This thread is going to break all STW Inverse Snobbery records.

Agreed!

Why is everyone saying “expensive watches”?  I’ve had my Seamaster since 2007, worn it 24 hours a day, 365 days a year since then, and it’s worth 2-3 times what I paid for it.  That feels with the money.

For me, it’s often not the most expensive version of something that isn’t worth it, it’s the mid-level that doesn’t deliver value for money….. “second cheapest bottle of wine” syndrome.

Watches are a great example of this also: 20 quid Casio, brilliant….. and most expensive watches actually go up in value, it’s the shit in the middle that delivers the least value: fashion brand watches which cost about 500 quid, but are worth nothing second hand in a few years,

Bader Meinhof complex innit  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion

For balance:  whenever I visit the UK, I will only ever use Enterprise – as they are the only car hire places that I’ve found that DON’T make it their express mission to con you.  I’ve only ever dealt with Heathrow and Manchester airport branches though.

all the transcoding gets done by my Samsung TV

I don’t suppose it really matters to this conversation, but it doesn’t.  If the client (the TV) can’t read whatever format the data is in, your server will transcode it – not the client (TV).

I have a mac laptop , a few years old mind.

I guess I might as well try it on that first. I reckon nothing to loose really other than a bit of time

That’s what I did originally, until I decided that it was something I was going to stick-with.  From there upgraded to running plex on a NAS.

As Neville says above – Jellyfin is also supposed to be good, I haven’t tried it myself as Plex works well for me.

There is a lot of hate around for Plex at the moment, as they are looking for ways to monetize their services, and so have been encouraging people to use their own on-demand streaming content, and (more lately) the newly added “social network” style features of their apps.  People are complaining about that stuff being too intrusive into the core functionality of Plex – something that hasn’t really impacted me particularly, but I do recognize some of the frustrations.

As you are just starting out – I’d certainly encourage you to look at both Plex and Jellyfin options, before going down either path.

As above – it depends on your use case – specifically whether the media you have (and the clients that you are going to be running it on) require transcoding.

If so, a NUC (or similar) with an intel quick sync processor is what you need.  If not, Plex will run just fine on whatever you happen to have.

Plex is free to run on almost anything – so I would encourage you to try it out and figure out what you want it to do before spending a load of cash on hardware.

I’ve just built my own PC for the first time ever (a media centre NAS).  I have to say: it wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be – so think about whether it’s something that you want to do before diving in.

I think probably mine was more difficult because it was a small form factor build and generally a bit unusual.

I think if you bought a big, common, good quality case (like something from Fractal) choosing the parts and getting them all fitted and up and running would be a breeze.

What your looking at using it for seems pretty technical, so building your own shouldn’t be too much of a stretch – and helpful at the point you want to upgrade bits.

[Cougar]

Cougar

Full Member

Sitting on a cheapo office chair for a relatively short period triggered my back issues – ironically that was in the office on a new chair provided by my company.

Back when the office I worked in had a furniture refresh, I googled the new chairs. The first hit was “winner of ‘World’s Most Uncomfortable Office Chair’ five years running!”

They were an utterly stupid design, they had a springy back but you couldn’t lock it in place so unless you were bolt upright it was constantly pushing against you; and if you were bolt upright then it provided no support at all. I wedged half of a broken Cisco AP under the strut to keep the %^&*ing thing in place.

Funnily enough, not long after that I went home-based (in 2016 – before it was cool) and swapped to another chair – back issues resolved.  That chair later broke and my company “helpfully” sent me one of ^those^ from the office.  Within a few days I started having back issues again.  Not just backache, like, “can’t move properly for a few days” type issues.   Challenge, dechallenge, rechallenge….. conclusive.

True to form, this precipitated a strong “**** it” response from me – a trip to the Herman Miller showroom and a large bill.  Along with my decent coffee machine, best money I’ve ever spent.

Sitting on a cheapo office chair for a relatively short period triggered my back issues – ironically that was in the office on a new chair provided by my company.

