Bad beat/Moaning/Venting thread - Lockdown City

[rounders123]

Not a bad idea, I'd certainly watch this!

Where does this hated come from? Were you forced to play or watch it before?

I'm not sure tbh. But I never liked the obstruction element to it where a player looks to whack the ball but instead plays a soft shot and leaves his body impeding the other layer who was never getting there anyway. Some ref you never see decrees if it stands or not. In tennis you need to get it over the net and within the lines but here the main thing is to be a cunning sly dog.

And another thing, ive never seen a close game, its always some elite player trumping some ex hurler type. And there seems to be some unwritten rule that you cant celebrate a shot like you would in most other sports. You must win silently. Oh yeah and the squeaking is a bit of an annoyance too.

I've never played but would much rather play than spectate. But id modify the rule that if you play a sly dog shot you need to immediately gtf out of he way even to put yourself at a disadvantage. And sly dog shots are to be frowned upon.

[ComradeCollie]

Change of topic.

Benny ? Have you seen the Sparks brothers yet. I know you mentioned it.

I'm planning on seeing it in the IFI on Friday lunchtime. No huge spoilers please, as I remember them as a 2 hit wonder, and the advert seems more Spinal Tap than Spinal Tap.

[Hectorjelly]

Right, I may have mentioned some of this before so apologies if I am repeating myself, but here goes


Asia and in particular, China, is the manufacturing capital of the world. On any trade lane, there is generally a head-haul and a back haul lane to it. The head haul lane is the most dominant one with the back haul having less volume. Pretty much every lane out of Asia is the head haul lane as they are primarily an export focused region. They do, of course, import goods but from a container point of view, exports coming out of China are all laden containers whereas volumes coming in are a mixture of laden and empty containers.

When Covid (officially) hit China in February last year, the whole country closed down for approx six weeks. There was next to no manufacturing and next to no exports either. As China came out of lockdown in mid-March, most of the western world (Europe & USA) went into lockdown and a lot of buyers this side cancelled or postponed orders with their Asian suppliers. There was a genuine fear that there would be a global recession as a result of the pandemic and shipping lines moved swiftly to withdraw capacity (Container vessels) from the market to reflect the reduce amount of laden cargo moving in/out of Asia/EU/USA. This meant that freight rates didn't drop through the floor in the early part of the pandemic. It seems pretty basic, if demand drops, reduce supply, but this was really the first time that the shipping lines have managed to not only do it but do it so quickly. Part of the reason for this is that over the last 8-10 years, there has been a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the industry, and we have gone from about 20 global players to 8 or 9 and all these are now in three vessel sharing alliances. I'm not suggesting any collusion or anything, it's just easier for 3 bodies to reduce capacity without as much a chance as one player breaking ranks and cutting rates to go after market share than there was when there was 20 players. The buzzword phrase of late is "Less competition is less competition"

From May/June onwards, things started to pick up a bit and some capacity was added back into the market. In particular, retailers, started to notice sales going up and stock levels going down. There was a lot of talk about everyone would go all out for Christmas as it had been such a miserable year and people, mainly sitting at home doing nothing, started to buy more and more products as they couldn't pay for services as usual. The vast majority of these products are all made in China.

By September, the market was on fire, sales were through the roof in Europe and USA (plus other secondary markets - South America, Oz/NZ, Middle East) and pretty much all available capacity was back in play. There was just one problem, for months, empty containers hadn't been making their way back to Asia at the same rate they normally would (If a vessel doesn't leave Asia to go to Europe/USA, there is no vessel to go back in the opposite direction several weeks later) so there was severe equipment shortages and not enough to deal with the volume of demand. This caused backlogs and when that happens, rates only go one way.

Between then and Chinese New Year (mid-February 2021) shipping lines tried to do everything they could to get empty containers back to Asia as quick as possible, even to the point whereby they would sacrifice a back haul laden booking to send it back empty instead as they could reuse it quicker as a result. I say sacrifice, but the reality was that by sending it back empty and getting it moving on the head haul lane quicker, they made more money overall. But they just couldn’t keep up with the demand.

There was also no real alternative. The rail network from Asia to Europe is limited to what it can carry and, even if people were willing to pay air freight rates, the capacity in that market was extremely reduced due to the lack of people flying. In fact, there was some traditional air freight business shifting to ocean freight due to lack of capacity in the air market.

While this was all happening, ports in Europe and the USA were started to struggle with the volume arriving. Ports were not at full productivity, partially due to missing staff due to being out sick with Covid (Los Angeles got hit particularly badly) and partially due to new working rules around Covid, smaller crews, having to do a full deep clean down of all equipment in between shifts. This lead to congestion in the ports which led to even more delays in getting equipment back to Asia.

