tillson

It’s appalling, but what choice do they have?

Thank you. The burst was on the cold mains water supply within the house. It's actually a bungalow and the pipe fed the cold water tap in the kitchen. As you say, I thought water companies use water towers / gravity maintain a constant head of water which provide a buffer against any spikes created by the mechanical pumps. A sort of hybrid gravity / mechanical pump delivery system. I know 100% that the pipe froze. The Met Office data indicates -10C and correspondence from the solicitor states the heating hadn't been switched on. They have actually convinced the SRA that the cold weather wasn't a factor and that it was is surge in water supply pressure (coincidentally during the period of cold weather) which caused to pipe joint to fail. You know this is a lie, I know it's a lie and the solicitor knows that she is lying, but dealing with these people is very difficult and time consuming. You are met with a wall of unchallengeable ignorance and sense of superiority. It's been a bit of an eye opener. I've not done with them yet. Not by a long way. I heard from the SRA yesterday saying they have found that the solicitor failed to insure the property as comprehensively as they could and should have done. That's going to be very useful evidence for the negligence claim, but in all honesty the money is a very distant second priority. I want her held to account for the very obvious lies she has told whilst trying to cover her incompetence. There is a lot more that I haven't bored you with on here. These people are no better than the scum which cons vulnerable people out of their life savings. It's just that she wears an expensive frock whilst doing it. Complete filth.

Good morning, a slightly random question; Is it possible for domestic water pressure to surge to the extent that it will cause a water pipe joint inside the house to sperate and cause a leak? The joint in question is a nut & olive type assembly that had been installed approximately 30 years ago and has previously shown no sign of leaking. I am currently in dispute with a firm of solicitors who, as designated Trustees / Executors of an estate, have responsibility for safeguarding the assets. A pipe joint located in the loft of a house, which forms part of the estate, separated last December and caused flooding. The damage is estimated to be around £60,000. My investigations have revealed that the leak occurred during a period when the temperature fell to -10C and was well below zero several days either side (Met Office supplied historical daily temperature records). The property was unheated at the time (admitted by solicitor). The property was not insured against escapes of water (admitted by solicitor). The solicitor is charging the estate for the cost of repairs. The solicitors are claiming that the pipe did not freeze (actually used those words), but "excess pressure" forced the pipe joint apart. I won't go into detail why, but if they can have the excess pressure theory accepted, it gets them off the hook over a very serious allegation of lying / general dishonesty which is currently being investigated by the Solicitor Regulation Authority (SRA). The SRA are making noises which sound to me like they might buy into the "excess pressure" theory. My thoughts are that a likelihood of a surge in water supply pressure is so small, it can be considered impossible. My understanding is that mains water pressure is generated by three components, 1) Water Density, 2) Gravity and 3) the height of the reservoir / district water tank above the property in question. Nothing else can change that. They are the only factors in play. 1) Gravity has remained constant since the dawn of time. 2) Fresh / drinking water density is also a constant. 3) The difference in elevation / geography of the landscape between the property in question and the reservoir will not alter. The above factors are why our ancient ancestors devised this system of water infrastructure. It provides a constant and stable method of water delivery to areas of civilization. The options the SRA have to decide on are: Did the pipe joint separate during a period when the temperature was -10C and the property was unheated? Or did the gravity (which has been constant for millennia) suddenly quadruple? Has drinking water suddenly become four time more dense? Has the geography of the UK suddenly altered to an unrecognizable extent? It sounds pant wittingly stupid, but I think the SRA are buying into the gravity / density / geography shift theory! Can someone please point out any holes (excuse the pun) in my theory?

Hi OG, I'm very sorry to hear that your wife has passed away. I hope your own health issues are under control. I don't come here very often these days, but you will probably be amused to learn that I am of the opinion that Brexit is a disaster for the country. I was taken in . There is no Brexit goodness just around the corner, only decline . I should have listened, but I always have to learn the hard way .

This is an extract from the BBC’s news app. “Electric motorbikes - or 'e-bikes' - may be an increasingly popular way to get around but have been blamed for terrorising neighbourhoods with anti-social and dangerous riding” I wish they would draw the distinction between an e-bike and an electric motorcycle more clearly. I don’t know if the BBC give the impression that they are the same thing deliberately, due to lack of knowledge, lazy journalism or a combination of all three. This sort of reporting plants the idea that e-bikes are toys owned by chavs, like quad bikes and e-scooters tend to be.

i think Pedelecs needs an Electric Car side to it. Although I don’t contribute much these days, I still like to look in. It’s a good place to find balanced & non-biased information.

People are catching nut-jobitis off Facebook. Put the phone / tablet down and get outside and do some gentle exercise outdoors with other people.

Was that the episode with the idiot woman? The one who voted Brexit because people working on her house roof had to wear safety equipment, whereas in Germany and France (where she's never been), she thinks they can work on a roof without safety equipment. Unbelievable.

Just threaten to leave. Virgin dropped my 150 Meg Broadband and basic TV to £14 / month.

If the parents facilitated access to the machine upon which their child died, either by buying it for them or allowing them to ride it on a road, then in my personal opinion, they would be the people to take responsibility and face appropriate charges.