Back when the office I worked in had a furniture refresh, I googled the new chairs. The first hit was “winner of ‘World’s Most Uncomfortable Office Chair’ five years running!”

They were an utterly stupid design, they had a springy back but you couldn’t lock it in place so unless you were bolt upright it was constantly pushing against you; and if you were bolt upright then it provided no support at all. I wedged half of a broken Cisco AP under the strut to keep the %^&*ing thing in place.

Funnily enough, not long after that I went home-based (in 2016 – before it was cool) and swapped to another chair – back issues resolved.  That chair later broke and my company “helpfully” sent me one of ^those^ from the office.  Within a few days I started having back issues again.  Not just backache, like, “can’t move properly for a few days” type issues.   Challenge, dechallenge, rechallenge….. conclusive.

True to form, this precipitated a strong “**** it” response from me – a trip to the Herman Miller showroom and a large bill.  Along with my decent coffee machine, best money I’ve ever spent.

Sitting on a cheapo office chair for a relatively short period triggered my back issues – ironically that was in the office on a new chair provided by my company.

Since going 100% home based in 2016, I’ve got an Aeron (new! check me out!) and I’m very happy with it.  I sit in it 8 hrs plus a day, 5 days a week, and I don’t even feel stiff/fatigued.  Recommended.

Getting one new was a bit extravagant – but I don’t regret it, still great VFM in my opinion.

I went to the showroom and tried them all out – the cheaper Herman Millers are also good – but they are noticeably more flimsy, so just take extra care if buying second hand

Went to a mate’s for dinner tonight and was discussing this and he pulled out an Echo Dot he’s never used and said, give it a try. So can see about setting it up to our music library on the Mac… but not sure if it’s possible to run two Dots playing different tunes from one Mac simultaneously…

That’s a good result!  Yes, it should be possible to have separate speakers all streaming from the same iTunes library on your Mac.  That bit of software I linked to above looks a bit clunky, but seems to say it will do that – it’s got a free trial (and is pretty cheap after that if it does what it says).  I would down load the trial and see if you can get it to work with the speaker that you have borrowed.

If that doesn’t work well, plex definitely does this (and is free, will also work on your phone etc).  It’s a bit of overkill for music only, but its probably the best media streaming platform around, and works on anything.  You’ll have to invest a couple of hours to set it up though.

I’m sure iPod Minis can be played in individual rooms from a Mac, using a Family setting. I don’t own any, but I’m certain I read somewhere that different playlists can be played through iPods in different rooms.

Do you mean the little apple speakers (hopmepods)?  yeah – they will only work like that if you have “iTunes Match” or Apple Music subscription – essentially they are streaming your music from the cloud rather than your computer.

You essentially have 2 options:  having individual systems with local copies of the music (on old Ipods/USB sticks etc) in each room, or having one central copy of the media, with some way to “serve” that to each room.

The first option is probably easier to set up, but more difficult to manage/grow as time goes on.  The second option is a bit more involved to get started, but then easier in the medium-term.

[stevious]

stevious

Full Member

If you’ve got Apple stuff then you could try HomePod minis – apple’s version of Alexa dots. I think you might be able to link them to Apple Music on a Mac but I haven’t tried that.

Thought about that, but it doesn’t look like you can:

Audio Sources

Apple Music

iTunes music purchases

iCloud Music Library with an Apple Music or iTunes Match subscription

Third-party music services

Apple Music Radio or episodes on demand

Radio stations from TuneIn, iHeartRadio and Audacy

Apple Podcasts

News briefings

AirPlay to share other content to HomePod mini from iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple TV or Mac

If you’ve got Apple stuff then you could try HomePod minis – apple’s version of Alexa dots. I think you might be able to link them to Apple Music on a Mac but I haven’t tried that.

I’ve long since been an advocate for starting your own Christmas traditions, and not feeling obliged to buy-in to the stressful/expensive bits of Christmas.

