Anyone who ventures a different opinion will get shut down on here.

at least knows the rough whereabouts of reality

:D

Agreed. I’d never appreciated just how little this country has changed in terms of democracy over the last milenia. I used to think we were a relatively advanced, meritorious society run for the good of the majority.

TBH Raab and Patel were right in that book “Britannia Unchained” mentioned earlier, the British are lazy and entitled. However, the were right for the wrong reasons and the cure they proposed was simply cutting off the life support.

Yamaha AVRs are the best budget AVRs. Denon are best when you’re looking at 700-1000 quid.

Soundbars will disappoint you if you’re used to half decent bookshelves.

I’d love a proper system, but the lounge is fairly small, we are in a semi and the base just suits.

Get small, front ported bookshelves or KEF T301/T101’s – wall mount them and use the AVR to roll off any boosted bass from the boundry effect. Use small dipole speakers for rear surrounds to make their effects less direct and more nuanced.

Thegeneralist is a Daily Mash staff writer and I claim my two Brexit potatoes.

Don’t get me wrong, the Bedlingtons a great dog – he’s more interested in people as opposed to playing fetch/retrieve and seems to gravitate towards people who are down – who he will attach himself to – unlike the cockapoo he’ll put himself between my wife and whatever frightens her eg a stranger approaching her. His way of getting attention is through petty thievery of things that he thinks you value and will chase him for. He has a ridiculous sense of smell and has stopped us from moving further forward on hikes as he’s spotted/smelled a snake in the undergrowth way before we would have seen it (if we would Have at all).

He’s just not as driven as the cockapoo to work, doesn’t attempt to communicate in quite such complex ways for a dog nor is he as quick at problem solving.

What I’m trying to say is that cockapoos have their place, people who turn their noses up at them are twits.

we’ve got one – working cocker mum / miniature poodle dad and she’s a cracking dog, agree with all the stuff above apart from she’s ridiculously vocal, constantly chirping, grumbling, she’s got two growls – one is a low level grumble and means nothing and the other a proper one.

It’s the Bedlington that’s not very vocal – he just sleuths around the house with this vacant velociraptor look in his eyes – unless he wants to play fight. The cockapoo of ours chirps like yours – she’s learnt that yapping is bad so she’s developed a weird chirping language for different things. It’s a poodle thing that cockapoos seem to inherit. She picks up balls and will either throw them at you if she’s bored, throw them down the stairs so she can chase them herself or she’ll go out of her way to find the Bedlington and will deliberately throw the ball his way and then lie there waiting for him to try and get it, when he finally does try to get it after a two minute Mexican standoff (where the Bedlington is trying to compute what to do) she will then chase him away yapping her head off. This seems to be her sense of humour.

Of course you have. A cockapoo has been bred to be a docile as possible,

Not really mate, the good ones are working cocker – miniature poodle crosses. Both still good working dogs – people underestimate poodles. The cockerpoo would have made a better working gun dog than all but one of the Springers my family have had.

As I mentioned earlier, I have a proper working stock Bedlington that very much looks like the old type of Bedlington you see in photos from the 1930s. He’s calmer and has less prey drive than the cockerpoo.

I don’t see many Jack Russells about these days, they’re middle/skilled working class dogs. The chavs have Staffies, Boston’s and whatever staffie bastard mix they think they can get round the dangerous dogs act.

It isn’t middle class Cockapoo owners responsible for the majority of mistreatment of dogs in this country, Id be hard pressed to get a cockerpoo rescue – whenever I look into rescues I get bombarded to take on **** staffies.

I’d be surprised if there are a lot of cockerpoos being locked up in Richmond or Henley as you can’t move without almost stepping on one when out and about.

oakleymuppet, do you have a cockapoo

A Cockapoo and a Bedlington – all pre-COVID dogs. I only paid a few hundred quid for the Bedlington. Both ridiculous looking fluffy dogs, the Cockapoo was basically considered a pedigree dog in London whilst the Bedlington was confused with a poodle that had gone wrong and is somehow venerated as a well hard Northern dog, by construction workers who want a “proper” dog that is fluffy enough for their wife up here in Sheffield, where we are living now.

The Cockapoos the proper dog, the Bedlingtons a loveable air headed twit.

See now i am the reverse. I just see people with too much money buying the next throwaway item to fill their time. Once it has destroyed the wifes favourite chair or shit on the cream carpet, even at £2000, its disposable income to most.

I would much rather someone loved their mutt. Spent time with their mutt and taught it to be a loving pal for the rest of its life. A free mutt owned by a guy living on the street can be a happier dog than a £2000 trophy living in a posh house with poor owners…..

Of course they can be.

However, I’ve come across a lot more angry and mistreated dogs in or near council estates than I have cockapoos in Henley or Richmond.

