UK-Fishing-Tackle.co.uk

Watch out for some barbs - I had some tigers which were very nippy with other fish - espeically the gouramis. An Angel fish is a useful addition if you are putting Platys or Guppies in, one angel will feed quite happily on the tiny newborn baby fish (if you start with 10 guppies you will have a very busy tankful in a years time!). Angels do get a bit territorial. Sharks are a pain in the arse (the black ones with the red tail) - everyone buys them because they are called sharks - don't. Algae eaters or plecos are handy to keep the green down. Plecos grow very quickly if fed ALGAE WAFERS or PLECO PELLETS but they'll live quite happily just mopping up the glass and picking up dregs off the bottom - they also grow far less rapidly!

http://earthsave.org/globalwarming.htm There are many different views out there - everyone is talking theories, and truthfully few can prove much if anything. What is a fact is if you remove every car, plane and power-station there will still be 96 or 97% of the carbon emissions there are today - as pretty much most of them are generated from living organisms. If you really want some interesting reading there is quite a few good articles about the myths behind carbon offsetting - with quite a number of scientists claiming that the planting of a tree is actually a net contributor to carbon emissions. From what I understand our earth is pretty much dependent on Algae not trees or plants to recycle carbon dioxide - but they didn't actually tell us that at school (they told us trees - but a lot of reading suggests that is completely untrue). I am all for more cycling - but at the same time I think they need to introduce better measures to protect cyclists. Mandatory insurance should be a bare minimum (if necessary worked out like a state tax), but also mandatory lights (to be fixed to all bikes regardless of day/night), and compulsory cycling proficiency in schools.

Cory We do manufacturer a water conditioner which works on radio frequency technology, not magnets, however, the company I work for would probably be the first to admit several things, and we think we are a bit more up-front about it than many others. For a start external conditioning devices are not softeners - the scale is still in the water - and many companies would have you believe that these devices 'soften' (rubbish). Next we offer a no quibble refund policy because the technology is certainly not proved to be absolutely 100% effective - yes - we get a great many customers achieve excellent results and are happy with the product, but you do get very odd customers who don't for whatever reason. You can take the 'shark' approach and leave them with something useless and disfunctional, or be responsible and under those conditons try and help the customer find an alternative solution. My very basic understanding is that these devices disrupt the physical structure of the calcium and magnesium ions in the water which makes them less likely to clump together - the net result being you get a finer white 'powdery' deposit, as opposed to lumps of scale, on things such as sinks, toilets and baths. This can be very easily flushed or washed away in comparison to scrubbing or descaling. Boiling water to boiling point reverts such changes in the majority of cases, meaning kettles still may fur up. The difference between us and the others is that some folks are charging £250 plus for a radio technology water conditioner, and we charge £65. These are also very good (I'll testify to this) for preventing blanketweed in ponds, since blanketweed thrives on calcium and magnesium as nutrients, and in a hard water area (during summer) these are added to your pond when you 'top it up'. Fitted to a circulating water system they don't eliminate existing blanketweed (it's pretty hard stuff), but they certainly keep it back once you've netted it all out. Proper water softeners though are a very good investment in my opinion - Apart from the salt they cost little to run and for £60 a year I'd wager they save you that on knackered appliances, central heating problems etc. The only issue is that up front cost of £400, but as I said, when you are on a boiler replacement anyway then it's money true, but I took the view that 2 to 3k was a twenty year investment (at least hopefully!).

