Paul

So I buy a motor home, it costs me 50k, 60k, 80k, possibly even more. I have to tax it, insure it, MOT it, once it's three years old, service it every year, and once I get home it stands in the driveway or storage compound slowly depreciating. I spend more money on a micro car, small Citroens and Peugeots seem to be the most fashionable. Another vehicle to tax, insure, mot, service every year. When it gets home it might get used, more likely it won't, it too sits on the driveway slowly, or rather rapidly depreciating. I've spent more money having a tow bar and electrics fitted to my motorhome plus modifications to the car to allow me to plug in the lights, override the steering lock etc. When I go away I'm towing so I'm now subject to the same restricted speed limits as someone towing a caravan. When I arrive on site I have to unhook the car etc. Then when I've done all that and put the kettle on and sit back to enjoy my cuppa I have less room on board than I would have in a caravan. Then when I want to go out for the day I crush myself into a roller skate with a lawn mower engine and hope that I don't come across too many 1 in 5s. Alternatively I could spend 25k on a top of the range caravan, the same again on a nice car to pull it, I only have one set of tax and mot to pay, the car is used at home so not just a holiday expense, I have more space in my caravan than a motor home (unless I've spent serious money on a coach built), and when I want to go out for the day I have a comfortable vehicle to do it in. I understand the benefits of a motor home to those people who want to tour, spending one or two nights before moving on, such as Cal, but spending twice the money of a caravan on a motorhome, then using it like a caravan makes just as much sense as those who spend twice the price of a PC on a Mac and use it in windows mode.

The debate between Caravan and Motorhome has raged just about as long as we've had motor vehicles and cultivates disputes more heated than anything that this forum has seen in defence or attack of the blessed authority. You pay your money and take your choice. We're committed caravanners, my sister and brother in law equally committed to their motor home. The only thing I cannot, for the life of me understand is those who have a motor home and then tow a small car behind it.

But you can't charge any flooded battery at anything like that level of current, theoretically or otherwise, without damaging it. Even enhanced batteries like EFB and AGM should not be charged at currents higher than 30% of their capacity and even then only for a short period. My workshop charger rates upto 60a and can be automatic or manual (it calls it forced). At 60a it would destroy the plates in a 110a battery in minutes. On auto with as much current available as the battery can handle then the fastest it can recharge a fully discharged deep cycle battery is around 4 hours,

or even what! I have to admit to never having been in the White Swan. Stops in Great Yarmouth have been few and far between and when our timetable did require one then the Suspension Bridge was always the pub of choice. Been a few years though.

seriously? How many amps are you charging at, and how do you stop the battery exploding. Even from a 50% discharge my rough calculator suggests in excess of 200A?

Get yourself a coffee, this could get a bit long. We have a caravan so normally look for somewhere we can pitch for several days, but there have been occasions we look for somewhere more off grid for a couple of nights, then move on to somewhere that we can empty that which must be emptied and recharge that which must be recharged. Elaine and I have a strange way of ranking sites, "goodness" and "niceness". Good is based on what facilities there are and if they are clean etc. Nice is more of a personal opinion based on location, are the people friendly, do we feel comfortable there etc. A site can score low on goodness and still be nice and we'll visit time and time again, but even if it's the best site in the world if we don't find it nice then we would not go back. Starting with the more informal sites, i) Keeler's Meadow - Sutton. Operated by the garden center this is our favorite site. Techincally a C&CC CS but we have never been asked for membership (which we don't have!). A typical CS with five pitches, mixed between grass and gravel, with drinking water, waste disposal, chemical disposal point (CDP), electric hook ups and a little wooden shed hosing a toilet, book exchange and information board. They also have a rally field attached which is all grass with one additional pitch with hookup and loads of grass pitches. Rarely busy but pre book to be sure. No drive over disposal point as far as I'm aware. ii) Dog Inn, Ludham Bridge. Geoff runs a camping field alongside the pub which serves good food and real ales. Only facility is a water tap though Geoff will usually leave the toilet door open if there are campers in the field. Pitches are all grass and usually quite firm even in wet weather. If necessary I'm sure he'd find you a hard stand to over night on. iii) Landamores - Wroxham. As Poppy says this is also a C&CC CS, nice location plus all the facilities of the boatyard / marina but beware! The site is right next to the bridge over the marina entrance which clangs like the bells of hades every time a vehicle goes over, which they do with alarming regularity. It gets on your **** after a while. iv) Beeches Farm - adjacent to Womack Staithe. This is a C&MC CL so five pitches with good facilities but adults only, hence we have not visitied. My sister has with their motor home and enjoyed the site. Strictly Caravan & Motorhome Club members only. v) Gale Cruisers, Loddon. Lovely site with decent facilties. Another C&MC CL and strictly members only, they will check. They have an excellent online availability chart which lets you select your specific pitch, as some are riverside and some a few yards away. has water / showers / toilets hook ups etc, not sure of drive over disposal. Very popular so book early. Never feels busy though, even if all five pitches are occupied. vi) Hipperson's - Beccles. Much like Gale, another C&MC CL. Toilets, water, hook ups. Also very popular. Of the more formal sites we have tried a few, but in truth prefer the smaller sites above, the exception being Reedham Ferry which has a lovely site next to the pub. There is also Waveney River Centre with excellent facilities on the river side at Burgh St Peter though last time we looked at it it was very expensive, but if you want the facilities it's worth a look. Bureside Holiday park at Oby is also worth a look. We stayed here a number of times when it was called Boundary Farm, but when the name changed the prices went up sharply. Like WRC it has a swimming pool so if that's important to you then worth considering. There are plenty more. UKCampsite.co.uk is an excellent source for finding sites, plus there is a book published which lists pubs that allow motor homes to over night, sometimes FOC if using the pub. I'm not sure of the exact name but I'm sure you'll find it with a quick google.