Shipping lines measure their turn time of containers. This is the time from when they give the exporter at origin the empty container until the time they get the empty container back at destination from the importer. Pre Covid, the global average turn time was 50 days. It now sits at 59 days. 9 days may not seem like much but to put it in perspective, the 5^th largest shipping line in the world has said that for every day the turn time increases by, they need to find 17,500 forty-foot containers to cover their global bookings – So, that’s just a shortage of 157,500 at any one time globally for one shipping line…

Back in Q3/early Q4 2020, most people thought that things would calm down after Chinese New Year. It is historically a quiet period for shipping and just how much money could people spend on products? Then we started to have 2^nd and 3^rd waves of Covid and people just didn’t stop buying and then we had the Suez Canal incident. That six-day delay on containers moving put huge strain on a supply chain that was almost at breaking point. Vessels were significantly delayed, which meant that containers could not get back to where they were needed as quick as they could. In addition, we had some severe bunching (when a lot of vessels all arrive at once) after they all got freed from the Suez which caused havoc in Europe and to a certain degree on the US East Coast. Vessels were so badly delayed getting back to Asia, that the sailing schedules were just cancelled or voided as there was no vessel there to sail as planned.

At this point, ports globally are at breaking point. Every single major (or even halfway major) port is congested from the avalanche of the containers arriving. The barge and feeder vessel system in Europe that is used to get containers out of the main ports to inland areas or outports (like Dublin) are overwhelmed and cannot handle the volumes. Similarly in the USA, the rail network which is used to get containers from the ports inland suffers the same faith.

Then, THEN, we have a Covid outbreak among port workers in Yantian port in Shenzhen, China at the end of May and the port is essentially shut down for an entire month. Yantian is the biggest port in South China and is usually top 3 in the world for volumes handled per annum at around seven million forty-foot containers. Twenty-five percent of all US imports come from the greater Shenzhen area. It causes chaos as vessel have to omit the port, so no exports leave and even worse, no import containers arrive. Attempts are made to divert cargo to other ports but there is very limited success due to restrictions of movement within districts due to Covid lockdown rules, slightly different customs processes and the other ports just not being able to deal with the volume that Yantian handles. Around mid-June, there was roughly a back log of cargo to fill two hundred thousand forty-foot containers that hadn’t shipped ex Yantian as planned. I didn’t look at the final number as it would be too depressing, but it definitely increased over the following two weeks.

Meanwhile in the USA, there has been wildfires in Canada and that has damaged rail lines and has added even more congestion to the already congested ports. The problem with shipping routes is that they don’t just call one origin port and one destination port. A sailing schedule will for example call, Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian, Los Angeles, Oakland & Vancouver before heading back to Qingdao and starting all over again so if there is an issue in any of the ports, it has a knock-on effect on all the others.

Sure, this seems easy to fix, would ya not just make more containers or get more ships? Seems obvious but sadly, not possible. Over 90% of all shipping containers are made…. you guessed it, in China and by 3 state or semi state owned companies. During their first lockdown, they were closed and are as a result manufacturing of new containers is way behind schedule. Now, call me cynical but if there was such a demand, surely, they could operate around the clock, 3x8 hour shifts and get it sorted. Well yes and no – there is a limit to what they can make but also, due to the demand, the sale price of a new container has now doubled so why would you drive that price down by ramping up production and cost with all the over time? In fairness, they are trying to increase production but it’s just not enough.

On the vessel front, everything that can be done has been done. Pretty much, every available vessel is in use. The container vessel idle fleet is at ~2% and that makes up vessels that are either in dry docks for repairs or very small vessels that won’t make any significant impact to the problem. On top of this the cost to charter a vessel has gone through the roof. All shipping lines have a mix/match on their vessels, between what they own and what they charter. This allows them to scale up/down as needed as most charters are for 6-9 months or at least it used to be. Now ship owners are insisting on up two 24 months charter and the price is through the roof. To give you an example, a 5,000 TEU vessel (1 forty-foot container = 2 TEU) pre Covid would have cost about $15K per day to charter. I know one shipping line who had to walk away from the auction to charter a similar sized vessel when the asking rate got to $75K per day. We are seeing the really large vessels (19,000 TEU plus size) going for up to $160K per day. And that’s just for the bare bones of the vessel, it doesn’t include fuel, crew or anything else. Shipping lines have ordered new (after a few years of under investment) but they will not be built and enter the market until 2023 at the earliest.

