chrisp65

I too believe there is 'something' in this. 'Something', not a blanket one size fits all rule. We find it with showing drawings to Clients. Either male Clients are better at understanding plans and maps. Or, they are better at disguising the fact they don't know what they are looking at. Even adding people and cars and recognisable objects to the drawing doesn't always work. Rather than just show an empty room, we'll populate it with a desk and chairs, a person standing up and a person seated at the desk. It can be the case that the Client still can't visualise how big that room is. Most often (by a long way), it will be a female Client that will keep asking questions about the size of the space. But as I say. It could just be proving that females are happier to confess a lack of knowledge and therefore learn by asking questions. Whereas a bloke thinks asking dumb questions only illustrates the fact he has a very small penis. Incidentally, if ever reverse parking gets in to the Olympics, my missus is nailed on for a medal. Never seen anything like it, it's like a **** super power. She can just do it perfect every time. My car, her car, works minibus. Just a reverse parking demi god.

Where is the damp? Is it rising from the floor at ground floor level? Or is it a random patch half way up a wall somewhere? What you might want to consider, is buying a builders' / DIY endoscope! No, really. You can get them for about £40, drill a hole in your wall and have a look inside with an endoscope or borescope to see if there's an obvious problem in the cavity. A pile of shite somewhere, a dead rat, or a fallen nest. Something creating a bridge from the wet outer wall to the dry inner wall. You never know.

yeah, Cameron's dad is supposed to be on the list. Doubtless there will also be links to the Johnson* family and minor royals and the Millibands* and Jeremy Paxman* et al. But will it really tell us anything we didn't 'know'? Rich people can spend money on lawyers and accountants to preserve the maximum of their money. I'm sure lots of the Blair's property empire is in 'trust' or in the name of other companies or run by management firms that turn out to actually be the Blair's kids etc.. I don't think the real story is how someone like Blair* hides his money. I think it's how he got it in the first place. * insert name of choice to suit your own prejudices

My taste has definitely 'matured', as much as twenty something totty is nice to look at in a totally superficial way, I find myself more interested in people closer to my age these days. Which is probably a very good thing! I like to know that if I'm going to throw away my steady life and my marriage, it will be for someone that knows their way around a cooker, understands why cassettes needed pencils and has a basic grasp of household admin..

fwiw I've got Virgin media, I don't have any pay sports channels, but a couple of months ago I phoned them and just told them I considered I was paying too much and was honestly assessing whether to stay or move so what could they do for me. I've got the same deal I was on, some middling package of about 500 channels of which I watch about 4, other than I've now got a TIVO box for all that recording and pausing of TV, plus better broadband (ping test always comes in at 65mb or more) and they've dropped my bill from £70 to £50. Phone / mobile phone / HD TV inc Tivo / broadband. I actually have no idea if that's any good! But it's £20 less than it was. It also turns out I've got a decent TV, but was previously watching rubbish channels through a rubbish digi box. Emily Maitlis in full HD now!

Are there soviet era posters proclaiming record harvest and tractor production? I love all that schizz. (translates: yeah, she's taking it off!)

yeah people get snobby about formats which is silly I've got CD's in the car, downloads on laptop. But I enjoy the palaver of a record when I'm relaxing and listening. If I listen to stuff on the computer or from youtube or soundcloud it's fine, but I'll invariably do something else at the same time. If I go out the other room, twiddle with an amp, and stick a long lead on the headphones, well then I can have a proper listen. Like a proper middle class clearing in the woods.

I'm actually surprised these guys all physically (if not mentally) turn up every game. Which one will be the first to phone in sick on game day, with a flat tyre, the boiler making funny noises and looking after the baby? How many of these players think they'll be playing football at any sort of decent level in this country next year?

If you're used to the house being cooler than a centrally heated house, and you're ok with that, you could damp down the cost a little bit by having a partial installation. Have a central heating boiler big enough for the full house to be centrally heated, but just put radiators in the rooms you feel are essential for now. That'll knock a few hundred off the installation. Then in a year or three you can have the rest done. It might be worth including British Gas in amongst the quotes you get. They'll most likely be the dearest, but they'll also most likely tell you what system best suits you. You can use that knowledge as a gauge against a couple of local firms. We paid a little over what others wanted to have British Gas fit ours. They had an interest free deal on at the time, and 12 months free complete repair and service cover. If it stopped working on a Tuesday night, they would come out Tuesday night. No trying to persuade a local plumber you cannot wait a week for him to come and have a look for a £60 call out fee. Davkaus's £4k sounds about there for a boiler and rads and pipes.

My mate lost his shop job when he served a skinhead who'd asked for a tin of Bostik and three bags. I never got in to the gloo, never even tried it once. I'd seen what it did to those that had a go, and figured I was better off doing something else. But yeah, pin in the end and try try try not to be tempted to stick your fingers to the model plane whilst it was all still drying. But I always did. I don't think there was a spitfire or a lancaster ever got through the build without a glue finger print half way along the fuselage.

Should be obvious, squeeze the bottom, look after the top.