Applauded the M&S advert’s message this year (which I think was just that) – only to chuckle when it was rejected as wokery by the great British gammon.  “give us sprouts or give us death!”

Most of that went over my head tbh

Apologies!  I think if you keep your Mac running and have your music in iTunes, then something like this is what you want to be able to have the kids accessing it via a cheap Alexa-powered speaker (ie: echo dot or similar) which can be voice controlled, and so doesn’t need “a device”:

https://www.mymediaalexa.com/

Haven;t done it myself, but I’m sure somebody on here will have.  Seems like it could be a good solution for you

yeah – this was going to be my question.  If you want to use your MP3 files rather than a music subscription, then you either need an old school iPod type device in each room connected to your speaker of choice.  I expect aliexpress is awash with these, but the content needs to be loaded onto each one of them/updated manually, which seems like a bit of a ballache.

There other way to go is a central music “server” (any old PC you have laying around) and then local devices in each room to select/play content.  You could get any old shitty android/kindle thing and wipe everything except the music player software.  You could look at Plex/plexamp for this, although emby/jellyfin are also supposed to be good – I’m sure there are others.  I have a Plex server, and this is what I’m planning to do for the kids.

Either way, you are going to need hardware.

Echo-dot is certainly the simplest way of achieving what you want.

Suitably garnished with prawns, presumably… although you probably need a small fortune to buy them at xmas in Sydney I guess.

Fortunately we have a decent fishmonger at the end of our road – I have long since ruled-out going anywhere near the fishmarket in the run-up to Christmas.

Wow, that’s pretty brave! Will you be helping out in a soup kitchen?

Seriously I can’t imagine heading back in winter with my family. They wouldn’t be able to handle the cold or the dark, or any of it really. Shame it’s not practical to fly in for two days and then come back.

Yeah – it’s quite a production, and I’m dreading the flight to be honest.  The kids are now 5 and 7, so in the sweet spot for Christmas with the grandparents I recon.  We are splitting our time between Farnham and Poynton – so are packing a lot in, and (back on topic) experiencing 2 families worth of Christmas traditions.  Anyones Christmas traditions except the ones from your own Childhood just feel weird tho, right?  Says the man who goes to the beach.

We usually head to one of the smaller beaches in Sydney after breakfast/kids stockings, then something approximating a standard Christmas lunch in the afternoon

Although this year we are heading back to the dystopian hellscape of the UK for a more traditional experience – so maybe queuing for black bread/a turnip at a foodbank, while trying to avoid getting stabbed/bitten by a bullyxl….. if the papers are to be believed.

As an 18 year old, I had to stand on the door of the country’s largest Sainburys, a few days before Christmas, and explain to people that they couldn’t come in because the store was too full (“have one of these chocolates and go and join the queue over there”).  The abuse I got was extraordinary.  Obviously it’s not a competition, but I think it’s fair to say that anyone who works in retail recognizes the issue.

One thing that’s clear is that the stress of the situation greatly increases the chances of somebody acting like a bellend.

In my Job I used to spend a lot of time in Hospitals, meeting staff and reviewing research data.  Having lost a parent by that point, I was acutely aware that in hospitals there are an awful lot of stressed/upset/angry people around.  I’d often remind myself when somebody clattered into me with a wheelchair, or coughed directly at me in a lift, that they may have just received the worst news of their life, or maybe had to wait for ages for a precious parking spot to take their mum in for their weekly chemo session.

With the state of the NHS (and all public services probably) the “temperature” of all these environments is going to increase.  If you’ve been waiting 3 hours for an ambulance while your loved one is on the floor in agony – when they do get there, you might be a bit terse.  Expand that to thousands of daily interactions, some of which are with people a lot less able to regulate their emotions than you – and the number of abuse incidents is inevitably going to rise.

It’s easy to say that people shouldn’t be ****, and of course they shouldn’t – but the way in which people are being squeezed at the moment, is inevitably going to result in a rise in this sort of thing.  Not an excuse obviously – but it’s certainly a big contributing factor that shouldn’t be ignored.

