Jonboy

How about the W series fleet to give some interesting benchmarks???

All our Chinese suppliers work in USD.

Frankly they could be difficult enough in person when based in Abingdon.

A memorable one was the proprietor moaning to another customer about slow trade and people not dropping in anymore, and then immediately not being prepared to reserve, pre-sell or even simply confirm when a specific item was due in, or agree to call/email when it came in.

6 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

That assumes Hornby's boxes are actually routed via Felixstowe. Given their location, I'd suggest at least two other container ports they might find more convenient even without the disruption.

 

John

Southampton and London Gateway are both starting to fill with rerouted vessels from FLX so will likely get congestion quite quickly .
They also apparently have form for helping for a short while in periods of disruption and then inviting the Lines to sign up for much longer contracts, or they will stop taking the overflow.

Liverpool looks like it could go out on strike shortly as well…

My dad and I were out photographing a former canal. My dad stepped onto the “soil” in an abandoned lock and promptly sunk to his waist, a farmer was using it as a convenient slurry pit…. 

At the moment it’s becoming less the issues in China so much as the disruption from the Felixstowe strikes, we have just lost 20 days on a container as it was due in the last strikes and the vessel made all its other European stops and came back.

(Another earlier shipment recently got dumped in Germany due to congestion at Felixstowe and took 30+ days to get back to the uk as no direct services).

If not resolved soon these will start to cause havoc with Xmas stock….

Working for a wholesaler the number of trade customers who cannot follow a simple instruction to add an order number, invoice number or account number to a bacs payment is astonishing…the number of payments we try to reconcile that have come from “current account 2” or “Lloyds” etc without any trace of a recognisable customers name is bizarre…

Not sure I would want it at a retailer level.

3 hours ago, APOLLO said:

Re turning off items on standby I read it is unwise to turn off your internet router at night as many receive updated software etc overnight when traffic is lower. 

 

Any comments re this ?

 

Brit15

 

 

Not only this but the router and your local exchange will be “talking to each other” to negotiate the best connection speed. Repeated turning off and on is interpreted as a line fault so they automatically reduce your connection speed to give a more reliable connection….

6 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

This one amused me. I can see why people are attracted by the spectacle of F1, the excitement, the engineering that goes into the cars and many other things but it's not something I associate with tree hugging and saving the world by teaching us all about sustainability...

I had similar thoughts this week at a headline describing the queen as frugal, not sure which palace and household they were referring to there…

Any dimmer switches anywhere in the circuit?

7 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 Anyone who remembers the old NEC orange gloom and trying to look at stuff in that when on a crowded stall might agree.

 
Bear in mind that lighting and electrics are a significant income generator for the NEC. You don’t generally see change from £300 or so for a basic 500w socket and three strip lights over a stand at a three day show (not that I have attended as an exhibitor for around 5 years)….A cynic would think the poor lighting is deliberate….

Cough up 25p per week… 

I had a garage fail to check tracking after replacing various suspension components a couple of years back. The front tyres fitted at the same time lasted less than 12 weeks before wearing right through the canvas, both on the inside shoulder, and resulting in a puncture.

I hadn’t felt a thing through the steering but apparently the tracking was off the scale on both front wheels…

It a USB-A to USB-B cable you need, such as this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/AmazonBasics-USB-2-0-Cable-Male/dp/B00NH11KIK?th=1

Or 

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/1956854?clickSR=slp:term:usb printer cable:3:83:2

Personally still an advocate for scrapping q1, q2 and q3 format in favour of drawing names out of a hat and then each driver getting a single hot lap for qualifying…(for drivers that don’t finish the lap it could be decided on distance travelled…)

Can see Mercedes overtaking Ferrari in the constructors shortly.

8 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

As for Win11, you can always tell when its thinking about "updating" itself, performance falls through the floor as it downloads the files. Microsoft really should install servers with better throughput if they're going to force updates on the user.

 

 My windows 10 pc for work was doing that, upgrading to an SSD hard drive solved it.

The problem is the requirement in almost every EU country to have an in state fiscal representative who shares liability for VAT payments and compliance. This costs to implement and then further ongoing reporting (often in a different language) etc etc. and is likely not viable for many small businesses.

(Of course you only need to register in one EU state, for sales to all states but it’s still an onorous requirement)

(I would also be interested in @admiles thoughts as I know he sits somewhere in between us both in the day job…)

6 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

I think it a bit unfair to call shipping a sh** show. For sure conditions are exceptional, but these conditions weren't caused by the shipping sector, which has responded as well as anyone could reasonable expect to a sudden unanticipated surge in demand which was pretty much unprecedented in scale and how quickly it happened. Shipping lines and container terminals have been operating at capacity and any old boat which can carry boxes has been able to secure day rates which would have been crazy three years ago. Here in Singapore the old terminal at Tanjong Pagar/Brani Island was meant to be winding down but is still busy as the new terminal at Pasir Panjang is maxed out and the even newer port at Tuas has limited container capacity at the moment. Once boxes are offloaded getting them out of terminals to customers is a nightmare in some countries. In some countries shippers are causing problems by demanding that containers should not be sent to Asia empty whilst also complaining about delays caused by shortages of containers in Asia because they can't be repositioned quickly enough. And container shipping reduced speed (which effectively lowers capacity) to reduce GHG emissions after governments demanded such and introduced regulations which can only be complied with by reducing speed. That shipping has done as well as it has is a remarkable achievement given the problems faced over the issues of the last couple of years with a humanitarian crisis at sea, disruptions to its own supply chain and ever increasing backlogs of repair and docking work, all sorts of legal and compliance problems.

Its interesting because that flies in the face of the weekly/monthly newsletters we receive from multiple freight forwarders talking about the number of vessels tied up in Asia and blanked sailings seemingly designed to keep prices artificially high…

The two points that do tie in with the feedback we get when booking freight are the humanitarian cost on the crew of pandemic restrictions, and the slower steaming speeds that should have been apparent years in advance as legislation progressed through various legislators.

The point about empty containers has been communicated to us as shipping companies refusing to wait in port whilst empty container are loaded onboard as there is no revenue in them…

2 minutes ago, Jol Wilkinson said:

It also seems that RB have taken a step forward during the summer "shutdown", while everyone else has been static or gone backwards.

I am wondering if Red Bull had more confidence their floors would pass the revised tests that kick in this weekend, and haven’t changed them and others have?

The problem for us as a wholesaler was that any capacity we had to absorb any energy related increases was already taken up by the Sh*& show that is the shipping world at the moment.
Between the far higher container rates, (Still 2.5 to 3 times the rate at the start of 2020) and the delay after delay after delay (containers scheduled for 33 days taking 65 isn’t unusual at the moment) meaning we need to have higher stock levels on hand and in transit….

10 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

Typical F1 get-out clause though, allowing officials to ignore the rules when it suits them.
"Under exceptional circumstances however, which may include setting a suitable lap time in a free practice session, the stewards may permit the car to start the race." 🙄

Ahhh the Maldonado clause I believe, ready for when he stuffed it into the wall and prevented others setting a time??? :)

We have just moved to a property with greens out the front and no road (everyone uses their back doors with a service road behind the property).

In the first month we have seen two different takeaway drivers ride their mopeds all the way up the footpath to neighbours houses rather than walk the last 250 feet.

3 hours ago, Pete the Elaner said:

I think that was old rule which was changed/removed many years ago.

Just checked and still in on page 47:  https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files/fia_2022_formula_1_sporting_regulations_-_issue_8_-_2022-07-19.pdf