Not sure about that…..

You can get shy and introverted dogs who just want to be with their owner all day but part of this is down to socialisation. Mine got passed around like parcels at pubs, social gatherings, parties etc etc when they were puppies.

My dogs love other people – the Bedlingtons idea of a roaring day is to throw himself at some random strangers or get dropped off at a friends.

It comes down to how your approach it, me and the wife treated it like having kids. We moved closer to family again once I stopped working a shift pattern and covid brought in flexible working for the wife, as she can just commute to London for two days a week and the dogs can see my family and their dogs. Which they love.

I’m also glad we had a dog before we had children as well, as I think it’s taught us some responsibility and brought lifestyle changes that would have shocked us if we had jumped straight in to having children.

I recall like most breeds they do have some issues that the breed is prone too, something to do with ears (probably from the cocker side) more importantly there is something I think called fip, which is an issue with hip or knee displacement. Some breeders test and have a certificate to show the parents don’t have it.

The one to see the tests for with cockapoos is Progressive Retinal Atrophy. This is a DNA test done on the parents.

I find it horrific that a relatively high level mammal like a dog was once so cheap that idiots could buy them on a whim just because they were a “mutt”.

I also find the fact that the Kennel Club and their pedigree system has bred a lot of “pedigree” dogs into genetic oblivion and destroyed working limes in the pursuit of ridiculous shows, horrific.

I don’t mind people who spend 2k on a cockapoo, hopefully it means they really thought about the decision and have enough money to look after them properly.

I’m not quite as pessimistic, it’s not just the workers in various industries who have bought dogs and expect a slightly different lifestyle now but also upper management. I don’t think anyone at my wifes company ever wants to do more than three days a week in the office, including the CEO. Most are talking about 2.5 days in the office. These are bankers etc who have lost the desire to be commuting 5 days a week into London and living the rat race, the motivation for it has just evaporated.

Doggy daycares will be a booming post-covid industry, there will be so many closed retail spaces that they’ll pop up everywhere where there are offices.

Good time to be setting up a business tbh

What’s your wife going to do when the dog wakes up mid zoom presentation, gets the zoomies and starts running arround with her favourite pair of slippers?

Mine sleep at my feet or my wifes feet all day – and like clockwork do zoomies at lunchtime and at 17:45.

Get two. This way they don’t get as lonely. Two dogs are easier than one except in terms of food and insurance costs. It’s been my experience that the only dogs that ever howl when their owners are away are those where there is only one dog in the house.

Dog walkers and doggy daycare work, but they will be happier going for longer periods if they have a companion. Also, as Drac said – dogs sleep loads, some breeds are lazier than others (eg whippets).

You say that like it wasn’t happening all over the country. No one has been golden during this pandemic.

Sure, but walking though Maida Vale I could have pretty much got tanked up and chatted to loads of people outside at every place I walked past.

The following video covers Wild Turkey 101 vs Woodford – the Rarebreed is like 101 but on steroids.

Next is a Rarebreed review

Do yourselves a favour, see if you can get Wild Turkey 101 or Rarebreed at a decent price. Do it, do it, do it. Or get both!

Going with a Bourbon as well – hopping on Jim Murrays “Bourbon is currently better than Scotch” bandwagon. My vote is on Wild Turkey Rarebreed – think it scored 96 points in one of Jims Whisky Bibles. Not only is it better than any bourbon I’ve had that cost a lot more, it’s better than any Scotch I’ve had as well.

I think it gets you 98-99 percent of the way to some of the crazy expensive Bourbons, that I’ve tried small taster bottles of, at a relatively sensible price.

58.6 ABV cask strength liquid crack, that doesn’t need ice or a dash of water to make it work or the sweetness to shine through.

The next thing you might try is manually adjusting the port-forwarding settings. Zoom uses specific ports and it’s possible that your router is blocking them. There are instructions on the zoom website as to which ports need forwardin

100 percent guarantee it will be this.

Used to happen a lot with online games until routers became a bit less dumb – early to mid 2000’s in my teens were spent constantly dealing with BSoDs and port issues.

Anecdote time: I live in Lewisham (SE London) and everyone I know myself included is staying put, not seeing their families or house mixing with friends over xmas. London is like everywhere else some wear masks some don’t. Despite what the DailyMail says most the time tubes, busses are empty and the majority of the city is working from home.

I found the most pubs flouting the lockdown rules in London back in June. It wasn’t hard at all to spot beer gardens in use before they were actually allowed to be used.

Well there’s a thing – London surge is mostly in Secondary schools, thats’ll be why we are seeing some of them are moving online next week albeit thats the schools choice, why doesn’t this chaotic government mandate it where possible as is happening in Wales?. Adult cases are flat so maybe that mitigates Tier 3 in London.

