Gaikokujin

Went down to Sheff uni earlier today to try and pick up some Saturday tickets for myself and a couple of mates to be told by the woman working that it’s the full weekend tickets only that can be bought in person, and single day tickets are only available online? Bit of a rip off for people like us who can’t make it for the full weekend as we’ll now get stung with paying a booking fee on top of the normal ticket price. Also because it’s now gone past the date for posting out tickets we’ll have to pay another fee on top as well because they are sold ‘as collection’. Don’t really see why if you can sell the full weekend tickets “booking fee free” to people buying them in person then the same can’t be done for single day tickets? Or do the people working at Sheff uni box office have the wrong info?

The Banner Cross on Ecclesall Road is showing it, the Porter Brook has BT sport and the landlord is a Liverpool fan too so would imagine they'll have it on as well

You weren’t the only one to jump in and start slagging off the complainant, but as you openly admit you have a vested interest - by way of your son being the chef - your snappy, sarcastic attitude to someone not finding everything to be 100% perfect did stand out. Along with the other people who straight away accused him of working for a rival and deliberately trying to badmouth the place. As I said earlier though kudos to the manager for his rather more considered response to the complaint. Thank god they have someone like him in charge and not a SF user…

Mistakes do indeed happen and the original reaction may well have been a little OTT, but the way that some of the other posters on this thread – particularly those with a vested interest in the place – are vilifying the original complainant as some kind of deliberate saboteur of new business is equally off-putting. I defy anyone to be not even a little bit miffed if you go out to eat and end up having a meal not just late but completely missed off the order. Kudos to the response from the actual manager of the place though, exactly the reaction that there should be to this kind of thing rather than just shouting down anyone who isn't 100% happy.

If you get off the bus at Whirlow it’s probably about a 10-15 minute walk down Whirlowdale Road then Abbey Lane. If you're coming from the direction of the city you’d be better off getting on a number 97 out towards Totley, get off at the crossroads of Abbeydale Road/Abbey Lane and then walk 5 minutes up the hill.

Thanks for the tip, I'll try dropping him a PM.

We're having a problem with our combi boiler and wondering if anyone can recommened a reasonably priced engineer/repair service in the S11 area, or even advise me if it's something I might be able to sort out myself? The make/model is Baxi 105 HE, and the problem is that there is a flashing 'flame failure' light that keeps occuring when the hot water or central heating tries to kick in. I've tried resetting it as per the instructions in the manual which initially seemed to work, but that only lasted a week before it happened again and now it's at a point where even if I can get it to reset it fails again the first time a hot water tap is turned on. The manual suggests that if it is a recurring problem then it could be down to either the gas supply, the boiler itself or the condensate drain?

If it’s specifically British food you’re after and not just somewhere that has a steak on the menu you could try Kitchen on Ecclesall Road. It’s not quite in the city centre but not that far away either so you can make it into town fairly easily, or there are a couple of places around that end to go for a drink afterwards anyway.

Been a few times since it opened on a Friday as it’s a convenient place to meet some mates who work on Ecclesall Road for an after work drink. For that purpose it is more than adequate but I wouldn’t consider going there for food and to be fair I don’t think that’s the market they’ve gone for. The menu is basically a small step up from bar snacks, but given the amount of choice when it comes to eating out on Ecclesall Road I don’t see that as a bad thing. It’s definitely more of a straight out drinking establishment than the 'half and half' setup they had at the old place.

Even closer than that is/was Dunn's river on Hunters bar, if it's even still open? Demand for that was so poor I don't think I ever saw a single customer in the place... On the subject of Mud Crab Diner itself, I went there last week when I noticed it had re-opened with this new 'concept'. Pretty unimpressed to be honest. The refurb seems to amounted to nothing more than hanging a few black & white pictures of motorbikes, otherwise it looks pretty much as it did when it was Fellicini's. Food was pretty rubbish too, the chicken sandwich I ordered was on a par with something you'd get in burger king or MacDonalds...

