Buggz

On 01/05/2021 at 22:32, Consheff said:

Just seen on star website a house fire in burngeave due to a drugs setup. I wonder when the police and council will decide to sort out the drugs and organized crime problems in Pitsmoore and Burngreave. Won't hold my breath because while ever the police getto keep proceed of drug crime they have no incentive to cut off the hand that feeds them! #corruption 

It will never happen.  live in Burngreave and the drug gangs have been openly dealing around here for around 20 years. The only time the authorities crack down on them is when they start shooting and stabbing each other.

6 hours ago, taxman said:

Great photos 😃

Thank you!

3 hours ago, Mossway said:

It looks like one of the <removed> that had two of my chickens !

They're great at keeping the rat population down if that's any consolation.

On 09/05/2019 at 15:55, bendix said:

Probably a daft thing, but are foxes a particularly Sheffield thing, or limited to certain parts of Sheffield.  Before I moved here and I had never seen a fox in real life, but just last night I saw two - one crossing a busy London Road as i was driving home around 9.30pm and another wandering around Meadow Bank Avenue in Nether Edge.  I've heard a lot about foxes here - and there is a fox graffiti on a couple of walls around NE, so I wondered if they are a 'thing' in that part of town.

 

Do they pose much of a danger to cats.  I have a new one, and he's itching to go out and explore.

 

 

 

Ive had foxes living near me since the 90's and I've never encountered any problems with them. In fact, I've had nothing but positive experiences & I also have 5 cats.  Although it's entirely possible that foxes will occasionally kill cats (kittens, elderly or injured cats?), I imagine it's very rare that this happens and it's something I never seen.  But I have seen the odd confrontation, but nothing too serious. Foxes will generally try to avoid any conflicts with cats.

Although, foxes will be more protective of their territory & food during the breeding season and will hold their ground against cats. I monitor my garden with a couple of trail cameras and outside of the breeding season the local cats rule the gardens.

Some of my locals: https://www.flickr.com/photos/51732562@N04/albums/72157646010198439

Anybody watch patrick Dickinsons videos? I started watching em last night, very interesting.

 

I saw the one where he went on a pub crawl from Sheff midland rail station to ringinglow lol

 

Just watching this one, a walk down the river Porter

Excellent videos. I've not seen these before so thank you for posting.

I usually buy bulk from http://www.gardenwildlifedirect.co.uk who I find quite reasonable and also from Wilko in the City centre.

150+ trilling away on Burngreave Green today. Bizarre juxtaposition for us birders as behind them guys were praying on the pavement outside the mosque.

 

There were lots of people around the green and yet it surprised us how few even noticed the waxwings even when groups of 50 or more descended to head height to feed on the berries by the bus stop!

That's fantastic Paul. I live not too far away from the green and I've never seen them around there before. Normally when the waxwings come through Burngreave they strip the rowans on Pitsmoor road (just below Unigraph UK) and then move on. And if it wasn't for the influx of redwings and the local blackbird population they could have feasted on the rowans in Abbeyfield park and Burngreave Cemetery. But unfortunately these have usually been stripped clean by early January.

Yes I've just watched it I also recognised heeley near Halfords! Can anyone verify if they are still around that area

I don't think there have been any sightings in that area for a couple of weeks now. I also think that the piece on winterwatch was filmed in early January.

Your right. A friend of mine works for VM and he has told me that since they took over - the moral is non existant.

He has worked for VM for over 10 years and is thinking about moving on.

That's interesting and not in the least bit surprising looking at all the complaints on VM's fb page and tech forums. I also remember the last time I phoned to complain and the 'advisor' gave me nothing but bs. And I could tell that she simply couldn't care less about my problems and couldn't get me off the phone quick enough.

And looking at the all the other complaints it looks like it's pretty common to fob people off. I thought it was company policy at first but it just sounds like that a lot of the staff have just had enough of dealing with endless complaints.

Interesting to note that people actually believe that Richard Branson has anything to do with Virgin media at all. To clarity NTL/TELEWEST pay Virgin to use the Virgin name.

I think Liberty Global pay Branson about £10 mil a year for the privilege of using the name and he has about £6 million in shares of VM too.

You realise that the fixed term contracts include a clause to allow for price increases during the term?

