Ronaldo47

At the Central London law firm I worked for until I retired a decade ago, we used to write off charges of less than £30 that were outstanding at the end of an accounting period as it was reckoned to cost that much to raise and process the invoices and other paperwork. So I guess the handling charge amount is not unreasonable.

When visited Ireland in the early 1990's, they were in the process of going metric. The speed limit signs were still in English miles per hour, but the signposts gave distances in kilometers. As the original signposts had expressed distances in Irish miles rather than English miles, and as an Irish mile (I believe based on 10 furlongs rather than 8) was almost exactly 2 km, it had only been necessary to double the original numbers. In some rural areas, distances on the finger signposts had been simply amended using white paint, with the ghosts of the old numbers visible underneath.

In the 1980's, brake pads with leather inserts (the Rayleigh Raincheck) were on sale for a few years. A cycling msgazine rrview noted that, on steel wheels (but not aluminium ones) they were far more effective in the wet than rubber, and my own experience confirmed it. As a bonus, a light brake application produced a high-pitched squeal that was a far more effective at warning pedestrians of my approach than the bell, especially the modulated squeal produced on a wheel that was not completely true that I suppose could have given the impression my brakes were not working properly. They seemed to last for ever, and I still have a pair on my vintage Bickerton folding bike that I usually take with us on canal holidays. All our other bikes have aluminium alloy wheels: it appears that neither steel wheels nor leather brake blocks are still manufactured,

The medieval ridge and furrow field systems that the Oxford canal cuts through between Braunston and Fenny Compton.

My daughter and her husband are in the process of buying their first house. They were obliged to pay some fees the solicitor by cheque: bank transfer is not permitted apparently. It's the first one she has had to write for years. I always used to pay my utilities bills by cheque, and still do for British Gas. E.On recently revised their billing arrangements (monthly rather than quarterly), and as they no longer provide a paying-in slip, and I don't want to set up a standing order, I now pay by cash at the post office, which is actually quite convenirnt. I do have the option of sticking a cheque in the post.

In the 1970's I used to know a chemist who worked for one of the major paint companies. He said that DIY-store own brand paints, especially white emulsion, and the consumer range of brand-name paints, were built to a price. Thus the paint you buy this year will not necessarily have the same formulation as the stuff of the same name that you bought last year, as cheaper ingredients may have been used to maintain the selling price if raw ingredient prices have risen. Since then I have always used the trade range of paints.

Because the law is (often) an ass.