Random bottle of Shiraz from local co-op.
110g bar of galaxy (from same shop).
Gojira – on shuffle.

Living the friday evening dream.

It’s not something I’d buy, but have considered it many times, because the marketing is relentless.
It’s always tempting, more convenience in life always is, and that is what is being sold. It isn’t ‘better’ than good food, that’s a pointless debate. They’re selling convenience, and its heavily marketed that way.

I’m not a chef, but I am busy, but everytime I consider this product I can’t allow myself to do it, why? Because convenience/easy/lazy is the root cause of my problems (especially diet), so why would I encourage that? It takes no more planning, effort, skill to throw a salad and some tuna/chicken in a box each day for my work lunch, than to buy and prep Huel. After work twice a week I drop in on the supermarket to pickup the few fresh things I need. I prep the night before. I get up slightly earlier to take the lunch out of my fridge, put it in a ‘personal’ sized cool box, and take it with me to work.

I may or may not be eating better by eating real foods (I genuinely don’t know, or care) but I am practising good habits, and a bit of personal discipline, daily. And I can’t ‘buy’ that.

I genuinely believe a constant drive to make life ‘easier’ is the cause of a lot of the problems in our lives/society, and I’d be a bloody hypocrite if I didn’t question my judgement when considering certain products. I’m no saint, I am lazy as ****, but I’m trying to resist that.

Just my take, and I fully respect other people have different opinions. We’re all grown ups, make up your own mind, and remember to be grateful for the fact we have the luxury of choice. :)

I paid for Spotify family for years, but switched to YouTube family premium last year, similar price but much better value. I use YouTube music daily, youtube vids are first place i go if i need to learn or research anything, and can download for offline viewing, no ads, and being able to switch screen off and listen is helpful too.

Paid a one off fee for an online service to migrate Spotify playlists to YouTube.

Caught the Lancaster in Stowmarket, very low doing circuits over the town, which coincided with the street carnival parade, not sure if that was intended, but bloody marvelous moment.

Watching it Bank hard so low gave me goose bumps, beautiful aircraft.

Right well that’s that cleared up then, good effort everyone 😂

On the smart shorts thing, I wear shorts pretty much daily between April and Octoberish, so I think of smart shorts as the ones I have that don’t have cargo pockets, not camo, no holes, stains or paint etc.

Not a formal occasion, invited round to dinner at my partners parents, never been there before, only met them briefly before, and probable future in-laws. They have horses on their own grounds, and go shooting, so standards are presumably high. Hence my overthinking it.

I want to be presentable, but still me.

So far: polo shirt is out replaced by black short sleeve Oxford shirt, and box fresh five ten sleuths in black, probably green shorts.

five ten sleuths – could be a winner? If I can get them in time for saturday.

fivetens would be ace, crocs second choice definitely – in a free world I’d wear either of those no problem.
Deck shoes – no.

Interesting thread, and given my life ‘story’ here’s my thoughts…

In short in the last 2 years I’ve gone from professional career in IT with all the trimmings, to driving a lorry. And I am much happier in the latter. I ponder this a great deal.

I had a 20 year career in IT, and a 20 year marriage covering same period. In last 5 years I’ve lost both, by other peoples definition I lost ‘everything’. But in reality I regained my life.

The truth is I was desperately unhappy, the quiet desperation that I think Thoreau is talking about. At its worst I was hospitalised for severe depression. One morning I was riding on my bike to the train station to get the usual commuter to London, I realised I’d forgotten my security pass, it was raining, and it triggered a massive breakdown which took 5 years to recover from fully. A few years after that I was offered redundancy and I took it without hesitation and exited my IT career. About same time I left my wife. I had literally written out in a journal during recovery from my breakdown that I needed to burn everything down, simplify, re-start, if I was to salvage some happiness from the reamining years of my life.

