65 seconds here ish on three 5G – regularly manages over 1gig. £14 a month at the moment but there’s a fair usage limit of 1 terrabyte :-)

They are just about to upgrade the cell site to 10Gbps…

Great little story about a Devon based firm that made the parachute:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-56123602

Scones and inter galactic hardware – what a great county. Pass the cream.

He’s Somerset’s best known actor. No – really – he spends an inordinate amount of time in his cottage there.

“Binners – lets take your laptop. did you claim it 100% against tax? Is it only used for paid work?“

Are you also saying that the hundreds of thousands of NHS staff who have mobiles provided for them never make personal calls on them?

TJ it’s frankly a bit rich to complain about other people “whinging” when your own NHS pension scheme has guaranteed benefits that are simply unavailable to most of the people reading this thread.

As an example – NHS employees continue to enjoy an index linked defined benefit scheme that can rise to a maximum pension pot of £2m before it attracts extra tax. Everyone else can only non index linked money purchase schemes and gets clobbered for tax at £1m.

Doomanic – for the simple reason that if you pay tax on income as it’s earned rather than when it’s paid and then have months without any work you then have no means to sustain yourself other than benefits – it’s called cashflow . This is exactly the position millions have been stuck in over the last year.

Why should small companies be treated more harshly than big ones?

Get some glycerin suppositories from the chemist – about £2 a box.

Shove one up and lie down until it literally feels like a thermo nuclear reaction is going on in your backside – then shuffle to the nearest bog ASAP and prepare to be amazed. You may wish to put some loud music on to save others from hearing your distress.

Whatever you do, DO NOT wait for them to work more than 10m away from a bog. Anything more than a shuffle will have spectacularly bad consequences – including trying to walk up the stairs.

How did we get from “there” to “here”?

Love all that old school stuff…

The sounds of misery

My recall of 90s music was that it was pretty positive. The music of today is consistently really aggressive and depressing in equal measure.

Very best wishes to the OPs son – it sounds like they had already been very clear with their child on what not to do so it’s rotten luck.

Two things to throw into the mix which could help to avoid a repetition if the dog stays:

1. Get the dog off the sofa. There’s definitely an issue with where dogs see themselves in the pack when they are allowed to sleep on sofas and beds etc.

2. Give the dog somewhere quiet where it can sleep without getting disturbed.

We’ve done this but even with that my modus operandi is that I can never trust the kids and dogs to be in the same room unsupervised.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the pain from kidney stones isn’t actually the worst of it.

Rupturing your kidney when the stones refuse to pass is an order of magnitude worse – think convulsing on the floor with the rigors , constantly vomiting and literally sobbing in pain.

Luckily after 13 hours of that without any pain relief or even seeing a doctor a caring NHS nurse told me I was distracting her colleagues from their chatting so could I please keep it down a bit?

I literally had nightmares for a few years about that experience and the complete shambles that unfolded in the month afterwards (multiple discharges with no pain relief followed by a series of emergency admissions).

It’s fair to say I wouldn’t wish my hat I suffered on anyone – it’s hard to think of a worse patient experience.

When our minimum term expired on Plusnet I logged in to the account and get option to renew at the same cost as a “new customer” was there.

We transferred from BT to Plusnet a few years back and landed up having no broadband for 6 weeks due to the inability of BT Openreach to find and fix the fault.

I would personally either leave the contract to run as-is and switch later or renew it rather than run the risk of a transfer that fails whilst WFH.

The Kickr 5 is back in stock at Wiggle and Sigma Sports. Ordered one last night and it’s being delivered tomorrow.

I had to move a wren kitchen and it was back breaking – the units weighed an absolute ton compared to the comparable units from Howdens. They seemed on cursory inspection to be much better made as well.

The EU is now in beach of their own contract. The version they published contained all of the metadata for the “redacted” sections. Someone on Reddit has helpfully unredacted all of the sections including the sections on dosing and pricing.

Someone’s also made the point that the force maejure clause contained in the contract essentially says that in a pandemic all bets are off. 🙄🤣

I’m with TiRed on this. Biologicals supply chains have a whole bunch of variables in play (quality, batch yield, consistency of batch yield and specific issues relating to small variations in equipment on similar lines) that typically take a long time to resolve. It typically takes anywhere from 9-18 months to optimise the end to end process to address these factors.

In this case AZ have achieved something at incredible pace.

They have been altruistic in their approach from the outset – their costs are open book, they’ve volunteered to take no profit and arguably could have sat back and kept their lines running to churn out something profitable.

It’s absolutely appalling to see the way the Oxford / AZ partnership has been used as a political football by Brussels, inferring AZ’s CEO has lied, AZ has been dishonest, AZ has reneged on binding commitments etc etc but I suppose it shouldn’t surprise anyone – the Commission did the same with Brexit.

Hopefully this thing will go away sharpish once member states apply their own pressure.