Try buying it nowadays. I did start looking a while back at a direct drive machine, perhaps something like an Akai with 10" reels but the machines are fetching four figure sums and 2400ft reels in excess of fifty pounds a pop. I was never a fan of compact cassettes although my hifi system did have a nakamichi (which I still have somewhere), mostly used for talking books. I progressed to CD, CD-r, Laser Disc and Mini Disc (which should have caught on much better than it did). Now I download my music and audio books and use the network to load it directly to the dashboard of my car. No tape, no disc, just a tingling in the ether. Despite all the progress I still look back at that pre-digital technology so fondly. I still have a copy of White Christmas on 10" shellac.

That looks like the three speed TD10 to me but Howard would know better.

I used to have a teac 2300, 3.75/7.50 dual speed dolby which I bought from a flea market in Loughborough around 1985. It was not working and paid a fiver for it and a praktika slr camera. It came with a waxed paper envelope with replacement drive bands which did the trick, plus a good clean around the heads and pinch rollers and it worked a treat. Sounded lovely too. It came with reels that included stuff such as The Beatles, The Eagles etc. Alas when my attention turned to Dolby Pro-Logic it had to go to fund the new home cinema. Needless to say it went for considerably more than I paid, though I wish I still had it.

I haven't involved myself with reel machines for a long time now, and never much with Elizabethan so not really my area. Were all these machines 3 speed? I thought the three speed transport was only fitted to a few. Asking out of my own interest really.

The UK Vintage Repair and Restoration forum might be a good place to look. They deal with reel to reel machines including a lot of tips for your particular model.

Unlike cats, which have to eat meat in order to maintain good health dogs, theoretically don't, though they do require a certain amount of animal protein to remain properly healthy, and so a vegan diet should never be imposed on a dog. It is poor for things like dental health, as well as skin and bone development. It is also needed for digestive health. If you can't deal with the fact that your pet is not a vegan animal, choose something different. Don't try and adapt it to a lifestyle you chose but for which it is not designed.

I'm not sure Lewis' lack of recognition is so much to do with his humble upbringings than his success. It is hard wired into the British psyche not to like a winner. We like losers, we like silver medal because it gives us the chance to moan about how we "was hard done to" or what a heroic effort we made. Winners deprive us of that luxury. Recognition of sports stars is still very much influenced by the BBC despite the fact that as a sports broadcaster it's about as much use as a chocolate teapot, but it does still show a bit of tennis and shed loads of athletics and it is no surprise therefore that these sports tend to see the greatest recognition at Buck House or No. 10 when gongs are being chucked around. Formula 1, because of the way it's sporting and technical regulations are written is mired with controversy. Every season there are rumours that something illegal is being used by this team or that. Remember Vettel's all conquering Red Bull which was using a split rear diffuser that wasn't actually legal but not quite illegal. Ferrari with the aforementioned traction control that wasn't quite traction control, even Jenson Button's all conquering Brawn with it's blown diffuser. The Mclaren with a driver controlled aerodynamic deflector? Now we have the issue with Ferrari's deliberately leaky intercooler which allows small amounts of vapourised oil to leak into the fuel system under certain circumstances to supercharge the fuel and increase power output. People look at this and call it cheating, but technically it is not, because at the time these devices were introduced the regulations did not prohibit them. Usually after a season or two the rules are re-written to prevent their use and the team involved will look for (or usually already have) some other innovation to provide or maintain an advantage. This can happen because the Formula 1 rule book is missing a clause written in to most other sports along the lines of "Anything not permitted by these regulations is not permitted". It sounds like double dutch but it is hugely relevant. It means that if the rules don't say that you can do something, then you cannot do it. Such a rule would have prevented all of the above "innovations" and give us a much more competitive formula. The governing body has tried to introduce such a rule on numerous occasions right back to the 1970s but because such a change requires the agreement of all teams it has never been able to. The ability to research these advantageous, and very expensive gadgets along with the buying power to employ the top aerodynamicists is what keeps the richest teams at the front, and they are never going to agree to a rule change which removes this advantage. What will happen next year? It's hard to say. It is likely that Ferrari's oil charging system will be outlawed so they will be looking for another way of bridging the gap to Mercedes who have a superior chassis and aerodynamic package. If they can find one then Leclerc will be a real challenger. Right now he is the only driver on the grid with the ability to challenge Hamilton's dominance.