Key to this was changing my relationship with stuff. I don’t need a new audi on the drive – nobody does. I don’t need to spend £50 on a kettle to boil water, £5k on a kitchen, £3k on bike, £500 on a device to scroll through shit on the internet. You do not need any of that.

I often here phrases like “well I have ‘everything’ I don’t understand why I am stil unhappy”. My simple answer to that is the ‘everything’ has been defined by others, and not you.

Today I deliver concrete and I love it. I work with people who I can call friends, I’ve never laughed so much in work, several of them ride bikes and push me on. I take my dog with me most days and he loves it. It takes me 5 mins to drive to work, or I can bike via the trails for as long as I need or want to. We have showers at work. I’m trusted, and valued, and left to get on with it. I am paid very well and actually have as much disposable income now as I did in my IT career. I have a partner who geuinely cares and is emotionally independent and capable, and very hard working (a teacher). We’ve worked all hours in last 2 years to build our own home.

Bottom line is I’ve never worked harder in my life, and I’ve never been happier.
I’m no longer judged at work for my choice of company car. I no longer kill time in an email factory, or fill a seat in another pointless meeting (the unsaid truth being we’re all there to pass time pretending to work). COrporate life is soulless, gutless, an empty existence – all of it.

I love work, I love getting home feeling like I’ve worked. I believe that’s what we’re supposed to be doing – work, striving, getting rough hands creating something of worth, and improving ours or other peoples lives. Nothing you can ‘buy’ will every replace that. No flourescent lit air conditionditioned office can replace that.

A long time ago society took your labour and replaced with tokens that you can use to ‘buy’ the basics to survive. That expanded to pointless shit you don’t need.
I belive true happiness comes from getting as close as you can to breaking that cycle.

Towards the end of my IT career I used to stand, detached, and look at the withered bodies and grey faces passing time, running down the clock, showing faces, pretending. Just enough to get through to the next month, justify the salary enough, to service the utter crap they were consuming – netflix, phone contracts, company cars, massive mortgages – the list goes on.

I live opposite someone still in that life – he probably pities me, but he’s a fool. I pity him trapped in his little rat race consumed by his obsession to one up the man next door.

Today I poured footings for an extension that someone was building on their house. A great conversation was had, bacon butties, coffee, and a totally unexpected £60 tip. I made a huge difference to this small families day today, they were so grateful – I was just doing my job.
I was buzzing by end of the day. Tomorrow it all happens again.

Just my thoughts and experiences.
I truly wish you all the best, I enjoy and value your posts OP.

thankyou for sharing this.

We don’t know how fortunate we are.

very mixed. I was off work for 4 months (back now). I love work and what I do (since a career change at begining of year), and it definitely keeps me sane, an dI love being out and about which is what my job entails. I worked from home for 10 years, it literally made me ill.
But – I achieved loads in lockdown – cycled more than I had done for many years, complete refit of the bathroom (learning some plumbing along the way!), laid new flooring, built a shed, put up new garden fencing, built a bike, restored lots of things (including another bike), lost a stone in weight, finished a couple of games, several books, list goes on really. I’m pleased I didn’t waste the unique opportunity.

But…havign been back to work I don’t look back at it fondly at all, it was just a thing, I would definitely take what I am doing now over that. Maybe I am weird.

By far the worst thing was being stuck in the house with 3 young ‘adults’ marooned from universities – never do I want to go through that again.

Quiet roads was just a curiosity, nice, but I knew it was very temporary so didnt get excited about it. When things relaxed I went sailing on an absolultely deserted norfolk broads though ( usually rammed with tourists), and that was brilliant and probably a one off – it was stunningly beautfiul.

the truth is people want to wfh because you do less work. It doesn’t feel like work, you can flex your time, cram in a weeks work into 2 days, and go riding for the other days. Accept all your deliveries, do the washing, watch netflix, entertain kids. All of that used to happen in my last (ever) office job, productivity was a joke if you discounted the ‘fake productivity’ tricks everyone played.

