Paddy

I agree. Putting grades on Ebay leads to lots of issues - If you grade accurately then you risk no one looking at your items as they are lost in the swill of over-graded rubbish. If you join the over-grading cult you lose credibility with the knowledgeable buyers, or enter into disputes with them. It's a no win!

I used to bid regularly at Lawrences of Crewkerne with complete confidence. They recorded the bidding in the room, even before everything went online, and so any queries could easily be handled by playing back the recording. There were other auctions here in the South West that I quickly gave up leaving bids with as they had a reputation for "taking bids off the wall".

Well I have just "wasted" a whole afternoon listening and watching that Pulse video. Thanks @bagerap !

... and so they are stopping his pension...

ditto

He speaks English but I understand little...

I'm not half as drinkled as some thinkle peep I are!

This one arrived in an email today - first belly laugh I've had in ages!

Well that clears it up - I was still working out what sort of plant a Burberry was and whether I could make wine from the fruit!

If ET had landed inn China:

That's good! It works and does appear to be in modern dictionaries, so I can't fault it. The one I had is far older - latchstring - which is in the dictionary. Watchstrap is close, but officially should be two words or hyphenated, though perversely my spell check likes watchstrap but objects to latchstring! All solved now.

That has only 4 consonants - the word I have has 6 together.

That is good! It's not the one I had, but it has the same number of letters. I had nervousness. We'll count that one as solved.

I believe in principle it would stay exactly the same. The small portion of the cubes that were above the surface correspond to the reduced density of the ice, but once melted the density is the same as the rest of the water, and so occupies a reduced volume. The only factor that might bring about a small change is the presence of small air bubbles in the ice, which, once released, would lower the level very slightly. The melting ice-caps issue relates to all the ice on land.

Whoops!

I did some research on number 8, and leaving aside a whole tranche of scientific terms, came up with a few strong everyday words: Subcontinental Uncomplimentary Unnoticeably

I have a coin collecting friend who is a bit like that. He starts to make a point and then gets diverted into sub-clauses - a bit like the old Ronnie Corbett monologues only not so funny. I sit there listening and wondering how many sub-clauses deep he will get before he realises he has forgotten the point he was trying to make at the start!

Bingo - but there is no second E - Queuing is the 5 letter answer I had in mind.

Well done Chris, knocked off another one with "Awkward". Rhythm, as you suspected, doesn't really count as the Y is being used as a vowel. Facetious had already been got. Above is the current answer situation.

That does 4 consecutive vowels - my answer has 5. Getting closer.

Yes - Glyph is the answer I have for 3. "Lightweight" isn't ALL long letters.

That's not answering the need to be all tall letters - tall letters are b, d, f, g, h, j. k. l, p, q, t, y.

Two definitely correct with the answers I had in mind as shown. Not sure about Euouae - it is an abbreviation and often written with Vs instead of Us, so I think is borderline. (Although I know you get away with it ins Scrabble.) My answer has 5 vowels in a common everyday word. Hawkwind is not in the dictionary as it is a band name. I like the idea of Strychnine as an answer, although it does use the disputable Y, which is used as a vowel. My answer has 6 consonants without using a Y.