I’ve not tried those PIAA ones but have tried various recommendations over the years and end up back with Bosch

I drink quite a lot of milk, can’t say I’ve noticed any difference of late. Prefer filtered as lasts much longer. Hate non-homogenised stuff, no matter how much you shake it you still get blobs of cream and the rest of the milk is more watery as a result. Not a fan of UHT so keep an oat milk in the cupboard for emergencies.

After the first corner F1 is often pretty boring, these days I only watch recorded highlights anyway and even then I fast forward through large chunks of it (and sometimes don’t bother if I hear the result first). For me it was a bit more watchable when Brits have been in winning cars as was slightly more invested.

There’s also different types of snow foam, some are high pH and designed to be a bit more aggressive (but will also partially strip a wax coating). They can pull an impressive amount of grime off in a pre-wash. Others are more either to lift a bit off or even more just to provide a lubrication layer so you use your wash mitt without rinsing off the snow foam itself (I often do two snow-foamings, first to lift surface dirt that I rinse off then a second for lubrication for the hand wash part).

But detailing is similar to a lot of other things discussed on STW (e.g. knife sharpening), where there’s a few basics everyone agrees on and then a whole load of stuff (best technique, equipment etc.) you can argue about for years and quote various conflicting sources etc.

I’ve fallen quite deep into the detailing rabbit hole to (even though I don’t actually enjoy the process).

For snow foam you need a decent foam cannon & pressure washer, MJJC ones get good reviews (I have the v2 but they released the v3 not long ago). I don’t think any work with just hose mains pressure but you can do it out of a hand pumped spray tank instead (albeit with a fair bit more effort).

+1 For Bilt-Hamber touch-less foam and Car Pro Reset is the best (non-stripping) shampoo I’ve found, along with Soft99’s Fusso Coat wax (just be careful when using it not to get it on plastic trim etc. as it’s a pain to get off)

I would say that any spray-on/rinse-off type products with wax or ceramics in them are mostly marketing (in terms of any long-lasting benefits they claim) but if used just when maintenance washing they can work well. Applying a proper long-lasting (12-24 month) ceramic coating is a lot of work (you need to strip wash, clay, polish, IPA rub down and then apply the ceramic coat carefully and it really should be done indoors).

I really want a blower dryer but I don’t want to be the knob making a racket whilst using it on a Sunday with everyone wondering wtf is he using a leaf blower on a car for…

It would be £525 a month which is a heck of a lot of money, that £525 includes everything. Insurance, service, tyres, electric, the lot. No deposit.

It’s a £62k car in this config

Sounds a bargain, last time I priced something up through our company salary sacrifice scheme it was a £55k-ish car and would have been over £700/month (without any electric credit and under 10k miles/year). I’d be surprised if there’s an option to buy at the end though

The EU and US (and any other willing countries) need to implement a complete block of any trade with Russia and cut them off from any financial institutions they have control of. Ideally then they would give countries that still continue to trade an ultimatum to stop (or severely curtail) within 12 months or they’ll face sanctions to. Ofc the latter will never happen as that would collapse the global economy (if China, India etc. didn’t play ball) but it’s still madness to me there’s EU & US trade with Russia still happening.

I’ve a few more things planned for the P2

The only thing I really want to do on mine is changing the plastic trim (wheel surrounds and side skirts) for body paint colour ones (like the BST version has), sadly they don’t offer them as an after market option so best you can do is get it wrapped.

if the US under Biden are slow walking support because they want Ukraine to bleed the Russian Federation to exhaustion so removing that threat for the next 20 years and are quite happy for so many lives lost in the process. Its not a good look IMO. Its still the least of two evils though

I don’t think it’s as much a deliberate choice, more the result of various factors. They don’t want to risk escalation by Putin so are limiting the provision of any longer range weapons. They also have to get most military aid cleared through Congress, which is now proving to be a problem. Added to that stocks and manufacturing capability of ammunition, shells and missiles was pretty low – even now the US is struggling to both keep Ukraine supplied and maintain it’s own stocks of certain items (especially given the danger of a major war, either in Europe or Asia, is higher now than it’s been for decades). Ofc some of the decision making will factor in the best way to degrade the Russian military and that may be a prolonged medium intensity conflict but it’s far from the only factor.