We need a massive cultural change in offices yes, but this isn’t the answer.
I wfh for about ten years in IT, an didn’t enjoy it. I need to be properly engaged and enjoy my work and feel part of a team working to achieve something, wfh is counter to all of that. None of hte benefits of wfh ever made up for that.

Productivity in our offices is already rock bottom, wfh will make that worse, and companies know it.
A shift to being paid for ‘outputs’ rather than attendance and appearing to be productive. maybe. Who knows.
Unpopular opinion maybe, but just my opinion from having been there.

I think nuclear weapons have prevented another world war, and will continue to do so until there is another evolution in weapons of mass destruction. Nukes are too dirty, nobody wins a nuke war as it drags the global elites into the mire. So we kind of have this stalemate situation until the elites work out how to wage global warefare without killing themselves or their habitat in the process.

Future wars will be over resources – I think it’s difficult to argue against that. But the ‘weapons’ will be information, economic, biological, or autonomous/AI technology.

Another pet theory I have is human conflict is inevitable, we evolved to be fearful of ‘others’, to protect our tribe, but as with many other primal instincts they’re unsuited to a modern world where there are many hundreds of perceived threats that tweak our primal fears, worse still they’re drip fed to us through social and other online media.
So the tension mounts continuously until there is a massive blood letting of the ‘enemy’- but we’re stuck in a stalemate. I have grown up noticing that tension grow the further we move from mass conflict, it’s everywhere around us – just growing hate, anxiety, intolerance, protectionism.

The end is nigh etc. :)

absolutely disastrous year/2 years, has left me sitting uncomfortably at my heaviest ever by some margin, already forming plans for a new year campaign so this is nicely timed. I’m in, I’ll PM.

Just need a total idiot proof simple to follow eating plan for the terminally lazy now.

I’ve been having cold showers daily for a year or so now, you’ve picked the hardest time of year for it 🙂

Build up over weeks. Start with 30secs daily for a week, gradually increase over time. Doesn’t have to be exclusively cold shower but better to start cold and finish warm than the other way around, especially if you’re getting tremors. Also always in morning for me! I wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise 😂

I Just prefer them now, sensation after can last a while and can set me up for the day. Fantastic for sorting anxiety or low mood if caught early.

Seen an ad on faceboak for Ambulance technicians, 25-31k IIRC, not exactly a cushty number, But I’d imagine it’s be quite fulfilling and varied too.

Considered this also. I had a stint as a community responder and worked alongside ambulance folk for a little while. What puts me off is shift work. I had considered approaching it as a short term job; set a goal of doing 2 years or something, and still might.

I was once scooped up by an ambulance and got chatting to one of the EMT’s, he had started out in the RAF, done a full stint in the Police and retired, and was doing EMT for pocket money – inspiring.

This might float your boat, might not, but I went from IT support into training, and I really enjoy it – I’m too chicken to think about it but you see contract jobs advertised fairly frequently around 300 quid a day, which might suit your purposes?

This interests me yes, I’ve considerd it before. I’ve hired and worked with many trainers on different projects and their role always appeals to me, it also always seems to be neatly sitting outside all the usual bullshit that swirls around projects – they’re sitting in the corner somewhere being creative and delivering packages to business users.
When I did my prince 2 5 years ago the trainer was outstanding, loved his craft, and was paid well – I remember thinking then I was moving in wrong direction!

It’s the same experience for me, through my career I’ve known many who have turned out to be better off in some way after going through redundancy or similar lay-off from work. I think from experience it’s easy to just adjust to the discomfort and plod through the years, until we’re forced out of it by circumstance.
Hasn’t made the process any easier mind you – there’s nothing like going through a sterile redundancy process followed to the letter by your company to remind you just how insignificant you are. People I worked closely with, turned into strangers virtually over night.

Are you sure a clean sweep is what’s necessary?

