The new news 24 thread

[Bren]

My comment was removed from BBC have your say - presumably because it had the word gammon in it.

The BBC is now dumbed down rubbish.

[egg]

the eggfather has suggested putting an inline connector in the pressure washer cord. Like this. Seems legit?

Also just discovered a brown patch on the ceiling (water leak) - yay! ?

[Asimo]

22 minutes ago, egg said:

the eggfather has suggested putting an inline connector in the pressure washer cord. Like this. Seems legit?

Also just discovered a brown patch on the ceiling (water leak) - yay! ?

No, just open the washer up and re connect the slightly shorter cable.

At the beginning of lock-in we discovered  a winter's worth of mouse damage in the shed. No munched wiring thankfully!

 Mouse incontinence has triggered a huge re-work of the junk storage "system". Burning old furniture was the best bit. Nothing like mouse piss stains to make chucking something an easy decision

[New POD]

16 minutes ago, egg said:

the eggfather has suggested putting an inline connector in the pressure washer cord. Like this. Seems legit?

Also just discovered a brown patch on the ceiling (water leak) - yay! ?

I'm no expert (although the letters after my qualifications might suggest the opposite - MIET )

But when my son decided as a teenager to attack the cable on my jigsaw I got the biggest chocolate block connector, and using three of them fixed it, before covering it in (quite a lot) a few layers of consultation tape. 

My mum used to run the cable of the mower (alot) and my dad used soldering and heat shrink. Nobody died. 

I'd probably wrap that in insulation tape to make it look more like a bodge. 

[busmansholiday]

21 minutes ago, egg said:

the eggfather has suggested putting an inline connector in the pressure washer cord. Like this. Seems legit?

Also just discovered a brown patch on the ceiling (water leak) - yay! ?

I'd guess you'd need an IP67 rated one given you're outside with water around you. Personally I'd open the washer as suggested and shorten the cable.

[egg]

thanks chaps, I'll see if I can get it open tomorrow. Cheap B&Q effort that I picked up used, so not the end of the world if I mess it up.

[LightBulbFun]

yeah as others have said, id open up the device remove the flex, cut off the damaged bit of flex, and just reattach it  

(flex is the term for the floppy type cable that most plug in things have, as opposed to something like the ridgid twin and earth inside the walls of yer house)

[High Jetter]

22 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

(flex is the term for the floppy type cable that most plug in things have, as opposed to something like the ridgid twin and earth inside the walls of yer house)

Yes, and believe it or not, it's short for flexible. Cable is the pattern on the jumpers your granny used to knit.

[vulgalour]

It's always better to ask forgiveness than permission.  I just got this rule the wrong way around and will probably not be purchasing a rotten pre-war project.  Foolish.  FOOLISH!  I only asked permission because I'm buying it for the other half more than for me because it's a model they like more than I do, would've been an AWESOME present.  Might still buy it anyway because I mean, what're they going to do, tell me take it back?  Make me live in the car?  Stop cooking delicious food?  Actually, now I say that it's probably not worth the risk.

[loserone]

GIB dude

[vulgalour]

Good point, well made.

[danthecapriman]

Where I live there’s a strip of land next door instead of another house. It’s basically the same size as our house and garden but it’s empty. There used to be a small bungalow there which an old lady lived in but when she died the house and land was left in trust to the school over the back of all the houses on our road to be cleared and left for use by the school as a nature woodland area for the kids. It was like this since the 60’s.

Its a lovely bit of open space and had loads of big mature trees on it, all British native species, which made it great for wildlife as well as meaning we had lots of privacy in our garden and house...

...you know what’s coming next!

Yes, the fucking wankers at the council have decided to make a fast buck and sold it for development! Shame on you Hampshire county council! Last week a good 100 or so big trees and many many smaller shrubs have all been cut down and the site cleared for some greedy little fuck stick developer to completely ruin, and piss off us and all our neighbours. It’s a crying shame and I hope some nasty karma comes for the cunts responsible. So much for keeping green spaces and keeping trees eh!? Fuck the climate and environment when there’s profit to be made.

