oldgregg

It's night and day I'd say. The Haines Bure 36 is pretty much the ultimate 'Alpha' bathtub whereas what Viking were producing was very 'old school hirefleet' in terms of quality. Not a terrible fitout but just nowhere near what comes out of Catfield. It must be good because I've somehow convinced Mrs OG to book Kris' Bure 36 on the Thames next year... That separate shower cubicle very much helped the decision.

You still see houses come up for sale with the old floor-standing boilers. They're not always amazingly efficient but they're insanely reliable and designed to be repaired rather than replaced. And yeah, same here I guess. My dad is a qualified mechanical engineer so we were forever taking stuff apart when I was younger. Times were a bit hard in the early 90's (as you've alluded to) and I learnt to do all manner of jobs on cars and plumbing, electrics etc to save money and it was a bit of a faff at the time but it's incredibly useful nowadays.

Those older boilers are simpler, that's the main thing. We used to have a 90's Ideal Classic with cast iron heat exchanger and it was a good old-fashioned 'heat only' boiler in that its job was purely to heat water. The only controls on it were a power switch and a temperature knob. Everything else was separate; expansion vessel, diverter valve for heating / hot water, programmer, pressure gauge, the lot. The programmer literally applied power to the boiler and it'd fire up and heat the water on which ever circuit was selected. No data communication at all between the two, simply put 240V up it and let it do it's thing. Spectacularly simple, I replaced the fan assembly on it myself when it failed and I was never really very worried that it would let us down as parts were available. Now we have a Worcester Bosch combi (part of a kitchen refit) and the instant hot water is convenient but that thing is massively more complex inside and so densely packaged to fit inside the housing that I can't see it lasting the 20 years the old one did at the point we decommissioned it.

I've fixed the problem.... Stick that on a signpost

That's what an FFD is fitted for, surely....

What device is it and what browser do you use? A quick Google will tell you how to do it on Chrome, but other browsers will be similar. For iOS, see here https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201265

A bugfix has been released, and I've just applied it. I think that seems to have resolved it, but let us know if you continue to have problems once you've tried clearing your browser cache.

They should do, yeah. Unfortunately I think time pressures etc unfortunately tend to dictate release schedules. I would expect an update within the next few days that'll solve this bug and others. If you haven't already, I'd suggest clearing your browser cache just to rule out any issues there.

I bet if we didn't apply an update and your passwords etc got compromised you'd be asking why we didn't apply the updates....

It appears that when it’s reporting you as being logged out you’re actually logged in. Given the notification that went out with the update (and the wording), it has ‘junior developer’ written all over it.

I have a suspicion we’ll see a bugfix very soon.

In fairness, that’s one of the things I miss about Thunder….

We rolled out an update yesterday for the cookie warning, I suspect they didn’t do enough QA before release….

I think there's an element of price correction that needs to happen. Personally, I was looking to hire over August B/H but hire prices have gone up year on year for the last couple of seasons and they're at a level where I made the decision to do something else instead. Boating has never been cheap (and never will be) but when hiring is more than a luxury hotel break where one doesn't have to sleep on an uncomfortable bed and try to fit into a tiny shower then something doesn't feel quite right.

I have a suspicion you know the answer

That's only part of the problem, though. You'd need to get power (and access) to them so there'd need to be a road and a substation nearby.

Ironically, Three and Vodafone have today announced plans to merge https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65842845 That'll be an interesting one as Vodafone and O2 have been sharing a lot of network infrastructure in the past few years in order to save costs.

My point was that the area is such that you can't (and shouldn't, either) get planning permission to stick a mobile mast right in the heart of the Broads.

Let's not get sidetracked.

The geography is quite complex, that's the problem. Elevation is a factor, too. Transmitters are designed to 'chuck' the signal a decent distance so they aren't pointing the signal right underneath them, though you should have decent coverage if near one. Vodafone always used to work for me at Brooms. It was quite noticeable when I changed networks as my wife was able to send me to-do lists when I was at the boat.... When I was on three, I didn't get reception until I came back up into the village. I'm not sure which was better.

Definitely. It's so variable all over the Broads that really you have to try it and see how you get on. A big (and good quality) aerial helps a lot, though, as does a half-decent router. The Huawei B535 seems popular with narrowboaters (where the whole boat is a signal blocker) and they'll often have an external aerial mounted on a small mast. You've also got ethernet ports so you can connect a TV or laptop etc to it without having the additional hassle of WiFi woes. The main issue with the Broads is that as it's a national park the mobile transmitters are only at the very edges and so sometimes you can be a really long way from one. Vodafone is generally what country-dwellers in Norfolk have but there are some dead spots (Neatishead in places there is nothing). Three has plenty of dead spots but where it works it works really well, and O2 is much the same. We had a router on Three and download speeds were excellent where there was signal.

Well... It's not actually wrong. I mean you pass the entrance to Ranworth Broad as you enter Malthouse. Also does the sign not just say 'Ranworth' ?

I remember switching from Three to Vodafone and then my phone started to work when I was at Brooms... That's five years ago now, but I don't think it has changed much having looked at Three's own coverage map. Red is good, would you believe. The patches of 'normal map' are dead spots. I used the postcode for Broom but you can see Brundall Bay on there and it's a bit mixed. With a router and a good (external) aerial, you'll fare better. But it's the aerial that makes all the difference.

The other bits have a collection of odd names

Is that the bit in the lower right, then?