McSpredder

Thanks, that would explain it. I had been under the impression that the system excluded all military aircraft, but obviously it does not. I have never previously seen anything military on Flight Radar - the only things that show up in the ordinaryway are big airliners, a few smaller civilivan planes and helicopters, and tow planes from the local gliding club.

Seems a strange route to take from Leeds to Darlington. Not a great many planes fly over here, but we heard this one going round and round tonight (too dark to see anything). Would it have been in some kind of trouble, and burning up fuel? I know nothing about flying, but circling around the Cheviot (even at 16,000ft) sounds a bit risky. And in the end it didn't go to Darlington, but appears to have landed near Easingwold. What was happening?

I agree that as many as possible should respond, but it is not really a consultation at all, because the HSE proposals are based almost entirely on publications from two LAG members (Rhys Green and Deborah Pain), and nothing emanating from LAG can be criticised. Note the words of the executive Summary: “Data which LAG and/or ECHA assessed to be reliable are considered to be of a sufficient standard for inclusion in this report without duplicative detailed review and analysis by the Agency”. I suspect your response will simply be discarded if you attempt to point out any weaknesses in the evidence. It might be more effective to write to your MP. For example, if you are interested in human health, you could point out: The website HSE claims “We work collaboratively with other regulators, agencies and government departments”, but in assessing effects of lead on human health the HSE has chosen to exclude all the information published by government nutritionists in relation to meat consumption by very young children, and is relying entirely on the opinions expressed by ornithologists who have neither qualifications nor experience in any branch of health care or human nutrition. Furthermore, in a consultation that is largely concerned with effects of lead on the health of children, the HSE has suppressed all evidence from the two UK Government schemes carrying out long-term monitoring of lead exposure in children. This is an insult to the health professionals whose expertise and accumulations of actual data have been rejected in favour of amateur opinions, and an insult to the taxpayers who have funded the work of all these government bodies. If your MP happens to be a Conservative, you might add: “The present government will appear to be an utter shambles unless the Minister can state clearly whether he/she will allow HSE to continue giving precedence to amateurs, or will insist that the various agencies start working together in a professional manner." If possible, seek answers to one or two very specific questions, the sort that cannot easily be batted aside (“Would you please ask the Minister to state how many xxxxxxxxxxxxx"). Not easy to find the right form of words, and most politicians can wriggle faster than most worms.

Haynes Manual is available for 2004-2012 Panda, but only covers 2wd models. RTA manual is good, as long as you understand French. Plenty of useful info on the FiatForum: https://www.fiatforum.com/forums/panda-mk3.72/ (2004-2012) https://www.fiatforum.com/forums/panda-2012.225/ (2012 onwards)

Jimny – excellent off-road, thirsty, expensive, not great for long road journeys. Yeti – well built, comfortable, expensive. Panda – remarkably capable off-road, considering it is just a city car that has been jacked up and given 4WD. Doesn’t have the ground clearance or wheel arch clearance of a Jimny, and as far as I am aware there are no nobbly tyres available. Now on our third Panda 4x4 (2009, 2013, 2018), all diesel. Average 55mpg (actual, not from the dashboard display). 2009 Panda Cross was in some ways the best. Smaller external dimensions than post-2012. No daytime running lights, so you could potter around fields in the evening without drawing attention to yourself. Should probably have kept it longer, but at the time we were making do with one car, and having a lot of trips 350 miles each way to deal with ageing MIL, so it seemed a good idea to get something newer with a long warranty. Post-2012 diesels are more powerful, rather larger externally but not noticeable bigger inside. Later ones are Euro 6 (which might avoid some penalties if driven in cities). I still see a few 15 year old 1.2 petrol 4x4 models around. Rather slow, fairly cheap, but might be suffering from tin-worm by now. Don’t have any experience of the Twin-Air petrol models. Rumours of a mild hybrid Panda 4x4, but no idea whether it will ever actually appear.

Quite a part from damage to the shooter's property, it sounds like a reckless thing to do. Nobody can be certain which way a dropped gun will be pointing when it hits the gound, or whether the trigger will catch on clothing as it falls, or on a twig when it lands, or whether the impact alone might be sufficient to cause a discharge. I wonder what the training manual says.