This was also the case for parts of the North wasn’t it?

Now, having lived in London and as someone who considers themselves a Londoner – **** London and **** the excuses – it should be in Tier 3.

I only get a kick if it has 800+ horsepower and flies.

But MTB gets way more fun once you’re comfortable and loose on bigger stuff. Personally, big stuff on the bike scares me less than the thought of getting pulled out to sea and my bloated corpse being fished out by the RNLI. People drown kayaking and surfing a lot more than people die from MTB.

Also anything over 250g isn’t worth buying right now due to the changes coming in Jan 2021, drones manufactured after this date will have a new CE mark that will make it a lot easier to fly certain weight classes near people.

Any drone over 250g without the new CE mark, will have fairly harsh flying restrictions imposed post 2022/23.

Why not?

Probably because…..Jews.

Poster will however probably buy petrol derived from Saudi oil fields and food grown with petrochemical fertilizers also derived from Saudi Oil, Chinese phones made with Uyghur slave labour and pay taxes to a country and establishment that bombed Iraq into a decade long civil war.

Uh? How is that the best case?

A friend of mine who is currently in a developing country was told – “good news….. you tested negative for Covid-19! Bad news…. you have Tuberculosis”.

I’ve told him to look on the bright side, at least it’s old school cool and he can be hipster/brag about it.

Anyone that says “My dog is yappy/hard work/aggressive because of their breed” hasn’t put the work in. Yes, certain breeds have tendencies towards behaviour – but it’s all controllable through training.

Disagree. Grew up with tonnes of dogs, including proper gun line experienced Springers. They all have their traits, none of which you can iron out completely – and you don’t want to because you end up with a meek unhappy animal. Different breeds, lines and individuals have their traits – you wouldn’t go and suggest that a Malinois from a police line is a good dog for a first time owner.

You work with their traits, you don’t stamp them out. This is why the police, army and guide dog trainers routinely fail dogs that don’t show the right character for their role. My Bedlington would make an absolutely shit retriever but really likes to hunt vermin, the cockerpoo would do alright as a working gun dog and finds that kind of work interesting.

You are always going to be fighting their instinctive traits? Got a coonhound? You’re going to be fighting it’s tendency to follow a trail and bay – they do this naturally from 11 weeks of age. Got a decent working collie? You’ll be fighting it’s instinct to herd. Anyone who tells me that they’ve completely removed their hounds instinct to follow a scent and bay is an outright liar.

It is so much harder training a dog past 18 months, with in-grained habitual behaviour and a far less plastic mind, than moulding and setting boundaries with a pup.

Depends on the dog, a lot of people who hunt with Bedlington’s don’t even bother training them intensely for that role until they are at least 18 months.

Yes but making F1 safer and keeping it F1 was relatively easy once you got your head around the engineering challenges.

I’m not sure how you can make rugby safer whilst keeping it rugby? Other than pissing in the wind in terms of return to play protocols I don’t see what you could do other than making all rugby “touch” rugby.

The trick is one hand prying open at the molars and one and prying open at the incisors.

You could of course have a ridiculously hench cockerpoo.

Bedlingtons come with their own set of weird traits, mine doesn’t like playing fetch at all and even though he is very very calm and is always happy to see other dogs, he loves to practice play fighting – to the point that walks are boring – he’d rather rough house with you. They are Jekyll and hide dogs, on one hand they are very headstrong and can be hard to train and on the other hand they are as clingy as a poodle. They’re very affectionate – mine adores and I mean really adores other people and dogs, again he’d rather go on a walk into the city to find people and dogs than play fetch in the park. However, they’re scrappy little dogs – eg the play fighting, the fact that hunt vermin and cats with a level of prejudice that I’ve not quite seen in a dog before and if they do get attacked by another dog they will damn near end them. My 10kg Bedlington was attacked by a 40kg Mastiff type thing, got him on his back and was close to killing it.

All breeds and individual dogs/lines have their upsides and downside:

My cockerpoo

+ Intelligent and easy to train
+ Bouncy and loves to play fetch
+ Very loving
+ Good watchdog
+

– Good watchdog (yaps a lot)
– High energy
– Yaps at other dogs that approach her

My Bedlington

+ Calm and Lazy
+ The almost whippet like speed is a site to behold
+ Loves to just chill with you
+ Doesn’t bark, loves everyone
+ Likes other peoples dogs

– Will welcome a hitman into your home with open arms
– Harder to train than the cockerpoo
– A bit stupid, takes a lot longer to learn commands than the cockerpoo
– Petty thief
– Discerning taste in terms of food, will be picky

Don’t forget as well that most pedigrees started off at some point as a crossbreed as people tried to produce dogs for (mainly) different working tasks.

