Rob85

One bit of veg me and my missus get every time they come in is Romanesco, seems to be a very short season for them in the local fruit n veg place but my goodness they are lovely. Still get the Cyprus spuds over here in NI, my wife's favourite, she will steam a few, mash them in a bowl with butter and that's her sorted for dinner

Even setting aside the rumour mill the other big problem is the polarisation of the issue in terms of political allegiance. I see people on social media won't like anything the government does because "all torys are evil rich toffs" in the same vein these people don't realise they are the only ones bringing class arguments to the fore when they claim that any working class person who votes for a tory government is a traitor to their class. Language like that is how you sleepwalk into a totalitarian state

Mum always says that, if you want to get sick, go to hospital. In her opinion things were cleaner in wards when the matron still ran the nursing staff like a seargent major, when you walked onto a ward and the first thing you could smell was disinfectant

I don't see what else the government could have done, I mean they brought in lockdowns and look at all the clowns who just screamed out about their freedoms and how it was all a conspiracy. Then the other clowns that thought it was a good idea to go out and protest over things that could have probably waited. I don't think it was so much a failure of government but a failure of today's society to look after themselves by adopting some better practices. The hospital infections were always going to happen, I think it's pointless saying that this pandemic showed up a lack of capacity or funding in the NHS, no health system in the world was made to deal with this kind of pandemic, it also doesn't make any financial sense to have thousands of healthcare workers being standing about getting paid for nothing "Just incase" there is a massive pandemic. In my very un-expert opinion there was 4 things in particular that kicked the pandemic off big time in the UK and Ireland: 1. Lack of truth and transparency from China 2. Cruise in ships Asia being mobile super spreaders 3. The first massive super spreader event that spread it between the UK and Ireland-Cheltenham Festival 4. People still insisting on sodding off on foreign holidays to Spain and Italy even after they were identified as the covid hot spots in europe. (First identified case in NI was from an Italian holiday) I don't think it does anyone any favours now to bash the government too much, look at every other government in the world bar a small few... they all done poorly at the start, hell France is now into another nationwide lockdown!

I don't have an exact answer but from my friend who owns vintage tractors .... it's got 1 too many cylinders. According to him The 4 cylinder massy 35s have always been known to be problematic with start up. The one he owned had starting problems that were traced back to the injectors.

I remember watching a YouTube video that explained a bit about the origins of the EU. It was explained by a former irish EU diplomat who is now campaigning for Ireland to leave. From what I remember of it the EU started by some agreement between the coal and steel industries. What this done was give France a big say in German affairs to appease France for the rearmamnent of Germany leading to them agreeing to the creation of the bundeswehr. They also had this thought that france would then always be the dominant power on the european mainland. So in short it was never about peace and cooperation, it was more about appeasing France and now look at the fine mess they have left the EU in with their vaccine attempt

When it comes to someone saying you shouldn't put steel through a gun choked more than half, is this to do with pressure or is it the idea that the steel shot won't compress enough and it's the diameter of the shot filled cup going through the choke that would "do the damage"?

Very nice, I'll have to check my local fruit n veg shop to see if they have any stocked. Usually I'm just grabbing the darkest Savoy I can find to go with stewed steak carrots n onions.

Yea I had resorted to just rattling on ahead with my guns as they are, if I take the notion I might take them to hollow farm and get them done sometime, they quoted me the 30quid a barrel. Only thing putting me off is the place can be very cliche-y with their customers and i wasn't too impressed when I went down in person to discuss steel shot with them and buy some cartridges. I asked for some standard steel to try through my gun after taking advice that my current chokes would be ok, only to be told by Gordon that they didn't have any standard steel and even with standard steel I would "split my barrels"(his words)... moving on I asked if he had any cheap guns in(I was pretty skint but wanted to see how this impending sales pitch went) that could shoot standard steel, oh of course he had... proceeding to bring out a Beretta and a Zoli, both over the 600quid mark with obvious surface rust on the barrels, but according to him they were worth it as they were 3inch chambered superior steel proofed to "future proof" myself. I don't know whether he just wanted me to sod off as I wasn't interested in spending bigger money but I did leave with a bit of a sour taste after that. No doubt I'll be back sometime as I've a pretty solid brass neck and it's my only local range to shoot clays on being only 4 miles away from me.