Some of you may know I work for a water treatment company - it used to be my primary job until we started the fishing company and now I do a few hours a day whilst Gary is busy packing the rods/reels up (what are little brothers for!). Anyway if scale is a problem in your area then there are potential solutions to this (here we go). For a start one of your best options is an Ion Exchange water softener, but unless you seriosuly want to part with £400 then there is another very good option. I've got one I have to say, and in Lincolnshire where our water is very hard it makes a world of difference - the only bind is you've got to fill it with 25kg of salt a month (about £5 from a builders yard), but it certainly does prevent ALL scale problems in the house (I took the option of installing one when I bought a new boilier - seemed daft to blow a couple of grand on a boiler only for something like calcium and magnesium in the water to bugger it up). OK, so there is a cheaper alternative. Dosing water with hexamata polyphosphate (sp) is definitely something to consider. A small dosing system is basically about £40 and can be fitted by virtually anyone with basic plumbing skills (a pipe cut and some compression fittings basically). These systems add a tiny (very tiny) amount of food grade scale inhibitor (sounds scarier than it really is) to the water supply which prevents scale forming minerals from binding together and forming on surfaces - the net result is scale free kettles, baths, sinks, toilets and pipework with the trade off that you are adding a tiny chemical to your water supply which is approved for drinking water. Cartridges for these systems from the guy I work for are about £15 every six months, but it is a pretty good system - brochure prices are wrong, actual price is £44.95 for the initial system and the cartridge. By the way - these are also a good idea if you rely on 'washing machine scale inhibitor tables' - certainly works out much more cost effective. http://www.pozzani.co.uk/brochures/ct600.pdf

This guy seems to have developed a fairly good account of checking for diverter valve failure (about half way down) http://orionrobots.co.uk/tiki-view_blog_po...&postId=128 Ian

The two tanks are part of the feed and expansion system, which is a fairly detailed thing to explain in a post, but the general basics are covered here... http://www.diyfixit.co.uk/diy/index.html?c...ms/systems.html Basically the tank overflows when there is too much expansion of water in the system, and when the water level drops the ballcock opens the valve to let more water into the system. This stops your radiator valves or copper joints from exploding, and is replaced with a pressure vessel I believe in more modern combination boiliers (sealed systems).

On the subject (I've done this story before). Four years ago, after suffering from migraines and a tremble in my left hand for several months I eventually got a CT scan, which took about 12 weeks to come though (by all accounts very nippy) went to get my results a week later. The doctor said the CT consultant had documented an abnormaility which required investigation by a Neurologist - however - the current waiting list for a Neurologist was about 12 months. My GP advised me in the doctors surgery that he could arrange a private consultation with a nearby Neurologist in about a week, which he did. Given I wasn't working, and not earning I had to ask my parents to cough up the £200 to pay for the appointment, which luckily they could afford to do. I saw the neurologist and was given a reasonable all clear (I have to keep a watch on blood pressure forever I think). OK so lets say it -was- something serious and I -did- wait 12 months for an appointment. Now, I don't want to call the system two tier but if I had a breast lump and was female I'd of been in hopsital in days or certainly a damn site less than 12 months. It's all target based - if it was life threatening and I died in the 12 months I'd probably of been labelled as an 'unfortunate' case with a 'rare medical condition' - but in truth the buggers would have known about it long before it finished me off. BTW I am not knocking the stance on breast cancer above - just making the point that the NHS isn't fit for purpose (I am beginning to like that expression). It isn't a health service at all (it is a repair shop) and unless you have the medical equivalent of a ford escort, or a vauxhall corsa then frankly you could be well in the sh1te anyway. On the subject of paying for medical care my wife is diabetic - now - some numpty many moons ago decided that diabetics should have free prescriptions for -absolutely anything-. This is how ludicrous the system is - yes - as a diabetic let her have free needles, insulin and testing equipment possibly, but, if she gets a bloody cough then her medication is free, if she gets an eye infection (like I have) then the medication is free - completely bloody stupid, and whilst it benefits her, she would be the first to admit that the books don't balance (you cannot give stuff away for free for no reason to people who can afford to pay). On the other hand some drugs are withheld which may improve patients quality of life because there is a black hole in the budget.....go figure.