I have no memory of suddenly realizing he wasn’t real – my kids are 7 and 5, so I’m soon expecting them to start questioning it.

My response will be the same as my parents gave to me:  “oh well, if you don’t believe in him, then he won’t come”.  My 7 y/o is pretty smart: she’ll understand the rules of the game.

Did similar with the tooth fairy the other week: “if she’s not real, where do the teeth go?  And where does the money come from?”.  I think she answered that question in her own head and is playing along.

Yeah – now that we are getting to the pointy-end, I think it’s obvious that they are all going to start increasingly positioning themselves as a replacement for Sunak.

Interesting to think that Suella might be angling to get sacked (ostensibly for behavior that will delight whatever part of the electorate that will still vote for the tories at this point), having decided that looks better for her than being the incumbent HS at the point they lose the election, or resigning.  However, I suspect that if she can’t goad Sunak into firing her, she’ll artificially create a situation where she can resign over a matter of principle (probably something to do with foreigners or paedos – or foreign paedo’s preferably.  Although foreign, homeless drug addicts have now been added to the list).

What I’m wondering is whether THAT (her firing or resignation) will trigger a bojo-style chain reaction, whereby all the rats will vacate the sinking ship, grateful that they didn’t have to be the first to do so.

I’m wondering if that will happen before, or after the GE is announced?  Or that one will precipitate the other

10,000 miles between me and Westminster affords be the luxury of being an interested observer.

Never get involved in a land war in Asia

Don’t drink crap coffee

I came here to say this.  For me, these have also worked:

Work from home if you can.  Switching to being 100% home based in 2017 has had the biggest impact on my quality of life.  I was spending 45 minutes x 2 each day OF MY OWN TIME getting to the office.  that’s 7.5 hours of my own time back each week – the equivalent of a whole working day.  Crucially, you have to claim this time as your own, and not work those extra hours.

Hellofresh.  I know some people hate it, but for me, this has a hugely disproportionate impact on my quality of life.  It doesn’t cost any more (I have tested it) and it effectively means that you are eating good and varied meals every night with ZERO effort on your part.  It’s also made me realize that I actually really enjoy cooking/prepping the meals – it was the menu planning/shopping that I didn’t like.  Like I said, I know some people really don’t like it, but for me I’d put this right up with working-from-home in terms of impact.

Limit your news consumption, and be choosy where you get it from.

My main thing is taking on little projects which improve your life in small ways.  These have a direct benefit once they are done, but while you are doing them also make you feel like you are improving things for yourself, and so (for me at least) have a benefit greater than the sum of their parts.  Some of my mini-projects have included:

Refurbish/upgrade old coffee machine and grinder (see above) that I bought for pennies off of marketplace.

Upgrade kitchen knife set to individual Japanese ones (with all the research that entails)

Buy whetstones and learn to sharpen above

Build home media server thing (my first foray into computer nerdery) for streaming music etc

Some of these took place over a few weeks, others (coffee machine) took much longer – but it’s as much about having a little “tinkering” project.  I think it makes me feel like I’m achieving something tangible whilst otherwise “running to stay still” with the everyday stuff.

The phone can also be a webcam for AppleTV to allow Facetime on the big screen in 4K!

I set this up this weekend – its awesome.  The camera adjusts depending on where you are sitting, who’s taking etc. Would have been great during lockdown.

The best way I have found to reduce jet-lag is to manage your sleep on the flights, so that you land ready for whatever time of day it is when you arrive.  I prefer arriving in the morning, so I try to sleep as much as possible on the last leg – meaning that I try to stay awake for as much a the first leg as possible.

Once I get here, the bright sunshine and strong coffee tends to carry me through until that evening.  As Reeksy says above – don’t be tempted to nap during the day, particularly for the first day or two – that’ll **** you up.