So when does it all end? Right now, we can’t see much change happening before Q2 2022 (we did say this last year about this year..) but we are starting to see a slight difference between the main two markets ex Asia – Europe and USA. The demand into Europe is slowing – There is still large backlogs and lots of freight to move but the level of growth is reducing, for now. But we need to get the ports back to normal and have equipment flowing to sort out the fundamental issues. In order for this to happen, not only do people need to stop buying products at the rate we are, but we also need to allow time to let business replenish stock levels – The sales to inventory ratio for almost all retailers are very, very low.
On the USA side, there seems to be no let up in demand. Their growth is going up. This could be in part to the amount of stimulus cheques handed out or just that they are more of a consumer nation? But if things stay the same in the USA, it will impact all Asian origins which in turn will have an impact on Europe.

Can you pour me a stiff one please?

Do you mind me sharing this outside of IPB?

[Solksjaer!]

Maybe this is an ode to it but Dusty Hill passed away today.

Joey Jordison yesterday.

Was my tribute to him

[Degag]

Every girls crazy about a sharp dressed man

Maybe this is an ode to it but Dusty Hill passed away today.

Joey Jordison yesterday.

[Tar.Aldarion]

mad to see how much the buying has increased, little else to do since covid for a lot of people, Amazon loving life. I don't think I've bought anything other than food since it started, not even clothes or anything for over a year, last purchase appears to be a shirt in March 2020.

[BennyHiFi]

Change of topic.

Benny ? Have you seen the Sparks brothers yet. I know you mentioned it.

No. Is it good? Must try and get to see it in the cinema but chance could be slim as I'm away again. Might have to wait for Netflix.

Got a ticket to see them in Vicar Street next April though.

[Hectorjelly]

A lot of the direct impacts are hidden from consumers, ie the products are being shipped to manufacturers, who then either pass the costs on to consumers - or swallow them. But the main way to see the impact is in the Inflation prints.

This is US inflation - 5% is staggeringly high, although as we can see from LL posts there are good reasons that should be relatively temporary

Capture.PNG

[Solksjaer!]

I'm still hoping for a docco on Showaddywaddy

Every girls crazy about a sharp dressed man

[Degag]

Fascinating post Lao Lao.

This may be a stupid question or incredibly ignorant of me (or likely both), but what was the real impact to the consumer? Or perhaps, where was it?

I ask as to me, everything seemed fine. Supermarkets, as such, didn’t run out of food (barring if i remember correctly, ‘niche’ items like mozzerella, rice cakes & pineapples - may be misremembering this!!)

I wouldn’t be a huge purchaser of items, but any clothing, electronics, books etc that i bought or considered buying, were available (barring, oddly a bread maker which someone recommended on here)

But maybe Ireland escaped somewhat for some reason and it hit other countries worse; or perhaps we were hit significantly but in ways that i wasn’t affected.

[ComradeCollie]

Change of topic.

Benny ? Have you seen the Sparks brothers yet. I know you mentioned it.

I'm still hoping for a docco on Showaddywaddy

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Lovely: https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromte...utoresponders/

[Solksjaer!]

Change of topic.

Benny ? Have you seen the Sparks brothers yet. I know you mentioned it.

[Hectorjelly]

Because squash is a sadistic hate game that's why.
The official reason is its considered a British sport despite what all the old colonial surrender monkeys say. I consider myself a sports lover but Squash is out there on its own by a long way as a sport I abhor.

They only way I would like Squash is if the court was shortened by 50% and narrowed by 25% and the aim of the game was to hit the opponent with the ball leaving a mark. 5x5 minute rounds and whoever has the most ball marks at the end is the loser.

Not a bad idea, I'd certainly watch this!

Where does this hated come from? Were you forced to play or watch it before?

[Solksjaer!]

Certain poetry in someone with the handle 'rounders' hating Squash.

If one game utilizes the spirit of the Olympics its Squash.
Accuracy, speed , athleticism, strength. It's goIt it all.

[rounders123]

Not a follower of Squash but why isnt it an Olympic sport?

Heard some GAA head on radio earlier looking for Gaelic/Hurling to be included.

Because squash is a sadistic hate game that's why.
The official reason is its considered a British sport despite what all the old colonial surrender monkeys say. I consider myself a sports lover but Squash is out there on its own by a long way as a sport I abhor.

They only way I would like Squash is if the court was shortened by 50% and narrowed by 25% and the aim of the game was to hit the opponent with the ball leaving a mark. 5x5 minute rounds and whoever has the most ball marks at the end is the loser.

[Strewelpeter]

Survivor Australia season 8 is a decent way to get your Survivor fix on. Speaking of same, where is Keane these days ?

Hi friends. Looks like I can access IPB from my work computer again so may be around more often again. Hope ye are all keeping well. Great to see the site seems to have improved a bit lately.

Feck you got in just before I posted this:

Dunno where the Sleeveen cunce is but you can be sure he'll turn up before September if Dublin keep playing their B team through to the final

[Strewelpeter]

I apple-igize.

