Glenshooter

ha-ha. No, it certainly wasn't her. The lady was the one who made the pies I believe....

From the reports of air rifles 'creeping' over the limit that have been posted on the Airgun BBS over the last 5 years of so, my impression is that the vast majority , say 75% + that I have seen are HW 100s that have become illegal and could cause their owners major legal issues. You may need to save your phone calls for your lawyer..

I have visited a fair number of clay grounds in my time and more recently even more, as my lad is taking his clay shooting pretty seriously - to the tune of several 1,000 cartridges a month. Some grounds have great locations, some have nice staff, some great clay layouts/stands and some have a great atmosphere. Few have all these attributes - and I often leave thinking if only they could tighten up on x, y and/or z, that would be a great ground. Today we visited Owl's Lodge, south of Newbury, North of Winchester - near the A34/A303 junction and we had a very enjoyable few hours, despite the wind. The log cabin style lodge was clean, tidy and smart. More restaurant style than canteen. Smiles and quick efficient service from the reception staff. The catering lady was very pleasant and helpful. The food was excellent with the meat pies being superb! We got a little credit card device which allowed us to operate the traps and then pay for the clays at the end, 32p per clay. There are plenty of traps/shooting stations. We shot 150 clays and not once did we have a no-bird. The ground is the tidiest that I can remember, the paths are walkable in shoes and due to the good selection of stands, there was no queuing. One stand, just behind the lodge, had a wireless hand control that operated at least 5 different traps and you could move to a number of different stands to take these clays at different positions, Sportrap style. Most clays were of 'registered target difficulty', probably better for the intermediate shooter than the beginner, although some would be easy enough for beginners, and as this is a shooting school as well, the beginner is obviously well catered for. There are plenty of sporting stands, a trap and also a skeet layout - although we only used the sporting stands. The car park is well located, right beside the lodge so you don't have miles to walk, plenty of car parking spaces and not muddy. Although it's not the easiest place to find on your first visit. The postcode doesn't work with my satnav, it would have taken me to the wrong place, but there are written directions on the website. It's 5 miles to the east of Andover, just off the A303. The atmosphere was very calm, relaxed and friendly with everyone being helpful and welcoming. The place is owned by Richard Faulds (with whom I have no connection, don't think I've ever spoken to him) and he wasn't around today. But his World Class experience of shooting seems to have allowed him to create and run an excellent shooting venue. They aren't open every day, AFAIK, and although I don't shoot registereds, they have a weekday registered shoot most months. 32p a clay for the service provided is excellent value. Pity it's 60 miles from me but I'll be driving there more often compared to the closer grounds that have not quite got the same offering. It's not often I've motivated to comment on a ground, but I thought that Owl's Lodge was exceptional. And again, I have no connection with this ground, other than being a very satisfied customer. Maybe the meat pies have given me a lasting smile on my face

Thanks folks. Travelling at the mo but will try this at the weekend when I'm home again, or at least, sometime in the near future

My Humax DVR is playing up and I can see it's going to need to be replaced soon. I've a lot of stuff recorded that I don't want to lose - mind you, I can see a lot of it isn't going to be watched but I still want to keep it Is there a way of backing up these programmes? For the techies, it's the Humax PVR-9200T model. Looking forward to hearing your advice

Thanks. I passed on details to my mate. May be a bit far........

Thanks for the thread chaps. Checked and find that I'm paying £45.89/month for calls and BT infinity so it's time to change... Does anyone know if you can retain a BT internet email address if you move from BT?

...and you would trust ANY dog 100%??

Where does he live? (I have friends in Maidenhead who have just lost their Westie to 'old age illness'.)

I hope not. It's a dog that has responded to being beaten (by effectively a baton) by biting. That's surely not a reason to put it down... Most dogs, or at least many dogs, would respond like this - but we don't know what 'reprimanding' means in this case nor the context of the reprimand. But I do take your other point ie if a dog is aggressive then rehoming is not a practical option.

Great sensible reply, IMHO.

I've had a number of Westies and know a lot more. One is sitting a my feet just now. None of them have every bitten, nor even shown signs of aggression. However, I've never 'reprimanded' one with a rolled up paper so can't vouch for what would happen if I had done so. She is a little bit excited just now as the neighbours black cat had decided to sit on our front lawn, just outside our glass front door!!

Agreed. See the reliability surveys that have the bottom places filled with French cars. Jap and German work well, painful as it is for me to say that.

Ok. So your beef isn't really about Amazon. It's about British business.......?

Why should they pay tax on a loss? Nobody else does. from the link above..... "produced a net loss of $126m and warned there would be worse to come in the third quarter of 2014. As a result, shares in Amazon dropped 10pc in after-hours trading." I'm too slow - you've already responded. We'll have to wait and see what happens when they sell but not many would want to buy..... I certainly wouldn't....

and it's actually easier for face to face retailers to offer good service if they could be ***** (bothered). Sadly, many couldn't give a flying...

I just got my new Proshock hocks passives today and they are great. Fit perfectly, hear very well and great customer service. Couldn't recommend Peter Russell and Claire at Proshock enough. That's after a lot of disappointments in the ear protection world No matter which 'device' you use, the fit of the plug is critical and I spent a lot of money with other 'Game Fair only mould takers' before Proshock sorted me out.

Thanks. Just ordered 4 for 15 quid!!!!

I'm buying more and more stuff from Amazon due to excellent service like this......

Thanks for this. Where can you buy them?

IIRC, BSA changed the spec on some parts that John designed eg changed metal components to cheaper plastic ones and ******** up the whole 'project' - with the reliability issues they then had. Because of that, I for one wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

Good suggestion. Dave is excellent. Top banana. And close to the M6.

You're right. But of course that's the whole point of a treatment for an autoimmune condition ie to suppress the immune system attacking its own body. Getting the balance right is the trick.

You've clearly never had the flu. Taking vitamins has nothing to do with contracting the flu virus for normally nourished people.

My last 11 plate 520D drove beautifully but had a catastrophic engine failure at 102,000 miles. Company car, well looked after and never heard what happened afterwards as I moved jobs. But it would have been a new engine....... Previous one went back at 128,000 and it was due a 'filter' change which was due to cost well over a grand in the BMW garage - maybe cheaper elsewhere. So based on my recent experience, I've a little nervous. Older diesel engines seem to run for ever. The newer, high performance ones as the 520d's engine was, seem to be somewhat less everlasting. But still great cars, if you need one that size.