admiles

Things have changed. Trading Standards are quite proactive on doing quayside checks these days and work closely with HMR&C to target likely problem products. That said they can only physically check a small percentage of imported products for fairly obvious reasons. As an aside there won't have been a container landed at Lowestoft for many, many years!

My comments were referring to commercial imports through sea/air ports. Trading Standards do lots of checks, targeting electrical items, toys etc. Items arriving via post aren't my area of expertise but I'd imagine they come in unchecked.

In theory an electrical product like this would be checked for quality by Trading Standard on import. In practice.... well I'll leave you to decide how well that system works.

Only if you get the accessory bag with the model......I didn't! Which brings up the small issue of handrails.

I work Felixstowe. Lots of very rich container hauliers here I can assure you. Maritime, Goldstar, 3PL, James Kemball, the list goes on. Of course not everyone is in that league. We use 3-4 small hauliers and a few owner drivers. We try to be as fair as we can with rates, always have done. Our profit margin on a FCL container delivery is £20-£30 at best. A lot of the time we're doing it at cost. We've had hauliers recently emailing late on Friday after saying "as on Monday morning your agreed rates will quadruple". And this is for work already booked for Monday morning. Basically it's blackmail as they know you wouldn't find anyone else to do the job at that short notice. Phoning your customer and explaining they either cough up the extra or don't get their container isn't popular as you can imagine. It leaves a very bad taste after years of supporting hauliers by being loyal even when we could have found better rates elsewhere. Plus paying small hauliers weekly (and even on the day they actually do the delivery in a couple of cases) to help their cash flow.

Nope! I'm much worse than the other half. I always like to have some idea where our two cats are and keep a mental note of what time they go out etc. I regularly go out armed with a torch late at night to round up Merlin our tabby kitten who's a right little terror before bed. Daft I know but they're family.

From the other side of the fence (freight forwarder) I could also said there are an awful lot of hauliers who are milking the fuel and driver shortage issues to line their own pockets. Yes fuel costs have risen and drivers are having to be paid more but some job rates for container work have increased 800-900% in six months! No one can claim their cost have gone up that much. I'm pretty sure drivers haven't had pay increases of that percentage!

It's a shame Heljan have gone for a cold white LED for the headlight. A halogen bulb would never be that colour. Overall I'm pleased with my Railfreight triple grey model. I do need to try and get some of the footsteps that attach to the buffer beam though as mine only has 1 our of 4! (it wouldn't be a Heljan if there weren't a few bits missing!)

Having ridden motorbikes for many years I can assure you people frequently step out in front of it. That's despite it being a large CC V-Twin (reasonably loud), a headlight on and me being decked out in Hi-Viz. Same goes for cars pulling out in front of you too...

I'd rather hope your friend doesn't have too much experience of a class 60 above 60mph....

That's positively civilized..... Allow young Merlin here to demonstrate "no decorum at all"...... (and yes, he's fast asleep)

I still qualify for a 10% discount on any Hapag-Lloyd cruise or flight despite not having worked for them for well over 20 years! They were a superb company to work for and I still miss my days there.

Sadly nothing unusual in that. Had to reapply for my job three times in my career, every time at a lower salary. From the outside it looks as if P&O Ferries simply isn't a viable business any more and should be either sold or wound up.

My local Royal Mail depot have been doing this for years. They never and I truly mean never deliver a parcel to your door. You always have to take the card and collect it from the sorting office.

Pretty "paperweight"! 😛

Seems like an excellent plan to me.........it'll never happen!

Can't find fault in any of that tbh apart from the possible exception that if enough people choose to boycott P&O Ferries bang go the jobs anyway. So we have: Scenario A) - Carry on as before with UK crews and the business goes down the tubes as it's fundamentally nonviable. UK crews lose their jobs Scenario B) - Bring in cheaper agency staff. UK crews lose their jobs and the possible resulting boycott by customers killing it off anyway. Of course there's a possible (but very unlikely - Tory government) option C - Nationalize it due to the existence of the service being in the national interest? Plus they don't have a monopoly with DFDS and soon to be Irish Ferries on the Dover - Calais route. Bit of a "cluster" all round really...

Ah ok, that makes a lot more sense!

Can't read that as not a member of that forum. All I'll say on the matter is if they're shipping European market cargo on the Ever Forward they need to drastically re-think their shipping strategy and employ a better forwarding agent!

Wouldn't have thought anything destined for the UK market would have been affected by the Ever Forward grounding. She is on a Far East - US East Coast rotation. Bachmann US market stock maybe? One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned here regarding the P&O mess is the fact the company is hemorrhaging money and in most circumstances would have gone bust years ago. It's only that the owning group DP World have been propping it up that it still exists at all. While I certainly don't condone what P&O/DP World have done, I'm not sure the company could have continued as it had been. No easy solution there.

I thought it was just me..... I do exactly the same!

I'm sure these problems aren't plaguing everyone but frankly I'm not really bothered about "everyone". I am bothered about my mother's meter (and my own) because it's me that has to waste numerous hours on the phone trying to sort out the mess that didn't exist when a normal meter was fitted. Why on earth would I change to a smart meter? What possible benefits would changing bring to me versus the possible problems? None as far as I can see so why take the risk? Your analogy about smart TVs falls over because a smart TV brings me things that a standard TV doesn't. A smart meter brings zero benefits to me. If other people want to swap to one because it offers them something a normal meter doesn't, go for it. That's their choice. I believe the claims about saving money made to an elderly lady who doesn't understand the technology by pushy sales people on the phone are very much a con. You're feel to think otherwise. As for "being blinded". Rather patronizing there but again your opinion. I'm not blinded in any way thank you. Just using my experience to make a decision that a smart meter offers me no advantage over a normal meter.

For you the old style meter might "do not do the job perfectly well". For me my old style (it's 6 years old) works perfectly. I've have absolutely zero need for a "smart" meter. My mother was conned into having one fitted by her supplier and it's been nothing by trouble. Leaving her without electricity on four separate occasions so far. When it does keep the supply on it fails to report reading to the supplier meaning estimates bills and endless phone calls to try and get the account back to where it should be. Her gas "smart" meter has also just started to not send in readings too so no doubt that'll also mean more phone calls to to try and sort out. I'll happily stick with entering my meter readings on the app on my phone once a month because frankly it's a lot less hassle!

The state of preservation of Endurance is staggering.

A mere wee slip of a thing.........mine 90 is this year! (granted not the one I drive daily)