Various tweaks

Sorry for a pull request with a bunch of unrelated stuff in it!

Each commit has a message which should describe the thoughts behind it. The final commit (0447b18) is the one I'm least sure and would be interested to discuss if you think it's a good idea or not.

I'm just leaving the office now so sorry I haven't given all of the information here. I will try to add to it tomorrow if there is anything that needs clarification!
There are any reasons to keep with this? Seems like this is acting more like an internal method which only gets called by `.stop` method. If it is just this i think this could go within  `.stop` method.