Since covid put a stop to my business travel, all my flights seem to be with kids these days – so the prospect of 24 hrs in a seat watching TV, reading, dozing, and occasionally being brought food doesn’t sound too bad!

I have some Bose QC35 headphones – very happy with them, although my wife has the new sony ones (don’t know their number) and those also seem excellent.  I have a bluetooth “airfly” which lets you connect via bluetooth to the in-flight entertainment, but remember to by one of those annoying 2-1 3.5mm jacks: some planes still use them.

I tend to load-up my phone with TV shows and audiobooks in case there is nothing I fancy on the in-flight entertainment, often there isn’t.

[Twodogs]

Twodogs

Full Member

But it was 25% over!! 😂

Third time lucky egh!

as you’re obviously a fan of repetition:

25% of a smaller number is less money than 25% of a bigger number.  It may be that he had to borrow slightly more to cover it, but given his job, it seemed like it should be manageable.

And: as was repeated ad-infinitum in the episode: his build and fit/finish was very modest, and was working very hard to control costs.  Less so the previous week… in fact the oposite.

Also, the couple last week didn’t go over-budget (I don’t think?) – the house was always going to cost that much (as evidenced by the original quotes)…. They just ignored the fact that they didn’t have enough money, then acted all surprised when it actually cost as much as they were told it would cost.

But it was 25% over!! 😂

Third time lucky egh!

as you’re obviously a fan of repetition:

25% of a smaller number is less money than 25% of a bigger number.  It may be that he had to borrow slightly more to cover it, but given his job, it seemed like it should be manageable.

Also, the couple last week didn’t go over-budget (I don’t think?) – the house was always going to cost that much (as evidenced by the original quotes)…. They just ignored the fact that they didn’t have enough money, then acted all surprised when it actually cost as much as they were told it would cost.

The juxtaposition of this weeks with last weeks was deliberate – they have done similar in previous series.

I thought he seemed genuine and sincere…. again the opposite of last week.  Yes there was obviously a ton of baggage there re: his own childhood, and his past relationships, but his: “I just want to be the best dad to my kids that I can be” really got me in the feels.  My wife thought he was a bit wierd though (for balance).

Kevin was good this week too – maybe because he didn’t have any impregnating to do?

I found the design a bit fussy – I would have preferred cleaner lines/levels, but thats a personal thing.  I would rather he had copied the simpler aestehetic of the (really expensive) Berkshire version.  It wouldn’t have been any more expensive, and I just think it was just better designed.

I couldn’t really understand the heating either

Overall, a good one I think.

I think that argument is just the triumph of idealism over realism TJ, and I mean absolutely no disrespect in that.

As I said, this has played out over and over and over, and (in those cases that I’m aware of) far from the person who’s trying to do the right thing being recognized as doing so…. more often they end-up being cast as the bad guy by both sides, and lose both friends.

if you were the wife would you want to know?

It’s more complicated that that.  Instead you have to ask:  would either of them want you to bring the issue to a head on their behalf?

She probably knows (or suspects already), and he probably knows that she does.  Do you really want to be the one who kicks over this finely balanced house of cards?

It’s obviously easier if you feel much more affiliated to one side or the other – but not in this case.

I saw them at Wembley in 2009 (360 tour I think) and it was the worst gig I think I’ve ever been to.  The low energy of the band was only matched by the ambivalence of their fans at the point they shuffled out on stage and croaked-out their new single.  I’d seen Muse there in 2007 and Foo Fighters there in 2008 – both of which (whether you are a fan or not) are amazing stadium bands, and made the U2 performance look very ordinary….. worse than that actually.

Muse would have been FAR better suited to the new venue – however, not sure they have quite the draw in the US as U2 do

I wonder who’s going to get fired first by the venue for getting caught using the screen for…. errr…. “unauthorized content”?

Do not get involved.

10,000 times this.  I feel like this is a scenario that’s played out since time began.

See also:  “don’t slag-off your best mates fiancée”.  Even if you are right/proved right…. you still lose.

