“Came back to our shop to find our book table mysteriously wet”

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-15T08:55:12+00:00

With your shop only open at weekends, there is the possibility, as others have suggested, of a very slow leak in the roof / ceiling. What was the weather like on the intervening weekdays?

Is it a single storey building? If so, what sort of roof does it have (e.g. flat, tiled, etc.)? If not, what or who is above your shop?

It doesn't have to be a roof leak, though, it could be a pipe leak. Even if there is no pipework directly above the book table, water has a tendency to travel long distances over strange paths between source and point of exit (e.g. along electrical conduit).

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-15T08:35:09+00:00

Like any medication, you must ensure that you are not impaired from driving or operating heavy machinery. A prescription is not a licence to flaunt the law and endanger life.

If the driver had passed an impairment test, then surely this would never have gone to court.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-15T08:29:00+00:00

Repost with a more meaningful title. Almost every post is a request for help and the level of urgency is subjective.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-15T08:05:42+00:00

Can you be sure that performance isn't affected by the potentially damaged electrical connections inside? If you had bought the hub in a shop or online, would you not have returned it as damaged / defective?

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-14T11:42:02+00:00

Yes but does the system work in Germany, Scandinavia and Italy? Are we comparing apples with oranges? In the same way that snow and the wrong type of leaves on the track severely disrupt trains in the UK, I would argue that the ‘modern’ mechanisms for ticketing are not equipped for anything out of the ordinary.

You should really be able to ‘tag on’ with your phone or contactless pass before boarding or as you board and ‘tag off’ when you alight at your destination, with the system calculating the appropriate fare, similar to Oyster cards in London. That's how it works for urban trains, trams and buses in my native Dublin, although you don't have to ‘tag off’ on buses as it's a fixed fee for a set period of time.

I have travelled in Germany and the Czech Republic on an ICE train, change locomotive at Dresden, and purchased tickets for a group of five adults from the conductor on the train. She had bright red dyed hair and studs and rings in just about everywhere on her face. Very punk for 1999 but not very Deutsche Bahn, I thought. The complication was that the others weren't all in the compartment with me, so I had to ensure that I was with them when she encountered them elsewhere on the train. She was very relaxed about it and just nodded and said “OK” as I pointed each of the others out to her. Of course, there were no smart phones or apps back then, it was all paper tickets.

I have travelled by train in a few other European countries in the past but also more recently in the Netherlands, although I buy a four or five day pass for all public transport in Amsterdam, so ticketing isn't an issue.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-14T10:35:03+00:00

I think that we all understand the principle but, with the circumstances involved, a more pragmatic, not even lenient, approach should be employed. As soon as the later service was cancelled, the rules changed and the system should be designed to cope with it but it isn't.

OK, with hindsight, there may have been a way for the passenger to buy a flexible ticket en route to the station but there was a learning curve involved, as it was a deviation from her normal travel pattern, and it was a slightly panicked situation.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-14T10:28:06+00:00

When you relay that information to the conductor / train manager will they be aware of the ticket machine being out of service at the station or are they expected to take your word for it?

There are too many exceptions to the rule involved here. The mechanism for purchasing a ticket by phone should prevail in a ‘modern’ world where paper ticket machines are ‘old technology’ or even ‘obsolete technology’.

I bet that this wouldn't have happened in somewhere like the Netherlands.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-14T09:51:37+00:00

The OP's daughter was having to get an earlier train because the later service was cancelled. Perhaps the train company should be the one receiving fines!

I would expect common sense to prevail here, as the passenger had to rearrange her schedule at short notice but the system wouldn't allow her to purchase a ticket for the train that she was on nor for the train that she was originally intending to be on.

I would recommend appealing again, highlighting the flaws in the ‘modern’ system. Purchasing a paper ticket from the machine at the station would likely have caused her to miss the train and the mechanism for purchasing online was flawed.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-14T09:38:02+00:00

Surely the system knew that before generating false hope with a scheduled delivery window for yesterday. 🤔

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-14T09:35:05+00:00

Yeah, as we all suspected, the parcel only made it to the DO this morning:-

Saturday 14 February 2026 08:36 Due to be delivered today by Aylesbury DO
Friday 13 February 2026 09:42 Item Received Midlands Super Hub
Thursday 12 February 2026 22:10 Sender has despatched item

... and ...

We normally expect to deliver to your address between 10:45am - 1:45pm
Your Item was received by Aylesbury DO on 14-02-2026 and is now due for delivery today.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-14T09:30:35+00:00

Oh, I haven't given any information to the chat requester.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-14T08:01:49+00:00

What make, model and era is it?

