Simon C

At the end of November, I ordered a gas hob and electric double oven from an online retailer. They were scheduled for delivery on 4th and 12th December respectively. On the 4th December came, the Hob was delivered but there was also an electric oven. Believing the oven to have been delivered early, I signed the delivery. I later realised that the oven was not the one I had ordered and (it was single) and my double oven was still scheduled for 12th December. On checking the label, the oven was for a completely different person and had been sent to me in error.

I contacted the delivery company but they refused to collect as the delivery postcode on the label did not match any of their records. I phone the company I purchased from and they said they would arrange a pickup the next day. The next day, no pickup. The next morning I chatted online to the company who said pickup would be arranged for that day......no pickup. Its now been 5 weeks so what should I do with this oven ?

Why has it taken so long for this to be flagged up ? It was an answer to a question about female health issues but was answered respectfully but why now after 5 years is it an issue ? How many other answers that I posted to help people will be deleted ?

I want to buy a car that I can rent out as a wedding limo, and also use myself as a weekend / fun car.

I have a budget of £4000 and have narrowed down the following :

Rover 75 (conniseur spec with cream leather, V6 engine to avoid head gasket issues)

Jaguar X Type (a better car than the 75 but more desirable, more expensive to insure)

Jaguar S Type (Best looking of the 3 in my opinion but least relaible and most expensive to maintain)

There low mileage examples of all of these vehicles around, all with service history and all the best colours for wedding limos like gold, silver, beige etc.

Any thoughts, or sugestions for cars I've perhaps overlooked that may make ideal classic wedding limos.

The chicken pieces had been boiled and then fried and the meat was brown and tender. It was only when I stripped off the last pieces from the thigh bone that I noticed some reddening on the bone.

I have an HTC wildfire s with SD card. I have basic apps including clock, photo viewer and weather. Every so often, jpeg images of casino and banner ads appear in my photo viewer and I never visit such sites. I had to erase 40 such images today. I never visit these sites or save such images so what is happening and how to stop it.

Now her birthday is coming up and she's acting like I have to spoil her and treat her special and make her feel like a princess etc etc.

Is she a spoiled brat ?

Should I get her anyhting for her birthday, or is not getting anything descending to her level ?

I'm finding work really tough just now, not because of my ability to do my job, but becasue I feel my boss is always confronting me about things, even the positives that I do. For example,just last week I was addressing her and my two collegues at a departmental meeting and every sentence I said, she would interrupt me before I had a chance to finish. She then saw me referring to my notes in my diary and made a comment, in front of the other staff, about why this wasn't there and that wasn't there....it felt like she was trying to trip me up in front of my colleges and, of course, if she had issues with how I keep my planning diary she should have spoken to me about it in private.

I did make an error at work just last week and I said I would do what it takes to rectify this....I was even summoned by a higher person in the workplace who said to me that he appreciates that I had been honest and I was just to do the best I can to sort things out. My boss, however has never been off my back, she's goes snooping around my desk and is always in my face when I have already said 100 times that I would sort things out.

Two weeks ago, we had a disagreement and, to cut a long story short, I sent her a very strong e-mail stating that I felt that her critisism was personal and that I no longer felt that I worked in a supportive environment. She had a chat to me the next day when she said that it was not personal, but, she clearly has issues with me because other member of the department get treated like she is their best friend.

I need advice on :

(1) How best to deal with her and

(2) How to make her respect me more. I try so hard to do my job properly but its at the stage now where the atmosphere at work is so bad, its putting me on edge and causing me to make mistakes.

I should also point out that my workplace has no HR department and the member of staff in charge of employee walfare is very untrustworthy and has a reputation for holding what you say against you.

I'm experiencing some financial difficulties just now (partly my own fault) but partly circumstantial. My wife has lent me some money to help, but she always has a go at me about it and demands payback within a few days.

My Salary is used to pay for the mortage, council tax, all payables etc. and she does contribute £200 per month (out of her £995 salary) which is of course helpfull.

