James105

Again, I can only speak from the experience of watching Clarkson's farm, but it seems nothing 'overly generous' occurs to farmers. It looks like a very tough job with long working hours that carries a lot of risk with the adverse impact different weather conditions can have on crops, and it seems that to be successful requires a lot of knowledge that is passed down from one generation to the next. It seems that the IHT would be an impossible sum of money to raise for a family that have lost the head of their family that no doubt spent blood, sweat and tears working the land, only to see that land be sold off due to a mean spirited and cruel policy. These are not oil producers making billions of pounds in profits here, just honest people working on land at very small margins of profit to provide the food that we eat. I don't see why for such an insignificant sum this policy was needed at this time.

Yes it does and says it is not affordable for farms. "Is the tax affordable? Sam Kirkham, who specialises in agriculture at Albert Goodman accountants, says "people look at the value of farms and think the farmers must be wealthy". But she says if the farm passes down to the next generation to continue to produce food, they never get to realise that capital. And she adds farm profits are insufficient to meet the additional cost of inheritance tax. Government figures suggest that the average return on capital for farms (which is the percentage return that they are making from things like land and machinery) is only about 0.5%, which is very low." Interesting that the largest farmland owner in the USA was paying a visit to Labour just before the budget then isn't it. Another cruel and pointless policy considering how little it raises relative to the pain it inflicts on those affected.

Labours own report suggested that it would kill 4000. They are well aware that the poorest pensioners who are actually entitled to pension credit cannot complete the 243 question form needed to claim it and get the winter fuel allowance, and if they did all claim the government would make a loss from this policy. It's a policy that literally requires the poorest not to claim their entitlements to pension credits. There was no need to rush this through. They could have streamlined the process for claiming pension credits and reduced the amount of (probably pointless) questions and started it from next winter. It is a cruel and unnecessary policy.

So if a farm is worth £6m and it is a family farm then that family would have to stump up £1m or sell it to someone like Bill Gates and find another way to make a living? How much does a farm this size actually make in profits - enough to pay back £1m over 10 years? I have seen a bit of Clarkson's farm and it doesn't appear that there is that level of money in farming to be able to pay that kind of money to be able to keep the farm. How much money does this policy even make for the government? Enough to even cover a fraction of the £22bn being spent on pointless carbon capture technology?

You are correct I don't like the policy but I did buy a case with it in the first store, which was also refunded to me with the phone refund. Every apple device comes with a worldwide Apple guarantee as standard for 1 year. There is zero risk in buying these products and as someone pointed out earlier in this thread, if a fault was found with the device after purchase and tested in store, then the purchaser wouldn't get issued a new replacement device and the phone with the fault would be sent back to Apple to deal with. So it makes the whole testing completely and utterly pointless as the customer might as well deal with Apple directly anyway if there is a fault after they have left the store. In the highly unlikely event that it is DOA then I contact Apple support and presumably I get a replacement from Apple. Not sure why you sound so salty about this really.

Sure, but if they don't sell the phone they also don't sell the case or other accessory. I doubt I'll ever use them again either. Not sure how not just letting the customer leave with the device they have bought in the brand new condition it was bought in is a good store policy here. Anyway I've ordered it directly from Apple now and it doesn't appear that it will come with a store employee in the box who insists on opening it and messing with it before I have had a chance to use it so problem solved.

I think it was a mistake that will make it difficult for the Tories to win next time as I don't see much difference between her and Sunak. I actually think this incarnation of the Tory party are almost as obsessed with gender and colour as the Labour party and instead of choosing the stronger candidate with clearer and actual conservative policies, they have chosen someone who ticks the identity boxes as some kind of stick to beat Labour with. Time will tell I guess but it's difficult to imagine she is the one that will encourage those 4 million Reform voters to go back to the Conservatives when her policies on immigration are no different or worse than Sunak's. Of course if the Labour clown show continues on it's current trajectory of uniting the country against Labour then maybe it won't matter.

I tried that in the second store yesterday. They said they cannot sell me it if they couldn't open it themselves, and go through the set up themselves, connect it to the internet and 'activate' it themselves. I even asked them what if I was buying it as a gift and they said the same. No new iPhone leaves the store without being opened and activated by a store employee before the customer has had a chance to use it themselves. They were not in the least surprised that I was unwilling to purchase the phone on those terms so I doubt I am the only one who is uncomfortable with this process.

Buying it from Apple directly I have done in the past, but every time it has been shipped from China (even if in stock in Thailand) so can take a week or more to get it. Buying something from a Studio 7 store has never been a problem before. I bought my last iPad from one of them. The system was that I paid for the device and left the store with the device in its box without anyone needing to open it.

The store employee when the phone is new has full admin control over it and could potentially install firmware (root kit for example) that provides a back door into the phone for a nefarious individual. Connected to wifi means connected to internet and the internet is a place full of dangerous software that could be downloaded and installed as the store employee has full admin control over the device at this stage. So lets say a nasty hacker is aware of Studio 7s policy of accessing the phone before the purchaser has secured it themselves and one of their "tests" is to connect to the internet and activate it. This nasty hacker offers lowly paid Studio 7 store employees 20,000 bahts per phone to simply visit an IP address and download a root kit to the phone that reinstalls itself whenever a factory reset is activated. The customer then factory resets the phone and goes merrily on his way thinking the phone is "secure" as its been reset, but in reality the device is completely open to the hacker thanks to the software the employee downloaded. Is that far fetched? Sure it is. Is it possible? Sure it is. If the store employee doesn't connect the phone to the internet is it possible? Nope. The point I am making is that it is impossible for this to happen if the customer takes control of the phone after purchase and sets it up themselves. Letting someone else do something with the device and connect it to the internet just seems like an unnecessary risk (no matter how small that risk is) considering the device will have full access to every aspect of my financial life.