Some of these electric motorcycles are capable of rapid acceleration. Inexperienced children riding them can achieve lethal speeds much quicker than they realise. I was out on a club ride a few weeks ago (unassisted conventional road bikes). We were cruising along, on a country lane at 23 mph on a slight downhill with a breeze behind us. A child no more than 12 years old overtook the group on an E-Scooter. No helmet. It must have been doing 30 mph+. You have to question how the child was able to get their hands on the scooter.

I don’t think anyone is trying to deny that the deaths of the three youngsters is anything but tragic. There are a couple of overriding factors involved: The laws relating to the sale of electric motorcycles and hence their easy availability to the public. Parents not accepting parental responsibility for their children and not providing a proper duty of care. Correct any one of those two factors and the three children would be alive. The police have been criticised for taking action. The available evidence suggests that the action was low level and consisted of observing from some distance. The alternative to what the police did in both cases is to do nothing. Effectively ignore any laws that are in place to protect people. If the police did this, I think there would be more deaths and more injuries and more criticism of the police for doing nothing. In both recent cases, the spotlight needs turning on the parents and questions asked as to why their children, for whom they are responsible and have a duty of care, were riding high performance motorcycles on roads without safety equipment.

From the published pictures of the bike involved in this tragic incident and the one in Wales a couple of weeks ago, both appear to involve electric motorcycles. The Daily Mail has published photos of flowers at the scene In Manchester. In the foreground are two electric motorcycles, both have a rider and pillion not wearing helmets. There are a lot of unknowns, but we do know that in both cases the police were not perusing the motorbikes. In the case of the Wales incident, there was a gap of 16 second between the motorbike and police van. We also know that for whatever reason, the children involved in both incidents had been facilitated access to high performance motorcycles and as a result of inadequate supervision, been able to use them on a road without any safety equipment. Electric motorcycles of this type can reach 50 mph very rapidly. The focus of both incidents should rightly include the actions of the police, but also the actions of parents and how their children came to be in possession of a high performance motorbike on a road. The distinction between E-Bike and electric motorcycle needs reporting more clearly, particularly by the BBC. They should be reporting more responsibly than they are doing with this type of incident.

Excellent!

I had a message from the Bikeability Trust the other day encouraging me to use the term Cycle instead of Bike. The thinking goes along the lines of Bike referencing bicycle. The Bi bit of bicycle implying two wheels which in turn may make a user of a cycle with more than two wheels feel excluded. I imagine the author of the message is considering a cyclist with a disability. I’ve never considered the term bike to mean anything other than a wheeled contraption propelled by a human being. Bike to me has always loosely meant a unicycle, two wheeled bike, tricycle and so on. I can’t make my mind up if the message from the trust is necessary or if it’s the work of a crack-pot with too much time on their hands who’s wasting rations by occupying a job which is unnecessary.

Is anyone still using an old Panasonic powered Kalkhoff bike? I still have one that is 15 years old. I stopped counting the mileage when it went past 30,000 a few years ago. I’ve not used it for over a year, but I do keep an eye on things and maintain it/occasionally put a small charge in the battery. I took it out for the first time in over a year yesterday, and did a 35 mile ride with about 1300 foot of climbing. Remarkably, the battery was just over 50% charge at the end! The bike rides beautifully, seems to have lots of pulling power and is generally a pleasure to ride. It’s a bit on the heavy side, but that doesn’t really bother me. I just wondered if anyone else is still riding one now they are around 15 years old and what they think? I should probably say, that I bought an aftermarket 18 Amp / hour battery about 10 years ago.

It’s impossible to get that message across when energy company execs are taking money home in wheelbarrows, government cronies are making billions from dodgy contracts and the prime minister is so rich he doesn’t know how to use money. Since Covid & furlough, people don’t like working anymore, so we may as well enjoy the coronation moment. It might be our last treat before the entire shitshow economy comes crashing down.

I didn’t mind. The coronation is probably irrelevant, but in general terms it can give some people a bit of happiness. Street parties, watching the ceremony on tv with other people and a bank holiday all brings people together. That can’t be a bad thing.

.... and I suspect they would vote for Boris Johnson again if he made a come-back. I think Johnson offers the best prospect of a Tory win at the next election. There is a lot of support and admiration for him. Mostly coming from the people that he shat on from the greatest height last time he was in office . You have to hand it to the bloke if he can pull that off.

I’m getting slightly concerned that a billionaire dwarf that no member of the public elected and, a comedian, turned president, might drag us into a war that nobody wants. I see Liz Truss is still around and dressing up in Margaret Thatcher’s old clothes too. A bit troubling.

I advertised a car. The winning bidder contacted me the following day to say he’d bid whilst drunk so his bid isn’t binding and he doesn’t have to follow through with the sale. You now have to wait 4 days before cancelling and re listing. EBay isn’t what it used to be. It’s so biased towards buyers that it’s full of time wasting twats. You can’t even trash a bad purchaser with lots of negativity either. It will be the last time I use it to sell anything.

I hear that, “Green Celebrity Money Maker” Sir Richard Beard is scheduled to chuck some junk into space today. I wouldn’t exactly call it a “rocket launch”. It’s more lighting a firework on a Jumbo. Very “green”.

I never understood why the government thought that the best way to bring democracy to Afghanistan was to send a prince in a helicopter gunship. Very odd.

According to an “insider” after Bill Middleton had planted Ginger, he lay on the floor covered in Winalot and said, “I’m going to tell daddy” Bill Middleton replied “James Hewitt doesn’t frighten me he’s an effing cunt”.

I’m afraid I have absolutely no interest in any of it.