Yep absolutely. Ridiculsouly I hate office life despite sitting in one for 20 years – but for most of that time necessity dictated as my kids grew up. Now they have lives of their own they actually want to see me happier :)
Seriously, I think corporate life has crushed my soul, part of the whole idea is to just enjoy working again and heal!

I actually miss proper work, not the endless cycle of fake work like meetings.
Mate of mine has offered some work helping him as a bricklayer – could be fun, could be hideous, but I’m up for anything right now :)

…Had a plan to re-train as an electrician (now fully qualified)

Yeh I’ve looked at a ton of tradeskill courses. I’m mid-way renovating a house so had tradesmen trooping through and I end up envying all of them in someway, it is certainly what I should have done when exiting the military. Some great stories too; plumber who went into it at my age after driving trucks for a while and now just runs a small business of younger guys who do the grunt work.

Electrical looks good – pricey though, but on the list for sure.

I’d just agency drive with your class 1.

You got Adr?

It’s booked for week after cpc. I once lived at a place a few years ago that had heating oil delivered, got chatting to the guy that delivered my oil, he loved what he did and earned well for it typically knocking off at 2pm after his round after an early start. He said there was so much work when he got bored he just took something else for a while. Planted a seed so it did.

Some absolutely brilliant responses here, thank-you.
Most of it has affirmed my own thinking.

Yes I do think it is very different now, but now is all there is, there is no point opining the good old days when kids were more robustly encouraged into independence. Fwiw I left at 16 to join the army, so I’m definitely biased in this area.

Living apart: yes, has been discussed in past many times. I don’t have my own house, or have means to get my own house, since divorce. It’s probably main reason I’m still where I am if I’m honest. She is supportive of whatever I want to do, but frankly I’m scared of damaging the relationship not just with her, but whatever hopes I’ve have of a relationship with her kids.

How we’ve coped is talking openly. She is understanding, and I can be intolerant which I’ve acknowledged, and worked on.
More recently things have improved, and it’s certainly livable.
But I still have major question marks about the future. In very simple terms, I’m absolutely torn, and unless I can build a good relationship with her kids, I may have to walk away from a wonderful woman, or we have a different kind of relationship.

I’ve actually just been made redundant. I’m strongly considering binning my career in IT, and living in a van for a while!

Thanks again, it has really helped.

Yeh I did, it’s still a work in progress, but I’ve completely changed my life in the past 10 years after waking up in a mental hospital after a spectacular crash.
I’d kind of always known stuff wasn’t right up to that point, but needed to hit bottom I suppose.
I kept it simple, I objectively looked at my life and made a short list of things that were bad, it was basically relationship, career, fitness. I then resolved to make big changes, and then worked on the courage bit. I planned my separation from my ex-wife for 5 years.

I disagree with pp above, you have to go big, but you have to believe in yourself. You will discover who you really are, the difference between friends and ‘friendly acquaintances’, the latter will try to stop you chasing your dream. Everyone is suffering in one way or another, they just find their way of dealing with it, usually through instant gratification of some kind.

There is normal, society ‘wants’ you to conform to a pre-designed, prescribed ideal of normal, and you’ll find everyone around you will reinforce that, because everyone is terrified, and subsequently they don’t live up to their potential. I grew to resent the idea that the life I was born into was already mapped out for me. Married, house, good job. You get some latitude within those parameters, but you’re conditioned to follow that path.

Sit down, piece of paper, and be **** honest with yourself. Right down what you need to do, take some time to reflect. Plan it, and start taking control.
All the best for the future.

Buy a boat, sail around the world repeatedly until eaither dead, or skint, preferably the former.
Maybe invest in some skills I can take with me (fixing stuff, languages etc). Put the change into a property to rent out in <random country>.

I think in general we’re way too involved in many aspects of children’s lives. They’re over nurtured, protected, coached, so the ability to think for themselves is underdeveloped. This in turn creates a sense in the parents that their children are vulnerable or less capable, which results in more of the above. A vicious circle.