 

So, there’s sweet FA we can do about it as it’s his land, but what I can do is be incredibly unhelpful from here on! Plus, I can do wtf ever I want in my own land. So over the last few days our household have been giving the planet a little helping hand by planting some trees in our garden along the border and back border against the school in an effort to replace some of those ones lost. We can’t equal the numbers lost but something is better than nothing, and the trees also help soaking up rainwater in an otherwise very wet bit of space (something else that doesn’t get much mention when it comes to flooding and the environment!).

So far we’ve got an apple and plum tree, two chestnut trees (grown from seeds from the trees that were just chopped down) and a Rowan. Not a bad effort, but I’m a go big or go home type arse hole...

So, I’ve just ordered 3 big ‘proper’ trees for delivery on Friday! 1x Beech, 1x Copper beech, 1x Lime. They should grow nice and big! Add to that I’ve got a Horse chestnut (Conker) tree in a pot that I grew from a conker a few years back. Well, now that’s going into the ground to join it’s two siblings at the end of the garden already! Those two I grew some years ago from conkers I found and are probably getting on for 15-20ft in height now.

Nobody can accuse me of not doing my bit for the environment now! I can’t wait to get the Beech, lovely looking trees! I suppose it offsets the carbon footprint of my car collection.

[St.Jude]

22 hours ago, Bren said:

My comment was removed from BBC have your say - presumably because it had the word gammon in it.

The BBC is now dumbed down rubbish.

You sure they just haven't gone vegan?

[Kiltox]

3 minutes ago, danthecapriman said:

Where I live there’s a strip of land next door instead of another house. It’s basically the same size as our house and garden but it’s empty. There used to be a small bungalow there which an old lady lived in but when she died the house and land was left in trust to the school over the back of all the houses on our road to be cleared and left for use by the school as a nature woodland area for the kids. It was like this since the 60’s.

Its a lovely bit of open space and had loads of big mature trees on it, all British native species, which made it great for wildlife as well as meaning we had lots of privacy in our garden and house...

...you know what’s coming next!

Yes, the fucking wankers at the council have decided to make a fast buck and sold it for development! Shame on you Hampshire county council! Last week a good 100 or so big trees and many many smaller shrubs have all been cut down and the site cleared for some greedy little fuck stick developer to completely ruin, and piss off us and all our neighbours. It’s a crying shame and I hope some nasty karma comes for the cunts responsible. So much for keeping green spaces and keeping trees eh!? Fuck the climate and environment when there’s profit to be made.

 

So, there’s sweet FA we can do about it as it’s his land, but what I can do is be incredibly unhelpful from here on! Plus, I can do wtf ever I want in my own land. So over the last few days our household have been giving the planet a little helping hand by planting some trees in our garden along the border and back border against the school in an effort to replace some of those ones lost. We can’t equal the numbers lost but something is better than nothing, and the trees also help soaking up rainwater in an otherwise very wet bit of space (something else that doesn’t get much mention when it comes to flooding and the environment!).

So far we’ve got an apple and plum tree, two chestnut trees (grown from seeds from the trees that were just chopped down) and a Rowan. Not a bad effort, but I’m a go big or go home type arse hole...

So, I’ve just ordered 3 big ‘proper’ trees for delivery on Friday! 1x Beech, 1x Copper beech, 1x Lime. They should grow nice and big! Add to that I’ve got a Horse chestnut (Conker) tree in a pot that I grew from a conker a few years back. Well, now that’s going into the ground to join it’s two siblings at the end of the garden already! Those two I grew some years ago from conkers I found and are probably getting on for 15-20ft in height now.

Nobody can accuse me of not doing my bit for the environment now! I can’t wait to get the Beech, lovely looking trees! I suppose it offsets the carbon footprint of my car collection.

..... so there used to be a house there, there are houses next to it and you’re getting in a strop because someone’s going to build on it?!

Okay, then. 

[catsinthewelder]

With it being left in trust to the school as a nature area I can see why you're pissed off that they've completely gone against her wishes.  Well done for getting the trees in ?

[egg]

Water leak in the house....cannot be identified.

Stain on the ceiling downstairs, trusted plumber came in today (covid risk agh!) and got the floor upstairs up. All pipes in that area bone dry. Nothing. No sign of water coming through the floor from the top. Complete mystery.  floor insulation was wet, so that has been removed and maybe the area will dry out. But actual source of the leak - no idea...

