Early Risers.

[PhilJ W]

When I went to North Wales I stopped off at Caernarfon and booked for a couple of nights in a B&B at the local tourist office. Nice clean room and a decent (full English) breakfast and at a reasonable cost. Only bugbear was that it was supposed to be 'en-suit' but the bathroom was outside the room off of a half landing and down a few steps.

[Ozexpatriate]

10 hours ago, AndrewC said:

Good old Amex. <cough> ... As mentioned, Amex is pretty crap apart from hotels and airlines.

Far better than "Diners Club"!!! I had no idea they were still in business when they became the corporate travel and expenses card perhaps a dozen or so years back. No vendors accepted them. There was a quiet revolt where they essentially were only used for airline tickets, until the company switched back to a Visa / MasterCard.

[Sir TophamHatt]

On 14/04/2021 at 18:08, Tony_S said:

Time to buy a better drill perhaps? My Bosch hammer drill was ok then I discovered their SDS drills. 

 

On 14/04/2021 at 18:20, Coombe Barton said:

My son bought me this one for my knockthehouseaboutathon and thus far it's done everything I've asked of it.

Mains - cordless ones get very, very expensive

https://www.screwfix.com/p/titan-ttb653sds-5-9kg-electric-sds-plus-drill-230-240v/6846h

 

Thank you both very much indeed!

 

Turns out the drill I have is a Bosch multi, hammer action, screw action and just normal drilling.

Bought a Titan SDS drill - boy they're heavy! Couldn't really afford to but I needed to.

 

I present to you, one affixed aerial!

 

 

It looks a little wonky as the angle of the photo and the angle of the aerial (apparently pointing slight up is best), plus the direction it's pointing makes it look strange.

 

I would have attached it to the peak of the roof but my ladder isn't tall enough - it wasn't really tall enough for where it is!

Any lower and it may not get as good a signal. 

 

Haven't tested it yet but I have no doubt it'll work fine.

 

This is the first bit of drilling / rawlpluging that I'm 100% confident in it holding forever.

Edited April 15, 2021 by Sir TophamHatt

[brianusa]

21 hours ago, PupCam said:

You maybe surprised to learn that Puppers no longer holds Bosch products in the high esteem that he once did.   

 

We once held Bosch in high esteem and went and bought one.  It did go wrong though and we replaced it with a Kitchenaid, a top of the line dishwasher made in the good 'ole US of A.  A  bit more expensive than Bosch but a far better product, works as well but unbelievably, much quieter!  Another German mystique shattered along with VW and Mercedes!

      Brian.

[Mark Saunders]

2 minutes ago, brianusa said:

 

We once held Bosch in high esteem and went and bought one.  It did go wrong though and we replaced it with a Kitchenaid, a top of the line dishwasher made in the good 'ole US of A.  A  bit more expensive than Bosch but a far better product, works as well but unbelievably, much quieter!  Another German mystique shattered along with VW and Mercedes!

      Brian.

When a company gets to the top there is only one way to go, especially when resting on your laurels!

[Ozexpatriate]

4 minutes ago, brianusa said:

... we replaced it with a Kitchenaid

All my major kitchen appliances are KitchenAid, except the gas stovetop / hob, which is, ironically, GE.

[J. S. Bach]

14 hours ago, chrisf said:

 ...snip...If we are ever allowed to go overseas again I have booked a trip to Marrakech, flying from Gatwick. ...snip...

Best wishes to all

 

Chris

Just for you, Chrisf:

Edit: I once rode the City from Memphis, TN round trip to some un-remembered station in Mississippi and back to Memphis when I was stationed at the NATTC* Memphis for A schooling in aviation ground support equipment (electrical). I chose that Mississippi station as it was as far as I could go and return on the same day; at least I can say that I rode the City. I allowed about two hours or so between trains in case the southbound was late. It was not so I had a couple of hours in Nowhereville!

 

*Naval Air Technical Training Center

Edited April 15, 2021 by J. S. Bach

[brianusa]

54 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Far better than "Diners Club"!!! I had no idea they were still in business when they became the corporate travel and expenses card perhaps a dozen or so years back. No vendors accepted them. There was a quiet revolt where they essentially were only used for airline tickets, until the company switched back to a Visa / MasterCard.

Diners Club was my first 'real' card, up till then it was gas cards and store cards until the Bankamericard came on the scene.  My Dad had a Barclaycard of the same vintage up to then, he was a cash only man!  Once back home I used the BoFA card which caused consternation at the time as it was the first they had come upon.  After talking with 'our' Mr Smith in the back, it was decided that all was well.  Similarly, I used my Wells Fargo card to get cash from a bank in Scotland and the cashier thought that it was only on TV with Dale Robertson!

