I take £500 or so out every six months. Never seems to be an issue, I just email them at hello@octopus.com and they process it within a day or two.

Is it being driven by your company or the regulator? Wouldn’t bother me particularly. Having said that I work in an industry where voice recording of everything that goes on is commonplace, but that’s backed up with strict rules about access to the recordings. Has your employer set out a similar policy? (ie the recordings will be overwritten automatically after x hours and that a manager can’t borrow a tape to see what you’re saying about them?).

Unless you’ve had a habit of conning the ship in your underwear while glugging from a bottle of White Lightning it’s not like it’s going to reveal anything dodgy, and if something happens, will likely vindicate your side of the story.

If you’re concerned I’d suggest going to them with some of the already-agreed policies for cockpit voice recorders and ask that they copy those.

Came to say “DVT” as well. Few people at work had it and the only symptom has been a knotty pain in one calf muscle.

Had a very obvious one as a child, corrected via surgery at age 8 (after trying patches), then again at 21. I can still see it if I look in a mirror but other people say they can’t. The degree depends on whether I’m looking up or down (called “A pattern strabismus”). Could have it corrected again but would require simultaneous surgery on both eyes which I wasn’t keen on, and I don’t think my loss of income insurance would have paid out if it hadn’t gone to plan.

Can’t do magic eye puzzles or stereograms, and I don’t particularly enjoy parking a car in a tight space without sensors. Can’t catch anything thrown to me either, but that could just be because I’m genetically crap at ball games. Basically the operation should have been done much earlier in order to keep stereopsis, but the patching ensured 20/20 in both eyes.

However it doesn’t stop me having an unrestricted medical from the CAA. Only other advantage that I can think of is that I can choose which eye is dominant, and I think my field of vision is marginally wider than average.

Other than that it’s not something I’d wish on anybody and I went to a lot of effort to get our private medical provider at work to recategorise the operation as reconstructive surgery as opposed to cosmetic (which wasn’t covered). I also have to restrain the urge to punch in the face anyone who uses the phrase “boss-eyed”.

If you are trying to shift lichen/algae then would also recommend an application of Wet & Forget – but that really needs to be done a couple of months before attacking with the pressure washer.

Dilute sodium hypochlorite and washing up liquid were pretty effective for me, applied 30 minutes before spraying and brushed into the blocks.

Hit it with the pressure washer and finished up with another spray of bleach to make sure everything was dead.

Not removed as such, but I once left my airside worker ID card in the car. Didn’t realise until I got to security (other people had held doors open for me). Security guy looked at me and came out with what was clearly his favourite phrase: “Looks like your flight will be going without you…”

Me: “I don’t think you understand how air travel works.”

Anyway, the airline booked me a standby seat on the flight and I just went through using my passport 15 minutes later. Because of this I had to have a police escort while I was outside on the tarmac walking around the plane, and the guy kept pointing his gun at me every time I reached out to touch something. This continued until we made it back to the steps when he escorted me to the flight deck before saying goodbye.

Wish I knew what the passengers were thinking, as they were all on board at the time.

If you’re not going to change the oil there’s little point in changing the filter, IMHO.

Most EVs are as dull as heck to drive

Most people who think this conflate “noisy” with “exciting”.

Beats Fit Pro are the only set of earbuds I’ve not destroyed with sweat. They have good noise cancelling, sound OK, never fall out, and are never uncomfortable. They aren’t the cheapest but they are, in my opinion, the best value.

I notice everyone is taking the cost of the vehicle as a sunk cost.

Just buy second-hand. A used Model 3 that’s just ticked over 3 years is now about £20k – still expensive for a car, but close to a third of the new price. You’ll still have the powertrain warranty for another 5 years too.

Mine was a salary sacrifice car so the sunk cost is pretty negligible since it fixed the awkward (but nice to have) marginal tax situation of >62% on every pound earned.

44,000 miles on a Tesla Model 3. I’ve averaged 232 Wh/mile. Half of the charging is at home (7.5p/kWh), and the other half at public chargers (20 – 60p / kWh).

So £382 + £2,295 =£2,677.00

My diesel car would have cost £8,050 at 40mpg.