My car got hit with a £700 repair bill 2 weeks ago which cleaned me out and unable to pay some bills. I asked her if I could borrow £400 on her next payday. She agreed but made an issue of it and said I could get £400 and she would then not give me £200 on the following month. What really annoys me the most is that when she wasn't working, I paid for everything including her clothes and the food on the table and she seems to have forgotten this all of a sudden. When I raise this with her, she just says stuff like "oh, so you think I owe you then".

I know that if the situation were reversed and she needed help then I would be first in to help her out, but now she is the one with all the cash, it's like she wants to keep it all to herself. Of course, I will pay her back when I am back on my feet but what she doesn't seem to get is that my credit score is being affected, she has the funds to HELP but acts like she doesn't care....

This attitude of hers also makes it really hard for me to sit down and plan a financial future with her which is all I want to do.....of course she still wants I-phones and holidays and clothes but when I tell her we need to be carefull, she just goes in a strop.

I agree that she has the right to spend the money that she worked for and earned, but I'm not asking her for her entire salary, just some to help me through some bad times.

My central heating boiler is packed in and I was quoted £3400 for replacement - was rejected for monthly payment option due to low credit score.

The brake pipes on my car burst yesterday and the garage has quoted me £650 for new pipes, pads, discs and a new caliper as the old one is ceased - this led to the excess pressure on the pipe causing it to burst.

Garage has found a whole load of other things wrong with the car that will cost above and beyond £650.

I can't borrow money as my credit score is too low becasue of previous problems.

I did additional leaflet distribution work to raise extra funds but one company refused to pay me, and one company (who were good) closed down their distrribution side of buisness.

I did advertised my services for local DIY jobs but most people just wanted small odd jobs done that only paid £30 - £50 here and there.

My car is undriveable, my house is cold and I don't know what to do.

I don't use credit cards any more and the money I had saved up was used to get my car through its MOT last year. I'm trying to save monthly again but any time I save, some emergency crops up that ends up costing me money. I buy only basic food, don't go out any more and have sold most of my DVD's and lots of my Xmas presents just to get by,

I'm not wanting charity, just a fair chance to pay off unexpected bills that keep cropping up.

Have a PC and Laptop at home. Laptop is 3 months old, pc is much older but still uses XP. Both are connected via Sky Broadband.

Had some time off work so decided to browse a "popular" car review website.

(1) Site wouldn't load on PC, no error message, no crashes, it just made the screen go white while the blue top banner displayed the correct website and the little loading "rotating ring" in the broweser tab.

(2) Tried on laptop, same effect. White screen, blue title bar at top, loading "ring" in banner tab.

(3) Tried on HTC Phone (Wireless access to Sky Router) website loaded and worked perfectly.

(4) Tried on Wife's I-Phone, Site loaded perfectly.

(5) Ran full virus scans on PC and Laptop, all clean, website still failed to load.

(6) Loaded up "Citrex Xen App 4 Anywhere" to access my work's desktop from home. Tried accessing required website from there and guess what....it worked perfectly.

Question is where is there a fault ?

Same fault in my PC and Laptop at same time for same website ? too much of a co-incidence

Fault on website ? How can it load on cellphones AND work desktop ? If website was down, an error / connection message would be reported.

Why JUST this website ? all other websites like Yahoo, ebay, google work fine.

Fault in Modem / Router ? How would Phones connect ? How would other websites work ?

At this stage, I don't care about accessing the website any more, I just can't get my head round what exactly is going on.

Also- rebooted router, PC and Laptop etc. same effect,

This is too wierd.

Been trying to access the site for two days now. Not overly important, but the site takes 10 minutes to load and none of the review links load up. No error messages or connection messages, just a blank screen as the site is attempted to be accessed. It happens on my home PC and Laptop.

Has anybody else experienced this ?

