Good news and less good news.

Firstly, the good news: I have finished the little table for my mother that's going to go at the top of her stairs. It replaces one I accidentally knackered about 20 years ago. Better late than never eh?

Then the less good news: my workshop, along with all the others on the little farm estate we rent, was broken into last night and completely cleaned out. They've taken everything - thousands of pounds of power tools, hand tools, jigs, drill bits, router cutters - everything. They even nicked a f*cking caulking gun from me, and a bag of cable ties and a bottle of sparkling water from the guy next door! I'm slightly gutted at the moment - it took me over 20 years to accumulate that lot, and it's all gone. The worst part of it was that my 8 year old had his bike there because he would come with me in the evening and ride around as I got on with stuff, and they've taken that too. He was absolutely heartbroken. That put the whole thing into perspective for me: first priority was to get him sorted out, so I told him that he would have grown out of his old bike by the end of the year anyway, and that we may as well get him a new one now so he can have the benefit of it over the summer. We went home and got the iPad out, and found a lovely green one (his favourite colour) that's going to be smashing. So now he's happy, and that makes me happy. Or at least happier.

Sorry to hear that mate, thieving scum. Been there myself.

Glad your lad is sorted out though.

As above. Head up old lad.

Dirty thieving scum.... let's just hope karma comes thier way ... In a big way .

Bad news matey.

That's one of the things that concerns me - even though I've got the workshop contents insured and pictures of everything, that won't replace 20 years of tool acquisition.

Lovely table though.

Not good!

That's one of the things that concerns me - even though I've got the workshop contents insured and pictures of everything, that won't replace 20 years of tool acquisition.

This is what concerns me too! my workshop is a few miles away and sometimes I can go weeks before I get down there so I could be cleaned out without even knowing!

We went home and got the iPad out, and found a lovely green one (his favourite colour)

In other news you're obviously raising your kid very very well Mark

Sorry to hear about the break in though, that totally sucks balls.

That's not good MarkW.

And as Mr Fro said that is a very nice table.

Dirty thieving scum!

This sort of thing still strikes a chord with me because of getting my own house

robbed then set on fire a few years ago!

I really would kill someone if I could catch them!

Dirty thieving scum!

This sort of thing still strikes a chord with me because of getting my own house

robbed then set on fire a few years ago!

I really would kill someone if I could catch them!

Me to , although I think I would go down the route of torture .

Pikeys are very much like dogshit: despite your best efforts, every now and then an unpleasant surprise encounter is unavoidable, and it takes longer than you imagined to get rid of the smell. But for my biggest little boy, his first experience of pikey has been mitigated by a trip to Halfords, very much as his first encounter with dogshit was mitigated by mummy, a toothbrush and a hosepipe. But whilst daddy hates treading in dogshit, he'd dearly love to step on a pikey, and squash it.

Here endeth the lesson.

Oh my. What an amazing table. Very nice.

Ha! Thanks for the kind comments on my amateur woodworking, folks. In truth it's a very basic bit of carpentry, but I tried to use hand tools rather than power tools as much as possible. Every surface and joint is hand planed, and the dovetails in the drawer are all hand cut. Much more satisfying than using a router, if a good deal slower.

Yeah, that's a real nice job, Mark.......

https://youtu.be/eIcbIxm5z48

Yeah, that's a real nice job, Mark.......

And since I don't own a single power tool any more it turned out to be very useful practice at doing things by hand!

And it gets worse...

When we took out the lease on the workshop my wife phoned our house insurance company to see if their 'away from home' cover included tools left in a locked unit. She can't recall the precise details of the call, but as she increased our cover from the standard £2.5 to £7K immediately afterwards it seems reasonable to assume they confirmed that it would. Of course now we discover that it doesn't, and so the £4K of tools and fishing gear that were stolen were completely uninsured. Marvelous.

When I become Prime Minister I'll pass a bill to reclassify pikeys as vermin, and allow people to deal with them accordingly.

And it gets worse...

When we took out the lease on the workshop my wife phoned our house insurance company to see if their 'away from home' cover included tools left in a locked unit. She can't recall the precise details of the call, but as she increased our cover from the standard £2.5 to £7K immediately afterwards it seems reasonable to assume they confirmed that it would. Of course now we discover that it doesn't, and so the £4K of tools and fishing gear that were stolen were completely uninsured. Marvelous.

