musicalj2

My friend's mother is Asian and has a poor command of the English language, and my friend acts as an interpreter for her. However, she is now in a bit of a quandary: she moved away from home and in her absence her mother ordered things from my friend's catalogue which she has not paid for, lumbering my friend with the bad debt and the poor credit reference. Her mother is now refusing to pay. A debt collection firm is now involved and sending letters threatening legal action. What is the best course of action? The debt is a comparatively small one (just over £250), but because she is unemployed she cannot afford to pay it off.

I'm looking at re-planning my kitchen, and because I am getting old I am thinking of getting a built-in oven tower. I've always cooked with gas ovens before now, but am looking at electric ovens. What's the difference and advantage between a fan-assisted or ordinary electric oven, and even steam baking ovens that are available? Does any one type cook better than the other?

Seven or eight years ago, my son was arrested with his friend and accused of raping a minor. This minor is like some girls nowadays; dresses older than she is and drinks, smokes, and behaves sexually promiscuously, and is allowed to stay out all night. My son and his friend got drunk along with the girl, and ended up at my son's house. He went to bed and left them downstairs, but she alleged rape against both of them the next day and both were arrested. The charges against my son were dropped; he gave a DNA sample but the police decided that there was no case to answer; there was no matching DNA at his house (and believe me, he wouldn't have tidied up...) and he was released without charge. However, he was stopped on his way home from the pub last night in a different area entirely, and the policeman did a background check on him; because of that he then became a person of interest to them because of robberies in the area, purely because he had this arrest on record. Now, I'm aware that every mother thinks her son is a good kid, and I'm no different, but he wasn't in trouble with the police before that event, and hasn't been since. IF he can, HOW can he get his arrest record cleared? Isn't there now some procedure he can follow?

I think they are made from pine. Most of our hard wood furnishing is birch - a very pale wood - so I don't want to stain them dark or paint them. So what's the next best finish for them, bearing in mind they will be quite heavy traffic? Whatever it is must be applied this weekend, and be diamond hard by Monday!

I'm asking because we did and - thanks to someone who replied to questions we asked here we enjoyed the experience so much more through the offices of the Big Apple Greeters.

They are a voluntary organisation who are passionate to the point of evangelism about New York City, the place where they work as volunteers to greet tourists to their city.

I mention this because they are short of funding - like many voluntary bodies when a recession bites - and also because quite a few of the people making contributions to this site are Americans.

We visited NYC for our 25th Wedding Anniversary, and I had booked ahead with this group to have a Greeter show us around Chinatown, which was the part of New York we chose to visit. A delightful guy called John, a retired fire chief on duty on 9/11, showed us where he had been born and raised. He introduced us to the underground system, and without his help I think we would have been rather nervous about riding it. Oddly enough, thanks to him we felt safer in New York than we do in London.

I'd be keen for others to have a similar sort of experience, but unfortunately this group is due to close down on Sept 22nd unless they can raise funding to keep going.

Now, I know there are many more worthwhile charities out there deserving of money, but this is a charity that helps put money in the pockets of American workers through the tourist industry, and does it without ripping off the tourists; tourists aren't charged for the privilege of meeting lovely people like John (which perhaps we should be), all they ask is that we give them some refreshment as they spend a morning or an afternoon with the people they take round. We took a book about our part of England as a gift for him and asked him to recommend a restaurant where we could all lunch out, and he chose somewhere that was delightful and not at all expensive.

If you've ever been a stranger in a city where you wish you knew a friendly face and didn't, The Big Apple Greeter experience is one you would appreciate as much as we did. Without their help I think we would have been a bit intimidated by the experience; with it we were a heck of a lot more confident and had a great time. It's on the back of that that I am keen that other people have the opportunity to experience the kindness of New Yorkers; if you want to help go to

www.savebigapplegreeter.org.

If you don't, then just forget I said anything! :-))

He has early - mid stage Alzheimer's Disease, but loves watching tv. He's also deaf, so needs teletext facility. Any suggestions for a basic, simply operated tv without need for connection to anything but an aerial and wall plug, as he doesn't use a dvd player. In UK.

I have a friend whose husband recently found out his father had died, but because of estrangement between himself and his sister didn't get to hear about the death except through a third party three years later. His sister had not told him or his other sister about it, and she seems to have been a manipulative character who could have hidden the death and the Will for her own purposes.

I've just heard a rendition of it in preparation for the Remembrance Day service and the whole thing took 1 minute 25 seconds. Is this about the right timing? It seemed a bit fast to me!

