chevin

Personally I would never consider a Range Rover. A friend of mine has had two and they have been nightmares. I had to drive one of them 1300kms while towing a boat when it had no suspension. The suspension it had was pnuematic and one of the bags burst. On a second occasion we had to drive it around 500kms with no suspension because one of the pipes burst. Personally I find it difficult to go past a Nissan Patrol, they are absolutely brilliant off road and will leave a Range Rover in its exhaust fumes.

Hi Guys, Does anyone here have an e-mail address for a Dougal Gray who I believe is a bailiff on a popular fishery. If no e-mail address is available, a snail mail address or a 'phone number would be welcome. Thanks a lot chevin

Pretty much what I said except to the most pedantic. Does it really matter in the context of what I wrote? However, those who were born in this country do not consider themselves to be immigrants nor should they and, don't forget, there are plenty with histories of several generations here. Hardly immigrants are they!

The first Australian politician reported to have made this speech was Peter Costello who was, in fact, our treasurer for the coalition government. Kevin Rudd was our PM before being overthrown by Julia Gillard. When it was said that Costello had said that, a lot of people around the world actually believed that he had made that speech. I guess there was a lot of wishful thinking in Australia despite the fact so many of us are immigrants our selves. However, most of us have accepted the laws as they stood when we arrived here and have not demanded to live by the laws of countries that we have left. This YouTube thing was also believed by many to be an Australian politician being interviewed by a TV interviewer. In fact the guys involved are two actors who did similar skits after the news on ABC every Friday evening.

I used to own a kiosk on a railay station and we got some pretty odd characters there. Peaople talking to themselves was a common event, but one day we had a guy holding a conversation with himself in two different voices. That is scary! Neither voices were geordie accents though.

Not now though Hussey 175 Haddin 134 Australia 5/433 I have to say that I was worried yesterday though.

Although this comes from America, it seems that you only have to change the names whichever country you live in.

Another stunt I played some years ago - but which probably wouldn't work to day - was on a company that was sending me a number of adverts each day. It was all pretty pointless because they were in Canada and at that time international trading wasn't so easy. Anyway, I e-mailed them on a number of occasions and asked them to take me off their mailing list to no avail. So one day, during a Canadian night I sat down and started sending them a 4meg photo'. I don't know how many times I sent it, but it ran into the hundreds. It tied up my e-mail system for hours and I would think that it would have tied up theirs for the next day. Eventually I got an e-mail from them asking me to stop sending the picture to them, and so I replied and told them that if they stopped sending me adverts then I would not send any more pictures. I got a reply telling me that it wasn't them sending the adverts but another company with the same name. Funny thing is though, I never got one more advert from that company.

When I lived in the North East, any one who had an accent from south of the Tees was reckoned to be a Cockney. But in those days, we couldn't even understand the people who lived four miles north of us. The mining villages had dialects and accents all of their own. Chester, I used to go to a school called Dyke House School! I wonder if its name has been changed? Just checked and it hasn't been changed. I see that the Black Dyke Band still has the same name too!

I guess that it depends on whether it is British or American buses!

I used to work for the Reserve Bank of Australia and I was frequently in the vaults where I saw pallets of notes, many of the pallets holding $100 bills. Certainly billions of dollars there. However, the impressive thing was when we did a gold check. The gold was kept in a pneumatically operated compactus and as we opened each bay 1800 x 400oz ingots became exposed and there was a lot of those bays. Much of that gold belonged to Britain, but it was shipped back when one of your chancellors sold all of your reserves to support the value of the pound. It was a major operation to move that weight of gold in such a short time and the centre of the city was closed so that the trucks carrying it could go against the traffic in order to take the very shortest route to the airport. The amazing thing about gold is that it seems to reflect more light than shines on it. I had never seen gold before I got that job and it meant nothing more to me than the monetory value it had. However, having seen it in quantities and that incredible glow that emanates from it, I know exactly what "Gold fever" is. Unfortunately that branch is now closed and the gold has been moved elsewhere in Australia so I will never have the opportunity to see it all again. Obviously the trillion you mention is the universally accepted trillion these days. ie a million millions. When I was a kid, that would have been a billion, but the so called American billion, ie one thousand million was adopted around the world some years ago.

