fisherman

300m at 50kph = 22 second 'warning' 4 km at 80kph = 3 minutes 'warning' Both probably not much less or more than current sat nav speed camera alerts.

It’s funny but whenever there is a discussion of speed cameras out come the holier than thou, Mr. / Mrs. perfect citizen casting dispersions on anybody they consider as not as perfect as themselves.

Tiles can be a lot heavier than slate. Do some homework and make sure that the existing timber structure is up to the job. You may be lucky and the roof timbers are OK, or else you may need to add some extra structure. Not replacing the structure if the wood is sound, but perhaps placing additional joists next to or between the existing.

For our holiday home we use Intasure. Simple policy based on the number of rooms. And the best bit is that they are available to talk to (in English) evenings and weekends. I did not think the price was too bad either. They are on the internet but contact details below. Intasure Sales Office Hours Monday - Friday 9am - 8pm Saturday & Sunday 10am - 4pm Sales Tel UK: 0845 111 0680 Tel Abroad: + 44 (0)208 274 6777

As said by others you certainly need expert advice before moving to France. Preferably from more than one source. Costly maybe but it would cost you much more if your were wrongly advised. Also open your mind to other permutations, make a list. Have a simple holiday home and visit 5.5 months a year. Why a Gite why not a simple holiday home let.(Gites, B&B’s etc are more work and a greater tie on your time than many imagine) Split your time between say UK, France & Italy or Spain. Forget buying and Motor home tour all over Europe I’m sure you can think of a lot more. Good luck in whatever you decide.

I don't think its a case of preferring LD cattle class. I travel from Portsmouth and whenever I check LD have always been significantly cheaper than Brittany Ferries. Although your experience may be different.

Got a bit of River Bank near L'Isle-Jourdain if that is of interest.

I have fitted the units in our kitchen with frame fixings. You can buy quite long ones (100 - 120mm) so they will go well into the wall structure behind the plaster board. Less messing around than using batterns.

Carpy I would suggest that you do a lot (and I mean a lot) of research before you even think about setting up a business in France. France has many attributes however being business friendly is not one of them. I would suggest searching the posts on this forum for a start. There are many people who move to France to live and work however, for most it is the lifestyle rather than the business side of things that attract them. Those that I know tend to be just scraping by rather than prospering, however money is not everything and their life is reasonably stress free when compared to living in the UK. With regards to fishing tackle and bait. In most areas this is available in the supermarkets and local shops (including maggots in some places). I’m not sure that, however attractive the notion, a bait and tackle shop is something which is viable. I have not seen any in our area of France and to be sure I would have noticed one (they are a fascinating place to browse, although maybe not for everyone!). Speaking as somebody who has been in business in the UK for nearly 20 years you are better off putting the effort into developing your business because in many cases the value of the grant and the hoops you need to jump through are not worth the time and effort.

It amazes me the way people talk. Murdoch is the head of a multi national company. From the comments one would think that he was personally tapping phones and paying bungs. Now before somebody says its his company so he should know - just think about how much your managing director or chief executive knows about the day to day activities of your job. I think that people should be careful on what they wish for. He could fed up with the whole shooting match and sell up to a Russian Billionaire. Then the politicians could be dancing to the tune of the Russian Mafia (ironically amusing and rather frightening at the same time)

OK an RSJ is expensive. What about a fitched beam (Steel plate sandwiched between two wood beams.) The steel gives the strength and the wood stops the steel twisting. Quite an old fashioned solution but perhaps flat stock is easier to get from a local fabricators. Just exploring possibilities.

I expect that there is a really good reason why not. But if you are facing the lintel why not use an RSJ.

To understand the difference between flow loss and a flow restriction I would suggest reading ‘Mechanics of Fluids’ by B.S.Massey. Published by Van Nostrand Reinhold (UK) Co. Ltd. It is a really good simple text which imparts all the essentials of fluid dynamics.