Well thats me fckd when the men behind the curtain allow Mary Lou take her band of authoritarian ideologues into power

... sentenced after weeks of hearings in secret to 18 years in prison and fined 3.11m yuan (£345,000) for a catalogue of crimes including “provoking trouble” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” in a case observers believe was politically motivated.

[Solksjaer!]

Squash is now very watchable on TV . I guess the old farts in the Olympic council cant follow the ball. In the past it was described as elitist. Ha and golf gets in. The courts are far from ugly .

[Mellor]

I didn't say but I was referring to air source heat pump not gothermal. Using your outside air (hot or cold) to heat. The compressor outside would be the main electrical user in this case. The indoor units would need next to nothing to run. They'd use more electricity than a geothermal set up but you need everything else sorted before going this route as the temp produced is low. It's 'free heating' except the electrical cost to run the compressor so I bundled it in with electric heat as assumed Hitch was more thinking how to get away from a boiler but it looks like they're electrical rads with storage.

Ah right. Different principle to ground source heat pump. But in its own way, still moving heat rather than generating it like an electric rad or immersion does.
Basically the same principle as air-con - only running it in reverse. Funnily enough that's what I have, as need much out of it.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Thats genuinely fascinating Lao Lao.


Did you ever look into whether the belt and road initiative of China will eventually solve these types of bottlenecks in the future, or is that too medium-to-long-term?

It seems like the transformative infrastructure of the next generation, but I don't know precisely how it is going to impact anything.

[Keane]

Hi friends. Looks like I can access IPB from my work computer again so may be around more often again. Hope ye are all keeping well. Great to see the site seems to have improved a bit lately.

[ArmaniJeans]

A quick Google tells me that Breakdancing got into Paris ahead of it so your story checks out

Breakdancing is a strange one alright, not quite sure why that has become an event. But I guess it can be done and dusted in a day or three, costs peanuts to put on, and doesn't have a huge footprint whereas squash would presumably need a big dedicated arena with multiple alleys for at least 12 days. So its probably not as simple as 'breakdancing or squash, pick one'.

I don't know much about squash, but I think the tv thing is probably a factor alright.
It's a tough watch, a bit like our handball. Fine to play but doesn't really work as a spectator sport with the side walls acting as visual blockers - even if they make them transparent it's a bit ugly.

Also probably doesn't help that it's stronghold (from memory, may have changed) is a triangle of Egypt, Iran, Pakistan and bordering countries. Countries which definitely need more medal opportunities alright, but when cities like London, Rio, Tokyo, Paris, LA, & Brisbane are the hosts this century, there's probably no-one in those places going to bat for the merits of squash.

[Raoul Duke III]

Amazing, thanks for typing that out LL.

+1, ty sir!

So 'stop buying crap' was indeed heartfelt!

[Dice75]

Being visually terrible on TV has always been the rumoured reason.

A quick Google tells me that Breakdancing got into Paris ahead of it so your story checks out

[Hectorjelly]

Amazing, thanks for typing that out LL.

[Hectorjelly]

I apple-igize.

[Lao Lao]

Not that I have any right to expect it but I would love the detail behind these and indeed if\when you think they will be remediated.

Wildfires isn't one I would have thought of but maybe cutting the rail links from west-east?

Right, I may have mentioned some of this before so apologies if I am repeating myself, but here goes


Asia and in particular, China, is the manufacturing capital of the world. On any trade lane, there is generally a head-haul and a back haul lane to it. The head haul lane is the most dominant one with the back haul having less volume. Pretty much every lane out of Asia is the head haul lane as they are primarily an export focused region. They do, of course, import goods but from a container point of view, exports coming out of China are all laden containers whereas volumes coming in are a mixture of laden and empty containers.

When Covid (officially) hit China in February last year, the whole country closed down for approx six weeks. There was next to no manufacturing and next to no exports either. As China came out of lockdown in mid-March, most of the western world (Europe & USA) went into lockdown and a lot of buyers this side cancelled or postponed orders with their Asian suppliers. There was a genuine fear that there would be a global recession as a result of the pandemic and shipping lines moved swiftly to withdraw capacity (Container vessels) from the market to reflect the reduce amount of laden cargo moving in/out of Asia/EU/USA. This meant that freight rates didn't drop through the floor in the early part of the pandemic. It seems pretty basic, if demand drops, reduce supply, but this was really the first time that the shipping lines have managed to not only do it but do it so quickly. Part of the reason for this is that over the last 8-10 years, there has been a lot of mergers and acquisitions in the industry, and we have gone from about 20 global players to 8 or 9 and all these are now in three vessel sharing alliances. I'm not suggesting any collusion or anything, it's just easier for 3 bodies to reduce capacity without as much a chance as one player breaking ranks and cutting rates to go after market share than there was when there was 20 players. The buzzword phrase of late is "Less competition is less competition"

From May/June onwards, things started to pick up a bit and some capacity was added back into the market. In particular, retailers, started to notice sales going up and stock levels going down. There was a lot of talk about everyone would go all out for Christmas as it had been such a miserable year and people, mainly sitting at home doing nothing, started to buy more and more products as they couldn't pay for services as usual. The vast majority of these products are all made in China.

