I wish I lived in America
- Thread starter Lord Nibbo
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nickson71
Established Member
I'd like the space some of the people have in the States ........... some of the backyard workshops I seen on some US forums are twice the size of my house
Ian
Ian
Lord Nibbo
Established Member
Ah but I'm on a pension soooo I might benefit :wink:mr":97mp8oz3 said:Of course if you lived in the states you wouldnt benefit from todays rate of exchangeYou could just order it though
Mike
Yes and many have about 200 bessey K clamps hanging up doing nothing, probably never ever done nothing :lol: and then they brag at how little they paid for them some as little as $20 a throw makes me even more angry at what we get ripped off over here for them.... :evil:
I think we should all club together and demand retail prices the same as the yanks get, what do you think?
Dewy
Established Member
A friend of mine in the States has a 60'x 40' garage.nickson71":16pru3e0 said:
That's 3 times the area of my house.
Oh for such a garage workshop (it's insulated and heated too)
HF DO SHIP TO EUROPE, only through FedEx though
sliver
Established Member
Did you notice that everything stateside is cheeper so you have money left to pay for your health insurance??? All nations have a down side, I expect we'll be next when the NHS collapses. Oh, & now we're gonna get charged a pound a mile for using motorways.
HAVE A GREAT FRIDAY FOLKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All nations have a down side, I expect we'll be next when the NHS collapses. Oh, & now we're gonna get charged a pound a mile for using motorways. HAVE A GREAT FRIDAY FOLKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sliver got it right,
Here in france tools are usually 1/4 more pricey than in U.K, but are houses and workshops are HUGE, There's no crime to speak of though you want to do TERRIBLE things to the beaurocrats who sit on there fat jacksie's and make your life a paper ridden nightmare :twisted: . I can get a cube of air dried straight grained European Oak for £650, but 2.5litres of watery household paint (that is truly awful ) will set you back £25-30.
Wine's good though , :lol:
Decklan
Here in france tools are usually 1/4 more pricey than in U.K, but are houses and workshops are HUGE, There's no crime to speak of though you want to do TERRIBLE things to the beaurocrats who sit on there fat jacksie's and make your life a paper ridden nightmare :twisted: . I can get a cube of air dried straight grained European Oak for £650, but 2.5litres of watery household paint (that is truly awful ) will set you back £25-30.
Wine's good though , :lol:
Decklan
Losos
Established Member
Decklan / Lord Nibbo
One day (not in my lifetime unfortunately) there will be a United Staes of Europe in which there is a common 'business' language, unified engineering standards, low cost freight to any parts, and best of all there will be true competition, like wot they 'ave in America.
Then, and only then, will we have realistic prices in our shops. :lol: :lol:
In the meantime we'll have to live with the vagaries of the dis-united Europe. :evil:
Decklan, you're not alone, the locally made paint they sell in Czechland is c**p as well. I'm trying to find where ICI Dulux is sold but haven't had any luck so far.
LN - It's not just that prices over there are lower, their wages are usually much higher as well. It's just not fair.
One day (not in my lifetime unfortunately) there will be a United Staes of Europe in which there is a common 'business' language, unified engineering standards, low cost freight to any parts, and best of all there will be true competition, like wot they 'ave in America.
Then, and only then, will we have realistic prices in our shops. :lol: :lol:
In the meantime we'll have to live with the vagaries of the dis-united Europe. :evil:
Decklan, you're not alone, the locally made paint they sell in Czechland is c**p as well. I'm trying to find where ICI Dulux is sold but haven't had any luck so far.
LN - It's not just that prices over there are lower, their wages are usually much higher as well. It's just not fair.
Guys - be careful what you wish for just in case you get it!
The US$ is going to hell in a handcart and the forces that are sending it there are too large to do anything about. The $3 pound is on its way. Property prices are in freefall - in Florida people are walking away from contracts on developments where they have paid a 5% deposit because prices have fallen in a very short time so that it is cheaper to write off the 5% deposit and buy at the new price in the open market than it is to complete the original contract. Healthcare is ruinously expensive, and about to get more expensive with the collapsing US$.