I would concentrate on your plausible deniability.

If you really feel like you have to say something to somebody, I would just say to Rob: “I’ve been hearing some rumors at work.  Whereas I obviously know that they’re not true, but I wanted to let you know that there are some rumors doing the rounds about you and Doris from accounts.”

leave it at that – no conversation, no discussion – just a simple statement from you (maybe even a text), that he can either take as you informing him that there are some spurious rumours doing the rounds which he needs to address, or that the proverbial cat is out of the bag, and he needs to get ahead of the inevitable shit-storm.

It’s all super interesting.

At the point he won the presidency, I predicted (wrongly) that all the shady dealings from his past would be dragged into the light, and he’d spend his entire time in office trying to manage the fallout from that.

What actually happened is that he was so batshit crazy in office that everyone had their work cut-out trying to deal with whatever table he’d flipped that day.  The irony is that it’s him leaving office that’s triggered all of these court cases – both through all of the Jan 6th/Georgia/stealing documents nonsense, and in positioning himself as a candidate for a second term.

Had he just admitted defeat graciously, and slipped into the background – probably none of this would be happening.  I don’t think there would be any political appetite for dragging an elderly former president through the courts, if they weren’t a continuing threat to democracy

I learnt to surf on great western beach in Newquay, there used to be a little surf school down there – no idea if it’s still there.

when we weren’t having lessons, we’d just head over to fistral and hire a board – as mentioned above, it’s complete pandemonium, but just go with it.

wesward ho! Was alright too…. Again, nice little surf school there, and not quite as far.

p.s. just checked out the place  @batfink stayed at 😳 You could buy a bike for that, every night!

Yes it was a bit ridiculous…. We have booked again for next year. It’s only a 4 hour flight for us though.

I’ve just come back from Fiji 2 weeks ago.

We went here:  https://vomofiji.com

We went with our kids (4 and 7) and it was frankly, amazing.  There are lots of different islands in that chain that are suited to different things (families, couples etc).

Avoid Denaru – it’s where all the big corporate resorts are and is completely souless IMO.  We also know people that have been over to the “coral coast” and weren’t super impressed.

Vomo (above) is a bit spendy – but worth it in my opinion: definitely holiday of a lifetime stuff.  But each of the islands represent different value propositions too.

Having thought about it…. all of the stuff that makes absolutely no sense, suddenly makes sense if they are just building it to sell it.

They are building the “most” house with the highest-end finishes they can possibly afford to build – not necessarily afford to live in afterwards.

It was a four year project. A lot has happened in that time!

They got 3 quotes on day 1…. ranged from 1.2 to 1.4 I believe, so the comment is completely valid.  If they had a max budget of 700k, why did their architect design them a 1.4m house?

Their “budget” was a bit of a joke anyway – it didn’t include VAT…… or kitchen….. or bathrooms.

I think the thing I found most infuriating was all the hand-wringing about money (including resorting to borrowing from friends/family) – but at the same time insisting on a completely unnecessarily level of finish:  How much did that copper tub in the bedroom cost?  And the water feature in the courtyard?  Top-end marble worktops (including waterfall ends to the island)?  Massively over-specced oak boards that looked about 3″ thick?

I was sure that they were doing it to sell it….. thats the only remotely sensible reason you would be insisting on such a deluxe finish that you couldn’t afford.

and yes….. OnlyFans was suggested as an explaination of how they were/are able to service a mortgage of that size on what we assume their income to be (pick-n-mix aside)

Please please please buy an Ebac one.

Surely a dehumidifier is one of the few purchases of this type where it’s possible for us all to put our money where our mouth is, and actually buy something that’s 100% manufactured in Britain.

I appreciate that “manufacturing defect” or “damage caused by normal use” are different, but it’s definitely one of those, and whichever it is, I would expect the retailer/manufacturer to make it right.

Unless the retailer is AO, or the manufacturer is Hoover….. in which case, I would expect them to act like bellends.

