Member postings for Mike

Martin is right - it is the courier firms who either refuse to deliver to what they call "remote areas", or charge a premium for doing so. I live in the AB (Aberdeen) postcode area, and although I am 60 miles from the city I live within a mile of main road routes, and it is amazing what trouble I have in getting reliable deliveries. I think the worst I had was for a small item worth £25, for which the courier demanded £28 for delivery. The best service we get for small items here is Royal Mail. A lot of it is down to the gross ignorance of Scottish geography displayed by English firms. I could go on the ages about this stupid situation. Grrrrrrrr! There, now I've had my rant for the day!

It was the same up here in Scotland when the first hydro-electric schemes came on line - so cheap, the only cost would be to pay for installation in your home..............

I am sure Neil is right about climate change having a real impact already. But when we start looking for what's to blame, everyone seems to turn to the noxious gases we pump into the atmosphere, and the energy we waste, but nobody seems to look at the amount of pure heat we waste. Just a few "for instances." Every morning wasted hot water from my shower and shave is thrown away down the drain. If it is cold and I switch the heating on, my house, like most, leaks heat into the atmosphere. My car is probably the worst offender - it needs a radiator to get rid of a huge amount of heat into the atmosphere, and every time I brake four discs shed more heat into the air. Waste heat from my kitchen goes into the outside air through the cooker hood, and almost everywhere we look, even in my countryside location, there's something pouring out pure heat as well as polluting gases. Even electric motors waste heat, and so do power stations.

All of this heat must go somewhere, and it is quite noticeable that the temperature in cities is slightly higher than in the surrounding countryside. Perhaps I'm not making this case very clearly, and maybe I am naïve as well, but I know damned well that the weather is warmer than it was when I was a child 60 years ago and the world's population was smaller and we had the sense of wrap up warmly on cold days.

Edited By Mike on 27/07/2017 09:57:32

I've used cheap supermarket own-brand margarine with some success. Definitely not motor oil, although Castrol R would make the workshop smell wonderful!

Just down the road from where I live there will shortly be a tiny gas-powered power station fuelled by the methane from a closed-down rubbish tip. I don't understand the chemistry of it all, so can someone explain the dangers of burning methane? On the gas-powered car tack, in the 1970s I drove an LPG-powered Ford Cortina from Lincolnshire to Glasgow and back, and recall that it was quite a pleasant experience. Wouldn't mind that as an alternative to electric motors and batteries.

Edited By Mike on 26/07/2017 14:51:14

Michael, if politicians have any skills at all, they are all to do with screwing taxes out of folks like you and me, and spending the money irresponsibly. Don't kid yourself that they won't be able to think up a new tax.

Is it just petrol and diesel that's going to be banned, or all forms of internal combustion engines? What about alcohol, or hydrogen and other gases as fuel? There really will have to be huge progress in battery technology if the proposed ban is going to work. Fortunately, if I live that long I will be 99 in 2040 so presumably not very interested in driving anywhere. And what about the future of road haulage? Has this really been thought through, or is it just politicians' waffle?

Edited By Mike on 26/07/2017 13:24:22

I liked the Cadfael series when it was on TV. Now you have reminded me, that's more cash going into my Kindle account.

Hi Norman,

I've read some of the Commissario Brunetti books, so I must have a search through for those I haven't read. My account with Kindle looks as if it's going to get a bashing during the next few days!

Many thanks

Mike

Norman, I've read some of his stuff, but not the series you mention. I shall have to take a look at the series you mention. Thanks for the tip.

Many thanks for the tips on authors, SillyOldDuffer - I will certainly follow both up. I am a great fan of crime stories, but I'm getting fed up with modern detectives who can't function without a backup team of scene-of-crime experts, DNA labs, and without a mobile phone permanently grafted to one ear. Bring back the "little grey cells."

Thanks to you guys I have just bought my first Lindsey Davis Falco title on Kindle. If I'm bleary-eyed in the morning, having stayed awake reading for most of the night, I shall know who to blame! Seriously, it will make a welcome change from today's race of hi-tech detectives.

I took the last sash window out of my house about 15 years ago, and the weights turned out to be rubbish - voids and lumps of slag. Eventually chucked them in the metal bin at the local tip- then discovered they were valued by the local lobster men for weighting pots. Perhaps we should start a new thread - 500 things to do with a sash weight?

Hello John McNamara. I agree with you entirely. Although I was one of those who introduced the politics of crime and punishment to this thread, two days ago I thought things had gone too far and asked the moderator to close the tread down. This request fell on deaf ears, so I repeat it now. As I said two days ago: "The great thing about our hobby is that it forms a common bond between people of all political views and of all nationalities - and long may that continue."​

I know I am one of those who has contributed what some consider to be non-politically-correct views to this thread, but may I suggest our moderator calls a halt at this point? We have all had our say, and we have wandered well off the subject. The great thing about our hobby is that it forms a common bond between people of all political views and of all nationalities - and long may that continue.

And don't forget their "human rights". As far as I am concerned, anyone who is guilty of a crime has given up these rights - and remember that prison is meant to be a very unpleasant experience, not a holiday camp!

About ten days ago I went through a phase of having to log in every time, then the "fault" - if that's what it is -suddenly went away. Another forum I access daily was also affected, but that's also miraculously disappeared.

Edited By Mike on 16/07/2017 12:04:38

Perhaps we should confiscate the acid in Diane Abbot's car battery, it being so dangerous? I wonder how she'd get on then!

As far as I'm concerned, Pero, you can say it on any day you like because it is undeniable fact. Vintageengineer has a good idea, too. Plenty of birch trees around here - give me a small, sharp axe and I could equip the nation's courts. Not so sure about National Service, but only because the nation couldn't afford it. If things continue the way they are going, thanks to knee-jerk reactions by politicians, we shan't be able to put vinegar on our chips, unblock the drains, clean the patio, or use many other useful household products - and that's before we start thinking about what we might use in the workshop.

Already, paint stripper hardly works, and paint is generally thin, watery stuff, Oh, I could go on for ever, but I guess I've had by grumpy ten minutes for today.............

Thanks, Chris, for the tip to Google for Rotagrip. However, their prices! For some time I have been looking for outside jaws for a 4in for a 3-jaw Pratt Burnerd. They want £149.04. I know we have to pay for quality, but a complete chuck of Indian origin from ARC Eurotrade costs a lot less than that, and would be quite accurate enough for my purposes.