By September, the market was on fire, sales were through the roof in Europe and USA (plus other secondary markets - South America, Oz/NZ, Middle East) and pretty much all available capacity was back in play. There was just one problem, for months, empty containers hadn't been making their way back to Asia at the same rate they normally would (If a vessel doesn't leave Asia to go to Europe/USA, there is no vessel to go back in the opposite direction several weeks later) so there was severe equipment shortages and not enough to deal with the volume of demand. This caused backlogs and when that happens, rates only go one way.

Between then and Chinese New Year (mid-February 2021) shipping lines tried to do everything they could to get empty containers back to Asia as quick as possible, even to the point whereby they would sacrifice a back haul laden booking to send it back empty instead as they could reuse it quicker as a result. I say sacrifice, but the reality was that by sending it back empty and getting it moving on the head haul lane quicker, they made more money overall. But they just couldn’t keep up with the demand.

There was also no real alternative. The rail network from Asia to Europe is limited to what it can carry and, even if people were willing to pay air freight rates, the capacity in that market was extremely reduced due to the lack of people flying. In fact, there was some traditional air freight business shifting to ocean freight due to lack of capacity in the air market.

While this was all happening, ports in Europe and the USA were started to struggle with the volume arriving. Ports were not at full productivity, partially due to missing staff due to being out sick with Covid (Los Angeles got hit particularly badly) and partially due to new working rules around Covid, smaller crews, having to do a full deep clean down of all equipment in between shifts. This lead to congestion in the ports which led to even more delays in getting equipment back to Asia.

Shipping lines measure their turn time of containers. This is the time from when they give the exporter at origin the empty container until the time they get the empty container back at destination from the importer. Pre Covid, the global average turn time was 50 days. It now sits at 59 days. 9 days may not seem like much but to put it in perspective, the 5^th largest shipping line in the world has said that for every day the turn time increases by, they need to find 17,500 forty-foot containers to cover their global bookings – So, that’s just a shortage of 157,500 at any one time globally for one shipping line…

Back in Q3/early Q4 2020, most people thought that things would calm down after Chinese New Year. It is historically a quiet period for shipping and just how much money could people spend on products? Then we started to have 2^nd and 3^rd waves of Covid and people just didn’t stop buying and then we had the Suez Canal incident. That six-day delay on containers moving put huge strain on a supply chain that was almost at breaking point. Vessels were significantly delayed, which meant that containers could not get back to where they were needed as quick as they could. In addition, we had some severe bunching (when a lot of vessels all arrive at once) after they all got freed from the Suez which caused havoc in Europe and to a certain degree on the US East Coast. Vessels were so badly delayed getting back to Asia, that the sailing schedules were just cancelled or voided as there was no vessel there to sail as planned.

At this point, ports globally are at breaking point. Every single major (or even halfway major) port is congested from the avalanche of the containers arriving. The barge and feeder vessel system in Europe that is used to get containers out of the main ports to inland areas or outports (like Dublin) are overwhelmed and cannot handle the volumes. Similarly in the USA, the rail network which is used to get containers from the ports inland suffers the same faith.

Then, THEN, we have a Covid outbreak among port workers in Yantian port in Shenzhen, China at the end of May and the port is essentially shut down for an entire month. Yantian is the biggest port in South China and is usually top 3 in the world for volumes handled per annum at around seven million forty-foot containers. Twenty-five percent of all US imports come from the greater Shenzhen area. It causes chaos as vessel have to omit the port, so no exports leave and even worse, no import containers arrive. Attempts are made to divert cargo to other ports but there is very limited success due to restrictions of movement within districts due to Covid lockdown rules, slightly different customs processes and the other ports just not being able to deal with the volume that Yantian handles. Around mid-June, there was roughly a back log of cargo to fill two hundred thousand forty-foot containers that hadn’t shipped ex Yantian as planned. I didn’t look at the final number as it would be too depressing, but it definitely increased over the following two weeks.

Meanwhile in the USA, there has been wildfires in Canada and that has damaged rail lines and has added even more congestion to the already congested ports. The problem with shipping routes is that they don’t just call one origin port and one destination port. A sailing schedule will for example call, Qingdao, Ningbo, Shanghai, Yantian, Los Angeles, Oakland & Vancouver before heading back to Qingdao and starting all over again so if there is an issue in any of the ports, it has a knock-on effect on all the others.