Agreed - as I said - average BUPA premium £600 per annum. NHS cost per person is now over £1500 per person per year - which if you work it out (taking into account those who never covered their NI through not working etc) that the average tax payer is stiffed about £2500 per annum either directly, indirectly OR via borrowing (which one day we have to pay back via tax anyway). Clearly NI doesn't cover a lot of this for many people - so that is where all the road tax money, fuel duty, cigarettes, alcohol etc ends up! Your average 20 a day smoker contributes JUST FROM CIGGIES about £3.50 per day, so £1300 per annum, before a shred of income tax, NI or anything else. As mentioned above, given it knocks 10 to 20 years off your life supposedly (every -really- old bugger I know smokes like a chimney mind) then in truth I am amazed the treasury is not promoting smoking. Instead the government make it look like a sleazy habbit - but in truth they condone it and need it to happen - otherwise it would have been banned many moons ago..... (I don't smoke, and don't particularly have a problem with people smoking, or indeed being in a smokey room). Now, I said this the other day - I'll happily take a tax break of the BUPA fee (lets say £600) - and opt out if it meant that I got a better standard of care AND the system that remained was (for want of a better expression) fit for purpose, for those that private healthcare isn't an option. Bearing in mind if I am being taxed £2500 for the NHS per annum, that would leave £1900 remaining -without- me draining any of it back out (so it's a win win all round). My only quarm is it would probably need a 300million pound central administration unit armed with a thousand inspectors and impressive water features/paintings/plants/furniture to sort it all out - meaning any benefits would be probably lost anyway! It would take one government minister about five minutes to do the maths and see it is a much better way of working - an NHS compacted down and fit for purpose and private healthcare for your general working masses paid for via a tax break to the equivalent which employers could manage.

Another bloody NHS Fiasco - ok - so I woke up on Tuesday morning with a stie (sty) on my left eye - something I have quite a bit of trouble with in that eye, usually flaring up once a year or so, but this time it was huge - eye completely closed over. So, rang doctors yesterday (knackered didn't sleep much that night), and would you believe it - no appointments. Our surgery will also not permit you to make an appointment the next day. So basically rang them this morning and got an appointment at 5:30pm tonight - so essentially two full working days virtually shot to sh1te because no doctor was available. Not being funny WHY cannot a doctors surgery be staffed until 8pm at night (ours shut at 5:30pm) - it's not a small practice (about 10 doctors or so), and surely putting just one doctor on an evening shift on a delicatessen ticket type system (what they used to do when I was a kid basically) would surely get a lot of the routine stuff out the way. Even better when I got there the prescription was printing as I went through the door - in and out in seriously less than 30 seconds (hi, how are you, ah the left eye, here you go, come back in a week if it's still a problem). Gary (brother) keeps quoting the line from Rocky (cut me micky), but I've thus far passed on the offer. It makes you wonder though how many people might resort to say bursting or pricking something like that when they feel fobbed off, and then make problems much worse...

We are getting 29k to 33k/s downloads via Tiscali on a supposedly business grade 2MB service. My Mac code was requested TWO weeks ago and has yet to materialise! Ian

Who is that with Elton? Just wondering as you'd want hell of a package for 234US a month.

