Kelly

This is of course on top of the struggles many shops suffered during the pandemic, yes some got help from the public purse, but in a number of cases small businesses and self employed didn't survive or barely did. Though we lost a number of high street brands and have been for a while now (the high street has been struggling to compete with the likes of amazon, ebay etc and the supermarkets and out of town shopping centres). It is going to be a tough winter for many and I can't see either of the two challengers for PM doing much to really help people where it is needed most. Personally I'm just not buying anything outside of food etc unless it can go on pay weekly/pay fortnightly. Magazine subs and other subscriptions were amongst the first things to go a while ago.

Player saleries in general are astronomical in the top leagues these days. Given how short reletive to a persons lifespan a career might be though and how much hard work and talent it takes to get to the top levels of the game I don't begrudge them a good wage to live off to some extent. Not all of them can make it in coaching or punditry. To some extent that already exists. Goalkeepers and defenders will get clean sheet bonuses. Midfielders will get assist bonuses and strikers goal bonuses as examples. There are other contract clauses that give bonuses for winning a competition, so reaching a number of games played or a number of goals/assists in a season. Their base salery is rarely what they actually get paid! Very common with the top clubs, especially the financial black hole type of club like City and Chelsea. They typically have so many players on their books that are out on loan earning money and the players that don't make it to the first team typicall earn them money when they're sold on to lower division teams as they'll typically put sell on clauses to get a cut of sales later on in their career. FIFA/UEFA have been mooting banning the loan systems used by the likes of Chelsea and City and other top clubs, but its yet to come into force. You'll see a lot of player sales quite quickly if it ever does!

Not your imagination! She was probably about the easiest dog in terms of behaviour that Dun Roamin Rehoming had at the time. They typically have dealt with difficult breeds and/or dogs other rescues couldn't cope with or were going to PTS for behaviour. The pandemic has really hurt them sadly, with their current group of inmates (including one lifer who unfortuately bit a postman and was court ordered not to be rehomed, but Billy loves life at the kennels and as the resident lifer gets to teach any new arrivals the way of things). Her biggest problems have typically been that she was most like taken away from her mother too soon (she has a habit of using her teeth, which she is much better at now than 5 years ago) and possibly being locked in a confined space (when she arrived at the kennels she had really bad mange), so she was very much a hater of kennels and refused to go near a crate so crate training was off the table early on. Otherwise she is a combination of lazy and energetic (she is a mix of Staffie, AmStaff and Greyhound according to her DNA test!). Generally she is calm and quiet these days unless she gets over excited and she can 'forget herself' and have to be calmed down. But we wouldn't change her for the world!

Smaller suppliers might be suffering however as one of the Photoetch suppliers has recently announced they're ceasing trading. Most with orders/artwork with them will probably be fine, but will face some delays and as they look for an alternative, those alternatives will have extra work. So smaller suppliers of etched items might have stock problems for a short time on top of the increased cost of etching.

Good morning. I hope all are well, if not best wishes. Baz, I hope your family member makes a good recovery. A quiet morning and day ahead probably. I'll probably get more work done on the next issue of UPDate if I can cope with sitting in the office (it is sun facing so gets a bit hot during the day, though the computer seems to run a little cooler compared to the previous room, maybe better airflow around it (I need to dismantle it and give it a good dusting still however!!)) for long enough. Day started with a cuppa and a bacon sandwich whilst poppy kept trying to bop us both on the head with her dinosaur! Quite enjoyable (dinosaur bopping aside!) whilst richard had MOTD on, which I only bothered watching for Liverpool's 9-0 win (quite appropriate given the 9 year old who sadly was killed recently and the 9 minute mark of respect). Talking of Poppy. Friday was her 5th Gotcha day since we got her from Dun-Roamin' Rehoming in Witherley. It wasn't easy at first, but she has been a rock for us over the past few years and she makes us smile more often than not. She's 6 now and fairly well settled down and rules the house (and the bed!). Attached is a photo from a few years ago. If you saw a photo of her when she was at the rescue centre you would think she was a different dog, she was so skinny when we took her on, she certainly bulked out!

I remember the Rodgers era Liverpool only too well. Some decent players and signings, but no direction and a number of useless signings. That was blamed on Rodgers not having much say in the transfer committee's dealings. Klopp soon sorted most of that out when he came in to put things right. I expect Leicster need a Klopp type of manager (and appropriate director of football with a clue!) now, Rodgers I think has gone as far as he can, he's by far not a Champions League, let alone Premier League winning coach, about best for mid-table at most I'd think.