Out of that list, the washing machine is likely to be the biggest electrical load (especially if it is a cold fill model). Also, its motor will switch on and off several times during each wash cycle, potentially upsetting your electronic items. An electric cooker would be another big load. With a 3kW generator, you may not be able to use the oven and boil a kettle at the same time. Forget about an electric shower, as most are likely to be in the range 7-10kW. The smaller the generator, the more its output voltage will fluctuate when appliances are switched on and off. An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) would protect the electronic items, but a large UPS is not cheap. Don’t forget to budget for a changeover switch (mains – generator). E10 petrol can gum up the carb of a small engine, leaving you with a generator that refuses to start when you need it most. Dismantling the carb by torchlight in the middle of winter is not an enjoyable activity. Alkylate fuel (Aspen or similar) is much less likely to block the carb, but is rather expensive. Good advice.

Quite a lot of people have said something rather silly at the age of 19, and now wish they had not. What she has said and done recently would seem to me to be much more worthy of attention.

Oh, the exquisite sensation one gets when handling a tub of the original green quaking jelly.

During my recent SGC renewal (the first since I moved across the border from Scotland), the local firearms department have been helpful, quick to repsond to a couple of email queries, and never left me without proper documents to cary on shooting. The 8-week extension letter arrived a fortnight before the old SGC expired. The Section 7 permit arrived a fortnight before the end of that extension period. The new SGC arrived a fortnight before the Section 7 was due to expire. Sure, it would have been nice if the whole process had been quicker, but overall I am happy with the way Northumbria Police have handled things.

Some of those who follow PW forum might also be members of the Conservative Party, and entitled to vote in selection of the new Prime Minister. I wonder whether the BASC political affairs team have had much contact with the people hoping to replace Boris, and whether those candidates are known to hold strong opinions for or against gun ownership, agricultural pest control, etc.

Fighting against a ban might be futile, but that is not a reason to roll over and endorse every word of the HSE dossier. You can point out an error without starting a fight. Anybody who spots a serious error, or finds pseudo-scientific claptrap being passed off as genuine research, should draw attention to it by responding to the consultation. Will campaigners be delighted for you to continue shooting, just as long as you use don't ue lead? I suspect many may have spent years attacking every aspect of shooting, and will continue to do so regardless of what ammunition is used. In the words of a former President of the Royal Society, good science involves “taking account of all evidence and not cherry picking data”. Any competent scientist who has studied the publications from Green & Pain, which are the source material for most of the HSE dossier, must be aware that they have: suppressed all data collected by the two UK Government surveillance schemes that monitor actual cases of lead exposure among children.; artificially inflated risks to human health by asserting that 30-month old toddler will eat the more meat in a single meal that the average UK resident consumes in a whole day; excluded any mention of the meal size information available from NHS and other professional nutritionists, all of which would suggest that ornithologists are wrong factor of four; suppressed data published by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN), concocted their own method for calculating theoretical meat consumption by young children; but never reported any attempt to verify their results (which are very different from those of the SACN professionals). I have only referred here to the human health considerations, but other parts of the HSE document rely heavily of material from the same authors (publications by Green and/or Pain are cited 105 times within the dossier and its appendices). I shall not comment on the quality of science in those sections. Exclusion of publically funded evidence from the HSE dossier makes a mockery of any claims of “joined-up government”. Deliberate exclusion of relevant data would be cheating the taxpayer, so perhaps a letter to your local MP might be in order. (You never know, some of them could be quite anxious to please their constituents at the moment, if they think an early election is on the cards).

I went through the online application procedure for driving licence renewal on Thursday 6 July, and was expecting to wait several months for it. Could hardly believe my eyes when the envelope arrived today (9 July) with the little pink card. Never heard of anybody else getting a three day turn around from DVLA in recent years. Just wish the SGC renewal was as quick - applied at the beginning of November, had the 8-week extension, had the home visit, now on a Section 7 that is due to expire in a fortnight's time.

You are absolutely correct. And of course the important word is SERIOUS. In the 467 pages of the Restriction Report and it annexes, the papers presented at the 2015 Oxford Lead Symposium and all the 57 more recent documents listed by the Lead Ammunition Group as being related to human health, there is not a single record of an actual person in UK ever having been harmed by eating game killed using lead ammunition. I suspect the risks from eating game might be very small when compared to the well known effects on human health, and the massive costs incurred by the NHS, arising from excessive consumption of fizzy drinks. I also wonder how the effect of lead shot on the UK environment compares with the pollution caused by campaigners flying around the globe to attend “green” conferences. But I might think differently if I were a drinks manufacturer or an airline operator.