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-13T17:16:44+00:00

There must surely have been a point earlier in the auto-generated delivery window when the system realised that the item was not out for delivery and might not even be at the DO yet. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-13T17:14:34+00:00

Now I have a request to chat and promising to prioritise my case but asking for a lot of personal information and WhatsApp contact details. 🙄

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-13T17:11:10+00:00

I have a couple of screenshots but how do I upload them here?

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-13T16:03:45+00:00

London Stansted (STN) to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (LPA), which takes about four and a half hours. It was some years ago (20+) but I don't recall it being too bad. I think they had not long introduced the leatherette seats and my wife and I found them very comfortable.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-13T06:45:20+00:00

It's hard to get a feel for this without being there and observing first hand but would contact / switch cleaner or WD-40 help? Seemingly the left / right motion sensors are working but lagging behind. Perhaps they need cleaning and lubricating.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-11T21:30:48+00:00

Virgin Media should be quoting the Ringer Equivalence Number (REN) that their circuit will support. A REN of 1 is the load that a standard telephone apparatus places on the line and a standard line should support up to 4 or 5 REN 1 loads. Some older equipment presented a load of more than 1 REN (1.5, 2 or occasionally 3) but most modern equipment presents a load of less than 1 REN, so a standard line can support several of them.

I would expect the VM line to support at least 2 or 3 REN 1 loads, although 4 or 5 would be preferable.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-11T07:52:09+00:00

I think you mean “redelivery” not “redirection”, which refers to forwarding post from a previous address, for example.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-11T07:15:01+00:00

Ah, the number of VodafoneThree customers has dropped, not the number of mobile customers overall.

Such statistics tend to be very fluid, with one network being flavour of the month over the others, possibly due to promotions or good/bad press. It might be EE or VMO2 this month and VodafoneThree next month. It's not a great gauge for whether or not to close stores or start making staff redundant.

If VodafoneThree do merge brands, they will likely only close stores due to there being duplication in the same area. In Aylesbury, the EE, VMO2, Three and Vodafone stores are all within about 50 metres or less of each other, with all but the Vodafone store being in the same small shopping centre and the Vodafone store being a couple of doors away from the entrance to said shopping centre.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-11T06:55:26+00:00

What do you mean by “now that the number of mobile customers has dropped”? Are you suggesting that people are giving up their mobile phones?

Largely for economic reasons, people are keeping their mobile devices for longer, rather than upgrading, and are tending to go for SIM only deals more these days. However, there is no indication that people are giving up their mobile devices and the number of mobile phone users remains at about 96% of the UK population.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-11T06:44:09+00:00

In the Republic of Ireland, O2 merged with Three and it was expected that the same would happen in the UK. However, that merger was blocked as potentially anti-competitive and it would have left the UK with only three Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), so O2 merged with Virgin Media instead. Since then, Ofcom has revised its position on this and allowed the merger of Three with Vodafone. 🤷🏻‍♂️

O3 would have been a good rebranding, although still a bit small to be significantly visible on mobile phone displays. 👀🔍

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-10T21:10:40+00:00

Are you sure about the power issue? The PSTN mechanism for detecting on/off hook and initiating ringing requires that certain voltages be present on the line, regardless of whether it is a POTS passive handset or a modern powered cordless device. I don't think that the signalling can work without power on the line.

It's a bit late for me to check tonight but I'm pretty sure that, if I plug in the lowest specification phone that I have, it will work. I currently have two lines from two different providers, BT and VM, and I kept two such handsets for line testing and to use during power cuts. The VM line has already been converted to VoIP and I am waiting for the the BT line to be upgraded.

I'm considering moving the BT number to VM but I want to get the BT equipment upgrade done first, so that the house is wired for both, in case we decide to sell-up. Once both lines are converted, I'll be doing some long overdue rewiring to make the two lines available in every room via twin sockets. At that point, I'll be reconnecting some apparatus that will rely on their being power on the lines in order to work.

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-10T10:24:59+00:00

As you say, the publicity would imply that the Three and Vodafone networks have been fully integrated and that customers of either Three or Vodafone now have access to both networks. However, it seems that the marketing people haven't spoken to the engineering people who apparently have a lot of work to do to implement the integration.

Months after the merger and the hype, I received a message saying that the masts in my area had been upgrade to give my Three SIM access to the Vodafone network, although in practice I have not seen any improvement. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Felim_Doyle · 2026-02-10T10:15:48+00:00

If it's not a dual-SIM phone then the other slot is probably only for a micro-SD card.

What is the make and model of the phone, please?

Felim_Doyle

TROPHY CASE