We got a cheapish one from Lidl last year and it has been great. Does really good roasties and jacket spuds and uses a fraction of the power the gas hob and/or the electric oven would use. A friend posted a link on facebook with a breakdown of the cost of cooking appliances and Air Fryer, Slow Cooker and Microwave were amongst the cheapest to run. I suspect over the coming months, especially when winter starts to hit, the slow cooker will get more use as well as the air fryer. Definitely worth getting an air fryer if you can find one in your budget. They can't do everything, but they can do a lot and do them pretty well.

Some of the problem is related to component shortages as well. The majority of the car manufacturers cancelled their chip orders when lockdowns started to save money. That has rather backfired on them as the production companies have either sold their allocations to someone else or stopped producing that process (processes being measured in nm, most modern smartphones and PCs are on somewhere between 10nm and 3nm these days, the chips the car companies used were on 20nm+ nodes, which the companies long ago deemed obsolete and is really only used for memory chips iirc otherwise (the lockdown put a higher demand on computers, so you can see where some of that 20nm+ node capacity might have gone)). Electric cars probably as well suffer from the problems diesel cars have suffered for decades. Less of them are sold of the overall amount, so the cost per vehicle is higher. We're less than 8 years away from the manufacturers not being able to sell new petrol or diesel cars in 2030, and a lot of them are winding down their petrol and diesel engine car lines slowly (Volvo I think is moving to fully BEV or HEV), and after 2035, they won't be able to sell new hybrid cars. Some claim hydrogen is the answer, but there are myriad problems with that too. It is of course not unique to the UK, most of the EU countries have similar bans planned, except germany which currently i believe has 2050 as the cut off date for sale of petrol and diesel cars.

When I did one a while ago, I was told you couldn't do one within 3 years of taking one. So if it is over 3 years you might be able to get one. It might be different for different police forces however. You'll still effectively have to pay the fine, but you won't have the insurance hit of having points if you can do the course. Worth checking if you can or not, the worst they'll say is no.

You can usually take them every 3 years iirc, so you might still be able to take one if it was indeed a few years ago.

Afternoon all, Hope all are well? if not best wishes. Not much to report really. Yesterday was mostly resting after busy Wednesday (shifting all the boxes (well Richard did as I can't lift much at present!) and my putting my back out bending to pick a cardigan up off the floor!) and Thursday (swapping bedroom and office around so there is more space for the computer desks and the bed is better able to be accessed from both sides now I don't have things like a frame to worry about and have much easier time getting up and moving (when I don't throe my back out that is!!)). On the subject of insomnia, I am a frequent flyer with that particular problem. I typically try for a while, usually with a podcast playing and I will either fall asleep within about 20 minutes or if I still haven't within 30 minutes I give up and go do something else. Thinking about staying awake apparantly makes it easier to get to sleep weirdly...

IIRC the Golden Arrow kit was designed around a Hornby 8F chassis. Its a while since I looked at the Golden Arrow range however (I think they're still selling resin bodies on ebay occasionally and did go to ExpoEM before the pandemic, not sure if they still do).

The ECU will be doing the monitoring and will likely be keeping a log of how often, what speed/voltage for the power supply is used, how low it is drained, how long it is left on charge etc. The ECU/charging system will likely be cutting off charging at set points to protect the batteries as well as explained by others in the previous posts (following my admittedly rather simplified view of how LiOn batteries are typically succepital to degredation over time). The manufactuers will likely have written their warranties to cover them for different temperture/climate eventualities as well as these have an effect on the life and the performance of the batteries. Of course, we'll soon probably see the next generations of batteries start to hit the market (Tesla's Cobalt batteries and Toyota's Solid State batteries), they'll potentially bring better range, weight and charging speeds. In the case of the Toyota Solid State batteries much less chance of fires (which is a real danger of current LiOn batteries if punctured) and smaller, thinner and lighter, so able to be placed other than the chassis potentially (iirc Teslas have been talking about their next generations of batteries being within the structure of the car body, which would make it much harder to replace however).

Afternoon all. Hope all are well? If not, best wishes as appropriate. Not much to report, the last few days have mostly been rest days following ExpoEM Summer in Wakefield. Though yesterday we went over to the flat to load the car up with more boxes of stuff (about 90% is moved now I reckon), and Richard did a load on Monday. However, when we got back, getting out of the car and bending down to pick up a cardigan, my back went pop, so I've been rather stiff and painful as a result. Today Richard is rearranging the two upstairs rooms to swap them around, he spent the morning dismantling the bed in one room, in a moment we'll be dismantling the computers to move them to the room that has the bed currently. Some normality might happen by the weekend... Good to see Chris has resolved his computer issues and returned to ER, hope you're keeping well.