A reception facility in Europe would make life easier for genuine asylum seekers. The others could return to their countries of origin, or stay in France, or set off across the Channel in a little boat. Which option are they likely to choose?

Not easy to deport those who are already here and have established contact with UK lawyers, priests and politicians. Perhaps it would be simpler to concentrate on new arrivals, and make it sound less like punishment: Free transport direct from shore to secure area at an RAF airbase. Flight to a safe and friendly country (Rwanda) at the expense of the UK taxpayer. Free DNA test to help prove identity, just in case they ever thought of returning to UK. No restriction of any sort, two weeks basic food and accommodation (free of charge), and then let them go where they like. They have escaped whatever danger they were fleeing from, and have the choice of building a new life in Africa or going elsewhere. No special arrangements for those wanting to return to UK - they can apply at the local UK embassy, and wait their turn, just as any Rwandan citizen would.

Conor, Has BASC actually said that children under the age of 8 are likely to consume game meat in portions with a minimum size of 100g, as the HSE Restriction Report seems to imply? “BASC and Countryside Alliance estimated in 2014 that 9,000 (midpoint of the range 5,500 – 12,500) children under the age of 8 from the UK shooting community consumed at least one game meal per week (all types of game, one portion assumed to be ≥ 100 g), averaged over the year (cited in (Green and Pain, 2019; LAG, 2015b)” I rather suspect that BASC and CA might have provided only the info on the numbers of children who eat game, and that Green & Pain may have been the sole authors of the portion size assumption. ========================= Does anybody know who compiled the Restriction Report? Would HSE staff have left their organisation open to ridicule by excluding Public Health England’s Surveillance of Elevated Blood Lead in Children and the UK Health Security Agency’s Lead Exposure in Children Surveillance System from the consultation? Would HSE staff have discarded all the portion size advice from NHS dieticians and health professionals, and chosen instead to promote estimates made by ornithologists who apparently lack any qualifications in medicine, child welfare, or human nutrition? Would HSE staff have written that: “The highest consumers of game meat are hunters and their families” and “No reliable BLL measurements in children from hunter families are available. No UK-specific information on the impact of game-meat consumption on BLL has been identified”, but been too dim to spot the very obvious way of obtaining the missing data - collect some blood samples from children of families who do a lot of game shooting. HSE should know a lot about the subject, because they already oversee thousands of blood-lead measurements each year, as required under the Control of Lead at Work Regulations, and publish a list more than 20 UK laboratories able to undertake the analyses. I suspect outside consultants might have employed to write the Restriction Report, thereby protecting HSE staff from critism. The style and content of the document are very reminiscent of numerous publications issued by a very small group of UK ornithologists on subjects related to shooting.

A good fun shoot with a really friendly bunch of folk. Wide range of abilities, so nobody will sneer if you happen to miss quite a lot of targets. Highly recommended. I would be there if I could, but unfortunately cannot make it this year. Tam, some people might have overlooked this thread because the heading still says 2020 - perhaps worth starting a new topic with 2022 date.