Yes, I think that's one of the points of the petition. Although my main gripe is with the poor speeds and customer service I'm quite happy to sign it. Anything that can bring VM some bad publicity or forewarn anyone about VM's appalling service is fine by me.

For anyone that's interested there's a petition that has been started against Virgin Media. It's goal is to make Virgin Media (and others) respect the fixed terms of contracts.

Petition: https://www.change.org/p/stop-virgin-media-dodgy-trading-practices

Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/stopvirginmedia

Hi Buggz

 

I left Virgin Media last year due to utilisation issues in the S5 area.

 

My fault was registered in March 2014 but the actual utilisation issue actually started in February 2014.

 

They gave me target fix dates of September 2014, October 2014, November 2014, December 2014, January 2015 and April 2015 all of which were missed.

 

I made a complaint in May 2014 which was resolved with £50 in July. I made another complaint in November 2014 but in December when they offered me more money I refused and told them I wanted to go to deadlock.

 

After this I contacted the Communications and Internet Services Adjudication Scheme (CISAS) and raised an official case against Virgin Media with all the supporting facts such as time spent on the phone, the failed promises of fix dates, the number of times I had to take days off work for them to come and 'fix' my line, being unable to watch my Nexflix and NFL subscription packages ect.

 

Virgin Media tried their best to wriggle out of the issue and I didn't get the £1000 compensation I'd asked for (all those things above added up with extras and interest) but I did get £500

 

I'd suggest getting all your facts written down, start doing speed tests on a nightly basis and saving the results etc. make a complaint to Virgin Media today then in a few months time when they come back to you go streight to deadlock and contact CISAS

 

It's a lengthy process and requires a lot of detail but it is done via email and the end result for me was £500 compensation.

 

William

Hi William

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply! I think I'll take your advice too. This is my 6th ISP in about 15 years and all of them bar one has given me grief. So I think it's time to take a stand give them some grief for a change.

Thanks again!

Buggz

Thank you all very much for taking the trouble to reply to my post. It's really appreciated! Looking at all of the complaints on the VM thread I don't hold up much hope of getting my issue resolved anytime soon so I think I'll start looking around for a new provider.

Cheers!

Buggz

increasing the network/broadband capacity of a specific area when it's oversubscribed please?

The reason I'm asking is that I've had problems with virgin media for about 8 months with low speeds in the evening and weekends (High utilization ). I've been given a 'fix' date of 20th August and like the previous 'fix' date I'm expecting no changes. I've also spoken to four customer service 'technicians' and each one tells me something different.

As far as I'm concerned they have no intentions of resolving the issue but are quite happy to string me and other people along with their false promises and continue to take our money in return for poor service. So I would like to know what is involved in upgrading a network so the next time I speak to them I have some idea what I'm talking about.

I use to see them in my garden every year up to about 2010 but I've not see once since. It's strange too as the gardens around me are quite large and the hogs have easy access to each garden. I have plenty of other wildlife (foxes, badgers, garden birds and the occasional sparrowhawk) so it seems strange that they're no longer around in my area.

I'm in S4 and I mainly have problems with very slow speeds in the evening and weekends ( high utilisation ). But Virgin Media have simply taken on more customers than the network can handle. I've was given one 'fix' date but that's been and gone with no change. The next date is Aug 20th but I'm not holding my breath. If it's not 'fixed' by then I'll move to another ISP. For me this is one of the worst ISP's I've used. It's great when it works but when it doesn't VM couldn't care less!

I spent about 4hrs at St. Georges today and when I arrived at about 10.30am one of the chics was in the nest box and the other two were on nearby buildings. The female kept coming back and forth trying to coax the chic to follow her away from the church but it stayed put. At one point she brough back a pidgeon carcass and tried to entice the chic onto the ledge just behind the camera but again it didn't move.

The adult female then took the carcass to one of the other chics that was on a nearby roof near the NHS walk in centre. I also saw both adult peregrines see off a couple of buzzards and also some gulls that got too close to the tower too. The two chics that were on nearby buidlings did return to the church at about 1.40pm and all 3 chics and one adult were present on ones of the church spires just behind the nesting box at 2pm.