For me it would be:

For All Mankind (there are some slow episodes in the first couple of seasons though)

Foundation (it seems it’s a bit marmite but I really enjoyed it)

Severance

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (bit weird in places and a lot of plot holes but still decent)

Invasion (as above although I also have to skip through most sections with the annoying kids in it in season 2)

I never really got into Ted Lasso or Slow Horses but generally they’re often recommended

Watch Elon squirm in Don Lemon’s interview… https://youtu.be/hhsfjBpKiTw?si=zr4gKpdpC54_bfh7

I’m hoping the whole DWAC & Trump Media group merger thing tanks, on current stock valuation it would be worth several billion to him :( Although even assuming it goes ahead he can’t sell for 6 months so there’s still a lot of time for the market value to correct itself

Somewhere in the £1-2k bracket these days but def reducing as I get older…

I genuinely feel unwelcome these days.

Just because the demographic might not align with you it’s no reason to feel unwelcome, that would more come from reactions to you posting condescending twaddle…

I’m not a fan of subscription services but being able to activate stuff for a one-off fee after purchase makes sense to me (I assume it’s either cost neutral for the manufacturer to include the part due to efficiency savings in less build variations or they might even make money assuming enough people do activate stuff later).

Pills are a serious no no.  Huge liability issue.  Is the person allergic to ibuprofen?   Do they have asthma?   Liver issues?

Why? You can buy them from a supermarket without those sorts of questions being asked, you accept the responsibility when doing so – I don’t see the legal position really changes if those items are provided free by an employer, they’re not introducing a pill break and demanding everyone starts taking them. Sure, a first aider giving them to someone might have liability issues but not just a box you can take from if you need them. I also wouldn’t have more than 2 x 16 packets in the box at any one time (given that’s the most you could buy at one time without a prescription)

It’s probably not a good idea if you have people with learning disabilities in the workplace though and there might be some liability around making sure any medication stays in date (not that I think the idea of providing such a box is a particularly good idea anyway).

I much prefer recording the live broadcast on Eurosport (via Sky) then screaming at my TV, when watching it back later, as it ends with 5km to go as the riders went a bit slower than expected for the first 150km

How many companies own their offices rather than rent these days though? The company I work for has a global HQ office building I expect they own but pretty sure all the UK offices are rented. They were looking at building one near me pre-Covid to consolidate a few local offices but that was shelved as it’s no longer needed.

Maybe we start seeing office buildings converted to much-needed residential flats by property developers/owners as a result?

Personally I never really liked hybrid working, would prefer to do a full week or two either WFH or in the office, although I’ve been office-bound for a few months now as there’s no remote access permitted (security reasons) to the environment I’m currently working in (although it helps I only live 3 miles from the office)

that they were scraping card data from the tills

That sort of implies an under-handed way of collecting the till info in the first place – the reality is every till transaction is stored in a central DB (or multiple) so cross-referencing till purchase data with online purchase data would be trivial

Bill Gates might have made billions, but he didn’t do it by shitting on the little guys and leveraging huge tax breaks to do it.

Without wishing to derail this thread – that’s just not true. Gates was an absolute **** to employees and competitors for most of his time in charge of MS. Sure he’s now an incredible philanthropist doing amazing things but let’s not re-write history.

But for sure Musk is an over-promising, under-delivering fascist tosser that I’m sure many execs at Tesla wish wasn’t there anymore (although much of their over-inflated stock price is because of his continued cult of personality)

Yeah it was the insurance implications that stopped me fitting one, if there’s no forced entry you could have an issue – you’d certainly want to talk it through with your insurance provider first and maybe even get it noted on the policy (assuming they say it’s OK).

+1 for Veeam

It’s all part of the pay and benefits package they signed up to, which in turn feeds into recruitment and retention. In that context I don’t see any real issue with it being an entitlement linked to rank rather than need

This. I grew up as an RAF brat (dad was an officer), I always thought the housing was decent enough (but this is mostly 70’s to 90’s so it might not be the case now if there’s been no housing investment since…).

Sure if an officer is single it’s a bit of a waste for them to be in a 3 bed house but that was part of what they signed up to, you can’t just stick them in a flat instead.

Given the ever-shrinking size of our Armed Forces this is a government/MoD funding/lack of planning issue that they need to address directly and not by a circuitous route of changing the conditions their personnel live in. Fine if it’s amended for new entrants and it’s made clear to them but not fine to change for people that have served for years.

Fizik do wide fit in some models and it works for me (as does Bont)

I keep looking at Bissell and Vax spot cleaners (mostly for the car and the odd house spillage) but for every positive review there’s one saying it leaks or stopped working after a few uses etc. Is there a quality version of similar (as in not a full on carpet cleaner, just a compact spot one)?