UK modellers Rhys Green and Debbie Pain reported that they “used observations from two studies of Greenland adults (Bjerregaard et al. 2004; Johansen et al. 2006) to derive an empirical relationship between the mean daily intake of dietary lead from the meat of shot birds and mean B-Pb”, omitting to mention that the Greenland scientists found lead concentration in one species (eider) to be 8.3 times as high as in the other species (thick-billed murre). Anybody who has actually looked at the various papers from the Greenland studies can hardly fail to have noticed that the numbers of samples were small and the variability within each species was also very large, leading to: an eight-fold range in the 95% confidence limits for the 25 carcases of eider; a twelve-fold range in the 95% confidence limits for the 32 carcases of thick-billed murre. I assume that HSE staff who prepared the Annex 15 Restriction Report might have been unaware of small sample sizes and great variability of data on which the mathematical model was founded, otherwise they might not be presenting it to government as a basis for legislation. Ornithologists issuing predictions about child health have excluded any mention of data published by the UK Health Security Agency’s Lead Exposure in Children Surveillance System (LEICSS) or Public Health England’s Surveillance of Elevated Blood Lead in Children (SLiC). Why? Could it be because real data does not agree with the model? The ornithologists predict that 48,000 children may be at risk solely as a result of eating game meat. By contrast, health professionals have recorded on average fewer than 40 cases per year in which UK children suffered elevated blood lead concentration from any source. The most common cause was ingestion by very young children of non-dietary objects, and no cases at all were identified as resulting from food intake. Publications cited by HSE indicate that high-level consumers of game meat tend to be people with higher income and higher position in society, whereas health professionals report that cases of elevated blood lead concentration in children were mostly found in areas of considerable deprivation. The HSE consultation refers to official records in relation to animals under the Veterinary Medicines Directorate National Surveillance Scheme, but excludes any mention of the equivalent records relating to children (LEICSS and SLiC). I can only assume that modellers and HSE staff: considered official surveillance information to be irrelevant, OR examined the data recorded by health professionals and decided that it was incorrect, OR were ignorant of the existence of surveillance schemes relating to child health. Presumably the papers published in scientific journals would have been subject to peer-review. The reviewers might have been insufficiently familiar with the subject matter, and failed to notice the omission of surveillance data; alternatively, they may have regarded it as perfectly acceptable. Predictions about effects of lead ammunition on human health have often been written by the same people who assert enormous damage to wildlife and the environment. If they have withheld or distorted information relating to human health, anything they have written on other topics might be equally unreliable.

Agreed, behaviour of Western nations has often been less than perfect, but some African economies have been seriously distorted due to actions of Far Eastern countries over the last 50 years. Recipient nations are not above criticism, that goes back a long way, and many of their rulers have been intolerant of criticism. I shall never forget the roars of laughter from the audience during a performance of HMS Pinafore in Kampala (1970) at the line: "...it is one of the happiest characteristics of this glorious country that official utterances are invariably regarded as unanswerable." We weren't laughing so much the following year, after Idi Amin had become president.

Are you certain they were all from the West? I seem to remember reading about one strategy that apparently proved successful in Africa. It went something like this: Identify politicians who truly understand economics (for some unknown reason they were described as Wa-Benzi) and help them to obtain good reliable motorcars (obviously for official duties and for the purpose of visiting their constituencies). Provide lots of poor countries with new roads and bridges and railways and power stations and luxury hotels and presidential palaces, always on the never-never. Send food supplies so that regimes can distribute largesse to the starving millions, and ensure that power does not fall into in the hands of the wrong people. Don’t press for repayment in the short term, but do keep reminding all those countries of how helpful you have been. They might be willing to return the favour in future when big international organisations are deciding policies under the “one nation, one vote” system. Unfortunately I cannot recall which country came up with that scheme. Maybe Ditchman would know?

Re insurance, I do wonder about ring bulges near the muzzle. Perhaps not a safety issue in the case of a fixed-choke single barrel gun, but what about a double? Would ring bulging in one of the barrels be likely to affect the other barrel and/or their attachment to the ribs? Perhaps one of the gunsmiths on PW can advise. And what about multi-chokes? If the threaded portion of the barrel becomes bulged, the chokes will certainly be looser. Is there a risk that loosely-fitting chokes might then be blown out of the barrel? Also, what would happen if the shotgun was subsequently involved in an accident totally un-related to the bulge? An expert examining it would be bound to report that the shooter had been using a gun with damaged barrels. Lawyers and insurers will jump on anything that could be construed as careless or reckless behaviour, and the FEO might also take note. Any answers?

It is difficult to respond to a consultation until you know exactly what is being asked. I have only looked at the opening page, which demands contact details (and consent to use of unspecified cookies) before even the first question can be revealed. Can anybody (perhaps one of the shooting organisations) can reveal the full content?

My S7 permit allows me to possess the guns I already own, but not to purchase or acquire any others.

Lots of spare parts listed, and advice on how to fit them, on this website: https://www.espares.co.uk/search?SearchTerm=dishwasher sump hose https://www.espares.co.uk/advice/howto/how-to-replace-the-drain-hose-on-a-dishwasher