243deer

Well put

Quote - All those attending should be experienced shots and are required to bring their own 12 gauge shotgun I use a .410 for ratting most of the time with 2 inch cartridges - indoors in barns - please let me know when a suitable day has been arranged to try sustainable ammunition in this combination - along with the undoubtedly expensive PPE I would have to wear to avoid the ricochets - thanks in advance Connor

It usually takes around 12 years to bring a drug to market, this allows a reasonable timescale for longer term adverse reactions to come to light via the reporting mechanism. All drugs have some reports of adverse reactions as we do not live in a perfect world (I have worked in the past for Pfizer and Merck so do have direct knowledge). A huge percentage of drugs fail during the testing stages which is why the costs of these are usually borne by successful drugs hence we see drugs initially as expensive. but this does show that nowadays, by and large, only reasonably safe drugs make it to market. Having a vaccine at this moment in time has a risk element that is going to be impossible to quantify, however the number of doses is going to be so high that years of research will in the most part be condensed into a much shorter timescale. There will never be no risk and folk that have underlying problems might well be advised to wait until initial results are forthcoming if they can remain mostly isolated and keep their risk of infection very low. With a couple of legacy smoking related issues, this is the course of action I intend to take. The statistics on anything are almost always completely unreliable if you do not know exactly what question was being asked you cannot know the usefulness of the answer and as Deker has shown above, you almost always have to make some assumptions which means the answer is only relevant to those assumptions. An example is - "what percentage of the apples in the bulk bin did you have to throw away"? "what percentage of the apples in the bulk bin did you have to throw away that were not already bruised"? Politicians in particular are extremely adept at answering the first question and not the second one.

Scully, I agree, if the consumer wants non-lead shot game and venison than that is what we have to give them. I have no problem with that at all. We should, of course, do it now, this season, not in 5 years as the market may well be gone by then. You can use just about any gun - just ask the Danes. As a part of making this required change and as a compromise to those of us that only have pockets deep enough for the odd day, will I be allowed to use my semi-auto on a driven game day as it is the only gun I have currently that is both steel shot proof and which I would want to put steel through? Why do I have to have 2 inch .410 cartridges filled with #9 shot that I use in preference to poison, for ratting inside barns holding feed, banned in 5 years for no good reason. In fact we all know the use of poisons is dangerous to many other animals including our beloved birds of prey - even when used according to best practice it is a fact that we find dead rats in the yard when poison is used for a short period of time as a last resort. Instead of a well thought through course of action which requires the use of appropriate ammunition for anything going in to the public food chain whilst retaining lead use where appropriate and as a personal choice - 22lr subsonic ammo for rabbiting is another good example - we get a blanket policy based on non-science that alienates members. It all smacks of ill thought through, knee jerk reaction without a semblance of strategic thinking and common sense inserted as a balance.

That is not science. When words such as 'estimate' and 'thought' are used I could equally write a paper that 'suggests' that the thoughts and estimates are wildly exaggerated for the purposes of anti-shooting organisations. Where is the actual proof? Where are the carcasses? It is mightily convenient that none of them can be found. If so many wildfowl are being ingested by predators - where are the carcasses of badgers and foxes that have died of lead poisoning? Similarly where are the raptors killed by ingesting lead shot, with so many of them tracked now the true causes of death are becoming more documented - we do not get to see the figures as it does not suit the anti shooting brigade. I was a pretty serious match angler when the swan deaths apparently showed it was anglers fault. So lead shot of certain sizes was banned, shooting lead over wetlands was banned and the swans are still dying in their thousands because of lead poisoning 20 years later? - show me some evidence of this - I accept a few shooters might still use lead and a few anglers the lead shot but it is not my experience at all amongst my circle of friends, they do actually care about our environment and so use non-lead for wildfowling and angling. Illegal use would have to be on an enormous scale to account for the figures being spouted. As for grey partridge deaths being attributed to lead shot - this is cobblers - learn your history. The demise of grey partridge can be directly attributed to loss of habitat and loss of food due to the use of pesticides. They also shot tons of lead shot in Victorian times, mainly at grey partridge. I am as disappointed with the GWCT spouting this unproven hypothesis as I am with BASC for not having the common sense to question it.

It is true that you do not see a roasted 3 rib of beef on the table very often these days

that is because so many of us are still using our original yukons, mine is on a dedicated .22lr setup for rabbits. Touch wood, I am pleasantly surprised it has lasted this long but it just keeps going

builders of new housing estates usually plant a few trees and shrubs to try and create some ambience - trouble is they know not a lot about which plants have invasive/shallow paving or drive lifting roots - so beware whatever plants are near your new house if buying one.

