ahammond

Repairing it is no problem. You can buy a kit a bit like a bicycle puncture repair outfit from most aquatics suppliers. There is one for UPVC liners and another which I suspect actualy is a bicyle puncture repair kit for butyl rubber liners. Finding where the leak is is the problem. To be honest though I would initialy suspect pipework feeding filters or ornaments. Check that first as it is normaly the easiest to do and leaks are pretty obvious. If that does not work watch the water level to see how far it drops then check the liner above it. There is no need to drain the pond and once the patch is on the job is done. I put one on my pond about four years ago and that is still holding good.

I keep Rams in a an Amazon community tank. The main problem I have found with them is that the stock sold in most Aquarist shops is imported Asian rubbish. They are weak fish normaly in poor health when you buy them and they are expensive for what they are. I now buy all of my dwarf cichlids from www.freewebs.com/microman1. He is a hobby breeder and shower who sells on his unwanted stock. The Rams you will get from him are either from German or first cross wild stock and are far superior to anything that you will ever see in the shops. His website is also one of the most informative that I have ever come across. The only slight problem being that once you see the variety of dwarf Amazon cihlids that he has to offer and the prices that he charges you will end up buying more than a couple of Rams I can promise you. I have bought a dozen fish from him so far including a pair of Rams and all are thriving without any problems with disease. One last thing I keep my tank at Discus temperature of 30 celsius. As the Rams come from the same area as Discus it is probable be that the higher temperature is better for them as well.

Without wishing to be accused of rehashing old wives tales I can say with absolute honesty that as the weather starts to change I always have problems with an injured knee. So if I and no doubt millions of other people can feel a change in the weather and hence a change in pressure then surely so can fish and other animals. Oddly I never feel anything when I fly and the pressure in an aircraft cabin is normaly set around the equivalent of ten thousand feet above sea level.

At that time of year I would double up on the insulation and if possible get hold of some of the chemical heat packs that the commercials use. They are a sort of great big tea bag with chemicals in that give off heat when crushed. They should only cost a pound or two. Cheap when compared to the price of a good fish. But there should be no problems I had three two inch long Discus delivered in January of this year from Plymouth and they were none the worse for wear after they were unpacked.

I have had live tropical fish delivered by post and courier several times without any problems. Provided that the fish is kept warm in a properly insulated and packed box he should be alright for at least twelve hours or more in just the ususal plastic bag full of water without any need for aeration or extra heating.

I could have told you that it was a whatever widgeon, I just did not want to look like a knowall. Which is about as honest an answer as any of the others.

The problem with this sort of thing is that it causes all sorts of trouble when as like last week I got a genuine call from Halifax concerning a problem with one of my accounts. The bloke calling me wanted to establish exactly who I was before he would discuss anything with me and I of course was starting from the assumption that he was a scammer. It took a full five minutes verbal fencing before we were satisfied that each of us was genuine. The matter was then sorted in thirty seconds flat. I was in the wrong by the way and it could have cost me a few quid more if it had not been resolved there and then. So thanks to Halifax on that one. Barclays seem to be the subject of a major scammer attack at the moment I am getting at least three emails a week warning me of imminent mega reprisals if I do not supply bank details immediately etc. etc. I have never ever banked with them so it is all just bin fodder.

According to the Reuters web site it is not being treated as terrorist related and is believed to be a small helicopter. It has crashed into a residential block and no casualty figures are being reported yet.

Having spent longer than I wanted to searching around, 6K is about the going price for a supplied and fitted bathroom in this type of house, a 1930s semi with original plaster, and in this area I can promise you. Most of the cost is labour as all the old wall tiles have to come off, the walls need making good and floor tiles need replacing as well as a load of electrics to do. To say nothing of rerouting the pipework for a new shower and bath and renewing waste pipes. I know damn fine well what the tiler is going to find once he starts knocking the old wall tiles off and I am just glad that I am not doing it myself. As far as hardware goes the bath and fancy curved shower screen come in at just under a thousand on their own and that was cheap compared to some places. An illuminated cabinet and shaver socket have to be installed and signed off by a qualified electrician, and a radiator and heated towel rail need replacing by Corgi registered fitters. Fair enough I could have saved a few quid by asking around and getting it done on the fly. But I have been down that road before and quite frankly it is just not worth the risk any more. At one time I would even have considered doing it myself but with all the new building and electric regulations that have come in recently it is just not worth the trouble nowadays. Even more so as I will need proper documentation to cover the instalation if I ever sell the house in the future.

The toilet is alright it is the bath and wash basin that are the probem mainly due to a bit of external cowboy plumbing done a few years back. B an Q have at last after several hours of arguing promised me a full refund of the fitting charge which although far from satisfactory I have had to accept in order to move on. I was able in between telephone calls to their fitting department/customer relations department/shop/refunds department to find a local bathroom fitting firm who are willing to install the B and Q stuff and do my tiling for me at a weeks notice. So at least I should have a new bathroom next week Of course B an Q have yet to honour their promise with a cheque and the fitting firm have yet to produce a good job and at the end of the day the service from B and Q was atrocious if not borderline illegal and I have had a load of hassle to sort out that I could well have done without. So if anybody is considering having B and Q do any work. Don`t.