I would probably see what their initial response was (to gauge how this is probably going to play out), but accept that I was probably going to be buying a new one.  The issue is that even if AO/Hoover accept to send an engineer, and agree to fix/replace either for free or at a discounted rate (which is doubtful) – it probably won’t be done in a timeframe acceptable to somebody with 2 kids and no washing machine.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d be **** fuming if a washing machine catastrophically failed within 14 months of regular use (even from a somewhat budget brand like Hoover) – but I just don’t think the time/hassle of trying to get something out of these two particular companies is going to be worth it, especially with the pressure of having dirty washing piling up in the meantime.  However, everyone is different – I lean towards pragmatism, whereas others may prefer to pursue something like this for as long as it takes on the point of principle.  And there’s obviously the budgetary consideration.

If it makes you feel any better, my LG washer drier fairly regularly shits itself, and has done since it was 2 years old.  Bloody hate the thing, but it’s limping on with me having replaced various bits, and striping-down/cleaning parts of it’s innards every 10 months or so.  I’m looking forward to it’s catastrophic failure one day, so that I can justify replacing it.  So maybe a fast death is preferable?

I think there is genuine public concern about an emerging trend, and so the Government has a duty to react to that – I don’t think an argument that “no action is required” because “just a small percentage” is going to fly with the electorate.

I also think that the way dangerous dogs are managed in the law is going to need to change.  The playbook has been written – if Bully XLs are banned, then the demographic who typically wants to own/trade them will just move onto a different hybrid, and around we will go.

I’m not a dog owner myself, but I think there is rather too much squeamishness about calling a spade a spade here (I’ve checked, and I don’t think that’s racist? that comes from Greek I think).  Personally I’d rather that X of these dogs get neutered (or even destroyed) if it prevents an innocent kid getting attacked in a park and hurt/killed.  I appreciate that everyone is going to have their own number here – mines pretty high.

I’m more in favor of a grading type system whereby dog breeds/hybrids of breeds with a greater tendency towards aggression and capacity for harm are either directly banned (as may be appropriate here) or more closely regulated / assessed to ensure that they are being owned responsibly, with appropriate steps if they aren’t.

Want a labradoodle?  Knock yourself out.  Rottweiler?  Also yes, but you are going to have to jump through a few hoops and demonstrate (on an ongoing basis) that you are a suitable person.  Some sort of weird pit-bull hybrid specifically bred for size and maximum aggressiveness?  No.

I’ll let you know in December, I’m coming back from Sydney for my first visit in 4 years.

looking forward to some percy pigs.

Edit:  oh….. and seeing family.

<span style=”caret-color: #ffffff; color: #ffffff; font-family: Roboto, ‘Helvetica Neue’, Arial, ‘Noto Sans’, sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ‘Segoe UI’, ‘Apple Color Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Symbol’, ‘Noto Color Emoji’; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; background-color: #444444;”>Because policing is devolved and the SNP are in charge of it?</span>

yes – I mean the more general issue (uk wide) that the sustained underfunding of the police has led to a degredation in the delivery of service.

and no, I don’t think hearing that the police aren’t going to “investigate” a shed break in, is going to be a shock to anyone on here – but it would be a shock to the Tory “base” who still think that theirs is the party of old fashioned law-and-order

I think what’s remarkable is that they have clearly and unambiguously announced that they are insufficiently funded to perform the role that the general public expects of them.

I would have expected a far more cynical degradation of what define’s “investigation” – to the point that this simple triage (value, violence yes/no, witness yes/no, CCTV yes/no) meets the minimum definition of an investigation.

I can’t understand why the opposition parties aren’t hammering the Tories with this issue – the statistics must be extremely damning, and it’s something that your average ruddy-faced tory voter would get particularly frothed-up about

I’d be amazed if there wasn’t already a statement drafted and going through review.

Hopefully it won’t just be some generic “sexual assault is bad” lawyer statement.