[Wine buffs ahoy]

Yes I have, supermarkets all over the word do it.  Its a basic marketing technique.

[Wine buffs ahoy]

On 05/09/2022 at 16:58, David Schweizer said:

 

A few years ago we in a French Supermarket and were pondering the vast choice of wines from the same regions, and trying to decide which price band would secure a decent wine for a modest price.  A French lady came up to us and gave us some advice. She suggested that we ignore the wine on the bottom two shelves, as that was cheap lower grade everyday wine, instead to make our choice from the middle two rows. When we asked about the top two rows, she suggested that was the best wine, but unless we were connoisseurs, we would probably not notice the difference. Whether we would have noticed went untested, but the middle two rows produced wines which were far superior to higher priced French wines available in UK Supermarkets.

 

Supermarkets put the items they want you to buy on the shelves that are at your eye level - so the middle two shelves.  So they will be the products they make the most profit on or ones they have surplus stock and need to shift it.

[First Step Towards the Cut]

My Mrs was dead keen on living on a narrow boat, it had been her dream for years. She’d never actually been on one though. A few months back we toured round a few local marinas and viewed some boats. 
As soon as she stepped on board the first one I could see she'd lost interest. The reality is that boats are much smaller than they appear on YouTube and on brokers web sites. It’s that special estate agents camera effect, making rooms seem much larger than they really are. 
Anyhow, canal boats are no longer talked about in our house 😢

[£400 energy bill discount]

The feed in tariff (FIT) pays you for the electricity you generate, the export payment pays you for each unit you export to the grid.  You don't need to be connected to the grid to get the FIT payment.

You application for the FIT must have been made before 2019.

[And yet another alternator question: Is bigger always better]

You will use engine power to turn the alternator - the bigger the alternator the more power it needs to turn it (and the more fuel your engine will use). Broadly speaking. 

[How much money to replace cylinder head gasket?]

Looks like steam to me, its even fogging up the camera lens.  Head off, take it to a reconditioning place for a full refurb, new gasket and jobs a fish.  Might take a week or so depending on their workload but actually swapping the head is only a few hours work on an easily accessible engine like that.  Working on one in a car for example is a whole other ball game! 

You'll get change from £500.

You do need to find out why it overheated in the first place though.

For info a fully reconned head for a modern four cylinder car engine can  be had for £350 exchange.

[Mooring at Ellesmere Port Museum?]

It was Clatterbridge to be fair but we lived in the Port at the time. 
As it happens my folks were amongst the founding members of the Boat Museum so we spent a lot of time there in the early days. 

[Mooring at Ellesmere Port Museum?]

I was born in Ellesmere Port - I left!

[Taking the plunge]

25 minutes ago, Laurie Booth said:

Please let me have the agents details.

 

It was Bairstow Eaves but like i said, it was a good few years ago now.

[To overplate or not to overplate?]

Boat builder I was speaking to the the other day tells me that steel is now £1200 a tonne rather than the £400 is was eighteen months ago.

[Taking the plunge]

1 hour ago, Laurie Booth said:

Is that with rent guarantee and inland revenue accounts?

 Yes i think it was.

[Taking the plunge]

I work for a district council - we don't offer any kind of skip hire but we do have a bulky waste collection service - £10 an item i think it might be.

 

Last time i rented a property out the agents wanted 25% for a fully managed service.  That was a good few years ago though!

[AC on boat]

I have aircon in my bedroom at home as I struggle to sleep when it’s even slightly warm… I’ll have it running most nights from June through to October. 
I slept and worked in air conditioned rooms for three years when I worked overseas so I’m used to it! 

[Shocked at Towergate Mardon]

Standard practice in the car insurance world.

[Boating Expenses]

I've done a bit of research on this and if you exclude mooring fees and assuming you own the boat outright then £1k a month is in the ball park.  That includes fuel, food, internet, licences, insurance, maintenance fund etc (assuming its a fairly modern boat in good condition to start with).

If you add in a marina mooring (depending on where abouts in the country that is) you can add roughly £3k a year (around the midlands) or much more around London.

 

I'd be interested in other peoples actual figures if they differ vastly from this!

[CTC is selling up and living on land...]

And you'd find out the CTC had not blacked the bottom of his boat since he bought it!

 

.

[CTC is selling up and living on land...]

When you say its a basic boat, what does that mean?

[Traffic comparisons with 20-30 years ago]

Same here, we did the same area around the same time and i recall meeting a boat coming the other way was a big event!

[NB PUPPIS]

I hope I’m not causing trouble by bumping an old thread but my family used to be volunteers at the boat museum and we helped crew Puppis on the trip to the Worcester event. Sadly I would only have been about 15 and I can remember hardly anything about it!