I don't get them now, because I have joined one of those schemes and it works well, but on occasions when I did get them, I used to have a bit of fun. I would let the caller get into his/her spiel and then say, "Sorry, who did you say you were?" These people learn their pitch by rote, so they go back, give you their name and then start all over again. Once they were into the swing of things, I would say, "Sorry, who did you say your are with?" and they start all over again. They actually get sick of you before you get sick of them if you play it properly. If you get a local one from double glazers or the like that tells you that they have agents in your area and would like to see you, tell them that you could see one of their reps in 10 minutes time. He/she will tell you that they can't be there in that time. Ask them why not if the reps in your area and then take it from there. You can really get the caller angry on this one, because he/she has already told you that their reps are in your area and suddenly they can't get one to call on you! I was really having fun with one of them and she got so angry she told me that she would hang up on me if I didn't stop being so stupid!

Not my wording mate, like you, I don't live in the UK any more either. It would seem that you no longer had the desire to support those - illegal or not - who are sponging off the welfare system of the country. Most of those who leave the old country do so because they feel that other countries offer much better prospects for those who are prepared to work. Oh, and are you saying that illegal immigrants in detention centres are not enjoying more benefits than many English people who have lived and worked in the country all of their lives?

If you are an illegal immigrant sponging from our generous benefits system, P!SS OFF HOME !!! Where is your problem with that? You are happy to support illegal immigrants?

Did the writers claim to be English?

That's fine if they can, but having been ten stories up when there was a fire, I do prefer to be lower than that if possible. Apart from anything else, I would think that a ladder that long would be very shaky and almost as frightening as the fire! I am leaving here for Sydney in a couple of hours where I will be staying in an hotel - but not too high up I hope!

Hi Guys, I have just been targeted by a spammer who aroused my suspicions right from the beginning, but it all took a bit of sorting out. I advertised a reel on an on line mag for $750 and got a note asking me if I would drop the price. I told the guy I would go to $700.00. The guy accepted that and told me that he would pay through PayPal. He said that he would employ a courier to collect the goods and that he would pay for it. He told me that I couldn't 'phone him because he worked on an off shore rig and the 'phone line was down. That puzzled me a bit because he was sending e-mails OK. A little later in the day I got another e-mail telling me that the money had been paid into PayPal and he asked me to respond to the instructions contained in the note they would send me. A couple of hours later,l I got a stroppy note saying that I hadn't responded to the PayPal note and that he was disappointed because he had paid his money in good faith etc. I told him that I would let him know the instant I heard from PayPal and I got a note that seemed to suggest that I was trying to swindle him. That annoyed me and I was getting annoyed with PayPal for being so slow. I decided to 'phone PayPal and gave them all of the details and they told me that they knew nothing of any payment or an account in his name. I decided to do no more yesterday and went to bed puzzling as to how he could hope to scam me. Obviously I would not allow my goods to go until the money was in my bank account. This morning there were two identical e-mails from "PayPal" in my mail box and things became clear! Here is what they said. Dear chevin@xxxxxxxxxx, (e-mails from PP begin Dear "Name" ) This email confirms that you have received an Instant payment of $1,150.00AUD from is Wande Colle (wandecolle6@hotmail.com) via PayPal MERCHANDISE Payment Service. ($1150.00 is $450.00 more than was involved) View the "NOTE" of this pending transaction below -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Payment Details MerchandiseAmount: $750.00AUD The agreed price was $700 now he is paying me $750.00 Agent Charges: Taxes and Insurance: Total: $400.00AUD (this seems high for a courier fee to somewhere in WA and why was he paying it to me? $000.00AUD $1,150.00AUD Transaction Id: 5X472815E1267414M (Having contacted PayPal this number proved to be bogus.) Quantity: 1 AUTO Title: Merchant -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Transport Company: J & S Address: UAB"J & S" c/o Jean Mathias , Name: Jean Mathias , Address: 14 tuncay Street City: Twickenham . State: Middlesex Country:United Kingdom Zip Code : TW1 3NJ (An English courier to pick up from Western Australia???) Address Status: Confirmed -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE:This is to confirm to you that the said amount has been successfully transferred by the buyer and has been deducted from their PayPal account and it is ready to be credited into your account.However,been that this Payment is for a MERCHANDISE purchased from you,we reserve the right to make sure this transaction is safe and secure because of the high sum of funds involved. The above sum has included the transport charges and taxes as we and the Transport Company quoted for the buyer as per PayPal MERCHANDISE PAYMENT POLICY). You will receive a Message from the PayPal Customer Verification Department Shortly informing you on how to send the shipping charges and taxes to the transport company with the above details as soon as possible. (Ah, there we have it! Before the money is released, I have to send $400 to the courier who will never turn up and my $750.00 will never be released. Some lovely people about isn't there -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may email usersverificationteam@consultant.com to contact the PayPal Customer Verification Department and Quote the Above Transaction ID for quick recognition of this transaction. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sincerely, PayPal -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- PayPal Email ID PP30 It's all a pretty amateur attempt once you begin to smell a rat, but initially one can easily be pulled in. I wasn't too impressed with the guy's use of English, but he seemed to have a foreign name so that could have been an explanation. There are still a few oddities in the supposed PayPal note. However, before I even replied to him I had contacted my server and asked them there if there were any PayPal scams going on and I read out the note I had received. They hadn't heard anything and thought that it seemed to be OK and while I felt a bit happier about it, I still wasn't convinced so I stayed very alert. Just as well.

