but I suspect that’s a symptom of my middle-class upbringing

I’m as working class as can be and can assure you, most respectfully, that is absolute shite.

I looked at changing but made my decision to stay with the current lender when I saw how little difference a change in rate would make. It’s worth putting your numbers into a mortgage calculator and seeing if a rate change makes a material difference. For me, it was worth paying £5 to £10 a month more not to bother shifting it but my mortgage is pretty small.

I don’t think it’s so much the training costs stopping people choosing certain jobs. It’s the fact that when you’ve been in it 5 years your wages will still be low, you’ll still be treated like shit and you still won’t be able to afford a house. You may as well choose a shit option that lets you piss around on the internet all day long rather than go home smelling of food production or not go home at all and sleep in a truck stop.

Plenty of people are quite happy to invest mortgage sized amounts of money to hopefully become a lowish paid pilot but eventually they’ll be doing nicely.

The last season of Money Heist starts next Friday. The dubbing at times is annoying but I’m changing my favourite character every episode.

You can’t really blame Londoners when most of them would prefer Crossrail 2 or a decent orbital railway following the M25 or more destinations in mainland Europe.

Who wants to go to Manchester? Mancunians that think it’s so good that they live and work in London.

I own a house which I let out. Everytime it comes up for rental I’ve got to make a choice between 4 to 6 renters who want it. More often than not somebody is in tears because they didn’t get it.

So I’d say there needs to be more buy to let properties or maybe we need to do something about the shitty neighbours in areas not even a mile away where you could buy a better home for about 70% of the cost of a months rent in the nice area.

Or maybe knock some rubbish homes down and build some better ones that actually have space to live in.

Reading the statement all I could think was that Lance Armstrong could have wrote it.

Tapping the float chamber with a wooden hammer handle was usually a good enough bodge to get you home again. From memory, with a fair bit of throttle.

In this case, I would suggest stripping and cleaning the carb and checking it’s built as it should be. I’ve seen 1.1/4 and 1.1/2” bits mixed up before. It looks not quite right but can be hard to spot.

I’m enjoying this! Please keep updating!

When you do meet someone, keep it simple and cheap. You’ll know within an hour (and they will too) if you’d ever want to meet them again so no point spending big money on a first date.

I’m in London and there are plenty of gold diggers around just looking for a decent meal or drinks to be bought all night. The odds are in their favour so even very average girls get away with it.

Best tip is switch your phone off should you find yourself in Doncaster or anywhere similar.

From what I can tell once they’ve ruled out you don’t have something that’s going to kill you then you’re on you’re own your own. The NHS is hopeless but only in that doctors seem unwilling to tell you bluntly that they’re not going to help and that you need to sort your diet by yourself. Paid options are little better but all they’re really doing is to coax you into sorting what you put in your mouth and maybe sell you some stuff to make you feel like you’re making an effort.

FWIW, I’ve struggled with this for years but the only thing that has worked has been the low FODMAP diet and then keep the bad things very low. For me that’s lactose and refined crap.

This diet is hard and it’s hard on the people you share meals with but it really is worth taking a couple of months of pain if you get your life back.

Trust me, if you’d be proud to pop out a well formed poo then maybe it’d be worth a change of diet.

Get some decent cajun spice and make the best chicken burgers. I use Slap Ya Mama but whatever you can find.

Learn to cook something you like that you’ve never managed. For me, out of sheer laziness I’d never learned to poach an egg but got inspired by a thread on here and it always cheers me up when I do it now.

Think of a pub meal you have that you don’t make and learn to do it better than the pub. Tuna Nicoise, chicken caesar salad are 2 of mine. Both even better if you can grow the lettuce yourself.

Try cooking something Asian. The typical street food like noodles is always quick to do. Look around till you find a recipe you like the look of and go get the ingredients and give it a go. try doing something new every month and practice till you can do it quickly.

Invite friends to try your new , tasty, fast, simple cooking and pretty soon you’ll be getting a meal or 2 in return without it being a horrific dinner party.

richardkennerley
Full Member

@binners I love the roses, but we listen to absolute radio a lot at work (not my choice) and I’m sick of hearing roses tunes now.

