IT won’t be the best code, but a combo of record and edit, plus googling (MrExcel.com is good for VBA code) should get you there.

Agree. I don’t understand why RB binned Gasley and Albon out of RBR after half a season each, and have kept Checo in underperforming (and loosing them the constructors this year) for so so long.

The point of the junior team was to develop drivers for RBR and it isn’t doing that with the incumbents.  Yuki is fine but isn’t going to the big time. Riccardo is old news with lacklustre performance. Time to BIN and bring through young talent.

Everyone saying “I had PetPlan and they have paid out £10k on Rover and I only paid £1k in premiums”. Yeah that is how insurance works. Some ‘win’ and most ‘loose’ and the insurance company makes a profit margin if they get their sums right.

Pet insurance industry is in the shit at the moment though. High loss ratios, huge increase in vet costs.

I’m also not convinced that the ‘try anything at all costs’ approaches to pets is great. Arguably I kept my pet alive longer than I would have if I had been paying out of pocket. She was on three different medications, frequent vet trips, getting increasingly more breathless. You don’t notice the decline so much when you see your pet every day, the meds were only ever going to be able to buy more time, not cure. Probably would have had her PTS several months earlier if I had had a the cost/benefit on my mind and it wouldn’t have been a bad thing for her really.  At the time you think “well the vets are offering this treatment so it must be the right thing to do” but she couldn’t tell me if she was comfortable or not.

100% police report a dangerous, out of control dog. That dog needs to be destroyed (and the owner needs to be given a good kicking)

I’m only 38 and started seriously planning a couple of years ago. I’ve always had a pension to pay into, and overpaid into it as much as possible.  

Similar.

Curent life is sized to have to mortgage paid off by 50. Plan to retire at 55 latest.

At the moment I’m able to put in £60k annually into the pension. Not quite managing to fill the ISA so I actually might start to reduce some pension to fill ISA. I thought best to ‘make hay whilst the sun shines’ with the pension tax relief.

I would like to move house somewhere nicer, but that would mean doubling my mortgage so would be a hit to both current standard of living, and also savings and retirement dates.  Having a real struggle with myself on this one!

Well, that was a very interesting post @tonycooke and you’ve made me purchase Nicole’s autobiography on kindle! :-)

Seems all that ‘think of the rest of the season’ they were pleading with Lando in Hungary should have been ignored.

Yup!

Pretty stupid move by Oscar if you consider the big picture. That move led to having to implement sub-optimal strategy which ultimately cost them them the 1-2 and being 1st in the Constructors. Made them look a bit stupid.

Lando is going to be much more ‘elbows out’ and I foresee a papaya crash in the future with Lando needing to asset himself as not to be messed with ala MV vibes.

Also Lando isn’t going to be minded to support his team mate in future when called on.

Interesting update Sadexpunk.

I did it for about 18 months and made c£4.5k a few years ago before it got hard after being gubbed by most of the decent bookies. I did enjoy it, found it quite fun as a hobby for a while but you did have to be quite ‘on it’. Was defo easier on WFH days when I could have my home laptop open and my phone out to use bookie sites to jump on things.

On Reddit, UKFire and UKPersonalFinance are useful for sensible advice: save, budget, pension, S&S isa in global index funds etc. but not if you wish to discuss individual stock investing.  Also useful for vanilla tax efficiency.

Although UKPF has descended into a high volume of “stupid people who can’t use google” posts which is quite boring.

The comments on FT articles are decent mainly.

No, bit far for me at the moment think. I keep seeing their insta posts and being very envious of people doing it!

I would really like to do the Dales camp out. Looks like a great ride and good vibes.

i think  teenagers who regularly hang out with parents is a bit weird. It may be great when they are young to do fun stuff with them but after a certain age its time they start to find their own way in life.

I was always quite happy NOT to find my own way in life when it involved an all expenses paid holiday to a Greek island, or the Alps, or the Caribbean…

Did you choose the genetics you or your kids came with?

I mean…  you DO actually choose the genetics of your kids don’t you? You chose to pass on your own genetics and you chose who you mate with. Procreating is an active choice  :-)

Saris Bones 2 – the way the bikes are positioned meant I didn’t need a numberplate or lights for my golf and it is super easy to load/unload and really stable.  Love it.

