How far back in history is this? IME punctures are no more or less common now than when I first started driving 30+ years ago.
Party lines they were called by the GPO. Both phones shared the same pair of wire for speech.
I'd have thought various factors would cancel each other out when it comes to motor vehicle punctures.
Not merely punctures, but catastrophic failures. If the tyre is intact, a patch kit can get you to somewhere that a proper repair can be carried out perfectly well. If the tyre has completely blown out, or been shredded, or is otherwise distributed along the previous half-mile, the spare wheel is indispensible.
I remember our phone had a clear button just underneath the handset which you pressed, I think when there was a shared line, but no idea what it did.
Somewhat specialist knowledge for this thread but the party line was replaced by the DACS system which used the same pair of wires but digitised and frequency shifted one of them out of the audible range of the other and then de-shifted it at the exchange. Unlike a party line, this allowed for both parties to call at the same time without hearing each other. It even worked for dial-up Internet.
It can, at the price of ruining a tyre which in many cases could easily be repaired at a fraction the cost of a new tyre. There's also another circumstance where tyre goop is useless, when the tyre is intact but there's a noticeable bulge in the sidewall (which can result in the type of catastrophic failure mentioned) due to hitting pothole at speed. This is more common now due to the much greater prevalance of low profile tyres. Finally even when you can use the goop, they're a short term solution to get you home or to a nearby fitter, in the case of Kia they recommend no more than 120 miles at 50mph. Admittedly that last one's true of space saver wheels too, I'm not a fan of those either. Luckily my 2020 Niro does have space for a full size spare (something I wasn't aware of until after I bought it) so not something I need to worry about
Now that would actually be a genuinely worthwhile tradeoff for losing a spare, but IME it's the exception rather than the rule. The negligible benefit of being able to store a few odds and sods which would otherwise live in the little cubby holes either side of my tailgate isn't.
I’m sure we all do, and you’ll find all the music you liked all available to buy or stream (if you have an accoun) there’s even an online Test Card Society that discusses the music used. I recently bought an LP that featured the opening music from Border, Ulster, Scottish, Tyne Tees, Southern etc and it really brings those times back! (STV used ‘Scotlandia’, and Ulster ‘Loch Lagan’).
I keep the landline for broadband but last time I checked the line only rate gave no saving over the cheapest contract. I have had a couple of genuine inbound calls this year from people who still had the old number
I suspect immersion heaters will be a candidate for the thread before too long now that people tend to have combi boilers.
Combi boilers are great - but for larger homes, a system boiler and hot water cylinder is still preferred as a boiler that could keep up with maximum demand would be unduly large. Our immersion heater switch is buried away in the cupboard with the cylinder so it's really easy to forget about and run up a huge electricity bill!
Don't be so sure. Plenty of lower quality rented properties still relying on traditional heating systems for which an immersion heater is sometimes the better choice. Equally there are relatively recently built low-rise apartment buildings featuring a lot of timber framing meaning no gas on site ie immersion heating is the only way to heat water.
No reason why timber framing should rule out gas - something like 90% of newbuild homes in Scotland are timber framed and the vast majority are also gas heated.
They’re probably’ useless by now if you’ve swapped them a few times. A leading tyre fitting chain refused to swap mine a sixth time and I had no real alternative but to scrap both the summer and winter sets (neither fully worn) and buy a new set of combination/all-season ones. Oh, and pay a scrappage/landfill tax fee.
I don't think it's timber framing in particular, but rather multi-storey timber framed buildings. There is/was an issue with mains gas supplies to such construction:
