nomoss

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No, it was the Persian Gulf then. 

Heres a photo of a US drilling company contracted to a US oil company producing a well straight into the Persian Gulf. I wonder why the US are not too popular over there? I took the photo because I couldn't believe we were actually doing it. Edit: can't get the link to work.

Makes a big difference where the spill is http://www.guardian.co.uk:80/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

Most rational people would wait for the result of an enquiry before mouthing off about liability. http://www.dailymail.co.uk:80/debate/article-1285716/Obamas-BP-oil-spill-ire-Americas-ALWAYS-tried-Britain.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

It seems to be forgotten (or maybe not even known in the case of this Forum) that the well was being drilled under contract to BP by a US company under US regulation with US equipment, cementing done by a US contractor (Halliburton, not unconnected with Dick Cheyney). But I don't think the boy from Michigan is about to mess with the good ol' boys from Texas...

[quote user="just john "] You can always count on Americans to do the right thing - after they've tried everything else. - Winston Churchill     [/quote]   I always thought BP was a British company

Just in case anyone wants to see what's actually happening, as opposed to mostly drivel in the media:- http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9033572&contentId=7061710 Fairly clear explanations with animated diagrams, live pictures from 12 ROVs  

Nice to hear some others still fix their own cars. I'm beginning to wonder how much longer this will be possible with the sources of used parts drying up because of the indiscriminate crushing of perfectly useable cars under government scrappage schemes. I once had a reliable source of Alfa 33 parts from a local casse, who had several fairly low mileage insurance write-offs, but when I called them recently I was told they had all been crushed, as they didn't have space for them any more with all the scrappage cars coming in. I tried to buy one wreck from them some time back; they said that it would be illegal, but my local garagiste doesn't have a problem with that. I have now bought 2 spare cars which should keep me going for most requirements. As for sub standard spares, I've had mostly good luck on eBay, but one of the recently purchased CV joints for my VW Transporter is making clicking noises. I guess the tolerances are not so good as they should be, but on the other hand they should still run a long time with the generous amount of grease in them. These also came with high tensile 12.9 bolts instead of the original grade 10.9. This seemed a good idea, but the bolts didn't stretch enough with the specified torque (I was reluctant to torque them more for fear of stripping the threads in the flanges), and the Schnorr lockwashers didn't bite into the harder heads. Result: the bolts came loose and one shaft actually came adrift completely after a couple of hundred Km. All is fine again with the old bolts and (more) new washers. I don't really think some of the parts coming from China etc. are that much worse than what was produced in UK/Europe when the older cars were current.  

Write off a reasonable amount of your stock as damaged/unsaleable, write down the value of the rest of the items, if appropriate, to some reasonable prices – you don’t have to sell them for more than you paid. Any loss will be reflected in the books, reducing the profit the SARL will have to pay tax on.   Buy the stock you want to keep from the SARL at the revised prices plus TVA. You will take this money out, either as salary or capital, when you wind up the SARL. You will of course have to pay tax on it, but the SARL paid no tax on the money it used to buy the stock.   You will obviously not get back the TVA, but you presumably need some of the stock for your AE operation.   Sell any other stock as and where you can. Any loss you make will again reduce the taxable profits of the SARL, - assuming it is showing some profit when you wind it up.   As you mentioned, you could possibly sell part of the SARL together with some of the stock, but this might be more complicated to do than it’s worth.

I'm slightly puzzled, not having lived in UK for about 40 years. Is it normal there to use tradespeople for work and supply the materials oneself? Do you have to take your car to a garage with a bootful of parts, or cart bricks, cement and sand for builders? If anyone had come to my business proposing to supply their own materials (no-one ever did), I would have told them to go elsewhere, maybe not too politely. Why not select the items you want and give the plumber the details? It's unlikely he will charge you more than the retail price, and as has been mentioned, you will possibly save on the TVA.

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4359e/y4359e0f.htm The last time we bought one live, the farmer opposite us killed it in one of his funnels, and plucked it on his machine. This was a very primitive and dangerous looking effort, with parallel stainless steel rollers turning at speed, which looked as if it could just as easily remove fingers or chunks of flesh from one's arm. But it did the job, leaving only the pin feathers to be removed by hand.

I receive State Pensions from both UK and Spain.   My 13 years worked in UK, divided by the 44 years minimum required for a full pension at the time I claimed it, gives me 13 / 44ths, rounded up to 30% of the full pension. This results in the princely amount of  £29.30 per week this year.   I just noticed that the minumum years required for a full pension has been reduced to 30, as from April this year. So if I had reached 65 this year I would be getting 43% of the full amount, about £42 per week. (Wow)   A cute way of “increasing” pensions while keeping down the cost?   I wonder if my pension will be increased to reflect the change. – I don’t think I’ll hold my breath.