It’s still on the original tyres which have 5mm of tread left, and the only parts replaced have been the pollen filter and a set of windscreen wiper blades.

Right now it suits them to throw some scraps to Russia in return for very cheap oil but we shouldn’t confuse this with any kind of serious strategic partnership.

Be that as it may, what we shouldn’t be doing in the West is buying laundered Russian oil from India.

I would also close the subsidised bars. The same MPs that passed laws saying that I need to be breathalysed and drug screened before starting work are quite happy to make policy decisions while off their heads on the old Peruvian marching powder / hard spirit combo.

Mine did that. If changing the batteries in the remote doesn’t fix it then it will need replacing. It’s sending corrupt data on the HDMI CEC channel.

Hate to be pedantic but a car ferry is so far away from a cruise ship, they are completely different things in so many ways.

I didn’t expect someone to take that slightly sarcastic comment seriously – this isn’t a forum on the intricacy of cruise ship design. It was intended to reflect on the generic and boring layout inside.

@Flaperon did you hear from the police again?

No, I didn’t. Unfortunately I’m guessing from the fact that it was on the Jeremy Vine show the police have confirmed to the BBC that they aren’t going to take it any further. It’s not particularly surprising given the general uselessness of Devon and Cornwall Police.

Got dragged on one by my parents a few years to celebrate their anniversary. It didn’t go that well, they’re now divorced.

Experience for me wasn’t too bad. It rained in Norway for pretty much the whole time but Geiranger was stunning. It was a Cunard ship which was basically a standard car ferry design expanded to add a bingo hall and take more passengers. Food was good. Annoying amount of time spent trying to flog their own stuff and tours.

No issues in rough seas; the ship didn’t roll but did adopt an impressive list in the wind. At times the pitch and heave was very noticeable so you’d want a cabin in the middle rather than the bow if you’re prone to getting motion sick.

It’s a relatively cheap way of seeing a lot of Norway in a short space of time. Once you get away from the crowds around the ports it’s fine.

£400 will get you a Sage Barista Pro if you ask Sage nicely for a discount code (or wait for the next Lakeland 20% voucher to drop through the letterbox).

Mine is 5 years old and still going strong.

Burn these bridges when you get to them. What has the insurance company said so far? Presumably your son didn’t start the call with “I should have declared this but…”

If we reduce that response down a bit, STW are saying – we make a significant amount of money from knowingly scamming people’s data , we can’t survive without scamming them so until further notice we will continue to scam them.

That’s not how I read it.

ASDA gave Singletrack a telling off today

They have pros and cons. Main con being that I was so shallow at 17 that I picked my first choice university on the grounds that they gave us free pizza on their open day.

Is it possible to provide an actual “ad-free” version of the site at a separate tier or price point? So no ads or banners of any description, no affiliate links, no marketing or promotion, no tracking cookies or JavaScript?

I love the forum and would happily pay extra for this option. The slow performance is down to third party content, so ditching that means you still get paid but I get a much better experience on the site.

Been happy with Octopus. I get all my electricity at 7p/kWh but even without that facility I’d be prepared to stick with them because they are distinctly less evil compared to other companies (the CEO posts pretty regularly on Twitter). Are they in it to make money? Obviously. But compared to British Gas, or SSE, or eon… they’re worlds apart.

How is that even possible, why have they built such ridiculous systems?

It used to be much cheaper for me to book Stirling – London with LNER and then get on and off at York. Someone (here maybe?) did point out that it was illegal, but I think that if you had such a stupid ticketing system your company deserved it. Although maybe the Scottish government was subsidising the journeys?

I’ve now had a chance to test drive an ID7 and it’s actually a very nice car. The clever regen/coasting is impressive, I liked the massage seats and the HUD, and the lane assist and smart cruise control was rudimentary but effective.

Less impressive is that even the newest version of VW infotainment sucks compared to the Tesla. And the automatic parking is supposed to be the bees knees, but reversed the shiny new demonstrator into a bollard when the salesman demoed it…

Ultimately the leasing company offered a pretty good price for me to buy my salary sacrifice Model 3 outright, so I think I’ll probably keep it for another 3 years. I’ve abused the battery the whole time by charging it to full and using DC fast charging on every journey, and it’s lost just 1% capacity per year.

