richb99

I have used old sky boxes as freeview boxes and suggest you use the "Favourites" function to include all the stations you CAN view and avoid having to go through all the stations which are encrypted.

I tried to sell old small electronics very cheaply with no takers and tried to give them away, again no takers. Contacted Veolia and Councils Waste Management Team to try to dispose of them properly as they had the crossed out wheelie bin on them so not to be put in general waste bin and explained I had no transport and couldn't get to the Blackstock Road disposal site. Their response was to take items to Blackstock Road even though I had told them I couldn't get there OR to use the Bulk Waste disposal system which costs about £30 for up to 3 items (a little expensive to dispose of an old router or phone charger). Seems there is a major hole in the recycling system but they have no plans to introduce any changes.

Tesco has camera controlled parking at their Abbeydale Road site - surely they would have been captured on CCTV.

What surprises me is that there are on the spot fines and prosecutions for people who appear to be targeted for dropping cigarette ends (a very small item, often still lit and smelly) which is not easy to take home in your pocket. The people on Devonshire Green who deposited all this litter appear to have been ignored by the litter police - why?

We recycle the limited plastics that Veolia want in the blue bin, but take all other plastics to the Tesco recycling point in the trolley when we do the weekly shop, as they take a much wider range of plastics. The plastic bags success wasn't so much based on the 5p charge, more the fact that they are no longer made available in the supermarket. Couldn't many of the plastic bottles be converted to glass or aluminium (milk in a ring pull can) which are fully recyclable and cause less harmful pollution?

Our Panasonic Viera TV was stuck on standby a couple of days ago, fortunately within guarantee (just). TV engineer sent by John Lewis said he has had similar problems over last few days and thinks some Panasonic sets have been corrupted by a transmission from Freeview relating to a change to the BBC red button service. Noticed a couple of Panasonics being sold with same problem on Gumtree and Forum over the last couple of days. Problem solved by using reset menus which are only available to engineers. Does anybody know if this is true and, if so, what recompense would any victims have?

We live in a terraced house with shared access but could cope with three small bins, but I accept different solutions would be required for flats, houses accessed by a flight of steps, and large families - that's up to Veolia to be more flexible to make things work. I would be happy for my neighbours to put their surplus in my half filled bin while it was on the footpath awaiting collection, provided the recycling was appropriate, general waste was bagged, and the bin wasn't over filled - it's all a matter of being reasonable and trying to make the system work for the benefit of us all. Merry Christmas.

I would prefer to have a fortnightly collection of the black bin and monthly collection of the recycling bins with 2 bin lorries being run together (one for general waste and one for recycling). First collection would be for black bin and brown bin. Second collection, a fortnight later, would be for black bin and blue bin. Disturbance only every fortnight, and the two vehicles being run together would enable one bin crew to service both vehicles. This would also see the end of the dreaded boxes with hats which were never fit for purpose.

Must make the collection of dog poo a bit awkward - or are they exempt?

It would be a good first step to amend the exhaust emissions threshold in the MOT test. Older vehicles which are the most polluting would probably end up being scrapped in view of the cost of conversion or upgrading with filters. This would have an immediate effect and avoid the introduction of any scrappage scheme, or congestion charges which costs millions for the "experts" and politicians to make a decision for any proposal which is always way beyond the governments term of office.

Fridge freezers are left on all the time and therefor pose a bigger risk than other appliances. The videos showing plastic backed fridges burning uncontrollably after 90 seconds, compared to the metal backed ones which self extinguished after 20 minutes, makes me think the plastic backed ones should be banned in a similar way to upholstery foam in furniture. The price (sometimes marginal) isn't everything.

Thanks for replies. Connected pins 15 and 16 with paperclip and tried with PSU connected up inside PC, and disconnected ouside PC and the fan in the PSU is not turning so assume PSU is dead and have ordered a replacement.

Thanks for that, but far too technical for me as I am a silver (grey) surfer. I was looking to test the PSU and either replace it, or by-pass the power on signal by inserting a switch between pins 15 and 16.

My old HP Compaq dc7900 SFF was working perfectly but now won't switch on. Tried different socket and power lead but still dead. Tested switch on front and that works O.K. so want to test PSU but internet says to disconnect all leads from PSU and bridge between pins 15 and 16 on the 24 pin connector. Elsewhere on the net it says doing this with no load could damage the PSU and suggests keeping the HDD and motherboard connected is the way to go. Advice would be appreciated as I am using an even older Dell running XP with all fingers crossed, making typing difficult.

Isn't this a case where the Council should use Compulsory Purchase powers to bring the property back into use?