That's cost me his time as well.

[danthecapriman]

 

39 minutes ago, Kiltox said:

..... so there used to be a house there, there are houses next to it and you’re getting in a strop because someone’s going to build on it?!

Okay, then. 

There’s a lot placed on schools having areas like that nowadays and it’s just been taken away for some twat to make a few quid. The trees there were big too, it’s taken a lifetime for some of them to grow and now they’re all gone. There’s also a huge impact on the wildlife that used to live and feed from that area.

Theres so much space down here being developed nowadays we should be protecting the little bits that are left not destroying it and concreting over it instead.

Trouble is, it’s not going to be developed into a single house like it was many years ago or like all the neighbouring properties, they’re trying to do 2 or 3 crammed into the same space.

30 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

With it being left in trust to the school as a nature area I can see why you're pissed off that they've completely gone against her wishes.  Well done for getting the trees in ?

Thanks! I like green space and wildlife, so it wasn’t pleasant seeing all that get destroyed. Such a waste.

It'll take a while for the new ones to get as big as the old ones but they will get there eventually. They’re all grown from British seeds and growers sustainably or Ive grown them myself. The Rowan tree actually came from a sapling from the Woodland trust a few years ago, they gave them out for free to members to encourage people to put trees in their gardens.

Theres another tree at the bottom of the garden I grew from a seed from a pine cone. I’ve got no idea wtf species it actually is but the tree it came from is still there in a local wildlife park. It’s absolutely enormous! Like a giant redwood type thing, though not that big. Be interesting to see how big that will get.

[richardmorris]

49 minutes ago, catsinthewelder said:

With it being left in trust to the school as a nature area I can see why you're pissed off that they've completely gone against her wishes.  Well done for getting the trees in ?

I think there was an edict from central government that local education authorities had to utilise all land sales before they could go cap in hand asking for money ( paraphrased). Obviously isn’t right environmentally or educationally for the children.  But well done for planting trees. Rowan is a rarity now too I think ( at least near me).

[New POD]

1 hour ago, Kiltox said:

..... so there used to be a house there, there are houses next to it and you’re getting in a strop because someone’s going to build on it?!

Okay, then. 

I'd be asking to see the exact terms of the trust and seeing if they are allowed to sell it. 

 

[Zelandeth]

One of the good things in Milton Keynes is that all the park land (there is a lot!) is owned by the Parks Trust, and they're not allowed to sell it off for development.

...Or so we're told.  Didn't stop them from tearing up one of the wild meadows just outside Linford Wood last year and plonking yet another set of office buildings in there.  No idea why given there's absolutely no shortage of office space just now... there's an entire neighborhood down five minutes from the station that's been empty since we moved in, and they tore down and rebuilt a huge block just round the corner from this new one about three years ago...as far as I'm aware not a single unit has been occupied yet...

So it's blatantly obviously someone out to make a quick buck.  No other reason it would have been granted planning permission...I can also say categorically that there were absolutely no notices posted prior to the day the bulldozers moved in.  ...I spent eight and a half years working in a local authority so do notice things like that when they appear!

[danthecapriman]

13 minutes ago, richardmorris said:

I think there was an edict from central government that local education authorities had to utilise all land sales before they could go cap in hand asking for money ( paraphrased). Obviously isn’t right environmentally or educationally for the children.  But well done for planting trees. Rowan is a rarity now too I think ( at least near me).

I’ve no idea tbh regarding how/if land can/should be sold and used, I just think it’s wrong from the perspective of the school and the nature it’s destroyed. I know we do need more homes building but there’s no shortage of places that are left derelict that could be used instead without chopping woodland down. We hear so much now about climate change and air quality and the one thing that’d help no end with this is keeping the trees we already have.

Im not a keen gardener if I’m honest, but I do enjoy green space and trees, hence my action to replace them. The Rowan tree, I didn’t actually realise is also called a ‘mountain ash’, despite not being related in any way to the Ash tree!

I think I must be getting old!!

[Christine]

Find a non covid  19 bat....or a crested newt....?

