged in at home overnight could travel quite a long way next morning, but that is not much comfort if somebody needs to be rushed to a hospital 50 miles away in the early evening, before the battery has been recharged. There are already lots of people who are very happy with their EVs. If development of batteries and charging infrastructure make an EV the obvious choice for the majority, that is what they will buy, without any need for legislation. If a tiny percentage living in sparsely populated rural areas find IC engines more suitable for their needs, those will make negligible difference to the country’s overall environmental impact, so why stop them? Why do politicians want to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars? Virtue signalling? A desire to exercise ever greater control over the population? Pressure from a group who helped develop the UK investment strategy for ev's in partnership with motor manufacturers? What I do notice is that EV owners often seem enamoured by rapid acceleration. I suspect concern for the environment was not their top priority.

Not especially risky if you do things in that order (look round the show first, then collect gun and shoot, and then go home). Perhaps not advisable to shoot first, then be seen putting gun into a car and walking away to looks at the stands.

First of all, check that it is not chambered for the old two inch cartridge. These are still listed by JustCartridges (Eley Fourten).

That brings back some memories. Used those rifles for team practice 1961-1964 while in the school CCF. We also had a couple of the older model (think it was No2) that looked exactly like an SMLE. Summertime was the serious stuff, using the .303 No4. First job when we arrived at our local range was to drive the cattle off. No proper hearing protection (though a few lads did stuff cotton wool or bits of 4x2 in their ears) and we soon learned that it was not a good idea to be further forward than your neighbour on the firing point. High point of the year was the Bisley meeting. Shoot your match targets on the Century range, then you were free to wander around, .303 over your shoulder, and enter as many of the small competitions as pocket money would allow. You paid a few shillings, were given a score card and some rounds of ammunition to shove in your pocket, and off you went to the firing point. That is what we did as 14-year olds, in the days before the whole country had been taught to panic at the sight of a gun. Always a lot of older folk around to offer friendly advice, most were probably WW1 veterans, but to us they looked ancient enough to have fought in the Boer war. In the evenings there were trains to Woking, where some boys might have been tempted to visit public houses, but I won't say any more about that. Happy days indeed.

You are of course absolutely correct where modern central heating systems are concerned – they rely on electricity for controls, circulation pumps, etc. Our previous home had a CH system, but there was also a simple gas fire in the living room - warmed up a big room in five minutes if we came home to a freezing cold house in the middle of winter, no electrics involved, and it could be used to make toast if you wanted a hot snack. That gas fire had been installed sometime before 1980, never needed any repairs, and it was still working perfectly when we moved out in 2018. I was going to say “They don’t make ‘em like that nowadays”, but it seems that Flavel are still producing them at Stoke-on-Trent. Not sure whether you can still buy a toasting fork, probably outlawed by now, because one of those might be considered even more dangerous than a Swiss army knife.

At present most UK residents have more than one energy source for heating and cooking. If electricity is cut off, they use mains gas, bottled gas, oil, coal, wood, etc, but all of those are to be discouraged, possibly banned, in the near future. Here are three questions to ask of sitting or would-be MPs. Has your party published any recommendations for heating and cooking in the event of a prolonged electricity power cut? Has your party made any estimate of the numbers that might die from hypothermia in the event of a power cut lasting several days, as many thousands of people experienced during Storm Arwen? Does your party expect prolonged electricity power cuts to be become more frequent in future as a result of climate change?

Edward VII died 1910. A young man wrote to his mother in 1937 using stationery that was at least 27 years old, perhaps issued in the year of his own birth?