The focus should be doing everything possible to support bringing all of the successful vaccine candidates to market – and ensuring we massively ramp up supply to the developed world. For its part, the UK looks like it will be donating 200m+ doses to other countries based on the positions we hold and the commitments made by government ministers.

I think we’ve also donated more to the global funding pool that any other country (or at least it was reported as such on the radio yesterday) so perhaps the EU could focus on that a bit as well.

The EU have published a heavily redacted version of the AZ Vaccine contract:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/api/files/attachment/867967/APA%20-%20AstraZeneca.pdf

Section 5 – Manufacturing & Supply, seems to support what AZ have been saying from the outset:

“5.1 AZ shall use its Best Reasonable Efforts to manufacture the Initial Europe Doses within the EU for distribution, and to deliver to the European Hubs after EU Marketing Authorisation”

The contract drafting is pretty poor on several counts:

– it’s arguable that the manufacturing doesn’t need to commence until AFTER the marketing authorisation – which to date has still not been given.
– the commencement date for manufacturing isn’t specifically addressed

The contract does also refer to production sites in the UK but again, because 5.1 is poorly drafted the intent on either side isn’t crystal clear.

In any event, AZ can legitimately say that “best and reasonable efforts” when their existing production capacity is completely utilised effectively allows them to deliver little or no finished goods until such time as there is capacity to make doses for the EU.

Republica have an extended interview with AZ’s CEO:

https://www.repubblica.it/cronaca/2021/01/26/news/interview_pascal_soriot_ceo_astrazeneca_coronavirus_covid_vaccines-284349628/

What he has said is that the U.K. contracted on actual supply volumes whereas due to the delay in reaching an agreement the contract with the EU is on a “best efforts / endeavours” basis I.e they will try to supply but there’s no guarantee.

Almost 1/2m patients vaccinated yesterday – really great to see the vaccination programme moving so quickly.

From what I can see (so could be wrong), one of the companies recommended above doesn’t appear to have any legal entity or VAT registration in the UK.

So whilst they are shipping from within the UK by DHL or whatever, it seems very unclear if they will have actually paid the required duties and how the goods came to be here. That potentially means that somewhere along the line things aren’t quite as they should be from a financial / payments perspective.

“That subsidiary will probably sell it to other country subsidiaries, who then mark it up for the local market and sell it on to dealers etc, who do the same.”

True – which is why we’ll see greater vertical integration as is already the case with Tesla’s operating model.

The Nissan battery factory partnership is separate to the proposed British Volt Gigafactory in Wales.

British Volt have now decided to build it in Blythe – just up the road from Nissan. That one is a game changer for the area north of the Tyne – it should see rejuvenation of the port in Blythe and have enough economy of scale to ensure Nissan’s Sunderland plant remains cost competitive for finished goods.

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology-news/northumberland-site-secured-uks-first-ev-battery-gigafactory

Siemens is a partner in the BritishVolt factory at Blythe:

https://www.energy-storage.news/news/siemens-signs-technology-deal-with-britishvolt-to-create-most-efficient-gig

My tips:

– Turn data off on the phone
– Separate the wifi network into bands – and connect the phone to 5Ghz if you do fast things or 2.4Ghz if you don’t
– connect as many of the Sonos devices as possible to ethernet. Remember to turn the device wifi off and if you’re using a mesh network with its own SSID remember the Sonos hard wired device needs to be connected to that, not the ISP / Router Wifi SSID.

I’ve pretty much never had an issue with DPD to the point where I’m more likely to use a retailer if they use DPD – even if they charged a bit more for it.

The hassle factor with the others is really high (even Royal Mail) to the point I try and avoid dealing with any company that uses them.

I’m probably stereotype 9 – something akin to Michael Douglas in “falling down” – I have a complete lack of tolerance for everyone (the majority of people in my area) that have been wilfully ignoring the guidance right from the outset and in the process, putting healthcare workers at significant additional risk.

The cars on our road are regularly unlocked overnight by some automated means. There is a pattern and it seems to be that cars from the same manufacturer are done i.e. vw and Skoda, or BMW or Nissan.

It’s been going on for years – ours was unlocked 4 or 5 times last year. It’s possible to tell it’s been done other than the glovebox being open / the car ransacked because typically in the morning the car will be ransacked but locked or unlocked but the wing mirrors are folded in (they fold in when locking).

I’ve also seen a neighbours cctv of his locked car (wing mirrors folded) by a guy who walked straight up to it and opened the door – the lights didn’t flash to show the car was unlocking. The guy also knew the car was unlocked and went directly to the car even though it was for all intents and purposes “locked”.

Our neighbour has also noticed a pattern between early evening drive by activity by people with their hoods up on bikes looking through the car windows and the same cars being ransacked overnight.

The police haven’t been interested enough to even view the cctv but have said they are aware of it and there’s nothing they can do.