Sure, this seems easy to fix, would ya not just make more containers or get more ships? Seems obvious but sadly, not possible. Over 90% of all shipping containers are made…. you guessed it, in China and by 3 state or semi state owned companies. During their first lockdown, they were closed and are as a result manufacturing of new containers is way behind schedule. Now, call me cynical but if there was such a demand, surely, they could operate around the clock, 3x8 hour shifts and get it sorted. Well yes and no – there is a limit to what they can make but also, due to the demand, the sale price of a new container has now doubled so why would you drive that price down by ramping up production and cost with all the over time? In fairness, they are trying to increase production but it’s just not enough.

On the vessel front, everything that can be done has been done. Pretty much, every available vessel is in use. The container vessel idle fleet is at ~2% and that makes up vessels that are either in dry docks for repairs or very small vessels that won’t make any significant impact to the problem. On top of this the cost to charter a vessel has gone through the roof. All shipping lines have a mix/match on their vessels, between what they own and what they charter. This allows them to scale up/down as needed as most charters are for 6-9 months or at least it used to be. Now ship owners are insisting on up two 24 months charter and the price is through the roof. To give you an example, a 5,000 TEU vessel (1 forty-foot container = 2 TEU) pre Covid would have cost about $15K per day to charter. I know one shipping line who had to walk away from the auction to charter a similar sized vessel when the asking rate got to $75K per day. We are seeing the really large vessels (19,000 TEU plus size) going for up to $160K per day. And that’s just for the bare bones of the vessel, it doesn’t include fuel, crew or anything else. Shipping lines have ordered new (after a few years of under investment) but they will not be built and enter the market until 2023 at the earliest.

So when does it all end? Right now, we can’t see much change happening before Q2 2022 (we did say this last year about this year..) but we are starting to see a slight difference between the main two markets ex Asia – Europe and USA. The demand into Europe is slowing – There is still large backlogs and lots of freight to move but the level of growth is reducing, for now. But we need to get the ports back to normal and have equipment flowing to sort out the fundamental issues. In order for this to happen, not only do people need to stop buying products at the rate we are, but we also need to allow time to let business replenish stock levels – The sales to inventory ratio for almost all retailers are very, very low.
On the USA side, there seems to be no let up in demand. Their growth is going up. This could be in part to the amount of stimulus cheques handed out or just that they are more of a consumer nation? But if things stay the same in the USA, it will impact all Asian origins which in turn will have an impact on Europe.

Can you pour me a stiff one please?

[ArmaniJeans]

Not a follower of Squash but why isnt it an Olympic sport?

Being visually terrible on TV has always been the rumoured reason.

[Mellor]

It was this guy if you want to check out his site.

He seemed pretty hardcore, to the point where he refused to do an energy survey until November as apparently you need the ambient temp to be much lower outside than in. See what you think.

On the airtightness page, he is saying that's not unusual to have well insulated house to have poor heat retention. That's true, as mentioned earlier, heat will simply piss away
But on the BER page, it's a bit misleading. It implies there no testing at all in BER;

There is no meaningful quantitative testing of your home. As a result, for instance, many "B" rated houses actually perform like a "D" or "E" rating in the real world.

Which is obviously incorrect. He even mentions testing for BER on the airtightness page.
Strictly speaking the test is not required, but if you don't it, you have to use default value with is really poor. Over double the average. I'd find it hard to believe an E rated house could fluff a B cert by defaulting the value.

Makes sense about waiting to November for the energy survey. I'd assume there's thermal imaging involved. No point doing it in summer when the heat is coming in.
Speaking of the seasons. Was 25 degrees today, middle of winter.

[Dice75]

Not a follower of Squash but why isnt it an Olympic sport?

Heard some GAA head on radio earlier looking for Gaelic/Hurling to be included.

[Raoul Duke III]

Whats the punishment term for not providing working URL links?

I apple-igize.

[shrapnel]

Brazil vs roc volleyball currently. 2 of the best going head to head. Should be a cracker

[Charlie Sheen]

Heat pumps, while electrically powered, aren't electric heating, they are geothermal. Hitch would be more referring to the baseboards you mentioned, electric coil space heaters, heating radiators with an immersion heater etc. These are all a pretty shit way to heat a space, in terms of both cost, and carbon footprint as you said. Modern heaters are slightly better. and electricity is slighter greener now.

Air tightness is going to be a factor regardless of the system. Used, heat will piss out either way. The main idea is that done to a high standard, the heat required approaches zero. So the system becomes irrelevant.