A topic that comes up daily in my life currently, I have two kids 18 and 21, and my partner has three – 17, 19, 21.
She is a micromanager, I am more of a hand-off type. The difference between our kids is stark. She gets endless texts and phone calls for just about everything all times of the day, and her eldest is regularly incapacitated with indecision and anxiety when separated from Mum.

I made some harsh judgements of her kids to begin with, but I later concluded that because of the vicious circle above this behaviour manifests over years and years to the point where you’re not just dealing with problems in your kids lives, but involved in every small detail from simple shopping decisions, to much bigger life decision stuff. This is greatly enabled by our dependence on mobile phones. This obviously perpetuates the problem.

There are many other factors of course; perception of danger such as violence, traffic, disease, etc.

Should also be said that certain personality types are more at risk of getting tangled up and hurt by narcissists.
I was one of those. I separated 3 years ago from my wife of 20 years, who I’d kind of known all along was difficult, but I thought I could ‘fix’ her, by doing everything I thought I was supposed to as a husband, and father. The problem is, these types will never ever be satisfied, and even worse they’ll simply resent you more.
Everything I did, was met at best with indifference, at worse with humiliation and sometimes public belittlement. Every conversation was centred on her, and her needs. I worked myself into the ground, and had a massive breakdown, became suicidal, had a stay in hospital, and still this merciless woman found ways to stick the boot in and crush my soul, but that was finally the turning point. I took control of my life, and several years later was strong enough to leave, with the support of new friends.

I felt devastated to leave, for my kids mainly, and I still miss our ‘family’, despite how dysfunctional and unbalanced it was. But I can see it clearly now, and I know it was the right thing to do. I have kids but they’re virtually grown up so some contact is still needed but diminishing. She still has her massive irrational tantrums and use the old techniques, but I use simple non-emotional language and detach/diffuse/walk away.

I kind of consider myself now as living a new life, rediscovering who I am, I realised how completely damaged I was emotionally, hollowed out, zero confidence, self esteem, self worth. It’s been remarkable how profound that process of ‘healing’ has been, and it is amazing to me what we can put up with and convince ourselves as ‘normal’, especially in abusive relationships.
I met someone new, who has helped in this process, she loves me completely for who I am, supports me in achieving my new goals, and as BillMC put it; I do feel astonished and blissed out by it, it’s amazing. But I have some way to go yet.
I’m 46 now, and I know that in 20 years time I’ll look back and that moment when I left was the moment I saved my own life, and flourished.

I sincerely wish you all the best, I think asking for experiences of others is one of the best ways to make sense of it all. Good luck.

Robust behavioural standards, applied nationally (not per school), with consistent reinforcement which holds children and ultimately parents accountable.

My partner is a high school teacher, the levels of daily abuse she puts up with is very troubling to me. It’s not tolerated in many other places such as the NHS etc. So why schools?

There maybe a point, and I tend to agree social media/outrage culture has sucked us all in, when adults should be setting an example. We should be more focused on what unites us, rather than our differences – and kids fall into this trap too as evidenced in the article.
But, let’s keep it in perspective. Kids have it harder now for sure (bless ’em), but they haven’t lived yet. We haven’t spawned a generation of super kids out to save the world and us adults. It’s always been this way with the next generation helpfully pointing out the failures of the generation ahead of them, it’s now much more prominent thanks to online echo chambers.

I remember being 19, I thought my elders were dicks, had **** everything up, you couldn’t tell me I was wrong, and I also was going to change everything for the better. then life happened and I gained a bit of perspective.
These kids also have yet to go through the life grinder, they can point and shout (and will), but actually we should all stop naval gazing and squabbling online and unite. Otherwise it’s just another **** argument, which doesn’t solve anything.