I’ve always enjoyed Hollands Wood  FC site.  Also Wareham Forest Tourist Park is a lot nicer than the name suggests with woodland camping and direct access to kid-friendly off road bike trails.

I sold all my Sega and N64 stuff in about 2012 when I moved house. Wish I hadn’t! Oh well. The analogue stuff looks good, I’d be interested if/when their 3D one comes out.

 I’ve yet to see a camera “<em style=”box-sizing: border-box; –tw-border-spacing-x: 0; –tw-border-spacing-y: 0; –tw-translate-x: 0; –tw-translate-y: 0; –tw-rotate: 0; –tw-skew-x: 0; –tw-skew-y: 0; –tw-scale-x: 1; –tw-scale-y: 1; –tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; –tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; –tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; –tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246/0.5); –tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; color: #000000; 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’; background-color: #eeeeee;”>protect” anyone

Arguably, other people submitting videos to the policy which results in prosecution or driving awareness courses or whatever, makes us all safer if it results in drivers changing their behaviour to be more considerate/alert/safer.

I increasingly feel like I should get cams for the bike commute, some absolute crazies out there plus every now and again some unnecessary aggression where I think some video evidence would be great to send to their employer (Tesco driver etc).

I’ll get wired dashcam when I get my next car.

My friend was knocked off her motorbike last year. It was caught on the dash cam of a driver behind who stopped and gave his contact details. Without that she never would have been able to prove what had happened (100% the drivers fault, quite a scary incident).

I got sucked in by the loop advertising. They are just ear plugs. Don’t bother, plenty of better options on the market. Not as good as other ear plugs designed for musicians and significantly worse than my custom fit ear plugs (admittedly those were a LOT more expensive than loops).

I can excuse it.  He is a coach driver paid to drive not paid to perform crown control.   The SEVEN teachers on the bus should have been ensuring the little shits had their seat belts on and behaved.

 I should be using the time to prep A group block moves with the people that need to learn them (including me).

You can’t dirt dive all day, way too boring. Have a sesh on the creepers, practice some set ups in the door and then get out for a mucky ride and reconvene as a team after the break. You’ll solidify a lot of the blocks in your brain during the ride I bet anyway.

Many (most?) people in their 50s/60s will have used IT for 30 plus years

Anecdotally, but I am hearing at work that the Gen Zers are actually less good with the office tech than the older crew – more used to apps rather than power point/excel.

Although arguably using power point to do written reports needs to die and we should listen to the gen Z ers and move onto Canva or whatever!

What about somewhere with a bit of altitude? Many of the French ski resorts are good in summer. You could look at “club med lake and mountain holidays” for the all-inclusive vibe?

That was a silly place to ‘wild camp’ but obviously spraying someone with slurry is completely disproportionate, and I suspect assault so hopeful farmer mc nasty faces some legal recriminations since there is clear evidence of what he did!

I went on a trip many years ago, in the 2000s.

Fantastic opportunity, I got an awful lot out of the experience.  The participants do a surprising amount, I was really sort of shocked when it was like “right, off you go and buy supplied for the month / you two need to go off and sort out minibuses for the 4 day journey” etc but we all rose to the challenge and I felt like I grew up a lot. Complements Gold DofE well as you can (or could then) use elements of the trip towards your award.

Trip was really expensive even then, so I can’t even imagine how much it will be now.  If I had a kid of that age (sixth form) I would love them to be able to go on a world challenge trip.

I really disliked the ‘fundraising’ aspect we were encouraged to do. Like, it was a very expensive trip for personal development. The charity work you do is incidental. Have your kids work, save birthday/Christmas money, parents pay, run events like quiz nights or whatever – but don’t fundraise like you are raising money to fund a charity trip or good cause.

Of course it is exclusive due to the expense and its not really achievable for the poorer families, but that doesn’t make it a bad thing.

got me wondering what i could do with them to add protein, whether you could add a few whisked eggs ‘a la carbonara’ but i think that may end up a bit gopping.  got to admit i dont really fancy the ‘veg in boiling water’ recipe ^^^ so anyone got any ideas to add a decent amount of protein to these noodles and still be tasty (and healthy-ish)?

I buy sirloin steak (2 for £8 from asda), thinly slice, freeze on a tray and portion into bags in the freezer into 4 portions. When cooking the noodles dump in a bag of steak and some frozen edamame and sweetcorn.