I didn't say but I was referring to air source heat pump not gothermal. Using your outside air (hot or cold) to heat. The compressor outside would be the main electrical user in this case. The indoor units would need next to nothing to run. They'd use more electricity than a geothermal set up but you need everything else sorted before going this route as the temp produced is low. It's 'free heating' except the electrical cost to run the compressor so I bundled it in with electric heat as assumed Hitch was more thinking how to get away from a boiler but it looks like they're electrical rads with storage.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

'Picking quarrels and provoking trouble' worth 18 years in the slammer apparently.

Beware Hitch before you start your next Twitter row.

Whats the punishment term for not providing working URL links?

[Solksjaer!]

RD3 11 TO 4 THE BOKS for the series . Good money after bad ?

[Raoul Duke III]

'Picking quarrels and provoking trouble' worth 18 years in the slammer apparently.

Beware Hitch before you start your next Twitter row.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

My mum spent a few grand on a couch, waited ages for it to be made after it being bought, looks kinda like a standard enough couch, bit nicer. Then you sit on it and just sink into absolute luxury. Its glorious.

Huge fan of IKEA though.

[coillcam]

Ended up convincing herself to go to IKEA about 20 mins after I posted. Picked out two sofas online that were in stock and headed up to Dublin the following morning. Gave them a once over and had home delivery arranged in 5 mins. All in for two sofas + cushions at less than the price of a comparable single sofa elsewhere. No kids to worry about just a lunatic cat that wants to scratch everything in sight .

We went over to Decathlon for a look and saw about 100 people queueing outside so swiftly returned to the car. Decided to give the Fish Shack in Malahide a spin for lunch based on a friend's suggestion. Happy to pass on the same recommendation. We had fish tacos, calamari, chips, salad and prawns in garlic butter. Everything was class and decent prices tbf.

[Solksjaer!]

Has there ever been a documentary about Michelle Smith? Can't see anything online

Whiskey Knickers was offered to RTE but they turned me down.

She was riddled with drugs but still officially our Golden Girl

[Degag]

dressage really is the nut low sport in the olympics. fuck me it's boring shit (regardless of how skilled they are at making a horse prance around). Could barely watch one full routine of 7 minutes without switching over, let alone a whole competition. i don't think there is any other sport where i couldn't watcha whole heat/round/match/etc.

Had heard of Dressage before but never had a clue what it was.

Tuned in yesterday to see horses dancing and said to myself - i bet that’s what it is. Duly Wikipedia’d it and i was right!

Watched it for about half an hour. Amazing that the horses can be trained to move like that.

Doubt will watch again tho

[Solksjaer!]

I still think its absurd that Squash isnt an Olympic Sport considering the utter tedium involved with some sports. I know it's all relative and some are enthralled by the dancing horsie but FFS . Only reason I watched the commonwealth was for Squash . It's a disgrace in my view.

[Raoul Duke III]

Airtightness is hugely important, but that's been the case and a focus since before BER was a thing. I'd be curious about the context in which he said the above.
It's true that BER is largely a calculated prediction, rather than performance based. But it includes air tightness values, that are measured directly. I'd be surprised if any A rated houses got there without reasonable good air tightness, verified with a test. But I've never played with the calculator either.

It was this guy if you want to check out his site.

He seemed pretty hardcore, to the point where he refused to do an energy survey until November as apparently you need the ambient temp to be much lower outside than in. See what you think.

[Mellor]

Survivor Australia season 8 is a decent way to get your Survivor fix on. Speaking of same, where is Keane these days ?

Actually just started watch that. First season of any survivor I've ever watch.
Is it normal for people to be really bad a playing the idols and the general strategy aspect.

[shrapnel]

In the Sydney Olympics, my office at the time was literally next to the main site at Homebush. We switched our working day to be 6am-2pm so that we could take in the max amount of live action. Basically head over every day after work and see what tickets were going.

Thus I can say with confidence that target shooting is the nut worst spectator sport.

Olympic handball by contrast is pretty cool. As is ping pong, volleyball and that crazy 'Madison' event in the cycling (basically no idea who's winning until someone is declared the winner). There was baseball in that Games too - saw a full on brawl in US-Cuba.

might be true as a live spectator but on TV i find it fascinating, and you obviously get the benefit of multiple cameras and commentary which keeps it from becoming boring. definitely wouldn't watch it too regularly, but enjoyable nonetheless at the olympics

[Raoul Duke III]

dressage really is the nut low sport in the olympics. fuck me it's boring shit (regardless of how skilled they are at making a horse prance around). Could barely watch one full routine of 7 minutes without switching over, let alone a whole competition. i don't think there is any other sport where i couldn't watcha whole heat/round/match/etc.

In the Sydney Olympics, my office at the time was literally next to the main site at Homebush. We switched our working day to be 6am-2pm so that we could take in the max amount of live action. Basically head over every day after work and see what tickets were going.

Thus I can say with confidence that target shooting is the nut worst spectator sport.

