AndrewC

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

When we first went to Canada none of the falls we saw were working. 
 

Did you remember to pop a loonie in the meter first? 😃

1 hour ago, The Lurker said:

As promised, here are one or two photos.

 

1.Emerald Lake - looking somewhat Emerald

2. Takkakaw Falls

3. Athabasca Falls

4. Lake Louise

5. Seton Lake - note railway line on the far shore giving a bit of perspective

6. Peyto Lake, taken from Bow Pass summit

 

 

 

Thanks for nothing. Now I'm bloody homesick. 

Seriously, rather nice pics. 

30 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

We did as a service through the satellite. As our broadband is quite adequate we opted for BT TV as a provider. We can still get any Sky stuff we want. One advantage is that you can change your package of extras monthly. Keeping even  all the stuff we had before saved us about £25 a month. If I drop Sky Sports once the  F1 and UK based cricket finish I could save a bit more. Any of the streaming services not currently in the BT TV box seem to be available on my Samsung TV (or would be if I subscribed to them).  Picture and sound from the BT box are better than from our Sky+ HD box. 

Our BT line is/was basically unusable for anything other than olde worlde land line calls. I went with the Virgins for broadband as it was the only thing available as all the others relied on that rather dodgy pair of copper wires. We kept Sky as that is what we had before we moved and we were still on contract. Over the years though we've trimmed it down to the base hd package with the Q box. Even that has gone up to £60/month now. They've been pulling fibre along our street for the past 3 months and having nothing but trouble. 

Greetings all from the boring borough. Things are fairly quiet. 

We are both fans of the mystery drama. Shame the CBC dumped Private Eyes and Frankie Drake last year. 2 really enjoyable ones. On the other hand I think I'm now the only Canadian citizen who hasn't appeared in an episode of Murdoch. Unlike Ian, I quite like the old Citroen in Provence.  There is a chap nearby to us with a bright green one that we see on occasion. I could just spew out a list of what we've watched but I won't. However, if you haven't seen it before there is the Aussie series My Life is Murder, which is part whodunnit and part Melbourne Visitor's Bureau promotion. 😃  Season 2 starts tomorrow on Alibi. We're still debating on whether to add more services and dump Sky or trim out the streams and hope anything interesting eventually shows up on one of the channels. 

I used to enjoy the NCIS series and spin offs. The original should have been retired about 5 series back, LA is now poor, and the only still decent one "New Orleans" has ended. Don't think I'll bother with Hawaii. 

On that note, time for me to murder a coffee. Enjoy the day. 

Not email but the latest scam going around is the "you have been exposed to covid" texts that have a link to order tests. I've blocked about a dozen numbers so far in the past 2 weeks. 

Welcome to the post Brexit importation minefield. In this case eBay is partly/mostly to blame as if the item is coming from the EU it should be marked as ex-vat in the price. If VAT was in the price then it is up to the seller (if a business and French VAT registered) to remove the VAT and ship it as an Non-EU export. That lets him reclaim the VAT paid on the wholesale price. It is then up to the importer (you) to pay all VAT, duties, and handling charges. Of course you could try to claim that you are being taxed (UK VAT) on top of tax (French VAT) and try to get 4% knocked off. (Fat chance) 

HMRC is also so backed up that anything that is checked can take up to 4 weeks to be inspected. Be thankful they didn't decide it was subject to duty as well as VAT. 

1 hour ago, iL Dottore said:

> Company A with very high QC standards accepts only 20% of component manufacturer X’s output. Component manufacturer X then takes the remaining 80% of the batch and goes to

The same applies for food and other goods. Generic or supermarket brand goods are mostly from name brand companies that sell on batches that fail SQC. (statistical quality control) This also explains why many of these generic items have greatly varying taste and consistency. This is also the difference in many other products like motor oil. If the base refined product doesn't meet spec, it goes into making a lower spec product. 

3 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

Of the English speaking channels, Channel 4 has to be the one that is the very definition of tasteless, crass and vulgar. Their “hit show“ Naked Attraction, not only is a perfect definition of tasteless, crass and vulgar but it is also the modern equivalent of the Victorian Circus’s freak show. If anything can be held up to be a shiny example of “car crash TV“, then this program is it.

 

A quick trawl of the tv listings will bring up far worse than Naked Attraction. You are right, the Victorian Freak show is alive and well. Best part as far as the producers are concerned is there is an endless supply of willing freaks. Plastic vacuous "people" all looking for their 15 minutes of fame. These so called reality shows are a stupidly cheap way of filling schedules. Who needs to spend 7 figures on 12 hours of quality drama, when for 1/4 of that cost you can have about 100 hours of Britain's Favourite Naked Essex Island Bakery. 