....the fire escape is a shared one and has been blocked off by the person living in the first floor flat of the ajdoining building. Is my son legally entitled to demand that the landlord (who may not own that neighbouring property) do something to ensure that the fire escape is serviceable in the event of a fire? At the moment the person who lives there looks as though they have decked out the area beyond the door as their own personal garden balcony.

The flat is cheap to rent because it isn't in very good repair, and as my son is unemployed he doesn't want to rock the boat too much. :-(

He's 88 and was in the RAF. One of them was the Burma Star. I don't know whether they would have been inscribed with his name. I also don't know how to console him - he's heart-broken and shouldn't have to go through this. We have a good idea that they 'disappeared' on the day he moved from his last house, but we haven't found them and of course the removal company don't want to know.

Can anybody tell me whether the Burma Star is inscribed with the name of the serviceman receiving it? I may have to trawl through all sorts of sites and shops before I can find them - if I can. :-(

Food poisoning at Toronto Airport?

On April 18th we dined at the British Airways Club Lounge in Toronto Airport. I had fishcakes and two hours into our flight home to the UK I was taken seriously ill with food poisoning. BA are disclaiming any responsibility and have taken over a month to address my concerns.

I now want to take it to the next level. Who is the appropriate government body to approach, and what is the address of the Airport Authority to which I might address my complaint?

Any helpful pointers would be gratefully received!

On April 18th we dined at the British Airways Club Lounge in Toronto Airport. I had fishcakes and two hours into our flight home to the UK I was taken seriously ill with food poisoning. BA are disclaiming any responsibility and have taken over a month to address my concerns.

I now want to take it to the next level. Who is the appropriate government body to approach, and what is the address of the Airport Authority to which I might address my complaint?

Any helpful pointers would be gratefully received!

We're visiting New York City in a few weeks time and we want to go clothes shopping while we are there. Someone has suggested to me that the out-of-town shopping outlet malls are very good, but we won't have our own transport, and I have no idea where people are recommending, and now that the holidays are here no way of finding out!

Can anyone help an over-excited Brit who hasn't done her homework all that well, please?

I'm asking this question half in jest, half in despair. I live in the UK where so many immigrants are crowding in and our taxes are increasing to support them and their (in some cases multiple) wives and families that I want out. We're travelling to new York in the near future. What would happen if I said I wanted to claim political asylum as soon as I got off the aircraft?

Like I said, I'm asking half in jest, so I know all the 'you'd get yer butt kicked back to where it came from' answers! It's the ones I don't know I'm after. What would be the necessary entry qualifications? My life isn't in danger, but my finances are - we're not rich and getting steadily poorer. My dad took us to Canada in 1999, and we so loved it there if anyone had offered me a job and somewhere to live I wouldn't have bothered coming back, and I expect to have the same feeling when we visit America. Why so many of you want to come and live here is beyond me!

:-))

We have a Skoda Fabia and the rear screen washer pipe has become disconnected. We've looked in the handbook, and there is no guidance on how to get to the pipe to re-connect it. Has anyone had to do this before and is able to give us some guidance on how to remove the tail-gate cover to get to the mechanism? There's water running down inside the covering, so we know it's getting through, it's just getting it through to where it is actually needed that's the problem! Any help gratefully received.

My husband and I are due to visit New York in April next year. We could both do with refreshing our wardrobes, and we are both in the larger size category. Apart from the obvious 'go on a diet, fatties,' where can we go to shop for outsize clothing in New York that won't break the bank or raise the bank-manager's blood pressure too much? We do most of our shopping at High and Mighty (him) and Ann Harvey, Evans and Elvi (me) here in the UK, and becaue time is short we want to make the most of it. We'll be travelling with nearly empty suitcases and living in hope!

We've just been out for a meal at our local Harvester restaurant. The entire experience was ruined by a child of about 4 years of age, who would not sit still, had grabbed the curtain tie-back from the windows and was swinging it around. Being of the heavy rope variety, had it ihit someone it could have caused painful injury.

Because I am slightly deaf (the NHS haven't come up with my hearing aid yet), I'd asked to be moved to another area of the restaurant so that my husband and I could have a reasonably quiet meal. No chance as there was only only one waitress on duty, although we were moved to the other side of the section. The child was repeatedly told to sit down, don't do that, etc, but the parents didn't enforce it.

Had the child caused injury to another diner or - heaven forbid - to himself by getting in the way of a waiter carrying hot food or drink, who do you think would or should have been held responsible? (The restaurant would, but the parents should IMHO)

I used Dylon Wash and Dye, and only being half awake I tipped it into the wrong place. There's now dye sludge in the drawers of the machine which I can't get out completely.

Is anybody else an idiot like me and has done the same thing, who can tell me how long it will be before my whites are safe to go in and not come out grey (it was black dye....)!!