I'm beginning to feel real sympathy for this government. Poor bastards have only been in power 6 years how on earth can they influence anything. Cameron had to cut his holiday short to deal with whining steelworkers. Poor Javid Sajid had to take three days to come all the way back from his planned little holiday in Australia to tie himself up in knots trying not to lie in person (anybody see or hear that ITN interview? squirmingly uncomfortable lying in half finished sentences at it best / worst). But that's neither here nor there. Whilst George Osbourne has been chancellor, the nationalised RBS has lost a further £20,000,000,000 but during those same six years have stopped paying bonuses to branch staff, but luckily, have managed to continue paying bonuses to managers. Since 2010 RBS have paid out almost £2.000.000,000 in bonuses for it's highest earners. After 'donating' a cool million pound to charity in one year, the boss of RBS still had a further £2,380,000 of salary left over. Phew. But, there's nothing the Prime Minister and Chancellor of six years could do about that. I understand. Just as I understand that people that inherit million pound houses are unduly harmed by inheritance tax. Just as I understand the poor and disabled must be seen to contribute most to austerity. Just as I understand, if we want the Chinese to finance our nuclear power stations, we must accept their dumped steel. There is nothing this government could do about any of this. But I'm alright, I've got my xbox and my holiday. So everything is ok.

I have seen the light. Protect the city. Protect the rich. Protect the tory voters. Protect me. Market forces for the scum.

The owner of 73% of RBS shares is UKFI. UKFI is an arm of HM Treasury. What reading would you recommend?

Anybody else fancy getting a first goal against us? All are welcome...

No, I think it's the tory party currently in power and it's currently the 8th year of nationalisation for royal bank of scotland. I could be wrong, there could be another secret deal to close something down in the next 6 weeks that I'm not aware of?

We are being shafted by a broken ideology. Two ideologies actually. One being the tory obsession with free trade meaning we can't protect ourselves from China dumping subsidised steel on our shores. The other being China, protecting itself against UK steel by imposing 46% import duties on our steel. Nevermind, once they are all on benefits they will automatically just be cheating skiving scum and no longer worthy of our attention. They'll be gone soon and we can concentrate on supporting Royal Bank of Scotland for the 8th consecutive year.

HMV is expensive. Plus, I think some labels or 'popular' bands are expensive. Not my cup of tea, but there was some Iron Maiden album released or reprinted recently and HMV wanted something like £34 for it on vinyl. I noticed they had loads of Beatles albums in there too and they were all twenty something quid. Ridiculous. But it explains how a second hand shop up the road from HMV can think £15 for a knackered copy of a Madness album is a fair price. But then you can get a shiny new copy of for £12.99 which is still more expensive than a download by a long way, but it's a touchy feely thing, innit. Incidentally, bloody hell, what an album. Mind bending brilliance.

Hhmmm, I went to my local record shop this lunchtime, admittedly it was lunchtime on a Friday, it's a payday sort of time of the month and it's half term and all that. But the place was rammed. Elbow etiquette came in to play. I've been going there for I guess about 35 years and it's almost always been a very small number of people and the same staff year in year out. Couldn't chat about crap this lunchtime though, or get mugged in to buying something they couldn't shift. Too busy serving punters and showing new staff where everything was. Which is great. I guess. Hopefully the crowds will thin a little bit when the fashion moves on or they discover Olly Murs Greatest Hits is actually cheaper in Sainsbury's. But in that a couple of years ago they were seriously looking like packing it up and calling it a day, it's good to see them quite literally with a queue at the till. Even the local second hand record shop is making hay. They have a bunch of quite rough looking 2Tone and mod stuff on the racks at the moment. Dog eared copies of The Beat or The Jam albums being knocked out for £20 a go, and not exactly VG+ condition either. Anecdotally, in my nippers comprehensive class, about 10 of them claim to have record players, 2 of them now take in cassette playing boom boxes! I know that on e-bay, turntables that were always £30 or £40 a year back are now regularly selling at £200. Good luck to 'em all, if it inspires somebody somewhere to pick up a guitar and knock out the next 'Teenage Kicks'.

I strayed away from the one we were both on. I just couldn't get in to the swing of it. But then I found a nice friendly bunch of middle aged chaps from all over europe and beyond that will happily spend endless hours of their time explaining to a clueless chap like me how to build your own bespoke turntable from scratch, and the geometry of where the arm goes and what an ohm is and all that... (wish I hadn't mentioned train spotters now).

exactly! you either know where it is, or you make new discoveries this baby will now be filed with other basically white albums, such as Mwng, Music Complete and Roaring Lion perhaps if you file by alphabetisation and chronology you've also got a thing for trains played / not played / colour of sleeve there is a beauty in the simplicity, even if I say so myself oh, they're filed 'face on' too, their natural state like when you pick them up from the shop, none of this 'side on gets more in' shennanagins

Music filing. Now there's a whole subject I've upset some people on another forum with. My filing for 12" vinyl is basically two sections. Active and non active. Non-active are stored remotely in a random order I can visualise so I know where stuff is. Active has a chance of being played so is in the same room as the turntable. I know exactly where every album is, though they are currently filed by sleeve colour. Right now, it's the lunchtime of the Friday after pay day.....

@Stevo985 The Pina Colada song. Case. Closed. @Designer1 Now that's interesting, he was in This Is England. That was also something I enjoyed, but I'll confess I'm no film buff and would struggle to retain an actors name to look up in other stuff. But yes, based on those two showings, I'll seek out '71. cheers.

Based on no research whatsoever, just my own prejudices, I'd guess that the most english language books by genre are probably: 1 Sci Fi / fantasy / harry potteresque / vampire space magician type pap 2 Middle aged women's novels about womens love and heartache stuff, be it historical romance or written versions of The Archers 3 Cookery and craft and weight loss lifestyle shite 4 Pictures of tanks / tractors / james bond cars / hitler / motorbikes (based on one visit to The Works) I'd guess the pope might not make the top 10, and rightly so.