See the Bedlington Terrier – a bastard mix of a whippet, otterhound and dandie dinmont terrier.

Some people have argued, with a good degree of insight, that the kennel club and the whole pedigree concept wrecked working dogs or a lot of the working lines in breeds like the Bedlington.

Breed for health and ability in the field and you get a good dog, breed for KC requirements and you end up with god awful insults to nature.

Things to bear in mind about cockerpoos; they are strong willed, very intelligent, high energy for (never mind for their size) and as puppies they chew anything (most seem to particularly like underwear), have an incredibly strong bite and will not let go if they don’t want and it’s almost impossible to prize their mouth open, are prone to barking at anything and like the sound of their own voice so all these traits need to be trained out early.

Grew up with/owned Springer Spaniels, Bedlington Terriers and cockerpoos – I agree with the intelligent part but the cockerpoo is by far the most trainable. You don’t know strong willed till you’ve dealt with a nose dominant working Springer. They do bark a fair bit – but the jaw strength thing seems wrong – our cockerpoo is a strong buggger but it’s easy enough to prize her mouth open, as is my working Bedlington’s mouth. The only dog where you’re going to have a problem opening it’s mouth is a full on land shark like a Belgian Malinois. I remember as a kid being able to open up the mouths of some fairly big working springers to be able to get stuff out their mouths that wouldn’t have been good for them.

If you want a calm, quiet, fluffy, hypoallergenic dog that runs at 30+ mph and murders rats for fun get a Bedlington. If you want a bouncy, intelligent and easy to train dog get the cockerpoo.

The most important thing you can do is meet both parents, 9/10 they end up exactly like one of the parents in terms of character. My Bedlington is exactly like his dad to the point of almost being a clone of his demeanour and character. He is calm, and loving/confident people. The cockerpoo is exactly like her working cocker mum in terms of temperament – bouncy with a high drive to please in terms of working/obeying commands.

This is the way.

You win the internet for today.

I too am nourished by brexiteer tears. The more shit that happens like this the better – the British need educating.

Go in in a positive pressure suit for the lolz.

+1 zilog

I think the one to look out for will be Starfield by Bethesda.

Reviews are mixed

9/10 ign

4/5 independent

pc gamer 78% – play in two months when bugs are ironed out

polygon – it’s transphobic junk made by backward euros

I’m mildly looking forward to the Guardians review….

Please have an FSD, please have an FSD, please have an FSD…

David, most actual full blown sociopaths don’t want to know or actively avoid understanding themselves. So on the asshole to sociopath scale, try and take comfort in the fact that you’re probably just on the bit of a dick end of the scale.

As long as learning to be a better person isn’t actually a way of learning to manipulate people further then you’re all good!

At least you’re not this guy….

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-neuroscientist-who-discovered-he-was-a-psychopath-180947814/

although he seems to have taken it on the chin quite well.

Sounds like a good outlook, but as Cougar pointed out – you also have to work on this so you are happy with you as well.

Just don’t let whatever you do, blow this up into a spell of depression. A good friend of mine is a headshrinker, there are apparently times in your life when it’s appropriate to have a period of introspection and times when it isn’t appropriate where it can worsen someone’s mental health. You sound like you are a bit depressed to me as the language you are using is fairly emotive and if that is the case, you should try working on that first – you need to feel more relaxed before taking a look at yourself in a deeper way first. Of course, do this whilst tying to be a better person.

How will you feel if you find out you’re actually a sociopath, are you prepared for that?

“you must be autistic, why do you understand me, I can’t understand you, why don’t you see these things which need doing”

I take it she means house chores, I thought that’s why I might be bad at them – turns out I’m just a dick.

I do the chores now.

I’ve done a load of psychometric tests through work; Myers Briggs, red/yellow/green/blue, strength finder etc.

Careful about going down this route, if you’re an extrovert you could just be a good old fashioned sociopath. As Nietzsche said “If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you” – don’t do it dude you might wake up and realise the rhythm of your soul is the drum beat to Sympathy for the Devil. Just be content thinking of yourself as a run of the mill bellend and try to improve that.

That means a diagnosis is helpful – it would tell me to stop beating myself up for being an asshole because it’s not my fault and it’s a neurological issue. It’s still an issue, don’t get me wrong but it makes it ok to find another way to solve it. If I’m not ASC then I am an asshole and need to work on more traditional things to stop being an asshole. Like listen to people more, think about myself less etc. If I am ASC then listening isn’t going to fix it, so looking for patterns in social cues or doing more research into the subject will help.

The first step in overcoming being an asshole is accepting yourself as being an asshole – no need to beat yourself up about it. Awareness is the first step.

Luckily my missus likes assholes anyway.