I loved the US when I visited it this year. Great climate, friendly courteous people, fabulous landscape, wide-open spaces - but I wouldn't swap it for Devon!
The US$ is going to hell in a handcart and the forces that are sending it there are too large to do anything about. The $3 pound is on its way. Property prices are in freefall - in Florida people are walking away from contracts on developments where they have paid a 5% deposit because prices have fallen in a very short time so that it is cheaper to write off the 5% deposit and buy at the new price in the open market than it is to complete the original contract. Healthcare is ruinously expensive, and about to get more expensive with the collapsing US$.
I loved the US when I visited it this year. Great climate, friendly courteous people, fabulous landscape, wide-open spaces - but I wouldn't swap it for Devon!
Roger
You are absolutley right. I spent 2 years all over Africa, working and travelling. No matter what we say one should appreciate what we do have , and not what we don't, 'cos the flip side is infinitly worse!
Clean water, it comes in a tap. What price can you put on that ??
Decklan
You are absolutley right. I spent 2 years all over Africa, working and travelling. No matter what we say one should appreciate what we do have , and not what we don't, 'cos the flip side is infinitly worse!
Clean water, it comes in a tap. What price can you put on that ??
Decklan
woodbloke
Established Member
RogerM wrote:
Whilst I would leap at the opportunity to go back to the States, I now am somewhat doubtful about the areas that I would like to visit.
To illustrate the point further, my mother visited some relatives in Tenassee in the 70's. One particular lady, who lived in a 'trailer' park, on hearing that my mum came from England, wanted to know if she drove over..... :shock: Moonshine she brought back was good tho' :lol: - Rob
We had a trip to the States a couple of years ago and had much the same experience. However, I have just finished reading a book by Bill Bryson -The Lost Continent (Travels in Small Town America). The author is a native Iowan from Des Moines who settled in the UK, married an Engish girl and became a journalist. He then had a hankering to revist the USA which began (and ended) in the place of his birth. He completed a 13,978 mile road trip, roughly in a figure of eight throughout most of the country. The book is absolutely hilarious but unfortunatly does paint a very dismal picture of a biggoted, inward looking nation. I quote from the back cover...'he drove through a series of horrific burgs which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Dead Squaw, Coma, Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He found a contintent that was doubly lost, lost to itself because of greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.'
Whilst I would leap at the opportunity to go back to the States, I now am somewhat doubtful about the areas that I would like to visit.
To illustrate the point further, my mother visited some relatives in Tenassee in the 70's. One particular lady, who lived in a 'trailer' park, on hearing that my mum came from England, wanted to know if she drove over..... :shock: Moonshine she brought back was good tho' :lol: - Rob
Losos
Established Member
Rob,
If I've learned one thing in my life it's that anybody connected with the media usually has some kind of 'hidden agenda'
I don't say that the book you quote from is fallacious but every author has a 'view' and he/she wants the reader to have that 'view' as well.
Writers want to sell books (Why else would they write them)
If the author didn't like what he saw on his return he could have gone back to England after a few days or weeks.
I've never been to America so the only Americans I've known have been in Europe, the Middel East, Africa, or Australia.
Yes, that quote from the women who asked if he drove from England is amusing, I could probably give you several similar qoutes from English people.
The best surely being the bank that wrote to me in the 'Cheque Republic' :lol: (To be fair that may have been a 'Freudian slip, rather than a lack of geographic knowledge )
Anyway, hope you did enjoy the book, and I'm sure you'll not see all Americans the way he sees them.
If I've learned one thing in my life it's that anybody connected with the media usually has some kind of 'hidden agenda'
I don't say that the book you quote from is fallacious but every author has a 'view' and he/she wants the reader to have that 'view' as well.