Also the same with chicken but I poach before freezing.

When I was traveling a lot for work the only way I controlled weight gain was being really mindful about what I was actually eating. So not making the most of the breakfast buffet (so hard!) and not having resturant meals 4 nights a week.  I would try and get a couple of M&S salad pots and some cooked chicken or prawns.

Just having a pan au choc with your coffee after your ‘normal’ breakfast because it is there will cause weight gain if you’re otherwise static.

This is what works for my other half. It is a lot and has to be done consistently for him to get good sleep.

• No alcohol.
• No caffeine at all after lunch and only a moderate amount in the morning (he actually does no caffeine).
• No sugar in the evening close to bed.
• No screens before going to bed, transition to gentle activities in a low-light room and wear those orange glasses that block out the blue light.
• Get some sunlight on your eyes first thing in the morning.
• If you wake up, don’t lie in bed stressing – get up and go downstairs for 20/30 mins to break the association of lying in bed not sleeping.
• Don’t do anything else in your bedroom so you only associate it with sleep.
• Keep the bedroom on the cold side so you can have a heavyish duvet weighing you down.
• Slow release melatonin at a low dose. You need the slow release stuff to keep you asleep otherwise you’ll drop off fine but wake up (as you are doing).

Personally I am generally a good sleeper, but if I wake up and can’t get back off I whack an ear bud in and listen to a chill audiobook. Although as my other half tells me this is apparently bad sleep hygiene but it works for me as I’m then not stressing about not sleeping but am relaxing with my eyes closed.

There have been several research papers that show luck and oportunity are more important than hard work in acheiving sucsess, that doesn’t mean that sucsessful people are lazy just that working hard doesn’t contibute as much to their sucsess as they often beleive.

100% this!

Hard work def helps you succeed but you need a huge dollop of luck in there too.

From our very beginnings of who we are born to (what inherited traits we get, what environment we are born into) we have a huge amount of luck that sets us up for an easier life or not.

I consider myself very lucky. Healthy, relatively clever, born into a good home environment.  Had high level of support to push me on my way through life. Presented with opportunities (educationally and life enrichment). For sure I’ve worked hard at education and hard during the world of work, but there has also been a lot of luck in my career of being right place right time.  Some of the luck was created (i.e. cultivated via relationships and positioning, being bold etc) but lets not kid ourselves that I am a better or harder working than many other people.

Just wondered if anyone else has a fantasy of whipping out a pump-action shotgun and shooting these things out of the sky when people are operating them at beauty spots?

Yes, I know that would cause even more noise and alarm – but it would be incredibly satisfying.

Yup! Even more so at crags. So annoying when you’re climbing to have those things buzzing about in and out of range overhead, really distracting.

OMG I have this! When I’m in the process of falling asleep on my back I sometimes wake up with a massive gasp and a huge hit of adrenaline!

I disagree strongly – happiness should be the aim of all our lives surely? 

There is quite a lot of evidence that people have an inherent happiness ‘setpoint’ from which we spike up or down given external factors but trend back to our setpoint over time, although this can be influenced with ‘intentional efforts’ (diversification of activities/experiences, engage in positive relationships, engage in meaningful activities, practice gratitude and similar efforts).

I should add that I also generally record the C4 highlights on my Humax box, so I can fast-forward the ads, the bits where Webber & Coulthard talk endlessly about how great Red Bull are & the Karen Horner interviews.

Same. The highlights are generally decent enough that I don’t miss the full coverage.

I actually think you put her in a really difficult position.  How can she go on this holiday with you after  you expressed your unrequited love and clearly haven’t got over it? Super uncomfortable and awkward. She is probably feeling hurt that there never was any genuine friendship on your side and all the nice ‘friendship’ memories now have a dirty taint.

The only unreasonable thing is bringing the new guy on a club trip where the other club members aren’t happy. Does the guy cycle? Will they be doing stuff alone in the evenings to spending all the group time? But, are you sure they really don’t want him to come and aren’t just giving you soothing sounds?

If I was her I would want my new boyf to be there as a buffer from you. In her eyes, you overstepped the boundaries and now she can’t trust you.

Imagine that a bridge over the M6 broke. Do you reckon there’d be no funding for that? Or that people would drive up and find a sign saying “road blocked, find another route” but with nothing signosted?