Olympic handball by contrast is pretty cool. As is ping pong, volleyball and that crazy 'Madison' event in the cycling (basically no idea who's winning until someone is declared the winner). There was baseball in that Games too - saw a full on brawl in US-Cuba.

[shrapnel]

dressage really is the nut low sport in the olympics. fuck me it's boring shit (regardless of how skilled they are at making a horse prance around). Could barely watch one full routine of 7 minutes without switching over, let alone a whole competition. i don't think there is any other sport where i couldn't watcha whole heat/round/match/etc.

[oleras]

Survivor Australia season 8 is a decent way to get your Survivor fix on. Speaking of same, where is Keane these days ?

[oleras]

Airtightness is hugely important, but that's been the case and a focus since before BER was a thing. I'd be curious about the context in which he said the above.
It's true that BER is largely a calculated prediction, rather than performance based. But it includes air tightness values, that are measured directly. I'd be surprised if any A rated houses got there without reasonable good air tightness, verified with a test. But I've never played with the calculator either.

When i got mine completed, think it was C something, what brought it down were 2 chimneys, even though both are hooked up to stoves so no draught there really and a conservatory is classed as a flat roof because it cant be insulated i think, poly roof. About 12 inches in the attic and walls pumped, that made a big difference.

Also, on the mortage rate, i pulled out my contract, think it was 2007 and im on 0.75%+ECB, which i think is 0.25, if so, a handy 1%

[Lazare]

Has there ever been a documentary about Michelle Smith? Can't see anything online

[Mellor]

I see Siobhan Haughey won Silver for Hong Kong in the swimming lol. Good ol' Charlie spreading them around the globe.

She is actually pretty closely related. Her grandfather is Charlie's brother.

[Dice75]

I see Siobhan Haughey won Silver for Hong Kong in the swimming lol. Good ol' Charlie spreading them around the globe.

[limpwhacker]

Squeeky bum time in the Badminton on RTE2

Fck sake I bbv'd the life out of the poor lad. Sorry Nat.

[Mellor]

I had a very interesting conversation with an energy consultant where he told me BER, although somewhat predictive, can often be very different from the actual air tightness and overall heat efficiency of a house.

Lots of modern builds with A ratings that are not, or so he claimed. Air tightness and ventilation more important than the actual heating...

Airtightness is hugely important, but that's been the case and a focus since before BER was a thing. I'd be curious about the context in which he said the above.
It's true that BER is largely a calculated prediction, rather than performance based. But it includes air tightness values, that are measured directly. I'd be surprised if any A rated houses got there without reasonable good air tightness, verified with a test. But I've never played with the calculator either.

[limpwhacker]

Squeeky bum time in the Badminton on RTE2

Some match. Our lad really putting it up to him.

[Dice75]

Squeeky bum time in the Badminton on RTE2

[Solksjaer!]

Funny

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Heat pumps, while electrically powered, aren't electric heating, they are geothermal. Hitch would be more referring to the baseboards you mentioned, electric coil space heaters, heating radiators with an immersion heater etc. These are all a pretty shit way to heat a space, in terms of both cost, and carbon footprint as you said. Modern heaters are slightly better. and electricity is slighter greener now.

Air tightness is going to be a factor regardless of the system. Used, heat will piss out either way. The main idea is that done to a high standard, the heat required approaches zero. So the system becomes irrelevant.

Thanks!


I get (now) the broader point about insulation. The specific heaters he was talking about are these. Is there anything notable about them? Just purely out of interest really as trying to get into that type of thing and learn a few things.

[Raoul Duke III]

I had a very long reply typed out and it just got wiped somehow

If I recover from the rage by tomorrow, I'll re type it up again but short answer is, Covid, a huge surge in demand, an almost break down of infrastructure, Suez, wildfires and now more Covid!!

Not that I have any right to expect it but I would love the detail behind these and indeed if\when you think they will be remediated.

Wildfires isn't one I would have thought of but maybe cutting the rail links from west-east?

[Raoul Duke III]

Heat pumps, while electrically powered, aren't electric heating, they are geothermal. Hitch would be more referring to the baseboards you mentioned, electric coil space heaters, heating radiators with an immersion heater etc. These are all a pretty shit way to heat a space, in terms of both cost, and carbon footprint as you said. Modern heaters are slightly better. and electricity is slighter greener now.

Air tightness is going to be a factor regardless of the system. Used, heat will piss out either way. The main idea is that done to a high standard, the heat required approaches zero. So the system becomes irrelevant.

I had a very interesting conversation with an energy consultant where he told me BER, although somewhat predictive, can often be very different from the actual air tightness and overall heat efficiency of a house.

Lots of modern builds with A ratings that are not, or so he claimed. Air tightness and ventilation more important than the actual heating...