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The petrol fume laced exhaust smell of ‘70s sporty cars with their twin SU or Weber carbs. You don’t notice it’s no there any more until a classic car comes past.

I would have thought there’d be plenty of small agricultural fabrication engineers who could do that stuff pretty economically: here in Debenham we have Bloomfield Installations who we’ve used for odd stuff.

At the risk of incurring the wrath of proper woodworkers I fixed our pretty but not very valuable wobbly dining chairs using Gorilla Glue foaming epoxy glue. Tapped each chair apart, glued, held together again by clamps and straps. Cleaned off surplus foam afterwards. Simple and seems to have...

Way way back in the ‘70s and early ‘80s I did up our first couple of houses using ‘The Sunday Times Book of DIY’. Taught me the basics of wiring, plumbing etc and stayed on my bookshelf for years. Often wish house renovation was still as straightforward.

That’s not unlike our house. TBH I wish I had bitten the bullet and gutted the top floors rather than try and lift and relay chipboard sheets (all glued at the joints when put down) deal with the uneven and chopped about joists and re-lay. It took forever. The upper floors still creak and the...

I’m not sure I’d agree. Our 1900s house upstairs floors were butchered around in the ‘70s for ch pipes and wiring. ‘Craftsmen’ back then didn’t seem to care much about the butchery work they did on joists that were already a bit old and twisted. The floorboards were also replaced with chipboard...

No-one can deny we need more housing but you’ve missed out the word ‘affordable’ in your analysis. IMHO we are caught in a trap at the moment - house prices can’t come down in any real way because they are intrinsic to most people’s personal wealth. A lot of buyers also have big mortgages on...

Any tips for drilling horizontally (eg through a solid wall)? It’s easy to keep straight side to side, less so in the vertical plane. For an important hole I use someone to sight for me from the side.

There are charities that will collect and tidy up if needs be unwanted tools and send them to developing countries. I imagine usually smaller tools rather than workshop machinery but who knows.

These seem to be the suppliers/distributors for much Lidl stuff. Don’t know if they have the batteries you’re looking for though: Accessories

Is tiling over the existing wall tiles as dubious a practice as I think it is? The existing tiles seem pretty well stuck to the mainly solid (not p-board) walls. Which leads to second question: if I have to get them off is there anything more scientific than hammer and old chisel?

Screwfix Live - what a treat. I didn’t know about that one or I’d have snuck off for a boy’s day out. PS Southam seems to hold better stock than Daventry - I think they have a bigger on site warehouse.

I’d love to be able to do all that but most is beyond my skill set. Also Mrs G will undoubtedly say: ‘why are you wasting your time with that old drill? Get on with the main job - I’m still waiting for you to finish it. 😉’

‘Fat Lad At The Back’ is a whole brand of cycling kit created by and for the less-svelte rider. I’m lucky enough not to need to know their prices but I still buy cheaper kit from the likes of Wiggle/DHB and even Aldi. You don’t need to look like the Michelin Man in Lycra either - you can buy...

I tend to use the Cockney ‘Donald Ducked’ 😉

It was a sad day yesterday, my Lidl Parkside 20v drill finally expired. I’ve owned it for upwards of four years and used it relentlessly pretty much every day drilling timber and steel up to 10mm thick. It never faltered. I couldn’t have asked more from a drill. Especially one costing IIRC...

I owned various ancient British cars in my youthful motoring days back in the 60s and 70s. You were lucky if you got any rusted up bolt undone with any sort of spanner. Then I got my first equally elderly VW Beetle and I was amazed that bolts just came straight undone with my metric sockets. My...

Second that - my turn-to Bahco is superb: slimline wide opening jaws, accurately engineered. Gets into spaces some regular spanners won’t reach.

A canal boat is not a bad plan - even I can do fitting out and my woodworking skills are limited indeed. We had ours on blocks at a local farmyard for a couple of years while I did it up. So long as the hull is ok you’re fine - surprising how many people don’t get steel thickness checked and...

I came down into the kitchen one morning and could hear a faint hissing noise. It was at the back of the sink cabinet; I decided to take the back off and investigate - good job I did, a plastic water pipe was nibbled through by a mouse. They get in through the tiniest spaces - the only thing...