Hi Elton Firstly I'd strongly advise you keep an eye on www.webmasterworld.com if you don't - look in the Google forums. If it asks for a username and password then drop me a line and I'll lend you mine so you can potter about. You often find when these things happen that they are globally applied (i.e. several thousand similar sites dropping out at once), and in this case I can probably guess why google have dropped www.go-fishing.co.uk Without meaning to cause offence (I am stating this as I used to do quite a bit of SEO work), the site has been clearly built for generating revenue - which you'd probably be the first to admit, and on the face of it (initially) has very little unique content in terms of articles. Google (as a search engine) aspires to index useful content, and whilst for a long time go-fishing may have been considered acceptable, frankly it's use or value to the general public would be questionable as an information resource (remember google is looking for information - it owes nothing to businesses - who Google frankly would rather use Adwords anyway). So, whilst removing dead links is a good housekeeping job anyway, I'd strongly suggest reworking the site a little to make it article based, if necessary asking the members on here to contribute an article or three on something they know about. The article doesn't have to be the work of a genius in terms of keyword density or anything, but basically provide information outside of a list of links/adverts. BTW linking to unique content off site really isn't going to help (i.e. links to anglersnet articles). As an aside check your backlinks in google (link:www.go-fishing.co.uk) - If you have no incoming links (which google is currently indicating - though it only shows links with a PR of 4+) then perhaps the reason you've been removed is because Google have rebuilt the index and you've fallen prey to being unlinked or linked from a bad neighbourhood (i.e. when building incoming links try not to use link farms). Try not to interlink sites with the same whois information as well or those which reside on the same server ip range since the paranoid (of which I am one) would suggest that this is easily checkable and if you were building systems to target SPAM you would cross reference that information. Finally my experience of black hat and (over doing white hat) seo is that when a site has had a penalty applied it can take a long time to get it back into shape (sometimes a very long time). If it was me, I'd strongly consider buying a brand new domain name, scavenging what data I can from the existing site (presumably mysql based, so you can dump it into Excel or Access temporarily and import it into whatever structure you choose next), and tidy up go-fishing in the hope that one day it may well come good again. Don't get me wrong - I'm not being critical about the site, just giving my opinion in terms of what I think Google has seen and what might be wrong!

Louth is north Sportsman - we consider ourselves to be North anyway - besides - when we are discussing the North/South divide I think these days you can pretty much just draw the line under Birmingham all things considered. Very true cory - when it's election time for some reason the BBC feel the need to visit an old pit village where you get several hundred people (usually outside the pit club - despite the pit being closed for twenty years) harping on about the conservatives never having done anything for the country..... Tongue in cheek aside people need to realise with politics that you simply cannot vote based on tradition and/or single and very specific events. Yes, the coal miners (and many other industries in the North) felt shafted by the Cons in the 80's but the sad truth is many of these people put them into power to sort out the country AND as I've said countless times, don't think for one minute labour wouldn't sacrifice a workforce when it becomes uneconomical to support it (Rover springs to mind in recent years). If you really don't like a political decision then fair enough - but you've got to vote for the people you think will do the best job. Also though it's about time we had proportional representation - again I've said this before, but Labour have 352 seats against 196 for the conservatives YET the voting public difference was just 3% (32.3% against 35.2%). If we had proportional representation then labour would be the biggest party (true) but they certainly wouldn't have a majority like they do now, making the whole thing much more accountable (at least in theory). Voting should also be compulsory i.e. with an option 'no suitable candidate'

Ahh look Dan - the good old North / South Divide You see, labour probably work on the principle us working class northerners are that bloody gullible we'll vote for labour regardless of the state of our public services... ooo er, quite a lot of places in the North DO actually do that anyway. Besides, working in coal mines from the age of 8 actually means most of us have lost our teeth by the age of 11 so dentists are superflous to requirements..... With regards to dentistry I am not sure why checkups cannot be conducted at least to a certain extent by dental nurses. In truth cavities, lumps and bumps are either spotted or not, so perhaps allieviating dentists of the rather dull and time consuming job of inspecting peoples mouths routinely would free them up to do the actual dental work. It's a bit like a back consultant attending a bloody x-ray - it happens virtually no where else in the medical world! Remember though....things can only get better!