15+ years ago when I was last in an IT support role we moved office, inc. moving from having our own room to being in the open plan. I wasn’t happy about it either, worrying about constant user interruptions etc. (trying to bypass the helpdesk system) but in reality, apart from a few annoying users who had to be told a few times to raise a ticket it wasn’t much of an issue. Was sometimes a problem back when we’d build a physical server in the office being taking it to a DC (complaints about noise) but these days most stuff is either virtual or built in the DC anyway. We also still had a separate room with a keycode locked door for storage of IT stuff – I’d at least make sure you have something similar

Mine was just over £1k a year ago for a Hypervolt charger but a very easy install (the charger is mounted pretty much the other side of the wall to the CU).

The last train I was on (London to Bristol) a drunk woman in the seat in front threw up on herself around Reading – as the train was packed it was either a case of sit and deal with the smell or move and stand in another carriage. I’m lazy so didn’t move.

I work for an IT Services company, the pipeline seems pretty healthy, although seems to be shifting more to UK government contracts (but that might be just where we’re targeting sales & marketing effort)

And, fundamentally, I don’t want to buy another Tesla because of Elon Musk.

I wouldn’t either for the same reason but there’s plenty of good alternatives now. Also if you register it before April 1st 2025 you won’t be paying the additional £390 luxury vehicle supplement (at least not until they change their mind). I agree though lease costs are insane for mid-high end EVs and very difficult to justify unless you’re doing a lot of miles but can home charge/cheap away charge for most of it to claw some of the money back.

The Polestar.. No idea!

You can request a battery health report when it’s in for a service – bit crap really, especially if you’re wanting to buy one second-hand and the owner hasn’t had it serviced

A couple of years back, thanks to a bottle, my ear was split (back of ear about 1cm cut all the way through). I had that stitched back (A&E wouldn’t do it as didn’t think they had the skill but got me a spot in a different hospital ENT department for a couple of hours later). They did a good job but it’s certainly noticeable (the scar tissue bulges quite a bit), doesn’t bother me but probably would if I was in my youth. So yeah if the appearance matters I wouldn’t try and bodge it with re-cutting and gluing/stitching as IME the scar tissue will still be noticeable (although where my cut was it’s going through the cartilage etc. so might have healed worse than it would on an ear lobe).

If he takes the election it won’t be due to skill or competence, but the incompetence of those who oppose him and their own lack of ability.

I think the Republican gerrymandering of districts could have a meaningful impact to, some has been overturned via the courts but there’s still enough of it remaining that it could be decisive.

The Supreme Court can just refuse to accept the case, personally, I think the conservative justices have nothing to gain by accepting it.

I thought they’ve already indicated they’ll accept it (and expedite a decision), they were just waiting on the lower court to reach a judgement?

Whilst the SC is stacked with Republicans it would be incredibly difficult for them to decide a President has total immunity, maybe they’ll try and fudge something along the lines of the Trump’s defence that immunity applies unless indicted by Congress but hopefully they’ll just straight up reject the argument. If they don’t I’m all for Joe Biden, given he would have immunity, ordering the assassination of  Trump, MAGA members of Congress and the corrupt members of the SC.

I have relatives that by an almost base spec. new car every 2-3 years, madness given how much they lose in depreciation and that they could get a much nicer spec. for the same money (or likely much cheaper) by buying second-hand but for some reason they just don’t want to consider buying secondhand.

Back in the day (when I actually used to ride my bike) the roads outside most farms seemed fine, there were just a couple you knew you had to keep your mouth closed lest some of the obvious animal crap mixed in with mud got flung up into it. Can’t say I ever really noticed a prevalence of potholes by farms though, I wouldn’t have thought a tractor would actually but that much pressure on the road surface given the size of the tyres

Put an Air Tag in it so you can see how far it goes…

Anker or Amazon Basics, depending on how much I want to spend at the time and what it’s for

Oh… I may also have paid for the OTA performance upgrade… But it tak s “1-2 weeks to be sent..” FFS…. They gonna post a few bits of data per day!

I keep debating whether to get it, from what I read most people that do it really rate it but it seems to only kick in over 40mph and you need a high battery charge (not sure how high). So for my driving/use it’s hard to justify the £1k

Apparently it’s only me that didn’t know Niamh is pronounced Neeve (although she didn’t tell me off)