There’s a third option for sounding very sure of yourself:

1. Know almost everything about something
2. Know nothing about something

and

3. Have almost no knowledge about something but win the argument based on how it makes you feel and / or branding the other person with some kind of derogatory term or suggesting they are an extremist.

At the risk of answering a different question (which I think is standard op practice for STW), I bought a height adjustable desk from sit-stand.com towards the end of last year – it was c£550 inc delivery.

It’s really transformed my comfort levels. Before I was suffering from back ache but now I can work standing up and move around on the many long meetings that I have to attend. I’m also working with a colleague who has a similar set up albeit with a treadmill underneath so he spends much of the day “walking” in meetings.

I customised the desk – there was a large choice of desk top colours and sizes available and I added a few extras like lockable wheels on the feet, chrome cable holes and a memory setting thing for then desk heights etc. Without that it would have come in at around £450 when bought on one of their promotions.

Along with a decent sloping desktop port replicator / laptop wedge the desk has been my best purchase for pandemic home working.

If the OP doesn’t fancy laying cables an outdoor Wifi point to point solution might work – something like this:

https://www.broadbandbuyer.com/products/23819-tp-link-cpe510kit-pnp/

Harry’s Garage review:

Not great. We’ve had the same problem in our ICE VW since new and they have never managed to fix it.

Not been out on a proper bike since last Feb – still using the commuter for short rides to get essentials for the house but typically only once a week.

Riding on local roads is always a bit iffy and I decided I didn’t want to run the lottery of being knocked off on a “long” ride / a hospital admission during a pandemic – that combined with young kids has meant there’s no time anyway.

The turbo trainer has been getting a fair bit of use though so I’m reasonably fit at the moment. I’m looking forward to getting some proper rides in over the summer if that’s allowed by then.

Netgear are launching a cheaper and smaller orbi system tomorrow at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Should be fine for all internet connections up to 1Gbps ish.

Google Nest if you don’t mind them spying on you. Get the routers as mesh points though as the “point” tops out at 60 Mbps

BT whole home if you don’t mind having to reset them now and again. Steer clear of the “premium” ones which are very flaky.

The New Netgear Orbi (£329 for 3 x units) if you’ve got fast broadband.

Amazon Eero if you want cheap simple set up and don’t have a super fast connection

1,325 deaths yesterday yet on my single excursions out of the house yesterday and today:

– went to collect a click and collect but didn’t even bother going into the shop as the guy at the till and the 3 x customers in the queue weren’t wearing masks
– whilst stood on the pavement outside noticed the double decker bus going past. Driver and 2/3 passengers not wearing masks
– big groups of teenagers hanging round last night
– walking the dog this morning was constantly close passed by pairs of runners running side by side – and noticed dirty great pools of spit all over the path in several places.

There’s literally no hope for this country – we’re surrounded by complete cretins.

The moderna one received approval today (10m doses ordered) with the single shot J&J vaccine like to be approved in 5 weeks.

I think that gives the U.K. around 130m doses by the end of June.

A quick scan of the European broadsheets suggests that leaders in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Netherlands are all getting slated for their perceived failings with vaccine rollout – which would suggest it’s harder to get right than the armchair critics would have us believe.

‘86 on a red Falcon mtb.

Waving data charges as suggested above will just swamp the mobile networks – and impact the millions of people who are already struggling to work from home in order to keep a roof over their family’s heads.

5p says the Brooks model has more to do with transfer pricing cleverness than supply chain optimisation.

Something from outdoor router or a huawei outdoor router would work –

https://www.outdoorrouter.com

If three works in your area try a smarty mobile sim as it’s only £18 for unlimited data on a 30 day contract.

That Sophie Walker Twitter series kind of misses the point that the reason that “women are being shown contempt”’is that a great deal of them (and men) have stuck two fingers up to the guidance and are now wingeing now that the numbers have gone up.

Our kids school is shut until the 18th and the whatsapp group is full of people bitching about it but I recognise the names – many of them have spent months sharing covid hoax stuff and of the ones that I’ve seen out and about they have clearly been repeatedly ignoring the rules on household mixing etc – not just for the last few weeks but for most of the 9 months.

Although I wouldn’t say it to anyone in person I’m unbelievably hacked off at now having to try and work with screaming toddlers in the house yet again. I lost my work at the start of the pandemic and it took months of no income and stress to find something else – to the point of literally feeling I was constantly on the edge of a breakdown for a 3 month period.

We had an isolation period just before Xmas care of a parent knowingly sending their kid to school with covid and the thought of more time working in the loft in the midst of a sea of chaos downstairs is again driving me to the absolute brink mentally – not least as we’ve done exactly what’s been asked right from the outset to the point that it’s resulted in behaviour issues in our eldest kid due to lack of time with the extended family and curtailed “normal” life.

Germany reported over 1,000 deaths today so it looks like most of Europe is now pretty ****.

It’s been really depressing to see pretty much everyone we know in our neighbourhood completely ignoring any distancing / mask / home visit guidance for the last few weeks.