Hi Elton Sorry I forgot to ask mum about this - I'll check tomorrow. Meanwhile re-read that email again - it says 'those who have previously reclaimed via HMRC will no longer be able to do so' which I suspect means until the Luxemborg VAT change is implemented then we WERE able to reclaim via the VAT office (certainly looks like it in their email). Ian

I know I shouldn't have neglected it Cory, but the simple facts are you cannot (absolutely) get a dentist in the town or area we live private or otherwise. Two or three have retired, new practices are not opening, and our local population is swelling (a massive area for new builds is east lincolnshire). The odd thing is my wife has a dentist, who will accept my daughter (18 months) but will not accept me onto his books. Do dentists get more for children on the NHS? (question, I don't know myself!). SO, that leaves you in the dental access centre bracket - which you can only use 'if you are in pain'. In other words, you go in, you don't get any lectures about brushing, flossing etc - just a patch up on the immediate issue. In fact, I know I have a cavity visible on the other side of my mouth but they are not able to do 'routine dental work' only emergency work. So that cavity has to rot away probably over a year or two until it hurts, then they will drill it and fix it up. You see, the NHS as a whole is all backwards - why not spend an hour putting all the jobs right today instead of spending half a dozen half hours patching up my teeth over the next ten years (causing me discomfort in the process). To give you some idea, the receptionist gave me a leaflet at the EDAC telling me a new practice opened in Lincoln the previous Friday (i.e. 3 days ago) and was accepting new patients, BUT, she also said I may well have missed the boat because many dentists could fill their books in that time in an area like ours. It's bloody shocking really, hence my rant above. If my wifes dentist would see me I'd obviously pop along with her for checkups and the like - with any other business I could threaten to withdraw her from being a customer, but simply she (like most of us) doesn't want to lose her dental place. By the way, they drilled most of the tooth out and patched her up so it looks saved (albeit still sheared off on one corner). I was told though that it's a bit of a 50/50 job, and extraction is likely to be the next cause should the filling fail.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4293574.stm OK, sat here at home (9:30am) in a bit of pain, so thought I'd have a whinge again. I broke a tooth about two years ago, shearing the top corner off. Being a back tooth this has progressively turned into a fairly major hole, and although a bit annoying when eating never really caused me any pain. However, driving back from the beach yesterday I nearly crashed the car when a pain like you wouldn't believe shot across my neck and face and now this thing is causing me some real grief. So, last night rang NHS direct (I don't have a dentist - kind of typical in rural lincolnshire). The response 'unless your call is urgent please hang up' - fantastic. I mean are you a medical emergency because you have toothache?? So I did what the phone suggested and went on the website to find an NHS emergency dentist... now, bearing in mind Louth is a market town with a population of about 6,500 and an encatchment dependent on the town in excess of 20,000, and you guessed it - no one in the town is prepared to fix teeth (privately or otherwise). I can visit Lincoln (30 miles away), but with such bad toothace it means I cannot risk driving, so I have to press gang Gary (brother/business parnter) into taking me over. The dental access centre (which I think is code for emergency patch up centre - they do not see routine patients), can only be booked on the day (i.e. a melee at 8:45 in the morning trying to get through), they are not open weekends (so an abcess on a friday night has to wait until Monday morning). Now it got me thinking - Dentists and Doctors are trained in NHS facilities in the main, using tax payers money to fund their education. I am sure all medical persons will tell us that they incur huge debts during training, but the majority of the expense is met by us. I am struggling (in a week where GPs are averaging 120 grand a year) to understand the logic of the state spending (or investing) what is a huge amount of money only to have a system in tatters because the minute anyone has enough experience to turn private in dentisty or medicine they do. Now, you may well argue that universities have always ran at a net loss for each student, so technically why should a medical practioner be any different to say an IT Technician - well - we are talking about grossly different levels of state funding. It's about time the government made a proper stance along the lines. DENTISTS BEING TRAINED WITH TAX PAYERS MONEY should be forced (as part of their contract at medical school) to commit to a minimum number of NHS only years work or be entirely responsible for the true cost of their training. If necessary I'd be fully willing to accept completely free dental training (i.e. no loans, all grant based, including accomodation) if a dentist had to commit to say TEN years of NHS service (and only NHS service) immediately afterwards. There will be people in my town today that don't know how to use NHS Direct, that don't know there is a dental access centre in Lincoln, who are walking around with potentially dangerous tooth issues (an abcess is potentially very dangerous) or in pain, because they have no alternative. There will be old people who cannot get to Lincoln (one bus a day - and when you get to Lincoln you are realistically a good 3 miles from where you need to be). Meanwhile a local dentist around here (private) has setup a direct debit system for his clients, so that they pay every month basically for the privilige of staying on his books. A family of five I think is being charged £25 a month - although your checkups are conducted twice yearly FOC as far as I was told (so £30 a checkup each it works out at!). The whole thing stinks, and in my opinion is another classic example of the NHS being ran by private companies for profit as opposed for what the NHS was actually built for. As I've said - if we are going to abolish the NHS and make everyone except the uber-needy go private then lets bloody do it - there is no point at all in having half a system sort of working, and the other bloody half not working at all. At the sime time lets have a cut in taxation so we can decide where our money is spent on our medical care..... In 2003 - the NHS cost per person was £1461 (shocking I know, but with Browns expenditure etc I'd wager thats pushing 2k now) - BUPA cover for a reasonably fit person averages about £5 to 600 per annum. If I was offered the tax break equivalent of JUST THE BUPA PREMIUM I would snap the governments hand off instantly AND the government would clear £1000 profit they could plough back into the NHS for dealing with people that private health is impractical for (i.e. chronically sick).