Written like most warranties really then. And not unique to cars, though cars are a bit unique in their own ways in terms of warranties. The only value warranties tend to have is for manufacturering defects. But proving they are can be difficult. They have of course a solution for these shortcomings, namely extended warranties, insurance and or leasing rather than buying.

Whilst they still exist. I think we're on the precipice of the obselecence of optical/physical media in most forms right now. Music/Video is pretty much dominated by streaming these days and games is moving in that direction with things like GamesPass and GeForce Now etc. Microsoft tried at the start to control pre-owned games sales, and that didn't go down too well. However the market has changed since and so I don't think the next generation of consoles will have disc drives most likely, but we're a ways off from those being launched just yet at least. One thing to note is Nintendo. They have some control over the second hand market as they do a number of game releases where they're bundles, but only the first game is on the cartridge, and the others are codes, which obviously you won't get if you buy the game second hand. Plus their games seem to retain their second hand value in general to the point a lot of times, buying new makes just as much sense as second hand. Though you run the risk of Nintendo shutting down the digital services and not transferring purchases across to the next platform, which has been the case with the DS/3DS/Wii/WiiU to the Switch. We're on the cusp of the Switch getting a replacement, though I don't think they'll be breaking the backwards compatibility on that at least. Seemingly so far of the console makers, only Microsoft seems to have carried across purchases on Xbox Live across all generations of consoles fully (With some exceptions for games removed from the store due to licences expiring etc). Sony partially does this, but their first two consoles didn't really have stores like the first Xbox did, so it is only from the PS3/PSP/Vita onwards they could offer it realistically and so far they've not that I know of and their offerings of backwards compatibility is lagging significantly still.

They take a much bigger cut from digital sales than disc sales. This is true across the industry. Microsoft, Nintendo, they all want you to buy from their stores as they take the most money that way.

Was good to talk with you at the show, was a good weekend. Though it felt odd being at a show again as an exhibititor. A very tiring weekend as expected, but worth it. I expect to sleep most of the week!

There's also the narrow gauge diesel bagley from Bachmann coming. If Hornby ever did move into narrow gauge, their 48ds would be a good basis for the narrow gauge versions made (I'm simplifying here though). There are many variations of the sentinel from different engine manufacturers as well that could be done.

Plenty of industrial designs for battery, electric, diesel and steam (and even petrol). The Hornby pecketts and 48ds as well as the sentinel have been some of their more popular releases in recent years. With the cost of living, a small affordable industrial locomotive (especially if it was available in ncb and could work with the wagons they already have) would be a good seller I reckon. Certainly an area for the smaller makers to exploit as there's so many options available to choose from and their unlikely to be copied by the bigger names.

A full 100% charge is typically not advised due to the effect on the life of the battery over time. Similarly taking the battery below something like 25% is often not advised. 30-80% being the sweet spot. This is much the same as most lithium ion batteries and the same advice applies for laptops, smartphones and tablets. It will vary by brand, but some will cut off before getting to 100% and often indicated as 100% on some models when it is closer to 80% than 100%. Again for battery longevity. The battery will have a different level of provisioning that is not available for use to try and counter the degradation over time.

Set up last night. A nice spacious venue. Looking forward to a great show.

Always going to get complaining of some kind I think regardless of what you do. People tend to love a moan. Anyway, you have done what you could given difficult circumstances and I expect most people will understand the situation. I think as long as you're clear about the catering situation then people will have the ability to plan accordingly. There's a Toby carvery not too far from the city centre that does good meals last time I visited it. Typically in the past I've tended to take my own food as the offerings are usually not cheap at a lot of shows (especially the larger shows), so taking your own can save you a fair amount to put towards the traders.

As Darius says, as they've only just taken over the range, there will be lots of accumulated stock to go through, catalogue, moulds to inspect and catalogue, prices to calculate and so on. All this takes a lot of time like it did with the exKirk range and others. The fact the range has been aquired and will return is the important thing as very few companies produce such stock.

They no longer seem to be active on eBay it would seem, so potentially they've stopped selling the kits now? I know they were trying to get people to buy outside of eBay to avoid the fees however, which eBay really doesn't like.