If I understand you correctly previously the weight of the chimney would have been spread over a relatively long section of wall. Admittedly there is now a lot less weight however you have a short cantilever levering on the top section of the wall structure. Because it is the top section there will not be a lot of bricks above it to counterbalance the force. Possibly a good buffeting from a gale force wind may be enough to tip the balance. Without seeing it, its difficult to tell but you may be more comfortable in either reducing some of the mass furthest from the wall or placing some support under the outer end.

Pipe wall friction comes into it. The larger bore will have less resistance to flow and over a long length the resistance can be significant. Without getting out the theory book and cranking a few calculations I am not sure if the flow loss would be significant in this case. However I did something similar in our house when I re-run the pipework though a convoluted route to our new kitchen extension. Again I did not crank any calculations but just thought it would be prudent. Personally if the cost difference is not too much I would probably go for the larger bore.

I know others have said it but your work is absolutely fantastic. You are a craftsman and an artist and it gives great pleasure in just looking at the photographs. It would be great to see a few more if you have the time to post them.

We visit somebody who lives about 30m from a TVG line. We have never thought how awful the noise was so it can't be too bad or else we would have remembered.

Mr Valentine. I have been there. Customers disappearing, kept staff on longer than I should as there was always that job just around the corner. Eventually I had to close the doors and lay the staff off. I had a similar overdraft which for small businesses banks demand a personal guarantee. I also understand the stress you are under and you dread the post coming each morning to a point that you just can’t open those buff envelopes as you know what they will contain. I must admit that if you are a normal feeling person it does damage you inside. Doing a flit is not the answer. It’s time to get your head on straight. My best advice is to re-mortgage your house and pay off the debt. To do anything else will almost certainly prevent you getting credit or even setting up a new business in the future. It is a relatively small amount and it is not worth damaging your future for it. If it was ten times that then perhaps evading the debt may have been the better option. We had a word with our business banking manager and it was sorted out in an afternoon. After all it is in the banks interest at the end of the day. Take that route and the stress lifts from your shoulders. A bit of a nuisance having an additional mortgage but for that amount repayments won’t be too bad. To get it in perspective some people borrow that amount for a new car.

Unfortunately some people are especially older folk who grew up in perhaps was a more trusting time. I know of a friend of ma-in-law (80+) who received a phone call purporting to be from the police. They said that they were tracking fake notes or some such thing and asked her to draw £900 from an ATM machine and take it to a place in town. She did – nobody turned up, I guess it was a tester to see if she was being followed. Anyway she was then plagued with telephone calls asking for money. Thankfully the (real) police are now involved so she should be OK.

Am I right in thinking that the cost of stock can not be deducted from turnover under the AE scheme. If this is the case unless you have very large margins then maybe AE is not the way to go.

No you don’t want an explosion. However just ensure that an adequately rated safety valve is fitted. This should be on a reasonable diameter pipe line to allow rapid steam flow in the event of overpressure. I know that on marine boilers the safety valves are fitted directly to the steam drum but they are designed to do so. However I would not have the confidence that commercially available safety valves for domestic use would have the same reliability and I would personally probably mount the valve fairly near to the boiler on a short spur so the it is slightly cooler than the heated steel of the boiler. In addition without doing any detailed research I don’t think it would be wise to just rely on the pressure valve fitted to the accumulator I would not think that the bore would be sufficient. Gas / oil boilers have several layers of safety systems to keep them safe however generally speaking wood / coal boilers do not have the same level of sophistication. However that is not to say they are unsafe and I would have no problems in having one if the occasion arose just ensure that a safety valve is fitted.

Like it or not the Christian tradition is the very basis of our current western secular civic society. In fact secularism has now become in itself a religion condemning all other belief systems.

Occasionally I may inadvertently make a comment which may upset one or two peoples sensibilities but I take my hat off to you Pommier you have managed to insult an estimated 85 million practicing Christians around the world. I can’t wait to hear your theories on the other world religions.

We increased out mortgage on our UK property and paid ‘cash’ for the property. Seemed to be the least complex and quickest method for us.

The purpose of the jury system is to be judged by ones peers. In which case I hope I never end up in court and have somebody so stupid to be considered my peer. On the other hand if I end up in court I am probably that stupid anyway and she would be my peer.