I went to Amsterdam on business in October (seriously) and was frankly amazed that people are not lying all over the bloody road in tatters. Unless you've been you will certainly not witness a nation more suited to bicycles than anywhere in Europe - but the buggers think they've got right of way absolutely everywhere - most have no lights (even at night) and two or three up on a bike (or a bastardised contraption that used to be a bike) is perfectly acceptable. A great thing to see I have to say - loads of cyclicts - lots of fittish looking people, BUT, I'd love to know the safety record for a city like that. In the UK these people would be in A&E long before reaching their place of work!

Thats not to say a dual carriagway cannot have a speed restriction like any other road though - A stretch between gainsborough and bawtry springs to mind around here where it is limited to 50mph with SPECS cameras clocking you every mile or two on average speed. I remember going to Scotland once and just after newcastle (Morpeth?) there was the most blatant 'revenue generating' dual carriagway restriction - with f'off illuminated signs telling you how many drivers had been nicked for speeding over the previous 30 days. Round here our authorities seem to think painting white lines of the road will make everyone think there is a camera nearby. It's also shocking how many people think the green and blue masts are cameras when they are TrafficMaster monitors - nothing to do with speed at all. Lets face it though with new cars coming with Sat nav, and sat nav being so cheap, how many of us are truthfully dodging the bloody things on the sly anyway - I know Sportsman and I had a debate about the concept of speed and dangerous driving about a year ago so lets try and avoid it again! On the other hand, I've been stopped doing 40mph in a 30mph and let off by a copper in a car (with video surveillance I think) - yet - I know of a woman who drives at OAP pace who picked up a ticket for 34mph in a 30 only a couple of weeks ago on a fixed camera. If the people enforcing the system are more lenient to some motorists, some areas or some roads then frankly the whole thing is unfair and unworkable and I believe you have a right to do what you can to even up the law frankly. I went to Devon last month (330 mile trip) - in fact - it was the night they forced the M5 traffic through Bristol and over the swing bridge by the airport. Between Bristol and Exeter I saw several cars with only a single rear light, and believe it or not some cruddy old white bange with one rear light AND only one headlight as well. This thing was tanking along at 70+ and frankly was a hazard. Bizarrely though no -sh1theap cameras- exist on the M5 so he probably committed as bad an offence as you can on a motorway at night, but probably got away scot-free. Speeders are easy targets. Motorway speed limits should be officially increased to the legal limit we are permitted to drive. This 70mph rubbish but you are 'generally' to do 80 to 85mph is simply not the way in which laws should be constructed or enforced!