When I become Prime Minister I'll pass a bill to reclassify pikeys as vermin, and allow people to deal with them accordingly.

Don't they claim to record all the calls? Request a copy of the call. If they can't supply it kick up a massive fuss you were missold insurance

The police crime prevention officer just asked me if the burglars left anything incriminating behind. I said "Like what? A baked hedgehog?"

That sucks Mark. Hope they catch up with the pikey bast*rds.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

And it gets worse...

When we took out the lease on the workshop my wife phoned our house insurance company to see if their 'away from home' cover included tools left in a locked unit. She can't recall the precise details of the call, but as she increased our cover from the standard £2.5 to £7K immediately afterwards it seems reasonable to assume they confirmed that it would. Of course now we discover that it doesn't, and so the £4K of tools and fishing gear that were stolen were completely uninsured. Marvelous.

When I become Prime Minister I'll pass a bill to reclassify pikeys as vermin, and allow people to deal with them accordingly.

" Do as you Likeys " have jumped on the racism band wagon , apparently it's accepted racism if you don want em parked up in a field near your house or they are not allowed in the local pub... nothing to do with how they behave and will rob you blind .

And it gets worse...

When we took out the lease on the workshop my wife phoned our house insurance company to see if their 'away from home' cover included tools left in a locked unit. She can't recall the precise details of the call, but as she increased our cover from the standard £2.5 to £7K immediately afterwards it seems reasonable to assume they confirmed that it would. Of course now we discover that it doesn't, and so the £4K of tools and fishing gear that were stolen were completely uninsured. Marvelous.

Oh no. That's completely shite.

The bottom of our garden wall has collapsed!

Is it covered on our all singing all dancing house insurance?

Of course it isn't!

On another point: The scrotes who broke into my house and then set it on fire

left some blood on the window that they broke to get in!

They were caught and convicted through DNA evidence.

There were 3 of them, only 1 got locked up!

Slightly off topic, but you might like this story.

Some years ago i arranged to buy a newer car from a very large fit much younger than me salesman. When I went to collect my car he had a heavily bandaged hand. He explained he'd been woken by a scroat who'd broken in and was searching downstairs. Salesman jumped out of bed and caught the scroat by the corner, where he dished out a very harsh lesson in which house you shouldn't come back to. His neighbour across the road had also woken up at the disturbance and went to check on the scroat to see if an ambulance was needed, which it wasn't. Said neighbour had also caught the action on his house cctv, which he showed the salesman before thoroughly deleting it in case the plod were informed and came looking - you cant touch anyone once they've left the property or your'e in the sh1t.

Yup - you have to be very careful about defending your property, and under Comrade Corbyn it will be an offence not to help the pikeys carry your gear out to the transit van and give a cheery wave as they drive it away.

No offence to any forum members, but the police are so ineffectual nowadays that they may as well not exist at all. This, coupled with the unwillingness of our legal system to adopt any sort of vertebrate position when it comes to homeowners using force to defend themselves and their property means we end up with a pestilence of antisocial vermin who are as good as untouchable, and know it.

We get these turds at the business estate where we work every so often, and we're on our own - we just have to shut the security gates and stand there listening to their moronic and barely-intelligible threats. A couple of years ago they cut the chain off the gate to the neighbouring estate and broke into one of the offices. The police turned up (eventually) and did nothing - just stood and watched as they smashed the place up and - as they later discovered - used every room as a toilet. They eventually did over £30,000 of damage in less than 12 hours, with the owner tearing his hair out as the police just stood there like a bunch of f*cking traffic wardens and let it happen.

However, it's not all bad news in North Yorkshire: The police do spend a great deal of time writing to motorists to warn them of the dangers of leaving their satnav on view on the dashboard, and the chances of getting away with doing 41 in a 40 zone must be the lowest in the country.

That sucks about the insurance Mark.

About 10 years ago I disturbed a burglar in my sisters bungalow one night. I managed to grip the little shit and gave him a proper kicking, then pinned him to the floor until the police arrived.

When they shoved him in their car he told them I'd give him a pasting in the house so the copper came and asked if I'd hit him. "Nope" says I, "But he did fall down the stairs......repeatedly."

He smirked, nodded and said "Fair enough."

Thanks to all this PC Human Rights Violation tosh the offending little poppets spout these days, I think in most cases the hands of the Police are unfortunately somewhat tied. It must be equally frustrating for them too.

Gene Hunt for PM I say!