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Can you explain what you mean when you say that 'they piggybacked a free to air box' onto their 'English' sat dish? 1: Where are you in Italy? 2: How big is their dish? 3: Which English channels do you receive? 4: Do you receive these 8 or 9 channels through your TV or through your computer? 5: Is it a UK digibox? I'd be interested to know, thanks.

I'm finding it impossible to believe that Vodafone doesn't 'support' (or indeed have any need to 'support') Citrix. I cannot see any reason for Vodafone to get involved with Citrix (I've never used Citrix on Vod, but it has always worked fine with TI). The only conceivable snag, to me, is that Vodafone are unable to assess your data exchange usage while you are on any VPN, and because you are on a contract which has a limited number of Gbs per month, they (or their accounting software) gets its knickers in a twist. This has the potential to explain why it worked 'for a bit', and maybe why it worked on the XP machine (assuming you didn't have a data exchange limit with the old slower dongle). Do keep us informed if/when you get it all sorted out - it is quite fascinating (okay, signing off as nerdy!)

I'm not using Citrix (though I'm not unfamiliar with it). I just use a bit of a nerd, it is not unknown for me to check download speeds (uploads do not interest me greatly) while using a VPN and when not using a VPN. My point of reference is usually , though also recommended to me is . Anyway - the results are consistent in that using the VPN rarely returns results which suggest it slows anything down. However (maybe you can expain this, Sprostoni?) the VPN often reports significantly better (like x2) upload speeds, and at one point when I was bawling out the VPN techies, somebody told me that the 'asynchronous' stuff meant that 'my bandwidth' was 'shared' between download and upload - as in faster upload meant lower download. I should dream about 14.4Mbps! I'm lucky to exceed 1.2, and not infrequently it falls below 0.5...which is what dial up offered all those years ago at much less cost.

I'm not using Citrix (though I'm not unfamiliar with it). I just use a bit of a nerd, it is not unknown for me to check download speeds (uploads do not interest me greatly) while using a VPN and when not using a VPN. My point of reference is usually , though also recommended to me is . Anyway - the results are consistent in that using the VPN rarely returns results which suggest it slows anything down. However (maybe you can expain this, Sprostoni?) the VPN often reports significantly better (like x2) upload speeds, and at one point when I was bawling out the VPN techies, somebody told me that the 'asynchronous' stuff meant that 'my bandwidth' was 'shared' between download and upload - as in faster upload meant lower download. I should dream about 14.4Mbps! I'm lucky to exceed 1.2, and not infrequently it falls below 0.5...which is what dial up offered all those years ago at much less cost.

On the vod site (for private, not business) it says the Vod station 2 does up to 7Mbps in download, but on the Business site it says up to 14.4 (which you have available to your dongle). I'm just guessing here, but it sounds very much to me as if the dongle is the limiting speed factor, and when (!) vod run out a faster dongle the Vodafone Station will be able to keep up.

This problem of connection methods (LAN is the name for a cabled connection from computer to router, nothing to do with the connection to a 'land line') pains me also. I have a VPN which insists on invoking itself whenever the adsl drops out for a couple of secs - then the Vod software starts shouting at me and requiring me to do impossible things! T'was never a problem with XP, but Vista and Win 7 seem unpersuadable. Why not ask your Vod store to lend you a Vodafone station (maybe even the mark 2 which has just come out). This device gives you full wireless and works off a dongle - they come free for some Vod customers, but should be purchasable stand alone for (guess) about €70. Useful 'cos they'll run anything wireless (like internet radio, smartphone, visiting tablets etc.). It will also have a phone socket on the back which takes a normal phone, and uses the dongle for connections, so sounds as if it might be ideal for your purposes. (Not sure about incoming calls - probably not; though your dongle SIM will have a 'number' so it might be possible to find a workaround) I'm calling it a Vodafone Station because I don't know the generic term for these devices; it is a Huwaei product and quite likely can be bought more cheaply from Amazon or somewhere. However, Vodafone do insist on some pretty secure encryption (WPA2) and they may have engineered something which means that nothing which isn't a "Vodafone Station" will work on their network. 

I have used lengths of plastic plumbing waste (probably 38mm diam) to reach high beams as Badger suggests. The trick is to buy the brush end bit first, (you should be able to find something with close to a 90deg angle already on it) and then select or arrange your wastepipe to fit. Often a Hoover bit will fit inside the spigot end, sometimes the pipe will fit inside the brush bit. For lightness you might want to use the white cheapo waste pipe, but the heavier red pipe is usefully rigid and comes in longer lengths.

I'll defer to Badger on this subject, but his valid point about the overlaying wood flooring being an insulating material becomes (obviously) less of a consideration if the wood flooring is thin. The illustration on the Warmboard site indicates boards of about 15mm - it is possible to get reasonable 'system' wood floor finishes as thin as 10mm.  It looks to me like a fairly okay system for a wood constructed structure. Maybe the use of the aluminuim (pipes and sheet) even goes some way to addressing the warm up/cool down 'lag' associated with conventional underfloor systems in heavyweight constructions.

It could well be a house longhorn - but it sounds so much more cuddly by its ½ûÂþÌìÌà name - il capricorno delle case - that I'm a bit surprised Esme isn't encouraging you to make pets of them! Is it attacking a softwood (pine or spruce beams)? Generally they can be pretty well ignored (the longhorn) if they are haviing a go at a hadwood (chestnut or oak) since they only nibble the sapwood - but they can rampage through softwoods. There are other wood borning insects which can do substantial damage to (predominantly) newly felled chestnut and oak, so it would certainly be a good idea to get a proper identification from somebody capable of destryoying them if that is necessary. Unfortunately, there are a lot of cowboys out there in the woodworm killing industry (even more in Italy than in the UK!) so it might be sensible to enquire of somebody you trust - maybe your builder or your joiner, or a decent geometra, or even a tecnico at the comune, for a recommendation. (The longhorn tends to be common only in limited geographical areas, so quite possibly the comune have some experience they could offer). Best of luck, but no need to panic.

I had a quick google about, and found a site in the Netherlands who shipped EU wide (though they didn't have varieties like King Edwards), and another Scottish site which exported seed potatoes to anywhere in the EU (though it wasn't clear they'd do this on a retail level). So, it doesn't seem there is any 'law' which prevents you from getting UK seed potatoes shipped, although they may need to come from a source with a phyto.... (something or other!) certificate. Good luck.