OV9

Well, some of that happened, some less so. Big feature of the year was a massive contract job - bare brick renovation of am Edwardian house. 19 weeks working on it before it all went a bit sour at the end when the client ran out of money. Bit sad not to have got the "wow" moment at the en...

I'll grudgingly give you a Mr. Kipling Apple Pie.

If you'd said a Mr. Kipling Cherry Bakewell, I'd have been there all day and all night!

I'm interested to see the video review now. I'm struggling to see what quirk of the algorithm could have let Mr. Kipling's make it to mid table.

Beany - back in my former analyst days, I once had to give a presentation at some food and drink conference. We used to do these things for free, with the main idea that you present, then network after to drum up sales leads. I had a bit of a moment, kinda muddle through but cut my presentation shor...

I keep flitting between "you're supposed to have retired" and "oh, that could be a good little project". I've only added one new property to the portfolio this year, but have done a couple of mid-sized contract jobs. I've got a bit of a plan to try and put a retirement solution ...

I keep flitting between "you're supposed to have retired" and "oh, that could be a good little project". I've only added one new property to the portfolio this year, but have done a couple of mid-sized contract jobs. I've got a bit of a plan to try and put a retirement solution t...

I learned to plastic-weld yesterday. It's amazing, and I can't believe I've never done it before. It's really easy, and a million times more effective that using arudite. Circumstances that led up to this: I was in the stonemason's on Wednesday, and reversing out, I failed to notice a dirty great RS...

Funnily enough, I caved in yesterday as well, and bought some Mr.Kiplings as last night's dessert.

Obviously nothing to write home about because they're Mr. Kiplings, but a good reminder that even a mediocre mince pie is pretty damn tasty.

Another piece of context for this thread is that I spent the second half of last week in Turin, and one thing that surprised me was the prevalence of morning/daytime drinking. We popped into a little espresso bar for coffee at 10am, it was tucked away in a corner near the local market and the local...

In my current "job" I could get away with lots whilst half-cut. Indeed, there have been times when I've been called on to fix simple things (e.g. blocked toilets, broken boilers, keys snapped in locks) in an evening, and I've just gone and done it there and then, despite a few beers. The m...

Just an interesting piece of information that confirms what I and others previously suspected: I met up with one of the ex-soldiers I used to work with last week, who told me that two of his close friends in Dutch special forces are on active operations in Ukraine. Not training Ukrainian troops, act...

Oh, and if it makes you feel any better Mik, I pretty regularly trap a finger doing *exactly* that job. Every time I make a mental note to, next time, turn the torque down on the rattle gun until the allen is positioned, *then* nip it up. I haven't actually remembered once.

The boy done good, eh?

The words frying pan and fire spring to mind :shock: We now have by far the most right wing government ever in the history of the UK. Shocked but not surprised as each of the cabinet appointments got announced - no-marks, zealots and outright wankers chosen solely for the purposes of mutual back scr...

They can't even be bothered to put a bit of imagination into their deadcatting

Don't know why the pics won't embed. Can't be arsed fighting with it. Click if you're interested

Finally back in France, and a slightly smaller group (21 this time) I can't remember the full menu for every day, but I had a proper pizza oven to play with this time, so as well as an obligatory pizza night (I now have my dough recipe *down*) I felt it appropriate to use it to roast an 8.5kg beef r...

@Nefarious We've seen a bit of covid encephalitis and covid meningitis of late. Sounds like you may have had similar? Or, of course, other viruses are available (I'm guessing you didn't test). In any case, I hope you are on the mend because that's all rather unpleasant. Does that mean two infection...

@Nefarious We've seen a bit of covid encephalitis and covid meningitis of late. Sounds like you may have had similar? Or, of course, other viruses are available (I'm guessing you didn't test). In any case, I hope you are on the mend because that's all rather unpleasant. Does that mean two infection...

Myself, Mrs. Nef and mini Nef all had covid a few weeks ago and it was *fucking horrendous*. The girls had it in 2020 and 2021, and I had it for definite in 2021 (maybe 2020 too), and it was just bad colds with tiredness - this was something else. On different occasions, I nearly called an ambulance...