    Now you don't really need them as much any more.

          Brian.

[polybear]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

Most of my brother’s working abroad as a telecommunication engineer for GEC seemed to involve a lot of time sorting out expenses.

 

Bear did a few weeks in India back in '98; the tw@t of a Project Manager running the show was a tw@t - Bear knew he was a tw@t, and he knew that Bear knew he was a tw@t.  Worse still, he was an arrogant tw@t.

Anyway, before we went,  Bear and buddy said we wanted twenty quid a day to cover un-receipted out of pocket expenses, in addition to being fully receipted.  Made a lot of sense as it would save no end of hours doing expenses on our return.  We even said we'd fly out cattle class - we costed it all out and we'd save the project about a grand each (in 1998) on the job.

Anyway, Mr. Tw@t treated it like it was coming out of his own personal pocket; no way were we going out cattle class as then the company might start thinking that others could do the same (though that was never admitted - I doubt the grown-ups ever got to hear about our proposal).  And Mr. Tw@t went off Bear even more, cos' he regarded me as the instigator (I was).

Anyway, we got our twenty quid a day.

Come the jolly (??  It wasn't so jolly when Bear ended up doin' double-enders at 3 in the morning, losing 14 pounds in 3 days....) I was out and about sightseeing with buddy one Saturday when he said to me:  "Guess what tw@t said to me at breakfast?"  "Go on" says I.  Buddy then tells me that tw@t had told him that he was going to lay on a car for us to take us sightseeing....but as we'd been so hard-nosed about the twenty quid a day we could go whistle.

So I asked buddy if we'd done everything we wanted to do that day, and been everywhere we wanted to go?  "Yes", he replied.

"And what has it cost us?" I asked.  He thought for a moment, and then said "£2-50".

"And tw@t wanted us to give up two hundred and forty quid a week for two-fifty in cab fares?  He's an even bigger tw@t than I thought".  It was all we could do not to wet ourselves laughing.

 

Even better, the next stage of work out there went to complete ratsh*t (= Big ££).  Bear wasn't involved at this stage, but at a prior meeting I'd warned tw@t of an impending significant issue that he needed to address if things were to work.  He told me that "it was none of my concern" and basically told me to keep my snout out.  Fine by me.

As soon as I heard what went wrong (the team had been instructed by tw@t not to tell me....but they did anyway ) I knew that he'd not heeded my advice.  I smiled a lot that day.

 

Incidentally, the rest of the team weren't on the twenty quid a day for that trip - I heard that the amount of time they spent doing their expenses far exceeded the cost of the twenty a day....

 

Some years later I heard that tw@t had p1ssed off "A Customer" (our biggest) so much that he could leave, or be pushed.  Deep joy all around.

 

26 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

Thank you both very much indeed!

 

Turns out the drill I have is a Bosch multi, hammer action, screw action and just normal drilling.

Bought a Titan SDS drill - boy they're heavy! Couldn't really afford to but I needed to.

 

SDS are good aren't they?

[Tony_S]

I don’t think we have any  kitchen stuff “made in the USA”. We have a Cuisinart waffle maker, that I thought was American made but it doesn’t have any mention of it on the rating plate. The box was recycled years ago. 
 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Tony_S

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Now Mr 'Monkeys Are Fun' will perhaps say it served mr  right for going to a caff near the beach in Mosman

Was that the bathers pavilion? I went there for breakfast in 1988, still paying it off.

 

I remember it mainly because the posh couple beside us sat down and made a big show of putting a bulky briefcase on the table and opening it to reveal that it was not a briefcase but actually  the first  'mobile phone'  I'd ever seen.. That'll never catch on I thought.

[PeterBB]

Not sure of the 'result' but "This has occurred between East Midlands Parkway and Derby is disrupting our trains on the London St Pancras, Sheffield and Matlock, Derby and Newark routes.  A person has been struck by a train.

[Gwiwer]

6 hours ago, TheQ said:

Murder victim is named as accused under armed guard in hospital

That can go in the file along with

 

"Passengers Hit By Cancelled Trains" and 

 

"Progress Made on Building Eyesores"  

 

[Ian Abel]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

UPDATE
Several hours after the Moderna vaccine I must say that I am feeling pretty okay, I did have a thumping headache for a bit (but no medication was needed) and I did have an absolutely horrendous and uncontrollable attack of the munchies - bad enough for me to consume a chocolate, ham and mayonnaise bap. Perhaps I should write an unsolicited Adverse Event report about this for Swissmedic (the Swiss regulatory agency). Maybe if I write it up and publish it in the Lancet, BMJ or New England Journal of Medicine, I could get this condition named after me (iDphagia – has a nice ring to it). Now I am just tired...