Dual carriageways are 70mph basically a white circle with a black line doesn't represent 60mph but it represents the 'national speed limit for the given road' which in this case is 70mph. That said coppers in the main are much more keen to nab a 75mph on a dual carriageway A road than they are on a motorway, so be warned about creeping over the limit. Restrictions apply to trailers, caravans and lorries on A road dual carriageways as far as I know.

I'd go with long life or energy saving bulbs - we literally went mad and replaced the 20 odd light bulbs around the house all with energy saving bulbs about a year ago (not cheap mind) BUT we've not replaced any since to the best of my knowledge. The newer lamps are much better than the old ones - you don't get the long warm up delays of 'dirty light' you used to get. Plus the energy savings are fairly significant - 60watts down to 7 or 10 watts, represents a saving of 84% ish - which in my reckoning if you assume you probably use 30 hours of light a day in a house across all rooms thats 657kw per annum on regular bulbs (circa £60 a year in electric) against £8.40 on energy saving bulbs. If the bulbs last two years, you've made a saving of a hundred quid. You can get the bulbs for £1.99 for a standard screw/bayonet fitting - and many places (we got ours from ikea) have special offers and bulk packs - like 3 bulbs for a five. Yes it might cost £40 to £60 or so to do the house, BUT, it does work out better in the long (and you can feel good in helping the environment and keeping global warming nutters at bay).

Ooops - I relisted an auction as a buy it now and forgot to edit that. We run between 60 and a 100 auctions at a time and it does get confusing sometimes. I'll edit it if I can or post a footnote! I am keen to get these out in the wild so to speak ferret so if you want one, drop me a PM and we can discuss it! Crazy prices, but on these items we have basically took the UK main dealership for Browning on an item which will be restricted to 'no more than 5 uk suppliers'. Basically it means we've got to work bloody hard at getting the name out there and trying to do well on the back of it. Phase 1 is brand building which basically means I am going to shift 50 at not much more than cost, basically to get motors out on lakes and people asking about them...

Emailed mum, says she'll look into it tomorrow for you (well it affects us as well). On the basis that eBay charge VAT on the prevailing rate (i.e. 17.5% for UK, 21% for Ireland) we suspect they must account for in said member states, and therefore the invoice is valid (unlike say a German invoice where you must Zero rate it for a business in the UK or the UK business has to reclaim it from Germany).

I think customs are talking rubbish elton - simply put last time I checked my seller account (which is basically once a quarter for reasons like yourself) I receive VAT invoices. Yes, eBay do have a self-billing arrangement (as do Google for example) where they can EXEMPT a VAT registered business from paying VAT -but- the rules on VAT are very black and white, and thats if you present a valid VAT invoice, and you are VAT registered then you can reclaim the VAT - there is simply no way out of that. The eBay invoice shows their Trading name, address, European VAT number, a separate VAT amount an invoice number, your customer address and an invoice date (the pre-requisites of a VAT invoice) hence the VAT man should have no arguments. SOUND LIKE THE TAX OFFICE TRYING TO BASICALLY MAKE THEMSELVES LESS WORK. If you put the onus on businesses like eBay to manage the VAT aspects of their customers then it means the tax man only has to check one place (not several thousand merchants). However, the principles of taxation are that you've paid VAT on a valid VAT invoice and as a business with a VAT number you can get it back. Let them argue it legally - but I think they'll struggle. My mums a proper accountant and has dealt with the VAT office on huge accounts - I'll ask her what she thinks and let you know.

We use first class for initial mailings of low price goods (packs of artifical corn, hooks etc) and if the buyer trys to claim non-delivery genearlly we believe them and send replacements recorded. That said it is (in my understanding of UK law) generally accepted that once goods have left a business (i.e. us) they become property of the customer AT THAT POINT and in no way is the seller obliged to guarantee safe delivery of said items - that said any business which doesn't do that is basically not going to last very long! I might be wrong - but you do see goods in transit clauses on many terms and conditions AND most are to the effect above.