Root kits would be my main concern as they can affect the hardware of the device and potentially can be set up to reinstall on reset. Do I know how to do it? Nope. Can it be done if someone has control of your device and its connected to the internet to download and install it? Possibly. Can it be done if I am the one setting up the phone? Definitely not.

Actually, whilst I was talking to the manager about it I got a notification on my phone that the payment was refunded which the first sales guy did as he got the hump with me laughing at the silliness of it all. If they had explained and/or just let me set the thing up which I was trying to suggest as solution and do the tests myself in the English language (rather than the Thai language he was doing it in) it probably would have resulted in win/win (store sells phone I get phone) instead of lose/lose where store has an opened phone they cannot sell and I don't have phone. This makes the whole "testing to make sure it works" scenario utterly pointless then as you are in no better position than if you took it out of the store in its box without testing. I doubt very much they would break the seals and open a device box prior to payment as if you change your mind they now have an opened device which most people would be reluctant to buy.

Sure I could watch him do it but since he was using the Thai language to go through the set up which I cannot read that wasn't much comfort. Maybe if he had explained before I bought the device what he planned to do and why he had to do it then it wouldn't have caught me by surprise.

The Tories have made a mistake. The last thing they need is another WEF puppet as their leader. Good for Reform though I would think.

Easy and safe for sure, not sure about fast though. Every time I've ordered something from Apple, even if it is in stock in their Bangkok stores it gets shipped from China so has always been 1-2 weeks.

These devices have hardware based security and it is a device that will store my banking details and passwords for every financial aspect of my life. Even though I would be 99.9% sure there would be no issues with this that 0.1% of doubt can affect my sleep. The guy was just doing his job but he caught me by surprise by opening the box and then messing around with the phone I had just purchased and was technically mine at that point.

I went to the other Studio 7 near where I live and its the same there and in PowerBuy too. The very specific tests they have to do are: 1. Connect to wifi 2. Activate the phone 3. Test the camera 4. Test the sound. Considering this is functionality found on every apple device and it is only the phones that they have this policy for (they don't need to do this for iPads for example) then my presumption is that there is a bad batch of phones that have made it through production and into Thailand that have problems with one or more of these aspects and I am guessing that Apple have told them to do this to make it easier for the store to return them. In the other one I offered to do the setup/tests myself in store so at least its only my own grubby fingerprints on the shiny new toy but weirdly they said no to that so I guess I'll just order directly from Apple or pick one up next time I am in Bangkok. Still think it is a stupid policy though and one I remain uncomfortable with.

It's too late for me to turn to Android. I've been Appled. Phone, watch, laptop, tablet and TV and they all play so nicely together. Impossible to change now.

Yes very odd. Prices are identical to Apple stores, really is no difference and still covered by Apple guarantee as well so there really isn't even any need to open the box, yet alone carry out the other nonsense he was attempting.

I might go and pick one up from the other Studio 7 in town today and see if the madness occurs there as well or if this is just an isolated case of Studio 7 idiocy.

Checking it is working is annoying but I have no major problem with that and once the phone turned on that is proof enough. But going through the phone set up to get it to connect to the internet and do whatever else is too much, especially for a device that is used for so many things like banking etc. It made me way too uncomfortable watching him go through the setup (in Thai language as well) to let him continue. As I said, I had bought and paid for the device at this point so technically it was mine and I should have some say into what he can do with it.

1. I don't know how much time he has spent in his constituency and nor do I care. It's generally accepted that party leaders are less available that normal MPs. How much time does Starmer spend in his constituency for example? Do you know or care? I suspect not. 2. Farage didn't gift anyone billions of pounds of PPE so is utterly irrelevant. I don't think he is hero worshipped to the same level he is vilified by the morons on the left. He speaks about uncomfortable truths which is why people on the left are so afraid of him. Regarding Trump it is important for the west that he gets elected. If he demonstrates that economic growth can be achieved by slashing taxes, cutting wasteful spending and eradicating illegal immigration then this will provide a path the UK can follow in the next election and eradicate the socialist clowns we have in government for another generation.

Yeah 100%. They are official Apple resellers. The phone was fine, nothing wrong with it at all. It's a transaction I have made several times in the past with me paying and literally walking out the store without anybody needing to even open the box (from Apple stores not Studio 7) and haven't encountered this silliness before. It was quite amusing in the store as I was saying that since I had paid for it the device was mine now and he was insisting he needed to set it up (and he was setting it up using Thai language as well) to get to the connect to wifi stage and wouldn't let me leave with the device I had bought and paid for. Bonkers.

So I tried to buy a new iPhone yesterday. Went into the local Studio 7 and they had what I wanted in stock so I paid for it. The next step should be walking out the store with my newly purchased product... right? Well not in this case. The guy then said he needed to open it to check it was working. So he broke the seal, then removed the protective plastic and used his grubby fingers on my shiny new toy to turn it on. Ok fine, its working, I thank him and take the phone and put it back in the box ready to leave. Can I leave? Nope. He then says he needs to sign into wifi with it to activate it and take a photo and check other things. Store policy or something. Now checking it is working is one thing, but getting to the stage of connecting a device that I use for authentication, banking and investments to the internet before I have had a chance to use it, now that is a no go for me. So I said there was no need and I can activate it myself. He wouldn't let me leave and in the end he ended up refunding my payment as I wouldn't let him use my new phone and connect it to wifi and do whatever before I have had a chance to secure it and activate it with my apple account. So the store now has an opened iPhone in stock that they will not be able to sell as new and I still don't have a new iPhone. What kind of madness is this?

Are you confusing Farage with Starmer here? Why do you think people labelled him "Free gear Keir"?