I feel a rant coming on. 

42 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

They need to pay for their "Lord of the Rings" derived television project "The Rings of Power" - the most expensive television series ever made and likely to be excoriated by die hard Tolkien fans - whether they do a good job or not.

 

The wild west days of streaming are coming to an end. Netflix is struggling. Consolidation is coming.

 

Once the greed took over and every bloody network and distributor decided to create their own service (I’m looking at you Paramount) the writing was on the wall. To get the shows I want to watch used to be about £40 for a basic HD Sky package. Now it is around £50 for Sky and another £70 for all the streaming services. I’m more inclined to wait, pick up several whole series at Fopp on Blu-Ray for a fiver each, then donate it. Likely cheaper in the end. 

I can see the Paramounts failing and crawling back to the bigger ones to distribute their programmes once people really start cutting back. My prediction is that in 18 months we will be down to 3 survivors. Prime, Netflix, & Disney. The Acorns, and others will just lose too many subscribers to survive. 

Today's useless trivia. A while back this thread mentioned Humphrey Lyttleton. In the man's honour there is a North London pub named the Lyttleton Arms. No prizes for guessing which tube station is across the street. 

2 hours ago, polybear said:

"But you'll save money!!" I hear fellow ER'ers cry (you did, didn't you?).  Well as a solo Bear it has been brought to Bear's attention by a neighbour that I'll be entitled to a 25% discount anyway as a result (but I can only claim the discount once they're happy a water meter isn't practical); whilst a meter would probably save Bear some money, I'll be a lot happier knowing that I can use the hose, pressure washer etc. without thinking "jeez, how much is this costing me?"

When we had ours foisted on us we were worried as there were 3 of us in the house. Daily showers. Loads of laundry and tons of plants that needed watering. After the first reading we were about £80 in credit from the previous paid in advance standard rate. Our actual usage is well below their guestimated one. Then again, if you aren't metered you are paying for the average area consumption that includes all the leaks. 

13 minutes ago, polybear said:

 

 

Ahh, the strong silent type. 😃

Would those of you receiving rain be so kind as to ship some our way. We've had less than 1mm in the past 3 weeks. Our water butts are bone dry and I fear for the next water bill. 

Not strictly PAYG but Lyca do a monthly £5  which I use for my work phone. It isn't a contract either but a rolling charge. I use it as an emergency 5g tether at home if the broadband goes down too. 

10 hours ago, simontaylor484 said:

Mormonism now that is another rabbit hole to fall into but seeing as we don't do religion I will leave it there

My ex is Mormon. I'll say nothing else to avoid the wrath of the mods. Very strange people. 

Moaning all from the boring borough. Looks like the bin strike has been extended for another couple of weeks. We'll be making a tip visit with all the recycling in the near future. Sadly the nearby large recycling bins were removed after they became general fly tipping magnets. There are smaller ones at the Morrisons but they tend to fill within 12 seconds of being emptied. 

Tony has got me seriously thinking about looking into the practicality of installing Solar. With longer term climate change moving away from gas and increased electric use, it makes sense to make my own and eventually go to a house wide 2 way heat pump / climate control. 

I was hoping to make it to DEMU this weekend but queuing at the recycling centre seems like so much more enjoyment. Pah!

Little else of note. Iced latte time. For me it is TGIT. Enjoy the day

2 hours ago, Tony_S said:

There are solutions available for North facing roofs called something like reverse angle mounts but they aren't exactly elegant. Normal panel fitting doesn't usually need planning approval but no idea about the reverse mount system. For the shed there are also frame systems available. Our roof was so standard it didn't have any extra fitting charges applied. We did specify pigeon guards though. They love love roosting under panels. Aditi's brother has just had them added after a few years of pigeon problems. 

Thanks Tony. I'll look into frames for the shed. The math says about 240kg total. As for the house it is east/west and a terrace so the roofing area is quite small. There is about 9m² available on the back extension that faces south. Definitely go with the pigeon guards if we end up down that route. 

27 minutes ago, Ozexpatriate said:

What's the approximate price per kWh in the UK? 

 

I understand that with competing providers and base rates, and off-peak rates etc that's a bit like asking "how long is a piece of string?" but I'm guessing you've done some basic maths.

 

Inclusive of taxes and fees, my total bill for last month represented about $0.155/kWh / £0.129/kWh.

I'm paying £0.1541/kWh plus the ripoff daily standing charge which is about £0.22/day. Our electric is about 5% higher as we buy 100% renewable which is to say it partly pays for someone else's solar as well as wind farms. Still a lot less than what many are currently paying.