Count yourself lucky. We get to listen to Shite FM – a selection of about 8 songs from the likes of Ed Sheeran and Dua Lipa. Thankfully it’s not as prominent now that Little Miss Titsandmakeup moved to the other end of the office and has a bit more work to do.

I can always cope with Miles Davis and recently enjoyed Fila Brasilia. Bonobo is also a common choice for work.

It’s not really surprising. Most phone plans nowadays are free for calls and texts which happens to be regulated. The unregulated part – picture messages and data, seen as a luxury, is where they make the money.

The telecoms industry has a history of all companies following , for example, one off shores an admin role to India and before you know it all the others have had to do the same to remain competitive. No doubt the consultants are already working out how much they can charge O2, VF and 3 to tell them to do the same. I can imagine the only reason it’s not already happened is due to sandbagging against this years targets.

Disagree with BlipBloop. Nixie is bang on when he says SkiWelt at mid station Soll is perfect for beginners. Also Westendorf has a slow 4 man chairlift with magnets on the beginner slope.

There’s a (very) few chopped up bits around the area but decent instructors can show you how to avoid the carnage. Overall it’s very suited to less capable skiers.

My money would be on the Courchevel beginner areas. Above 1650 is bubble served and easy blue / green and deserted until 3PM each day. The Jardin Alpin is very easy but a bit busier.

Overall though the right instructor is more important than lifts and runs. 2 or 3 hours of private lessons is worth the investment if you can afford it.

An ex-colleague wrote I quit on a post-it, stuck it to his ID card and posted it to them. He was at a reasonable level in IT and was fed up of getting requests to do work (multi week projects) via post-its stuck to his desk.

It’s absolutely common to use helicoil inserts in aluminium and magnesium castings. When fitted correctly it’s considered the better solution. They get a bad rep because they’re often badly fitted to bodge a repair in an expensive car part to avoid replacing it.

The problem isn’t that a helicoil has been used. It is a problem in that it sounds like it wasn’t fitted correctly.

Don’t forget that you will be taxed on the income. When you add up this lot it’s not really a short term money spinner. These are some of my numbers

Gas safety / boiler insurance £230
Building insurance £140
Agent fee, 10% + vat on any rent collected
Tenant finding and initial agreement, £300 I think, might be less

One off electrical cert, £150+vat

Inevitable breakdown / leaky roof / whatever – if I get away with £50 per month averaged over the year I don’t moan. Tenants don’t tend to notice stuff going wrong and then small problems become big and your agent will have a contractor on hand who they’ll be getting a cut from. Better if you can do your own repairs but you need to be competent.

It can be good if everything’s working and you have decent tenants but even decent tenants can go bad quickly. I had a great one who developed very unfortunate health issues after 3 years and stopped paying rent.

The company may well be able to take the hit but there’s going to be a person responsible and for all you know their job may be hanging by a thread. That person doesn’t need any more crap landing on them.

I was applying for a job in defence once that required me to only hold a British passport. I was told I would have to give up my Irish one.

I’m so glad I never got the job as I’m well past 90 days in Europe with no intention of going back to UK.

Is the mortgage your only debt? It kind of looks like it is but maybe sort out any more expensive debt if you have any first.

If you’re going to sell at some point decide whether doing that now makes sense or fixing the current house makes sense. It might be ok to leave the roof problems to someone else and put your money into where you really want to be.

Presumably you have a mortgage redemption to think about so you may have a little time to think about everything before it makes sense to pay it off.

The whole recycling chain is riddled with corruption and middle men who allow Sainsburys etc to appear to recycle stuff whilst dumping it en masse in the 3rd world.

Except if you try to move stuff around legally from country to country to recycle it properly (recover IT equipment materials) it’s a complete pain due to the Geneva convention which is basically supposed to stop things being exported to be dumped.

