Theres a pretty good chance that the UK will have some sort of coalition govt for the next 10 – 15 years (unless Lab or Tories have some hidden statesmen hidden away that can gain the confidence of the voters), so the public have to wrap their heads around tactical voting.

If you wouldnt touch labour due to corbyn then what party is number 2 in your area? What party is number 3? It’ll either be Tories with the DUP or Labour with the LD’s/Greens/SNP. Sadly this kind of thinking isn’t easy due to FPTP but the parties need to start educating their voters.

The only way to get a peoples vote with labour is via a coalition agreement.

The better half (works for the nhs… I know, how dare she) has gone through the “settled status” trial and it (surprisingly) went fine.

The app was able to check her tax and NI contributions to prove she had been here 5+ years and got an email the next day to confirm she was accepted.

This hasn’t eased my concerns about brexit but I will admit that it’s a huge weight off our shoulders. But not sure how it’ll cope once it goes live.

I just wish I had a garden so I could have started to grow my own veg before march..

Sure, charge me an extra £10 a month as long as the proper equivalent is passed on to those earning over £100k

The idea that the english would ever get rid or the royals is hilarious… well, atleast for the next few generations.

I’ve cut mine wayyyyy down the last few months. Currently I have –

Amazon prime – £40 a year (thanks OU)
Netflix – £9.99 (not that I use it… but the family love it)
Spotify – 0 (thanks vodafone)
Shudder – £3 per month (mainly for the joe bob briggs marathons)

My list of insurance policies is a LOT longer…

My company is 3-5% employee (you choose), 13% company. Ive been maxing it out the last 5 years as I know fine well it’ll come to an end once they can justify it.

I can put more in, which I’m seriously considering, but can’t decide if the work pension is the best place or a cash LISA (guaranteed 25% return until I turn 50)

Buy an xbox and enjoy.

Days like this make me proud to be a vodafone stooge!

First of all, you’ve made a very wise choice ;)

For driving/caravan holidays check out tge following –

Causeway coastal route

Mourne coastal route

The wild atlantic way (my personal fav)

There’s tons to do on any of them, enjoy!

People should have to pass sone kind of common sense test before they can have kids.

Can’t believe no one has mentioned “The night the reindeer died”?!

Sounds awful but his lack of respect for you likely comes from his mother.

The next time he starts up start recording it and if he threatens you again call the police and use the recording as evidence. The mother will side with him and say its your fault.

Personally I’d go for the “pull a knife on me and I’ll beat the *&*& out of you” approach. But i appreciate the difficult situation you’re in.

Really?  Which ones?  Having traveled to lots of European countries and never had a MasterCard I can’t say I’ve ever noticed.  Is it just an online purchasing thing?

Germany is picky about its cards (it’s getting better though) and so are the nordics. Mastercard is actually more common than visa in large parts of europe

Very common in some european countries.

Get a revolut account and it should give you a e mastercard straight away (make sure you pick mastercard and not visa).

Plan for a career change around your mid 40s. Sounds weird but I and a few friends have found ourselves either facing redundancy or a serious change that makes life difficult. All round that age.

I’m not talking about actively quitting your existing career, but have an idea of what you’d like to do. Study? Start a business?

Thanks and I agree. Struggling with the lay out in my head hence asking for advice.. might be best waiting until I have the keys in my hand before I get too far ahead of myself ;)

Another cluster from the ufc. Fight was predictable as was the drama afterwards. I honestly think, with a lot of big ufc names retiring etc, they are desperately trying to drum up some press for the next ppv… just like wrestling. This and the fake tension at ever weigh ins are driving me away.

As for the fight, hopefully this means CM disappears from our TVs

If it means less Murdoch then I’m all for it!

Not really no. It’s just a small hole. They didn’t even bother to wake the astronauts when it was discovered. It doesn’t work like the movies – it just causes the station to vent a bit of gas, not implode or suck everyone out.

If that part of the ISS blows it’ll likely take most of the station with it. The point is, if it’s sabotage then damaging the station at all would likely lead to suicide.

The stupidity of this claim is astonishing. Pretty sure if you mess with one part and it blows theres over 90% chance the rest of the station will go with it. Plus the cameras are on 24/7.

However, the nutter in me thinks they could be doing some kind of crazy stuff (was told off by a mod for using &^/ in bad words) we don’t know about and there might actually be some conflict between them all.

However Netflix also has the X-Files

UK Netflix? Just looked and it’s deffo not there

I’ll confess that I don’t have the usial taste in stuff but Prime has –

American gods

Preacher

Seinfield

Xfiles

Vikings

Lucifer

All or nothing

Unreal

Mr Robot

Plus it has been putting up a lot of film noir and old school sci-fi so I’ve been a very happy bunny

My finger has been hovering over the cancel button for a while with netflix. Amazon prime is killing it with movies and tv shows whike NF just seem to be pumping out crappy content at an alarming rate

Xbox from Argos. Nectar points are ridiculously hard to spend, Tesco has the right idea with being able to cash it in for ferries etc. Sadly I only have a sainsburys near me.