Also solves the problem of not wanting to give the Musk-child any more money. Much that I dislike the man, his company does make very good cars.

Farting in a lift with only one other person in it.

Have you got a smart meter? You need one for any “smart” tariff.

I wonder if anyone already has.

I did, a few days ago. Know the area quite well. Missed a phone call from Devon and Cornwall police this morning but they didn’t leave a message.

The Mr Ed teeth are bad but look closer his mouth is like Jack Nicholson’s joker

I can’t be the only person who feels uncomfortable with personal attacks on people over their appearance, something that they can’t change and which has no impact on their politics.

If they’re a knob, just say so. Otherwise you’re no more than the playground bullies that many of the worst politicians were in their yoof.

6.090 kW Total Solar Power
14 x 435 Watt Panels
4,178 kWh per year
4.3 kWh Total Battery Storage (foxess)

That doesn’t seem particularly good value for money to me. Powerwall 3 is now on the market and provided 11kWh of storage for £5000, and full off-grid capability. 4.3 kWh of battery in a Fox system is closer to 3.8 kWh in reality, or less depending on temperature and accounting.

You can get an all-in-one Fox system with 10.4kWh of battery storage (which is about the size of a thin fridge-freezer) which will live inside or outside for £3,200 ex-VAT. It will also provide 6kW of off-grid capability depending on how enthusiastic you are about doing some rewiring.

Fox system has the advantage of force discharge to the grid during peak times (eg when Octopus were paying £2/kWh for savings).

Myenergi Libbi will provide 10kWh of more expandable storage for more or less the same money.

Avoid Growatt – their battery discharge and charge capacity is capped, the app is terrible, and the inverter itself is difficult to configure (it’s a system where you have to go by parameter number instead of name).

My strong advice now that prices are falling is to not go less than 10kWh of storage.

I quite enjoy watching Sunak getting tetchy and shooting himself in the foot.

Sadly your sister has been taken in by the anti-EV fossil-fuel funded mafia. You can tow an EV, just not for long distances as the motor(s) may overheat depending on whether they’re permanent magnet or not.

Funnily enough you can’t tow an automatic car either for similar reasons.

Ultimately though if your car is stuck in a muddy field it makes no odds. Either the wheels don’t turn and it just slides, or it’s so slow and short that nothing can heat up anyway. Or as others have pointed out… just put it in neutral.

Add this to the existing pile of motoring urban rumours:

– having the interior light on will cause a crash.
– using the headlights will drain the battery.
– stop/start is a scheme to sell more starter motors and uses more fuel than leaving the engine running.
– sidelights should be used as dawn and dusk.

I’m in the southern hemisphere on the 21st so I shall be looking forward to the days getting longer again.

Yeah. I dropped a box of them in the supermarket. They went off like fireworks.

It staggers me how the vast majority of folk will cheerfully pop to McD’s on the way home from work (and will be actively hostile towards those who don’t), yet when a copper thumps into a burger-precursor outrage erupts from the bottom half of the Internet.

Because being shot in the head before being eaten is generally preferable to having ones legs broken needlessly before being shot anyway?

The private hospital you see will copy all your results to your GP anyway, so provided you can get your follow-up appointment with the GP I can’t see that there would be a problem. You’ll actually have a challenge if you don’t want your GP to know the results, and it was a bit of a headache with both Spire and Nuffield IIRC – in the end I put my home address down as my “GP”.

Look forward to 14 days of itching if they give you a Zio patch…

Bear in mind that the seller isn’t under any obligation to accept the highest offer. I sold my house this way and went for a lower offer, but from the person who was in the best position to proceed. So if there are aspects that make you a tempting buyer then make sure the agent is aware and can pass these on to the seller.

My very limited experience is that if the video shows another vehicle having to take avoiding action, the police take it quite seriously. Otherwise they need to have driven to the pub with your as a bonnet ornament before they’ll even think about acting.