If Sainsburys, or anyone else, cares enough to think they might get caught there are laws in place to prevent this behaviour but I’m not surprised that it’s easier to pass the problem on to an organisation with no morals.

Bit of a ramble but in my experience companies are shocked at the cost of dealing with waste and the cost of correct disposal isn’t built into the product budget as not everyone is playing by the rules. I mean, you’re not going to throw a multi million pound IT support deal because you quote as much for recovery and disposal of the equipment in 5 years as you did to get it out there in the first place.

It’s certainly no theme park. I didn’t say a word during the 3 hours I spent there with my then girlfriend. It’s one of those places that can really change you and I think everyone should visit in their adult life.

I did wfh full time from 2013-17 and hated it mainly working with offshore teams. When I got a new job I didn’t even bother finding out how to log on at home.

Now I’m sat in Spain and wfh is pretty good. Paying London rent to sit inside would be a wasted opportunity for me and this is going to have a big impact on my whole life. One bike, one suitcase, a laptop, a phone and replace the car with a van when the time comes.

Done it twice, first was 10 years ago and the replacement last month and totally pleased each time.

Best Star Wars for 35 years and one spin off already confirmed. This is well worth a subscription to Disney.

Avoiding saying more due to spoilers.

Sierra Nevada is looking good for next week. :)

I have a really great rental, decent tenants, ok agent. After everything’s paid each month and a modest amount held for wear and tear type maintenance there’s maybe £100 left each month as profit. I put in £50K when I sold my place to my ex so it’s not worth it financially.

That’s before the surprise maintenance requirements that you have absolutely no warning of. The last one was the dormer window roof needing replacing. £1300 and tenants expect these things to be sorted immediately. New electrical inspection certificate required this year and every 5 years. I expect regulation / inspection
requirements to increase in the future as governments try to make private renting a more acceptable alternative to ownership.

Saying that I’m quite happy for someone to pay my mortgage in Yorkshire while I rent somewhere else in London and if I had the money I’d buy another one but I’ve always had in the back of my mind that I might live in it. COVID might make that a reality sooner than I though as WFH is now realistic.

If I already owned the home I lived in and could afford it I’d be looking at a place in the Alps / Spain and possibly making it available to friends for running cost contributions.

That bus is actually at the terminus at Acton Green. Adrian Chiles lives within sight of it.

End of useless information.

I got a Samsung UE43TU8500UXXU for £400 delivered from Electrical Discount for my parents last month and I’m well impressed with it.

HR person doesn’t understand how to get a job. But she’s senior.

Have a look at the Lauterbrunnen valley, just south of Interlaken. There is absolutely loads to do and it’s got a nice camp site but you’ll need to book.

From there I’d then drive a couple of hours round to Chamonix and forget about going to the Italian coast.

For me it depends where in London you are. If most of the local riding is Thames path type stuff then go for something gravel focused but without drop bars.

Or even just get suitable tyres for the Bizango. That’s pretty much how I run my MTB which hasn’t seen a mountain or mud in a couple of years and it’s fine but a gravel bike would be better.

The carpenter from South London. I always found him interesting when not talking about bikes.

I’m finding Babbel quite decent for Spanish. It seems more about using realistic examples than annoying app games. I think a week trial is free at the moment and it’s fairly easy to get a discounted deal from there on.

The Rendelf method is also good.

Yep, you’re guessing. There’s plenty of UK PCB manufacturers around.

Or just take control of the existing manufacturers drawings and farm out the production as happens with just about every product today. I imagine assembly and test would take a little while to get up to speed but nothing more than a week.

That’s if you actually want to produce it and aren’t going to let bureaucracy get in the way.

A friend of a friend was shagging him 20 years ago. I thought it was fairly common knowledge that he was bi. I don’t really understand why he decided to announce it now so would assume he wanted to get in there before the press did.

Park at Gunnersbury (just at the end of the M4 with easy parking to the south on a Sunday) then take the overground with Victoria / District line being a back up. You’ve got about 1 minute on very easy local roads after the motorway.

Johndrummer, that’s the one