If you don't get your hands right when you dive, your head doesn't like it much either and it's even worse if you let the water knock your head to one side - that hurts your neck as well!

A storey in buildings like that is often about 10 feet. There is a lot that goes into the ceilings of a room - air conditioning ducting, wiring etc so that the actual height of a storey is a lot more than the floor to ceiling height. If you are ever going to stay in a high rise building, try to get a room below the 10th floor. A lot of fire brigades have difficulty in accessing anything higher from the out side!

14th floor! That would be about 140 feet! I jumped off some cliffs about 40 feet above the water about 25 years ago and during the first fall I had enough time to view three lifetimes! The fall from 140 feet must be never ending! I will add that the water I was jumping into was deeper than the height from which I was jumping. Although scary, the situation was quite safe and several of us had a lot of fun doing it. There was even a ladder set against the cliff face so those jumping could climb that and be in position for another death defying leap.

I am not quite sure as to what you are trying to say here. I mentioned that situations can influence the danger of attack ie. dirty water, and flapping around on the surface. The Indianapolis incident is irrelevant in a discussion about shark attacks. Whether the size of a hammerheads mouth is moot or not is also irrelevant. Sure it is possible to show a picture of one huge hammerhead but I could show evidence of hundreds of the more average sized fish. What I said is fact, the hammerhead has a small mouth in comparison to its size. I simply expressed my doubts of the accuracy of that list of attacks from what I have seen when I have been diving in water that the media would describe as being "Shark infested". Of course tiger sharks can be aggressive, any big fish can be aggressive but while I have seen a fair number of tigers, I have not come across an aggressive one, they have been curious as quite a number of species of shark appear to be. However, I do get out of the water if I see a big tiger as I see it being prudent to do so and we do get them pretty big along our coast - in fact I have caught them up to an estimated 1200lbs and seen them bigger than that. I also get out of the water if I see a big mako and would if I was ever to see a white pointer or bull shark. I am not quite sure what is meant by an "Unprovoked" shark attack. One would assume that hunger or the chance of an easy meal is the reason for most fatal shark attacks which, incidentally, seem to be the actions of a shark that has not been seen before the event. However, I guess that whatever the reason might be, it is truly a moot point because the victim will have little interest in the reason for his demise.