Actually it says that white paper may be used provided the document has coloured illustrations or text and that confusion with official notices is impossible.

Maybe this is some help http://www.efl.fr/opencms/opencms/chiffres_delais/fiscal/impot_benef/cours.html

I've never left a tip since a waiter in Australia followed me to the door and gave one back to me, saying I probably needed it more than he did. Edit: I'm still not sure who felt the more insulted.  

I feel sorry for Sue.

[quote user="f1steveuk"]I asked it I could do that, got a five page tech spec sheet and the instruction "NO!!", although I cannot think why! [/quote] Because it senses temperature. If you bury it in silicone etc it won't.  

We bought two of the new lightweight Viseo Butagaz bottles last year, when they had an offer of a free regulator with each bottle purchased. When our old 13kg steel bottle eventually ran out I returned it to the local petrol station (not where I bought it). The attendant was amazed I still had the receipt from 10 years before, but made the refund with no hesitation. 

A warning for anyone who bought Super 95 from the Intermarché pumps at Colayrac-St-Cirq (just west of Agen on the D813) Sometime before the weekend the underground tank for Super 95 (at least that for pump number 2) was accidentally filled with diesel fuel. I put 52 litres in mine on Saturday morning, into a tank still containg about 15 litres of petrol. The engine stopped about 1 km further on. I tried for an hour to get it running again, but the car was eventually taken to a garage and was not fixed until Monday, completely ruining our weekend. Our Assistance provided a hire car for 24 hours only, so we drove the 250km home to get my VW Transporter, and back again. As it is just a simple (classic) car with carburettors and coil ignition, and no-one could find the problem, I thought we would have to trailer it home. Coincidentally a similar thing happened to a friend in UK a couple of weeks ago, but he got water, not diesel, probably wrecking his fuel injection system. It occurred to me that I might have got diesel, but I thought I was being paranoid. The mechanic who came with the truck also thought it smelled like petrol. The odour of petrol seems to overcome that of diesel, at least for our noses. I'm now wondering how many unfortunate people there are who didn't add such a large amount of diesel to their petrol, so the engine still runs after a fashion. They may be now driving around wondering why their car is running so badly, possibly paying out large sums for diagnosis and repairs. I contacted the Journal Sud Ouest this morning and suggested they print an article about it. Could someone let me know if this happens, please? Maybe Intermarché themselves will be kind enough to publish an announcement about what happened ???? [:D]    

Our stove has a built in hopper which holds 3 x 15Kg sacks of pellets, enough for about 2 days in this weather. I have a remote thermostat, running on 20º daytime, 19º at night. The pellets are in waterproof bags and are stored outside under a lean-to roof and a tarp. They take up about 1/3 of the space of our previous log supply for a similar period. Last year we paid 245€ for a ton of pellets, we collected them with my VW transporter and a 500Kg trailer. 10€ cheaper than last year, and better quality. Our average spend per year for logs, delivered, was over 350€, and the house was not so warm as now. Due mainly to more efficient burning and the balanced flue taking outside air - not drawing nice warm air from inside the house. Also, a lot of heat is recovered by the flue. The inlet air is at 40ºC with the stove at its lowest setting today, outside air is 7ºC. However, it is still cheaper to use our 2,6KW of reverse cycle heating, producing about 7,5KW of heat, on mild days, when EDF is charging at their "blue" or "white" rates on our Tempo tariff. Pellets cost approx. 5 €cents per KWH.

If starting from scratch I'd go for a pellet stove every time - provided there was a source of pellets nearby, at a good price. Even though the balanced flue and its installation added 50% to the cost of our stove, installed 2 winters ago, I would only buy a log burner if I had no other choice. We had 7 years of storing huge piles of logs, splitting and cutting them (there are always some too long to fit in the stove), carrying them in on cold wet nights, cleaning up the mess they leave indoors, and removing and disposing of the ashes. Now it is a joy to have clean, easily handled fuel, and a very efficient fire that needs almost no attention.  

Maybe he'll even find a team that wants him........

[quote user="nomoss"] [quote user="nomoss"]Remember when Photo driving licences were optional?[/quote]   [quote user="La Guerriere"]They still are[/quote]   Really?  http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/DriverLicensing/NeedANewOrUpdatedLicence/DG_4022084 [/quote] [quote user="La Guerriere"]If you need a new or updated UK driving license you need a photo jobby, otherwise the paper one is still valid. It is peculiar but that seems to be the way it goes.[/quote]   The definition of "optional" seems to have been revised. Are you in politics by any chance? I just noticed from your spelling of "license" that you are possibly from north America, in which case the definition of optional may be different for you.[:)]

[quote user="nomoss"]Remember when Photo driving licences were optional?[/quote]   [quote user="La Guerriere"]They still are[/quote]   Really?  http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Motoring/DriverLicensing/NeedANewOrUpdatedLicence/DG_4022084