What language do you want to learn?

Ive heard good things about Udemy.com and everyone loves rosettastone.

Personally I’ve always opted for the local college and getting a penpal (so to speak) from https://www.mylanguageexchange.com

Some polling came out over the weekend. After brexit –

Majority in Scotland backs Indy

Majority in NI back a United Ireland.

At least I have a way out without having to move to Germany.

Wow, that would really be like turkeys voting for Xmas.

When the mass media is owned by a few billionaires, then the only messages we get are those that suit their purposes.

Social media is one alternative avenue – and that includes the like of this forum.

Banning it would be like banning the telephone because people used it for nefarious purposes, or banning public transport because etc etc…

Message boards existed long before FB and twitter. The difference is that MBs aren’t catch all services, they are specific topics that people have to sign up for.

Mass media owned by billionaires – lets include the british government and their infiltration of the BBC. But the whole media ownership is a good point. I’d argue SM has allowed the media giants free advertising and in return made it easier to spread their horse manure.

This could all be prevented if SM companies took responsibility for their users. Stop the fake accounts. Stop companies buying accounts from users. A proper verification process when signing up for them. Zero tolerance for fake news.

But they won’t, too much money to be made making us all angry and too much effort to police content.

Politics wont improve while so many of the public are happy to be lead by idiotic sound bites and personalities on SM.

The new bladerunner is a must. Visually the best movie I have ever seen.

The latest 2001 remaster is excellent (I saw it a few months ago in the cinema).

Other than that, check out a few of your favs and see if the studios have done any rework on them

What’s your budget? Europa is a safe bet. There’s loads of new hotels opening up so there should be some good deals out there

Its the internet, bruv. Hate vegetables? Simple google search will bring you to a website that has 100s of other people all agreeing that vegetables are a trap, construct of *whatever evil the website wants you to believe in* and it then becomes your main source of news.

People operate in bubles now. People don’t try to understand why something has happened, they just want to be told they’re right to hate it. This isn’t about elites, it’s about how we communicate ideas.

The first way to fight this is get rid of social media. It’s used as a tool of the extremes to attack and destroy the lives of those they hate. There’s no conversation on it anymore, just wars.

Irish love using it – “awk it’s himself it is”

Not saying that makes it ok. Just, you know, the irish are leaders in this type of thing.

Nope.

I had a similar thread a few months back.

Totally recommend waze via AA. It’s just as good as google maps but has speed limits and a few other cool features. Theres also a way to download maps if you look hard enough.

I have noticed that it won’t work if you have battery saver mode on, so be careful of that.

Doc has me on 10mg of lisinopril to be safe. I’m looking to come off it asap but the dr is (quite rightly) wanting to see if I can maintain the lifestyle change long term.

I found out when i went for my yearly Bupa check, I could tell there was a problem as they did an ecg etc when it wasnt part of the check. They told me to see my GP asap 🤣

I’ve been battling it for a year (I was in the heart attack range ffs) and have managed to get it to normal by doing a few things –

No alcohol

Meditation (head space app is great)

A lot less caffine (i have maybe one or two cups of green tea with lemon a day)

Reduced and switched to himalayan salt

More exercise

Garlic extract – i get this from holland and barrett but be warned it gives me crazy lucid dreams! https://www.hollandandbarrett.com/shop/product/holland-barrett-odourless-garlic-capsules-3000mg-60031525?skuid=031525

It’s doable but you’ll be fighting it the rest of your life. Once it gets hold of you it never lets go

I’ve been think a out this a while and I think it comes down to one of two things –

Corbyn is anti-semitic

Or

Hes a moronic man child that genuinely doesn’t understand the impacts of his actions and why people don’t like him. As long as his fanclub keeps him sweet he thinks he’s doing well. Just like Trump

Great to hear some are still knocking about. Part of me would love to get one.. Just not sure I could handle the ridicule ;)

The uk has some very flexible banking rules so I would not expect this…

the HO already asks Banks to do this

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/12/home-office-banks-check-immigration-status-of-current-account-holders

Unifying maybe but the arguement will still be either “Its the foreigners (EU) fault” or “it’s the rich right wingers fault”.

Not sure the UK has enough group intelligence to admit to itself which one it is.

I thought as long as you could prove you were here for last 5 years you had to apply (with a £65 charge) and can apply up to around 202n something.  Of course why you would need to prove anything when the government has all the data already for most people (PAYE, NI etc,.) is strange

But its not in law yet (remember according to the UK nothings agreed until everything is agreed). Day 1 of no deal puts things in motion, every EU citizen would be come illegal meaning employers have to sack them, bank accounts have to be frozen etc and you’d have to leave (or face deportation) and fight the fight from outside the UK.

This could all be avoided if the UK would legislate to give some breathing space if theres a no deal however Tories giving foreigners a break is a insane notion.