I have to say that I am more than a little puzzled by that list though I guess that if the stats run from 1580 to 2008 there is a lot of room for doubt on some of the claims. As I said in a previous note, the fish most likely to attack us, is the wobbegong. Several of my friends over the years have been bitten (attacked) by them, but obviously the fish had no intention of eating or killing the divers. Black tip reef sharks are mentioned as being attackers, that is hardly believable. I have seen a lot of them and generally all you see of them is as they bolt away from you in sheer terror. If you get more than four of them together then they are a little braver but I have never known them to be strongly aggressive. The leopard shark has no teeth, though it could crush your fingers if you put them in its mouth. The Grey nurse shark is one that gives you a clear warning before attacking. They are territorial and if you overstay your welcome, they will swim directly at you, mouth wide open and veer away at the last instant with a powerful sweep of its tail. You feel the compression of the water against your body and you know that it is time to hit the fins - fast. Not a pleasant experience believe me, but you are safe as long as you take heed. Unfortunately they are generally docile and in parts of Oz were almost driven to extinction by spear fishermen like Ben Cropp, his wife and Ron and Valerie Taylor who described their good days as days of slaughter. One experience I had with a tiger shark was when five of us were snorkeling, we were all abreast and I was at one end. As we swam, I suddenly realised that there was someone to my right and turned my head to see who it was. It was a tiger shark of about ten or eleven feet just swimming along with us. I could see its eyeball moving as it watched me but it was just curious as are so many sharks you encounter when diving. However, when you have sharks that size near you, it is obviously prudent to get out of the water. We had a fatal attack just down the coast from us a couple of weeks ago and, as usual, a white pointer was blamed, there are more than a few of us however who are just as convinced that it was a bull shark. Hammerheads have small mouths for their size and we do not regard them as being a serious threat. From what I gather from what I read about shark attacks, the greatest danger is not the species of shark in the area, it is the conditions in which you are diving. It is beyond foolish to be in the water when it is dirty if you are in an area in which there are a lot of sharks. Most of the time, if they can see you clearly they are more than likely to leave you alone, though surfers splashing along on the surface and silhouetted against the sky are often going to be targeted by any species of shark that is partial to a bit of seal for lunch.

The trouble is with barracuda is that they are afraid that another will beat them to a meal and so as one gets closer the others follow. Their speed is just unbelievable and I have heard it said that they can accelerate faster than a F1 car. Having seen one hit a shoal of bait fish in shallow water I can believe that. I was watching the fish and I never saw it move from where it was to where the shoal was. They are fast, powerful fish with mouths that make chainsaws look cuddly; definitely something to be treated with a lot of respect - especially when there is a lot of them.

Not even second to bull sharks, tigers really aren't an aggressive shark in my experience and most attacks in my part of the world are by bulls or white pointers.

'With tiger sharks, it's unusual for them to attack someone when alive,' Levine said. 'They don't tend to go after something that's alive and can fight back.' I thought that was a very responsible remark by Ms Levine, obviously she had no intention of over dramatising the incident. On the odd occasion I see a tiger shark when I am diving, I get out of the water even though I have never felt threatened by one. The only incident I know of a tiger shark eating anyone in WA was when one ate a guy who had drowned in Exmouth Gulf. There are a lot of sharks in that part of the world and there are a lot of divers too, but few divers are concerned about the sharks they see. However, there is one fish of which we are all very wary and that is the wobbegong. It is very similar to the monk fish and it has a nasty temper too. They have bitten several of my friends for no reason other than to bite. They have no intention of eating anyone, they just bite and then swim away. The most frightening incident I have experienced was when a friend of mine and I got baled up by a shoal of barracuda. There was a lot of them and some were pretty big - 6'- 7' in length. That really was unpleasant as it would have only taken one to take a bite and we would have been history! The fault of it was mine because I was bleeding heavily from an injury I had sustained when I had been swept into some coral. I had looked at my knee and saw no blood and assumed I was OK. I wasn't, I had forgotten that at the depth we were in, blood shows as being green and not red - something that divers should always bear in mind.