I think a variety of personal characteristics mixed with personal circumstances (permanent and temporary) will always mean some are more at risk of work related stress/anxiety than others, that’s a given I think. The question then is how can you improve on those characteristics to make you less likely to have issues.

I’ve had 3 serious bouts of work related stress, resulting in lengthy absences, my last was last summer, and I’ve only now really fully recovered enough to go back to my old role (the dent to confidence takes a very long time).

What I did was write about myself….I wrote down everything that I’d learned from the previous episodes, all the things that I thought caused it, what I struggled with, how I could have handled things better, my strengths, weaknesses, everything. Brutally honest, total brain dump. It was cathartic and extremely enlightening.

Then I defined some actionable steps. E.g. In work I don’t consider it enough when people ask me to do stuff, I just say yes, and cannot say no, therefore I am weak at controlling my workloads. I was in the Army at 16, and had a strict upbringing, I’ve perhaps been conditioned to submissively follow orders. Not a useful characteristic in a backstabbery mid-management environment. So I asked the company to send me on a resilience and assertiveness course, which was brilliant. There were loads of these examples.

The biggest benefit of this exercise though is just taking a step back and looking at yourself and being honest, you’ll know then whether to jump back into a potentially hostile (to you) role.

I’m still in same role (project manager), but I have a much better handle on it.
However, due to above exercise I know it’s not for me, so I also have a long term plan to do something else, which also helps.

And, I have to agree with the above, developing a healthy sense of not giving a shit helps. I was regularly told that ‘I cared too much’ in work. You have to let things go, and not see everything as a personal judgement of your character.

Hope that helps.

grateful for every single day

“Someone once said to me that when they turn into teenagers, life becomes a roller-coaster, and you just have to hold on as hard as you can.

It gets better when they’re older and/or leave home.”

Yeh this. I used to scoff at that advice as I thought I was a seasoned and half decent parent and my kids were/are pretty good and well adjusted. But **** me I was naive, that dramatically changed around 18.

In my opinion and experience, I think we (society) have created the perfect storm of creating highly dependent kids which is in direct conflict to the fact they are biologically wired to reject you. Dependent because we make it so hard for them to achieve independence; high rent/house prices, extended education, modern luxury and comfort (phones, etc.). There are massive conflicting demands on youngsters – see also social media. It’s a shit storm and you just have to ride it out.

Funnily enough, I watched a movie about all this the other day on netflix I think, called Creepy Line. https://www.thecreepyline.com/

Recommended, if you need telling the blatantly obvious. Your info/data is the price you pay for using their services, it also includes google docs etc.

I think saying something like ‘it’s so they can serve you better adverts’, is looking at it the wrong way around, and is still stuck in the mindset that they’re somehow putting us first. Serving you better adverts allows them to charge a higher premium for advertising.

As the film outlines however, contents of your emails should be the least of your concerns, there is evidence of google (and others), using the info they hold about you for other reasons; such as nudging you one way or the other in your beliefs and political leanings, and censorship etc. This is why the annoying handwavy response of those that say things like ‘I have nothing to hide’, are missing the point, because this affects all of us, and the whole of the internet. It’s a very interesting documentary and explains some of the techniques being used.

I have a detailed life plan, which took/takes a bit of work, starting with my personal values, visions, and broken down to long-term goals, within which something related to ‘career plan’ exists I suppose, but can probably be more realistically described as a career escape plan, and it’s on track. My employer/employment fits around my life plan, not the other way around.

Forget the notion of a career, and start with planning the self…what makes you happy and fulfilled, and then from that derive direction and purpose. Just staying right where you are in an imaginary career ladder is just fine if it brings fulfilment and more importantly serves to move you forwards in other aspects of your life. Therefore no career plan needed.

you’ll get a lot more success if you’re just normal, polite, respectful. Something that’s lost on so many who then wonder why they’re meeting nutters or nobody at all. Go in eyes wide open, those with hangups are easily spotted, but very occasionally not. IN my experiences most women were genuinely relieved to have a normal conversation with a grown-up, rather than yet another manchild, seems like a no-brainer to me (don’t be a dick).