Would almost be similar to the barrels not being regulated properly. Remember seeing the guys on the TGS youtube channel shooting a baikal sbs that threw patterns all over the place, I think their suspicion was badly bored chokes or bad regulation of barrels

32g 6s will give a bit of boot in a light gun but do make sure it's not coming off the face and in need of a rejoining. If you're decoying pigeon or keeping range sensible and want a light cartridge try a 21gram load, I use them in my side by side AYA yeoman if I take it out on the skeet stand. Should have plenty of oomph to take down a 25-30yard pigeon

Try a local phone repair shop, take both phones and they may be able to restore data. The IPhone can be funny and it may have done some sort of formatting to the sim card, especially if it's come from an android phone

There could very well be a correlation between the kack being left lying around and the lack of foreign holidays, I mean you only need to see the news reports of how a lot of these people behave in the costa del wherever drinking themselves silly and going mad disrespecting the locals to see that no matter where they go they will have no respect for their surroundings

Very good point about being concentric to the inside of the bore, when I look at my guns there is a slight bias to one side in each of the barrels, very slight but if you give it more than a seconds eyeballing you can see it. I'm sure I've heard there is 2 methods to taking the choke out, one involves just a flat cut which would be a cheaper rough and ready method and the other involves a bit more finesse in following the taper of the barrel, I could be wrong. Or there's always the bubba cheap method of a hacksaw and barrels an inch or two shorter

Where roughly in NI? If it's a plain set of barrels without being chrome lined then I was quoted 30quid a barrel at my local place, they said a hard chrome barrel might be a little more. What kind of gun and what are the barrels choked at as I haven't bothered getting mine opened up and have been shooting steel through both my guns. Mainly an over under that is pretty tightly choked....at least half and very full

In these days of health and safety regulations, just make sure the cartridge is empty before applying the blowtorch. A ventilated head and summer teeth isn't a good look on anybody 🤣

I had a notion it was possibly an older video, while the video was just nature in action....some of the comments were hilarious, the fake countryside dwellers going on about how awful it was to film it and why did the camera person not scare the cows off or make a loud noise to warn the fox. Wonder what they make of Attenborough on their TV watching lions attacking giraffes and coming off 2nd best. Nature is cruel and people need to get used to it.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1541130692832442/permalink/2990628801215950/ I'm not sure if this link will work or not but if anyone is a member of a certain countryside linked facebook group they may have seen this. In case the link doesn't work, it is footage of a fox trying to take on a herd of cows and coming off a very poor 2nd best. The video was linked onto the group as a warning of why you don't go wandering off through fields of cows you don't know....Or let your dog off a lead near them. From the footage my guess is this is not a very well fox at all, thing looked totally starved and/or likely a very young dumped urban fox that hadn't the foggiest clue what it was doing, but it certainly sealed it's fate when it takes a snap at one of the herd. Cows really don't take prisoners.

Very nice!, really well tied. There's nothing more satisfying catching on your own fly. Your top picture looks very like the Bann Special. Fella I used to work with uses it as his fail safe salmon fly.

It's going to be a firm NO from me. It's already possible with semi autos and pump guns but can you imagine having a lovely double side by side and having to get a new set of barrels after say 5 years and then have them fitted by the manufacturers as surely they would put some clause in that you have to send the gun back to have barrels fitted by them. A major source of profit right there. Then add the cost of the proof house onto that as well and the costs will be so astronomical that even the most affluent of toffs wouldn't pay for it

A split cane is a dream for me, I've watched a guy on YouTube who builds (very expensive) split cane rods in the UK, bannister rods I think they're called, check out his videos, such grace in the cast and how they throw the line. My late friend used to talk about the cane rods they had to use when he was young and skint, he said you got whatever rod you could afford and load it up with the heaviest weight like you could find to ensure an easy cast 🤣

If @Walker570 ever wants to sell that little rod I could be persuaded to part with money, providing the postage to NI isn't prohibitive.

Very nice, like casting toy soldiers. How much does that cost you in bismuth? Isn't the cost a bit eye watering?

If the research in trying to ban lead shot and projectiles is being skewed by poor research and biased opinions on what someone's thinking or the opinion of someone with a vested interest in banning fieldsports in general, can BASC and the other orgs not just take this to court as the government and public are being deliberately mislead rather than allowing the public to have their minds filled with anti shooting propaganda. People can hardly cry wolf about lead when a popular spot for walking, and biking near me is a former lead mine. Edit to say this lead mine is within 2 miles of a very popular wildfowling area!

That's great service! I had a lovely little 7ft6 3wt river rod...Shakespeare Trion XT and my wee lad got hold of it and snapped the tip section...discontinued rod so sadly the rod is scrap 😕