Sorry maybe I didn't make it entirely clear in my initial post. I wasn't looking for advice on how to get a job or find work in the construction industry, what I was looking for was advice on how to set myself up as a self employed person/ a company. I only mentioned what it was that I do for a living to give a bit of background to my query. since the question was asked though, the main services that I would be offering would be planning and building regulations applications, (i.e. CAD/design services), primarily but not exclusively based in the residential sector. Loft conversions, extensions and conversions of existing buildings, new build homes, that kind of thing . The company that I work for at the moment is a 'regional' operation in a pretty small catchment area nowhere near Sheffield but I know from the work that they have on their books right now that this particular area is one that is more buoyant than most right now. House prices are struggling at the minute and combined with low interest rates people seem to be taking advantage by making improvements to the homes they have rather than looking to move/upscale. At least that is what I'm seeing where I'm working right now. It is the bigger more commercial stuff that is struggling, which is why pretty much none of the architectural firms in the Sheffield area are recruiting right now (believe me I have been looking). I have a fair idea on how/where I would need to advertise my services and how to go about getting work, if nothing else from the way that my present company gets most of their jobs. It's not that I don't know how to get the work as such, and I am more than capable plus have good deal of experience doing this kind of thing. However my most recent employment in Sheffield was in larger more commercial practices which hasn't give much opportunity to build a client base for residential work (which tends to be more of the one-off variety anyway), so I just thought it was worth mentioning that I was already aware that I would be essentially starting from scratch with regards to building up a client base. As it happens I already have one or two potential jobs lined up through friends of friends and family that I have ready to work on, and am reasonably confident that I could find more work as a result of these jobs and any advertising I decide to do. What I was looking for was advice on what I need to do to set myself up 'professionally' as it were to do jobs like this rather than just doing them as 'jobs on the side'.

I am looking for some basic advice in how I would go about setting everything up so that I can become self employed. I have worked in the construction industry as an architectural technologist for the past 7 years and although I am currently employed, location wise it really isn't where I want to be – the job is based around 200 miles from Sheffield. As a result I’m finding myself commuting back and forth to Sheffield every weekend which is having a massive strain on my personal life as well as leaving me out of pocket and frankly downright miserable. So now I am seriously starting to consider the option of working for myself, something which I have thought and talked about for the last few years but never really acted on. There are a few things that I know would be required such as professional indemnity insurance and the like but in terms of how to get actually set up as a self employed person/company and looking for work I wouldn’t really know where to begin. Note: I am aware that it may seem a bit daft for someone who actually has a job in as shaky an industry as I work in to be looking to set up on their own right now, and that it will most likely take an awful lot of work on my part in terms of advertising and building a client base near enough from scratch to make this work. With that being said I do think that for the type of small scale jobs I would be looking to do there is still work out there and if it’s possible to improve the situation I’m in now I’m more than happy to take the risk. All answers/opinions appreciated.

Well in the end I decided to take the plunge and booked her a place on the 16 week Sheffield College course - as it turned out one of her friends had done the exact same course last year and spoke very highly of it, so hopefully my better half will enjoy it as much. It seemed to go down well when she found out on xmas day anyway so fingers crossed!

Yeah I know about Freeman college/Butcher works having some facilities for this kind of thing, some of the stuff they do there looks really good. It probably would’ve been perfect were it not for the fact that she actually works for the college (albeit in a different department/capacity) and buying a Christmas present that’s based at her place of work just seems a little harsh!

Does anyone know of any introductory silversmithing/jewellery courses in Sheffield? My girlfriend is quite interested in having a go so I’ve been trying to find some kind of beginner’s workshop course that I could buy for her as a Christmas present. Sheffield college do a 1 night per week evening class that looks like it could be quite good, but it runs for 16 weeks and I don’t know if that’s maybe a bit too long a time span? Just in case she tried it but then decided it wasn’t for her after all. I was thinking that a 1 or 2 day course maybe running over a weekend might be more appropriate, something that could give her a taster and if she did enjoy it she could look at the longer course herself afterwards. Does anybody know of any places like that in the local area? Or if anyone has any feedback on the Sheffield College course that would probably help me make a decision too.