When we had the motor mover fitted I had to upgrade the battery, the company who fitted it for me recommended one of these from the above mentioned Tayna. https://www.tayna.co.uk/leisure-batteries/exide/er550/ It's very good and I found a voucher code online giving 10% off and free delivery. Ordered at 4pm, on my doorstep at 10 the next morning. Really well packaged and seems excellent.

It has become England's style of game play to have dynamic, mobile forwards who are excellent at breaking the gain line, carrying the ball etc but the downside is they are not so good in the scrummage or at the breakdown and that was where today's game was won and lost. No matter how dynamic your forwards are if you cannot create a platform then you can't play and England never had that.

Indeed it has, I raised it in May 2018.

I thought we had decided that the competent person requirement didn't apply to boats unless they were to be used for hiring? Anyways, if you really want a twin cavity then look for Belling B170 LPG ovens. They are recently discontinued but still odd new ones pop up on sites like Amazon and Ebay, but main retailers such as Currys / AO.com will be out of stock. I couldn't find any other twin cavity all gas ovens when I looked recently, which is bizarre when you think of the number of properties in the UK still not supplied with mains gas.

what do you mean, I'm attending the Poppy Academy Of Witticism ......

It has been a wonderful World Cup a lot of great games. It seems Japan has really taken to the event and it has been wonderfully well organised. There were some concerns over the standard of refereeing in the early games but I have to say that in the knock out rounds it has been fantastic, with referees prepared to let games flow, which is always great for the viewer. Hard luck to Wales this morning. I thought they would win but South Africa have found a way of suffocating opposing attacks in the tournament and Wales just couldn't get their dangerous attack into the game. Whilst it doesn't make for great viewing they would tell you it is simply playing to their strengths. As a life long Leicester Tigers fan I cannot complain about ball up the shirt rugby, I was bought up watching and playing it. It will be interesting to see if South Africa can close down England's back line in the final, which has been unstoppable so far. Good luck to Wales in the bronze medal game, though I appreciate it's the game nobody wants to play.

With a name like psychicsurveyor I wouldn't have thought you needed to watch it, however if you did you would have had chance to watch the later rerun which I did not post until after, which you would have known if you were aware of the circumstances before making your remark, but don't worry, I forgive you. It puts me in mind of the recent Psychic night we held at the local cricket club. The "medium" rang a couple of days before the event to ask how many people we were expecting. I thought if you were any good you'd know that already.

I'm not quite that old, The wise men are a bit before my time.

Careful, Fairt', I commented on the Grand Prix the other day four hours after it finished and got vilified. I think we're not supposed to comment on sports results until those who have their heads stuck up the own <<insert here location of choice>> have had chance to read the Guardian in the morning.

Whilst the tone and subject of this report might be somewhat questionable residential migration is an issue, and not just long distance or "cross county". Even here in the rural East Midlands their is a major issue with residential migration to our smaller villages which are popular with retired and early retireds, flown and growns, and this has pushed house prices to a point beyond where young people who have grown up in the village can afford to buy there anymore. The village where I played cricket for 30 years or so is a great example. House prices there since Y2K have risen six times faster than the average for the county, meaning prices have more than trebled in less than 20 years. The effect of this is that their are no new families in the village and the primary school, which is amongst the oldest in the country being founded in the 17th century is now marked for closure as their are not enough children in the village to justify it. To address this issue the district council has just approved a development of 26 new affordable homes on three different sites within the village to massive local protests, mostly coming from those who have moved to the village those last two decades. The new homes are to have purchasing restrictions and resale covenants in an attempt to stop the place becoming a retirement village. There is a degree of hostility between some of the long term residents who see their children having to move to distant towns in order to buy, or even rent and this is not helped by the attitude of some of the newer residents launching campaigns to silence the church bells and prevent these new homes being built. It is not an easy subject to address.

Very unlikely with the switch from refundable deposits to non refundable damage waivers, unless the party was one which met the criteria to lodge an additional cash deposit against safe return. I dislike this policy with a passion. Not only does it mean that the conscientious amongst us who return the boat as we took it over, without damage or third party claims are paying for those who, in a word couldn't give a toss, but it removes the incentive for all hirers to take care, In fact there are, sadly, those who think they are not getting value for money unless they do make use on this non refundable deposit. Accidents will always happen, what there are too many collisions caused by rank carelessness and the fault for that lies firmly at the door of the boatyards.