I'll be interested to hear how the second one goes. The Mrs, myself and our daughter all fared extremely well after the first one, nothing more than a sore arm at the shot location for one of the three of us.
The second shot was rather different, the following day we all were pretty much fatigued with flu-like symptoms and a total lack of energy all day. 24-hours later just fine!

[brianusa]

2 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

But I expect that the budget accommodation aficionados on ER would blanche were they be told the price per night of this boutique B&B, although Mrs ID and I thought it was great value for money.

 

Our philosophy is: when away from home, spend to get the very best!  Its turned out well as we have rarely been disappointed by the hotels we have stayed at.  You don't usually do it very often so enjoy yourself.  Along with a nice hotel, pick restaurants that look good enough to enjoy your meal, not just eat!  Rent a posh car, preferably a convertible if they are available.  That should be a holiday to remember!

     Brian.

[Tony_S]

26 minutes ago, polybear said:

SDS are good aren't they?

Have you used them on the chisel setting? Definitely an ear defender and eye protection bit of diy equipment. But very effective. Once a neighbour had been tapping away for hours with a Rawltool to make a hole in a brick wall. I offered my SDS drill when he started and much later when the tapping was getting irritating. He still turned down the offer. So I told his wife who told him to stop being so stubborn. It took seconds to do. I will be lending him my circular saw soon. He has bought the wrong fence panels and needs to saw a foot off the bottom. I could see the panels were the wrong size and very tactfully offered the saw. Aditi said she didn’t think I was that tactful really. Our neighbour is the first to offer help if he sees someone doing something but seems really reluctant to accept help.  We are lucky as a number of other neighbours are builders and have been very helpful over the years. 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Tony_S
Punctuation

[PeterBB]

7 hours ago, Barry O said:

 

 

I now need a lie down as this lack of hair is giving me a head ache...

 

Baz

Sure its not a 'chilly breeze'?

[Coombe Barton]

... and a possible reason why Boris was going to India ...

 

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2021/04/15/is-your-journey-really-necessary-part-2/

[leopardml2341]

1. Hello all.

2. Generic well wishes to all

3. Goodnight all

 

There you go, my day in three steps

[Tony_S]

15 minutes ago, brianusa said:

Rent a posh car, preferably a convertible if they are available.  That should be a holiday to remember

We once had a lovely holiday in Austria, in a lovely hotel that had excellent food and was very comfortable. Unfortunately when booking the hire car we got the “or equivalent” vehicle which was a Hyundai Getz that just couldn’t cope. It made  driving quite stressful. I tactfully suggested that perhaps I could  choose the car when we repeated the holiday the following year. Aditi seemed happy about that. 

[pH]

26 minutes ago, leopardml2341 said:

1. Hello all.

2. Generic well wishes to all

3. Goodnight all

 

There you go, my day in three steps

My sister’s view on retirement:

 

[Barry O]

I was given the wrong hire car on holiday once.. a Fiat Punto. It couldn't get up steep hills.. they delivered aan E class mercedes the next day..

 

Baz

[Barry O]

Goodnight all!

Baz

[PhilJ W]

Evening all from Estuary-Land. Just had an enjoyable Zoom meeting three organisations involved, SEERS, Gravesend and Lutterworth. A very interesting talk on the Swiss railways. Got to get on now as it hasn't left enough time to get through Farcebook.

[Gwiwer]

32 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Unfortunately when booking the hire car we got the “or equivalent” vehicle which was a Hyundai Getz that just couldn’t cope.

The first couple of times we hired cars in Australia, shortly before we bought our own, we opted for the "Standard" level which was two above "Compact".  As I recall these were described as "Holden Commodore or similar".  We got the "Or similar" which was anything but.  We got a Toyota Echo on both occasions which is definitely compact.  Very compact indeed.  SWMBO isn't the slightest lady on the planet and found it extremely difficult to get in and out let alone drive.  We did suggest on both occasions that we were being undersold or overcharged, possibly both, but to no avail.  

 

On the occasions I have hired in the UK, when holidaying from Australia and in the past few years when we have no need of a car for 50 weeks of the year and hire as required, the "Or similar" has usually been a good upgrade.  On one occasion the Group C which I normally booked for myself was upgraded to a Group F Dacia Duster.  I never got anything less than a Group D.  With SWMBO riding shotgun I book Group D and have never had anything to complain of.  The Kia C'eed which I had on two different occasions remains the best small car I have ever driven.