Yes, It was taken but up the tower and put back in the nest box. One chic has flown to the flats opposite and the other is on the new diamond building next to the church.

Buggz - Attercliffe exchange was upgraded for Fibre about 8 months ago. I'm connected to it and have had Fibre from Sky for the past 2 months.

 

Check here & here to see if your street cabinet is live yet.

 

http://www.superfastsouthyorkshire.co.uk/sfsy/where

 

http://www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/OurNetwork/Superfast.aspx

That's great news! Thank you Paddy ?

Ghozer, do you have any opinions on their rivals? Bt claim to be truly unlimited with no traffic management, whereas Plusnet (cheaper) have no download limit but do use traffic management. I know BT owns Plusnet and they would be using the same equipment, but would most users notice any effect from the traffic management? Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.

Before Digital region came to my area I was with IDnet for about 5 years and they were great. First class customer service and no bs. I only moved because they couldn't supply a fibre connection ( they piggyback off the BT infrastructure like most other ISPs but my exchange hadn't been upgraded to fibre). Then when DR went under my only option was VM and it was great for about 18 months.

If you live in an are where BT can supply fibre broadband then defiantly avoid the big companies and go with small independent ISPs. If and when they upgrade my local exchange ( Attercliffe) then I'll go back to IDnet or another independent.

Thank you for the reply daisydaisydo! This to me seems to be their business model! Take on as many subscribers as possible regardless of what effect it has on the BB speed and hope that people don't complain too much and string them along for as long as possible without actually doing anything about it!

I phoned them for a second time this week and not surprisingly they revised the fix date. And when I asked them on why they take on more customers than their network can handle the Customer support person said they their sales staff have been advised not to take on any more customers in my area. She also said that a manager would call me to give me more information. I knew it was nothing but lies but I gave her the benefit of the doubt. But sure enough no one called and a day later I saw a VM can outside a house a couple of streets away from me and they were installing broadband! I don't know how they get away with it!

Anybody else having problems in this area please? I'm on VM "super fastbroad" (50mg down and 3mg up) and I've been having problems since about Feb 2016. The problems usually start at around 4pm when speeds start to drop to about 25 to 30mg and then by about 7pm it's around 1.5mg and this is 7 days a week. It's obvious looking at the pattern that the area is over subscribed!

I've contacted them twice and they've confirmed it's a high utilization problem and they're now fobbing me off with fix dates and a speed upgrade. I don't think they've got any intention of resolving this issue but I just wondered if anyone else is having the similar problems and also if you've had any response from VM?

Thank you

I know it may not be possible for all but i leave the apples on the ground that fall off a small tree in autumn. This encourages insects ect and this attracts Blackbirds, i also try and garden in a way that does not use pesticides ect and try and promote as much insect life, slugs and snails ect as possible which attracts Thrushes and other birds. I know what you mean about Magpies. As they are very territorial maybe a dummy Magpie on a garden post. Not sure if this would scare away or attract more though?

Good call with Regards to putting fruit down. I used to buy cheap bags of apples and pears that from the market that had gone soft and the blackbirds and thrushes loved these.

I hope I’m kind of staying on topic, and not straying too far, but I have a question that some bird watchers may be able to advise on.

 

I like to feed the birds, and want to ask if there is a way of encouraging ground feeders such as blackbirds. The Magpies are the main issue I have, in that they get in first and take all the food before the ground feeders even appear. There seems to be so many of them. I’ve seen about 6 magpies at one time on the grass.

 

Last year I started putting suet pellets down for these two black birds that were regular visitors. I had thought that the Magpies wouldn’t bother with small pellets, but it didn’t take long for them to muscle in and start eating them too.

I have the same problem to some degree but luckily the magpies in my garden are very skittish so once I've put out my suet pieces I just have to stand at the kitchen window while the blackbirds and sparrows feed and the magpies will keep their distance while ever they can see me. Unfortunately the same can't be said about the 20 pigeons that hang around waiting for any scraps.

You might want to look at ground birdfeeders that have a wire mesh cover: http://www.amazon.co.uk/GARDMAN-GROUND-FEEDER-HAVEN-GARDEN/dp/B005MQDLBC

Is there a local RSPB group?

Yes there is: http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/seenature/localgroups/details.aspx?id=192