spikey

and you've forgotten that it should be "Christian name" ...

Stand by for a visit from the Thought Police. I believe the term now is "first name".

Oooooh I'm all for that. I can think of no end of candidates, starting in Westminster ...

That house in this neck of the woods would be £450,000 on an estate, more if non-estate. Cheapest house we've seen for sale this year is £205,000 for a 2-bed end of terrace that needed major building works and was in a very poor location. Cheapest new build £385,000 for tiny 3-bed semi on perhaps the worst plot on a big estate. Starting price for a 2-bed flat (over a shop, with no provision for parking anywhere near) £205,000.

Thank you gentlemen. So in order to make a, decent return on their investment, the big boys have to cram in as many small 3/4/5-bed houses with small gardens as the planning authority will allow, throw them together ASAP and then price them at the highest price they can. Is there then no hope of anyone nowadays building decent 2-bed homes with gardens that ordinary working couples in their 20s might actually be able to afford?

Within a one mile radius of where I'm sitting right now in Sussex, there are four new estates being built, each of more than 100 "units". Needless to say this is something of a hot topic locally, and one thing that keeps cropping up in conversation is how much money developers make. Nobody I know has any idea. So ... Does anybody present happen to know if a big developer like Dandara buys a site and builds 100 homes on it, how much profit do they hope to achieve as a percentage of the average selling price?

I seem to be in a minority of one in failing to see how anyone can find anything degrading unless they choose to see it that way.

Yes, that must be it. Their choice to see things that way though. Over the last 10 or so years I've had to claim benefits, answer searching questions about our circumstances and indeed on one occasion be interviewed after "the computer" thought something amiss, but I've never chosen to see this as begging the government for money. I see it simply as simply claiming whatever I'm entitled to. Maybe that's because I don't have a television or read the red tops. Dunno.

Personally I've never allowed myself to feel degraded by it. AFAIC if it's necessary in order for me to gain an improvement in my circumstances, I'm fine with that 🙂

Can you help me to understand that? As one who is on a means-tested benefit, I simply fail to see what the problem is.

Further to my last post on page 1, I forgot to say that since The Lady Wife and I discovered that as well as being officially "in relative poverty" and "in food poverty" we're also apparently unable to live with dignity, we now wonder does this make us undignified? Indignant? Indigent? Whatever, one delight in retirement was hitting 75 after being pestered for decades by TV licencing who refused to believe that we haven't had a television since 1981. I still have no TV, but I now have a free TV licence on principle! And just to chuck a pebble into the pond - is it right that everyone, irrespective of their financial circumstances, gets a winter fuel payment each year once they hit State Pension age?

Well I'd love to know where The Lady wife and I have gone wrong. 12 years now since we had to pack up working, and we're quite happy on a total combined income of £12,800 - exactly the same as this study reckons is the bare minimum for a single person to "live with dignity" ...

'tis the latter.

The Grauniad reports that according to a study by the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association, a retired couple now need at least £19,000 a year to live "with dignity", assuming that the house in which they live is paid for. A single retired person apparently needs £12,800. Should retired persons wish to live a "moderate" lifestyle, the figures are £34,000 and £23,300 respectively. Interested to know others' thoughts on this ...

AFAIC a "prepper" is an American with a peculiar beard and a manic look in his eyes who owns a couple of rifles and a big hunting knife, with which he imagines he would be able to "live off the land" should the need arise. Either that or it's one whose basement is filled with row after row of neat shelving upon which is stacked enough tins of food to keep a family fed for at least a year. Assuming of course that they can find the tin opener. And that it works when needed. My Lady Wife and I are not "preppers", but we do have two multifuel stoves upon which we can cook, and enough properly-seasoned logs to last at least two winters. We have enough tinned and bottled food to last us at least three months at our normal rate of consumption; six or more if we rationed it, plus the contents of our fridge/freezer. We have at all times 80 litres of fresh tapwater in food grade containers, and roughly 1200 litres of rainwater which can if needed be used for flushing the loo. We always have a stock of at least three months of prescription meds, plus the usual over-the-counter stuff. And so on ... So as the OP asks, what are we "prepping" for? The answer in our case is simply uncertainty. We are both getting on a bit, and neither of us has any family. We could not rely on friends or neighbours to help us out in an emergency. It's therefore a nice feeling to know that we can keep ourselves going for at least a few months without the need to go shopping or call on outside help. There's other benefits too. When our water went off for four days in December it was but a minor inconvenience. When we lost electric for 14 hours after the idiot with the digger dug up the cable in the road a couple of months ago, life carried on as normal thanks to torches and power banks for the phones. And so on again ... The older we get, the happier we are with our situation 🙂