You could contact the police with the suspicion that the old folk are being scammed if the 'contractors' do not want to play nice. The police are taking such reports pretty seriously at the moment. It might also be true.

I wish that Allcocks Outdoor Store were local to me, their customer service is outstanding so they deserve a shout out, thanks Dave www.allcocksoutdoorstore.co.uk

New rear brake discs and pads on a peugeot 308 from garage, fitted, make unknown, just north of £300 Ebay front disks and pads - which turned out to be from unipart - £50 delivered + 20 mins a side for me to fit - they have been fine for 5000 miles so far

+1 sounds about right to me - no-one knows or possibly could know what the future holds, whatever any politician does there will be plenty of keyboard warriors along with half empty glasses concentrating on the negative

For those of you experiencing practice managers that make it up as they go along https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/gp-service-provision/the-firearms-licensing-process

Jdog, I also know the knot as a spade end or whipping knot but a yachting colleague says he knows it as a snell knot.

sorry, my mistake, quite right

senior moment

This is exactly the perspective that I am talking about. There is no perspective that is right or wrong, but, as in business, there are those that accept that things are going OK and so do not question themselves hard enough about what they could and should do better. I agree Stagboy, BASC are doing many things very well but are extremely poor at communicating this. You cannot expect internal staff, especially new recruits, to be in a position to challenge the gods that are the committee. Hence with absolutely no disrespect intended to Connor ( in fact I have a great deal of respect for someone who keeps trying and does not give up) he is manacled by the corporate line, when that corporate line is badly written he personally inevitably receives all the usual unjust sniping. I also challenge the membership number in terms of how many members, like myself, were forced as part of their syndicate/club to join BASC rather than doing so voluntarily.

I think that one thing everyone can agree on about BASC, which unfortunately the committee cannot see for themselves, is that they are severely lacking in modern communication skills. I do not blame them for not having the skills, good customer service takes years to master. But I do blame them for not recognising their shortfall, after all they have had enough feedback. Over the years I have many times made the suggestion that BASC should employ a professional publicity company. I have made this suggestion to my local reps, higher up folk that I have met at shows and higher up folk that I have spoken to directly. I will obviously not name names but I can assure folk that there are plenty of folk working for BASC who are just as frustrated as their members and sometimes as much as the non-members who would almost certainly wish to support a strong, professional, shooting organisation. So once again I will make the suggestion to the committee, before sending out poorly worded communications that can be easily mis-interpreted by members and non-members, send them to a professional third party first. They could also ask for volunteers from the general membership of all backgrounds to act as proof readers, folk who are prepared to give their feedback to head off the types of debacle we have seen in the last few months. I would even say that some non-members should be recruited for this - there are a few folk on here that I am sure would like to be involved - you never know BASC they might even re-join if they thought they were being listened to! The BASC committee should not be basing their performance on the often quoted membership number, they should be basing their performance on the numbers of shooting folk who are not members As at 31 March 2019, there were: 159,745 firearm certificates on issue 572,488 shotgun certificates on issue Even making a ridiculous assumption that all FAC holders are also SC holders I cannot see why BASC should not be aiming for 400000 members, to me that is 245000 folk missing To overcome this deficit will require some serious strategic thinking and action, I am sad to say that I do not feel that BASC currently have a mechanism for the change required to achieve this.

I think possibly we need to declare ourselves a religion - this has worked extremely well for other minority groups who are discriminated against

why don't you go and troll somewhere else? I am fully aware that jdog will know the answer, I put my comment up for the benefit of all

my mrs uses an app called plantnet which she says is pretty accurate so far

It will be worth exporting all your money files into csv format that can then be imported into Open Office, Excel, Google sheets etc. in case you cannot get it running on the new laptop. http://moneymvps.org/faq/article/258.aspx p.s. you might be real lucky and find someone in PC world that knows what they are talking about - the majority of them do not.

When you get blocked by a site (such as a newspaper article someone has linked to that you might want to read) because you are using adblock plus, simply copy the url and paste it into an incognito window, there will be one or two ads but at least it is your choice

Still using one I bought so long ago I have forgotten when.

Well done for taking the first step, deciding you want to give up for yourself and doing it is the hardest part and you have done that. I used to get up every morning and tell the cigs to 'FRO - you are not going to get me again' - just in my mind - a strange thing to do I admit but I found it helped to start the day off right. I then also became an expert on all the economy ranges of wine gums from the different supermarkets, as said earlier cheaper to smoke in the short term but a hell of a saving in the long term. Keep as busy as you can - get every project that you have been putting off done and plan some new ones Finally decide what new toy you are going to treat yourself to after 6 months of giving up - after all you will have a few quid saved by then - once you get there decide on the next 'reward' after say a year and so on until you feel like you do not need the incentive any more.