Back in the hazy lazy days of summer it was decided that what the Hammond household needed was a new bathroom given that the chipboard vanitory unit holding up the existing washbasin was in imminent danger of collapse and that the plumbing in general was becoming a bit eccentric. That is to say the old Dalek nose of a plunger was starting to get rather a lot of use unblocking pipes of late. To cut a long story short B and Q were the chosen firm to carry out the work seeing as to how they would supply everything and install it all for a fair price. So in July the thick end of six thousand pounds was handed over in exchange for their services with the promise that it would be installed as soon as possible. The date finaly fixed was in late September. Not very good as it was a fair few weeks to wait but acceptable. A month and a half later and this date was then put back until today. Once again not very good but just about acceptable. Everything was delivered last Thursday and dumped in my garage ready for the off first thing this morning. I only had to go back to the shop three times to get taps, a mirror and a shaver socket which were not delivered or incorrect. ( The shaver socket had " Not for use in bathrooms " printed in big red letters on the packet.) The missing bath front panel I sorted by telephone. Come nine thirty this morning the bathroom is all emptied and I am psyched up ready to have a week of workmen and mess in the house. Not a chance. A `phone call to B and Q elicited the information that the workmen were on their way. Ten minutes later back came a`phone call from the customers service departement with the information that my bathroom would not be fitted today or even this week. The earliest in fact that they could manage now was the begining of December. They did not mention which year. I have spent all morning on the telephone speaking to everybody and nobody and all those in between at B and Q. My time would have been better spent talking to the bathroom wall. It would seem that they cannot get anybody at any price to fit my bathroom before December. Neither are they interested in sorting the problem out. I have so far by the simple expedient of trolling through Yellow pages for five minutes found three people willing to do the job, ( including gallingly one person who was out fishing at the time!) on a fit only basis starting any time from this weekend to the begining of November. I am currently awaiting a `phone call from the last person spoken to at B and Q who will tell me when I am going to get my money back after it was pointed out to him by my wife ( she tends to be able to threaten people better over the telephone better than I can and can actualy shout without raising her voice) that they are in breach of contract and that unless our money is refunded with interest within twenty four hours then it is solicitors at ten paces. The moral being of course if you want a new bathroom or anything else fitted do not go to B and Q and do not pay up front. By the way they still have not told me why nobody was able to turn up to fit my bathroom.

I get this problem in bouts every now and again with Postmaster, when it is working that is, but not with my other email Talk21. I think though that like most people nowadays I am aware of spam and cons and can recognise them and bin them straight away. I tend to regard it as just one of those irritating things that we have to live with if we want to use the net.

My own method for preparing hemp whilst perhaps a little more expensive than those above is certainly a lot less stressful on the domestic front. 1. Go to nearest tackle shop. 2. Buy tin of precooked hemp. 3. Open tin via supplied ring pull. 4. If as on my club tins are banned at the waterside empty contents into sealed airtight freezer bag before storing in bait box. Not cheap but very convenient if you do not use a lot. A tin full will last a couple of weeks in a properly sealed bag without being frozen. You also have the moral high ground of supporting your local tackle shop.

I tend to think that if he was still alive then we would have heard from him by now. I am not sure when the last confirmed video of him alive was taken but it must have been quite a while back. My own feeling for what it is worth is that he was killed in the early stages of the current war in Afghanistan and that it is to the benefit of both sides not to have his death confirmed. The coalition do not want a dead martyr and the muslims want him alive as a rallying point.

I am no expert by any means but I would suggest that it is the actual fluctuations in your water chemistry that are at the root of the problem by causing the fish stress. Before introducing any new fish I would give the tank at least a week or two to make sure that it has stabilised and if possible find and rectify the cause of the sudden changes in chemistry. A PH of 6 seems a bit low to me. I keep my discus which are supposed to be kept at a low PH at 6.8 but when I dropped it to just below 6 on the advice of an expert I had all sorts of problems with them including loosing a couple. Which did not go down very well as they are not cheap at the best of times.

I actualy did change the description once. Unfortunately this was not quite good enough and I was still getting bids coming in where the bidder had obviously misunderstood the listing. In the end I tried to withdraw it from sale but Ebay have a time limit, for very good reason, after which the posting cannot be amended or withdrawn. I missed that deadline by about an hour. Luckily so far I have had only one complaint from somebody who insists that they won the auction despite several emails from me explaining that what they were thought they bidding on was not what I intended to be sold. This is a pity realy as her bid for three seperate items was more than any of the other bids and I would still have been left with a couple of points to sell to somebody else. Just to cap a bad week I gave one of my rod sections the size twelve boot stand on test the other day and it failed miserably. That is going to cost me twenty eight quid to replace.

Stick with it. I gave up nearly twenty years ago now after smoking constantly from the age of fourteen until I was thirty six. I dread to think how much I have saved over the years to say nothing of the hassle I have saved in not having to whitewash the living room ceiling every six months.

Earlier this week I listed five sets of model railway points for sale on Ebay as one lot. A simple no hassle way to get a pound or two for something that was taking up valuable cupboard space. No Chance. For some reason when they were described Ebay listed them in such a way that the one lot could be interpreted as one lot of five points as intended, or five lots of one set of points each, or five sets of five points. I did not discover this until it was to late to cancel the listing and am now having to sit watching the item for the next couple of hours whilst replying personally to every new bidder saying "Sorry the are not for sale any more because..... " To cap a bad day I changed my email adress yesterday and decided to let everybody including Anglers Net know about it. Another simple procedure. No chance Somewhere along the line the wrong button must have got pressed but I have ended up after a day trying to log in under my previous guise giving up and re registering with a slightly different name but with my old email adress.