I had great success on POF with a brief profile description, met some interesting women, met one bad one (who still gives me nightmares), and then met someone wonderful, and we’re still living happily together two years on.

To echo someone above, use the sites for initial contact only, very quick filtering on the profile, a couple of messages, then ask to meet. Simple as that. Terrifying to start with, but then a lot of fun and my confidence developed massively.

Kind of miss it :)

from experience – it’s not the ‘act’, it’s the will to act that causes the damage to trust. I had this twice with my ex-wife, two different things with 5 years apart, and those were the ones I knew about. We limped along for ten years after that, but ultimately trust was irrevocably broken.That is no basis for a relationship, let alone a marriage with kids involved. What I learned is you can ‘get over’ the specific thing or act, but I could never come to terms with the fact that she had the will to do it, not once, but twice. That tells me all sorts – but mostly for whatever reason she felt the need to look elsewhere.

As has been said many times on here, you have to be brutally honest with yourself. Personally at 45 years old I realised I faced a life in a shit marriage making compromises, or I could turn the page and start a new chapter. It has already turned out to be an utter revelation, and changed my life for the better. Some people say ‘relationships/marriages are supposed to take work’ – bullshit. If it isn’t working naturally and effortlessly, you’re actually working to compensate for some issue in the relationship that you are not admitting to, and that will cost you in someway, generally your happiness and self-worth.

Good luck

it’s a government relic that hasn’t moved to keep up with how we do things has changed.

There has been a shift for some time to different ways of working and that has gained momentum.

I recently did the Prince 2 Agile course (I already have Prince 2 practitioner), which was a bastardisation of the two but also a thinly veiled attempt to jump on the agile bandwagon, but I was unconvinced, they are wholly incompatible as approaches.

In my own experience for Prince to work the PM would need to expend far too much time and energy educating everyone and holding them to the processes. Without a very strong PMO or mature and enforced governance process built properly on prince 2 then prince will not work.

yep, resign whilst on sick. Seems obvious thing to do?

In my experience, gardening leave is rare and isn’t something you ‘request’, it’s a business decision depending on varying circumstances related to protecting the business and its interests.

Isn’t it equally ‘British’ to be passively aggressively outraged by the trivial opinions of others?

Try re-framing it. Those who deem it necessary to comment or offer un-wanted advice may have some unfulfilled need. Perhaps they’ve spent 30 years married to a tyrant, or haven’t quite achieved every expectation of their aspiring middle class parents. They’re riddled with self loathing.

In short. Smile in amusement, check ego, move on.

I’ve considered it for the future, but only good reason I can think of is it being a nice way to demonstrate long term commitment. But we demonstrate that to each other daily, through trust and loyalty. Marriage brings nothing, it’s in our actions that commitments are made to each other, without external validation.

People marry because that is what is expected of them and what they have been conditioned to do, simple as that.

I’ve taken glucosamine and chondroitin, krill oil, and a daily vit D3 for ages, and they give me no discernible physical benefit other than a sense that somewhere inside this old frame good things are happening to my joints, especially when I get injured. D3 has helped massively with mood, and krill gives me a sharper mind.

What your friend needs is mobility training. The pills won’t fix a lack of flexibility, strength, and suppleness, but they do support all those things as part of a daily stretching and core strength routine.

Weakness in getting out of chairs isn’t a ‘stage of life’ thing, it’s a being weak/out of shape, thing.

I did the Prince 2-Agile course last year, it felt like a knee jerk/fudge to arrest the decline in popularity of prince 2 in favour of agile by somehow merging the benefits of both, but it massively misses the point of agile. But I’ve never been a fan of prince2, despite being a ‘practitioner’ for years so my opinion is perhaps biased.

My advice is do an actual agile course.