[Burnside]

Finished up cleaning the Fiat Stilo SW rather grim boot area today. Forgot to take pictures of before though as just got stuck in. 

Previous owner had got mud and who knows what else, over and under the carpet, toolkit and spare wheel. 

The boot carpet was so bad (dirty & torn)  that I already brought a 2nd hand replacement months ago. Pretty happy with the results and smells alot more pleasant too! 

Have also managed to improve the outside. Mainly cutting an polishing out the various scratches etc. An using a touch up stick for some of the scrapes an chips.

Apart from the dents and the ruinned headling this car is starting to finally look half decent. Overall pretty happy with my Days work. 

Got more cutting and polishing to do tomorrow. Also might try cleaning the seats again as there still grubby. 

[Zelandeth]

The Stilo is a design which has aged well I think.  Though being honest I always quite liked the look of them.  Never been in an estate, but we had a couple of the hatchbacks through the garage just towards the time I finished there and they seemed to drive nicely...though thinking about it I don't think I've ever driven a Fiat I didn't like really...even down to a Uno 60S with the 1.1 litre engine in...

This evening's task for me: Get a bloody website update pushed through.  It's not been touched since 2017, and it's about bloody time I did something about that.  I've got nearly a dozen half finished updates sitting in the Work in Progress folder, so time to pick one and run with it.

[Cavcraft]

Back to work today, four trips out in a 19 plate Berlingo. Stupidly compact (when you're long and fat) in the leg area, and no air con. Still, it was great to be out on the open roads which were very quiet. Plenty of traffic coppers about though and a two traffic womble cars were hunting in pairs, so I'm guessing VOSA were open somewhere. 

[Timewaster]

6 hours ago, danthecapriman said:

Nobody can accuse me of not doing my bit for the environment now! I can’t wait to get the Beech, lovely looking trees! I suppose it offsets the carbon footprint of my car collection.

How many thousand trees have you planted then? 

I doubt Epping forest offsets your collection. 

[somewhatfoolish]

5 hours ago, New POD said:

I'd be asking to see the exact terms of the trust and seeing if they are allowed to sell it. 

 

That's the problem, councils are sometimes run by slippery eel types, and even when not government edicts can oblige them to do shitty things even if against local sentiment; if people want to leave land for common good or similar it needs to be legally tied up with a double bow and fingers crossed to prevent scumbaggery.

[fairkens]

If they've not already been felled apply for tree protection orders for some of the key trees. 

[danthecapriman]

17 minutes ago, Tayne said:

 

I'm assuming you've seen the plans on your local council website?

You can find out whether its 2 or 3 houses and whether  they will overlook you.

Just put your postcode in the search box halfway down.

 

https://www.hants.gov.uk/landplanningandenvironment

 

 

Just looked on that as it happens! Nothing showing.

The only reason I know what’s likely is because I was in the garden when the new owner was next door talking to some other guy. His words were ‘a two bed in this area and a three at the bottom’. So that’s at least two, on the same size plot as every other house on this street which only has one, and all the houses are more or less in line with each other. By doing what he’s suggesting he wants to means our house and many of the neighbours will be overlooked badly, but also the only house at the rear of the plot will face directly into all our back windows. It’s certainly not in keeping with the other houses in the street. The guy who lives on the other side of that land is in an even worse situation for privacy because of how his bungalow is laid out.

Of course what the developer wants to do is completely different to what he will be allowed to do in the end. But it still means the loss of all those trees.

 

[danthecapriman]

4 minutes ago, fairkens said:

If they've not already been felled apply for tree protection orders for some of the key trees. 

Too late sadly. He bought the land at auction then came straight in with a team of tree cutters and machinery and took the lot down. I think he deliberately did it quick to stop any sort of fight back from residents, plus I think he’s trying to take advantage of the current situation - much of the council seems either closed for the duration or minimal staff. 

Im not sure if it applies but there wasn’t much social distancing going on that day either!

There was a pretty big oak tree over there, sadly now gone but the bigger trees were right in the middle of the land so would have been hard to work around. Fortunately though there’s a really big oak (must be a good few hundred years old) just on the wrong side of his border line so that’s survived unscathed. Though I think it might still lose a few branches yet.