Hammersmith bridge would like to enter the conversation!

I don’t think it is THAT bad really for a new build.  Bedroom size is actually decent. The living space is small though but as long as you just use the bar stools and don’t try to have a sep table as well as a sofa its OK.  Minimal storage and no where to add any value, but would be a nice easy low effort move where you can enjoy your warm home instantly. Not sure where the fridge is?

Things I would do to improve. 1) Add on a nice big porch for coats and shoes. 2) change the bath for a nice P shaped shower-bath and have the WM and TD stacked in a nice cupboard where the shower is in the main bath. 3) Hide the heat pump behind something less ugly 4) Get rid of that tiny asto patch, so pointless! 5) Use the downstairs loo for mop, brush, hoover etc 6) Solar panels would have been nice in the build stage but wouldn’t retrofit.  7) Realistically I’m gonna have to be using one of my two parking spaces with a big van as my shed! I don’t think houses like this are meant for people with N+1 bikes…

Eventually I’d like to get to a point where I’m sharing the amazing experience of a trans-Alpine bike trip with them, as I got to do with my dad.

Thing is, there is no guarantee your kids are going to like the same hobbies you like.

Would you still be so happy to spend the time sitting in a stuffy swimming pool watching your kido progress their swimming? Having your 1-on-1 time in the car cos you’re taking them to early morning training and to galas around the country?

Or if they weren’t sporty, but were big into musical theatre or something and relished trips to London to see the shows?

fixed for us by getting a Coleman Fastpitch Shelter on offer @ Go Outdoors! Big enough to cover the tent entrance, have a nice seating/cooking area & safely have a fire pit. Then relax with a beer & a burger and watch everyone else on the site getting soaked

Yeah those are good! I’ve been trying to persuade the other half we need one of those for years!

I did recently buy a universal awning extension in the go outdoors sale for £125 which should give us enough space to leave the kitchen stuff outside of the main tent, cook and sit under cover. Also should keep the door area dry cos out tent design is a bit annoying with no ‘rain safe’ entry way. Bought it a few months ago after we got back from a week in Wales where I spent several evenings sitting under the small tarp to cook in rain!

I you are a single adult or a couple, you could set yourself up as pet sitters on TrustedHouseSitters for a free holiday in return for pet sitting.

I’ve frequently got pet sitters off there. They feed my pet and send me photos and updates for free, and in return get free accommodation in a nice house. Win win. All they have to pay for is transport here, food and any activities they undertake whilst on holiday.

I would never offer the sit to a family with children though, although maybe pet homes-with-children would be more open to that.

You could also look into house swaps. Or hitting up friends or relatives that live in other parts of the country. A change is as good as a rest :-)

Camp sites are not looking cheap, when you can get a B&B for £60 a night

Some campsite are outrageously expensive for what you get, I agree. As we are a couple, per person sites tent to be better for us than per pitch sites. Families would find that the other direction. We never get electric, cool box + ice and gas stove is fine for us. But if I was with children for a week I would probably want electric to make the trip easier with keeping things cool and cooking and device charging. Although my parents used to take us camping in the s of France for 2 weeks with a single burner gas and a cool box which looking back seems quite impressive! Suspect we ate quite a lot of bread, ham and cheese :-)

We have done the cost comparison to B&Bs or premier inn etc before but even if there isn’t much in price, it is just SO much nicer (for us) to be outside in the tent with a fab view, lots of space and much cheaper to cook and eat at the tent. Also nicer to sit outside with a fire and chat than to sit in our hotel room on the beds or watch TV.

Obvs you have the set-up cost of camping equipment, but I reckon you could do a basic family tent set up for less than £500 and a really deluxe set up for les than £1,000.

Also, obviously, camping is generally a bit shit in the rain.

That said, I know plenty of people with kids who haven’t stopped having adventurous, fulfilling lives, going where they want and doing what they want. Being really rich seems to help.

And being a man rather than a women seems to really help too. I meet plenty of men-with-wife-and-children-at-home on bike, ski trips, climbing trips. Some child-free women. Hardily ever do I meet a woman who has left the hubby and kids at home to peruse a week’s activities for her self.

I was asked yesterday if I had any intention to “settle down” (i.e. have children) by a work colleague. I’ve been with my partner in a loving and monogamous relationship for 15 years. I’m not sure its possible to be more settled.