I know most cockney rhyming slang but this one has got me. A "Beano" to Margate ? meaning a trip. The other one is a "Drum" for a house / home / dwelling ?

I'm a progrssing advanced, non agressive piste skier (can blast down blues and feel confident on reds, can tackle blacks and moguls but with not much style) and I am looking to change my skis.

Many skis now have versions with titinium to increase the stffness and thus make the ski cope better in chopped up conditions, but I'm worried that I might be too light for them weighing only 10 stone.(I'm 5 foot 6, and 40 year old male)

I'm like Nordica hot rod skis, and Elan's waveflex series and the Atomic Nomads, but I'm not sure whether to go with the Ti versions which may help push me to be a better skier, or whether to stay with the non Ti versions.

Also, I normally ski on 170's. if I opt for stiffer Ti versions, should I stay at 170 or drop to 160 / 162 ?

Many thanks

Simon

I'm not new to E-bay, but need clarifiction on how bidding increments work. Lets look at the following scanario :

An item is listed with an opening bid of £200

Bidder (A) places a bid of £200. The item goes to £200 and Bidder A is the highest Bidder.

Bidder (B) places a bid of £400. Bidder B is the new high bidder and the price goes to £205 (£5 increment for items within this price range)

Bidder (A) realises he/she has been outbid and tries to outbid bidder (B) by placing a bid of £500 on the item

Bidder (A) is now the highest bidder but.....

Does the price of the item go up by another £5 to £210

or

Does the price go up to £405 to outbid bidder B's maximum.

I've read the e-bay rules on bidding but it doesn't make it clear, although it does say that bid increments can be greater to outbid somebody.

Thanks

Water is dripping from my central heating system but the boiler and all the pipework is dry. The hot water tank seems to be sitting in a puddle of water and the foam insulation in the jacket is "perished" due to water damage but I can't find the source of the leak.

The hot water tank has a ACV label on it. It has TWO pipes at the top , a pipe on one side high up and a pipe on the other side lower down. There is NO header tank in the system and the entire central heating system is contained in a small upstairs cupboard. It comprises the Boiler, the tank and a small metal cylinder on its side which I think is something to do with pressure regulation. The header tank in the attic space is no longer connected and is bone dry so the previous occupants had this system installed at least 10 years ago.

Any idea what is wrong if it can be repaired or if a new cylinder is needed ?

It's Gas fired and the Boiler is made by Vailant

My PC (windows XP) seems to have picked up a bug or a virus. Since today, whenever I try to load internet explorer, it goes into "not responding" mode and the CPU usage goes up to between 80% - 95%. I have MacAfee installed but it can't seem to find anything. The modem and internet connection ar fine as I'm connected via a wi fi laptop at the moment.

Any ideas ?

Surely allowing meat to defrost exposes it to the atmosphere for longer and will allow for more bacterial growth than putting it in the oven and raising the temperature quickly.

Also, does roasting not kill all bacteria, regardless of whether its cooked from fronzen or de-frosted ?

Some "pre-pack" meats specify"for best results cook from frozen"

I washed some dishes, cups, glasses and the like, in hot sopy water so they were squeeky clean.

I placed them upside down to drip dry on a draining board and when I return to them the next day, there is a funny smell inside that is gone after a few seconds. A sort of mildy unpleasent musty water smell..... what causes this ?

Its also a smell associated with water in fish tanks and water thats been kept in a container for a long time, even when clean.

Not a strong pungent smell, but a mildly sweet but unpleasent smell.

It has the car reg in regulation black letters but the other details also important for an MOT test nowadays.

At the bottom right it says "HSP BSAU 145D"

and at the bottom middle it says "HSP G22 7XT"

The font is very small but its still legible.

I noticed the leaves growing after the harsh winter we had and thougt i strange because it just seemed to appear in the garden and is the only one. I was curious and let it grow, and in the last month, the stem has grown and yielded pink / magenta flowers.

I just can't identify it !

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035264@N07/57345985...