Writers want to sell books (Why else would they write them)
If the author didn't like what he saw on his return he could have gone back to England after a few days or weeks.
I've never been to America so the only Americans I've known have been in Europe, the Middel East, Africa, or Australia.
Yes, that quote from the women who asked if he drove from England is amusing, I could probably give you several similar qoutes from English people.
The best surely being the bank that wrote to me in the 'Cheque Republic' :lol: (To be fair that may have been a 'Freudian slip, rather than a lack of geographic knowledge
)Anyway, hope you did enjoy the book, and I'm sure you'll not see all Americans the way he sees them.
woodbloke
Established Member
Losos - What I found interesting tho' was that this was an American writing about his own country. Bill Bryson is reputedly a travel writer of some standing, the aim of the book obviously to sell copy but in addition to make the reader want to visit the country, which in my own case sounded some cautious alarm bells. Americans are generally the most patriotic and I found generous, of folk (you only have to see a suburban community in the States and count the number of Stars and Stripes hanging outside houses) to realize that the book had almost the opposite effect, with me anyway, to the one intended - Rob
Isn't it interesting how views can be so disjointed. Whilst in Malawi chatting with a local I asked wether he had considered visiting Europe, He looked horrified and stated that he would not visit an area with so much violence or terrorist activity caused by the IRA,IRNLA, Red Hand, ETA, the Bosnian conflict....
He's got a point.
Decklan
He's got a point.
Decklan
MikeW
Established Member
How many books do you think he would have sold if he painted a more accurate picture of America vs. this sensationalist picture?woodbloke":325k475h said:
This thread, as viewed by a US citizen, is full of misinformation--but humorous in parts nonetheless.
Have fun, Mike
woodbloke
Established Member
Decklan wrote:
He may not have been aware of the problems on his own continent within the last few years....Zaire, Sudan, Chad, Congo, Angola, Rwanda, South Africa, Ethiopia etc, etc - Rob
But that's the whole point. We look at other countries and there problems and often throw a critcal eye over them, forgetting about the horrors that lie on our doorstep.
It is the work of the media to inform and educate, not to throw a slanted eye on events or to misdirect one's attention.
It was Sun Tzu (think that's spelt right, ) who wrote in his book on the 'Art of war, That "the more ignorant the people the stronger the nation, the more educated the people are, the weaker the state"
It is the work of the media to inform and educate, not to throw a slanted eye on events or to misdirect one's attention.
It was Sun Tzu (think that's spelt right, ) who wrote in his book on the 'Art of war, That "the more ignorant the people the stronger the nation, the more educated the people are, the weaker the state"
woodbloke
Established Member
MikeW wrote:
Point taken, Mike, I did expect some flack over this one, maybe it should be taken with a pinch of salt. In a car journey of 14000 miles though, the overriding picture presented was as described in the book, and this from an American. He was searching for a place something the town in 'A Wonderful Life' (when it all turned out OK) and almost found it in a couple of places. He does describe well the part of America he grew up in, the Middle West....'stand on two phone books almost anywhere in Iowa and you get a view' ...and much in the same ilk. The book certainly didn't put me off going to the States again, it was just very thought provoking - Rob
MikeW
Established Member
Hi Rob--no worries and no flack from me. My assumption is that there is most always truth in what is published.woodbloke":1kgtn1z7 said:
It's the perspective and motive. He may be an American by birth, but evidently is writing, publishing and making his money abroad. It would be nearly assured to find an audience.
America, from what little I have seen, is a mix of the rotten, the bad, the good and the wonderful. Sometimes even within the same place. I have lived the rotten, pestilent life here. I know how bad it can be.
I also have had some good friends from Africa, from Pakistan, from China and Thailand. And England. And France. And ... point being what we decided we had in common was the desire to leave our own little corners of the world better off in what little ways we could. I don't succeed as well as I ought.
Take care, Mike
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