I'd say there's going to be plenty of socialising this weekend. The sun is out and so will people. Guaranteed. Folk were down the canal yesterday in plentiful numbers. Will be interesting to see what happens.
Probably announce tomorrow intention to close borders Wednesday (my guess) followed by a nationwide curfew of sorts...similar to what's happening in Europe.
So mass gatherings are to be banned in the UK but schools and universities are still open?
Seems legit.
The reasoning one of the talking head doctors gave on R4 yesterday is that the data so far shows that young children seem not to be as susceptible to contracting it as adults. As a security measure perhaps we should have primary school children stand as Members of Parliament? Oh, wait....no...
Doc, can I recommend this site for route planning..
www.theaa.com
It’s one of the two major motor breakdown companies in the UK. They have a route planning section that’s very good and gives you an idea of journey time rather than just distance. Avoid the M25 if possible!!
I’m sure there’s a few of us on here who would like to meet up with you and your wife if you’d like that as well. Surprisingly, we do scrub up quite well and can behave ourselves in mixed company 😂😂😂
Well, that was relatively hassle free. They wanted to give me a lower price but I just wasn't interested so I've signed up with BT to begin with. Only drawback is BT can't port my existing landline number from Virgin - yep, still use a landline so that'll be a whole mess of emails/texts to send at the end of the month. I can't believe line rental used to be something like £18/month now it's included in a £29 broadband package!
Got a BT package through TCB for ~50Mbps down 8Mbps up and landline with 500 Anytime minutes a month to UK landline or UK mobile for £34/month and also £85 on TCB which is a bonus! If they payout (eventually) as Didds says, I'll definitely use it more
Coming from a similar professional background, I think I know where you're going with this but here's my £0.02......
Electrics - All you can do really is a visual of the consumer unit and possibly check the earth bonding, generally speaking anything else is buried in or under building fabric. Don't forget you need a Part P ticket for anything more than changing a socket/switch plate
Water - Using your water tank scenario, if you still have a water tank, check overflow for blockages and ballvalve float valve shuts off properly. Check tasp for proper operation and signs of leakage. Unvented cylinders need their safety valves, etc checked annually - you need an unvented ticket for this
Soil/Waste - make sure everything drains properly, there's not much more to it than that
Heating - Annual boiler service and check controls are functioning correctly. If it's gas you need a ticket (Gas Safe), if it's oil you don't need a ticket IIRC but good luck with that if you haven't had any training. ASHP and electric boilers you would probably need the Part P ticket to cover touching the electrical side
Gas - aside from the boiler, you would probably only encounter hobs and cookers and I wouldn't touch 'em with yours let alone mine
External water and Drainage - WALK AWAY NOW, THERE'S NOTHING TO SEE HERE APART FROM TRAGEDY AND COST...leave to the specialists
With the exception of the last item, all the above could be done by a competent plumbing and heating engineer with the necessary electrical ticket to cover controls wiring.
Finally, aiming at the non-DIY but have the necessary cash is why this man is worth circa £70 million.....
Pimlico. Emergency Plumbers London. 24 Hours a Day, 7 Days a Week, 365 Days a Year. Plumbers, Heating Engineers, Electricians, Roofers, Carpenters, and Builders all over London.
Yeah, I know, it's London and you wouldn't be aiming that high but it was worth a laugh
I spent a few years running a maintenance division with a £1.5 million turnover in the1980's so you don't need me to tell you that 99% of all phone calls are people's problems and the remaining 1% is Kayla ringing to say she loves you and can you pick up some milk on the way home!
Thanks for the replies guys and I've made the first step... I'm going to be using these guys https://protonmail.com/ for "proper" emails and I'll keep using my existing Gmail account for everything else. Didds is right, I should have grasped this particular nettle years ago
Download speeds is not an issue for me as I'm the only one here, it was ping that was my concern..hopefully I'll be OK as there are about 4 or 5 green cabinets near me
Domestic connection is also not a problem as I currently have the VM router set up as a dumb modem. I've got a Buffalo Airstream for WiFi and the house was wired for Cat5E a while back so the PS4 and PC are hard wired
I'm not worried about TV packages as I have a decent aerial installation and I'll just fork out for a Freeview video recorder like a Humax or similar
@Diddums Topcashback referal - if you send me the link I'll give it a look. Never used anything like that before though
I don't know if this is the right section but here goes..
I'm currently with Virgin Media and... it works. However, I found out at the weekend that my sister in law is paying ~£14/month less than me for the same package AND they get BT Sport as well!
Before I try the old "I'm thinking of leaving" ploy - tried that about 12 months ago and the guy basically said "OK, leave" - I need your advice on two issues...
I'd need a new email address. Your VM email address is only kept alive for 90 days. I use this one for my serious stuff like banking, etc so I don't mind paying a small monthly fee (if necessary) for a secure email address that I know will be around for a good few years. I already have Gmail for the normal stuff. Any suggestions?
New ISP. Looking around I've read some interesting stuff about it basically being a choice between Virgin and the rest as all other ISP's are based on BT Openreach network and this has gone downhill since it was separated from BT. These comments were in a (rather long) discussion thread somewhere about ping. Without going outside to check (I have man flu) I am within ~150 metres from a green cabinet on a main road in an urban town area. Any suggestions on an alternative ISP? There's only me at home so, if I'm playing CoD I'm not watching YT videos. I'm quite happy paying £35 - £45/month for a package but £62 is a bit steep! Any suggestions?
That’s a good read Elliott...I’m interested in the food areas particularly as, cooking for one now, I tend to go for easy stuff that I know isn’t very good for me but I like eg macci cheese, shepherds pie (batch cook and freeze). I know that I need more veggies in my diet but I need to find simple stuff that’s tasty, I do stir fry but that’s about it at the moment that’s vaguely healthy. Have you, or anyone else, got any websites or recipe books that you could recommend?
Is anyone else unable to read Elliotts post on an iPad running Safari? I can see the line numbers and a couple of hyperlinks but everything else is white....I’ll fire up the PC later
EDIT by GazzaGarratt: Formatting issues in Light mode. All fixed now.
Posted
Terry Pratchett's Discworld series are another good read...probably best described as tongue in cheek fantasy
Thanks to Capn_Underpants for the artwork
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