Mother and 12 year old son walking along the prom at Blackpool. Lad spots a poster of George Formby. "Eee mum who's that funny-looking fella?" "That's George Formby that is and if you don't stop playing with it in the bath, that's what you'll look like when you grow up."

Having regard to the area in which the fire was centered and its proximity to your nether regions, that could have turned nasty ... Will your insurance company cough up for the repairs?

OK, we have a successful outcome. £70-worth of Screwfix SDS-plus drill + £14-worth of 16 x 600mm drill bit has given me a very nice hole through 420mm of astonishingly hard ironstone rubble wall with hardly any effort on my part, and saved me having to engage a tradesman tradesperson to do the job I'm doing.

Sounds like the very one I've ordered from them. Seems like a lot of drill for £70.

I'm currently awaiting delivery of an SDS-plus drill, which is something I have no experience of whatsoever. Am I correct in thinking that when drilling masonry on the hammer drill setting, one applies pressure in order to keep the bit biting in the same way as when using a non-sds hammer drill? Or do these newfangled drills use some magic which means there's no need to lean on the drill (so much)?

FWIW I finally managed to get two sparkies to actually come and see what's what. Neither have yet got back to me with a price, but I suppose it's early days yet. Both opted to come off a twin socket on the kitchen wall, go through the wall, and run along it towards the shed. From there, one favoured going to the shed via the rear elevation of the kitchen, over the annex doorway, along the bathroom wall and then across to the shed at a height of about 2.3M, the cable supporting itself across the 1.5M gap. T'other bloke has a far better idea: remove pointing between paving slabs 'twixt kitchen wall and shed, drop cable into groove, then up and through shed wall at about 50cm above ground level, re-point slabs and Bob's yer mother's brother. This is obviously our preferred option, subject of course to the quote being affordable. Both sparkies are established and suitably qualified. Neither of them mentioned what the regs say ...

I had a nice weekend too. Didn't cut the grass on Friday though as we dug it up ages ago to grow veg. Saturday was great, as I got the OK to cut up and remove an ash tree by the side of the road nearby that had blown over. This took most of the day for me, involving as it did cutting it into 3ft sections, which my wife and I took home on the back of our electrically-assisted bikes (we gave up the motor car when I had to retire). Took maybe a dozen trips between us, but that's free firewood to keep us warm for at least a week the winter after next. Not only that, but my wife did very well at the community pantry in the morning, coming home after getting there 30 minutes before kickoff to be first in the queue, with free bread, teabags, soup and mandarins as well as tinned peas and a packet of instant borscht. Sunday was as perfect as it gets though. Up as usual at 0630, bowl of porridge and a cup of coffee, then off for a very nice 12-mile ride round the lanes in search of horse poo for the garden. Came back with maybe 8-9kg of good stuff. Then scavenging more firewood nearby, bringing it home, cutting it up and stacking it while my wife pottered in the veg garden. Cooked tea as usual, washed up, made a drink and just as we'd both settled down to read our library books (having given up the television in 1981), an alert on the phone from Olio brought us three packs of perfectly fine chestnut mushrooms, four lemons and a rye sourdough bloomer in return for nothing more than a 15-minute bike ride. Blessed be Tesco and their out-of-date food donations. All this, pleasant weather, the company of my wife of 40 years - and not much longer to wait now for my second replacement knee! (Haven't bought anything for the railway for at least a year as funds don't allow, and come to think of it I haven't played with my trains since March. Too busy at the moment trying not spend money!)

There's probably an old Russian one too showing how to throw yourself under the tank with a satchel charge ...

Alas no.

So a lucky shot (or laser strike?) to that little lot and the gunner's somewhat stuffed?