My 2p and with the Cavet that my Wife is an NHS Nurse.

It’s not Hyperbole, the Tories are killing the NHS, and it started long before Covid. The scale of long-term sick for mental health reasons amongst medics is grossly unreported, as it the number leaving to do something, anything else. A pay rise might help in the short-term, but it won’t in the long-term. In fact, if the current plan the Tories have comes to pass – a 4.5% increase, but coming out of existing budgets, will only make things worse, because they’re not giving them the money from public funds, they’re making trusts pay them from the money they must provide services, which means fewer staff, longer waiting lists and more stress.

Nothing is perfect, certainly not the NHS, or the Labour Party, but the quickest and easiest way to save the NHS is to boot the self-serving greedy Tory **** out of Government as quickly as possible. Whether you believe in tactical voting or not, whether you are a Socialist, a Centrist or you care about the Environment or Scottish / Welsh independence more than any other political issues, if you want the NHS to exist as anything but the safety net for the very poor (if at all) then next time there’s an election, do what you can to get rid of them. We can, and do argue about Politics, and lord knows Labour voters can’t even agree, certainly not on Planet STW, but we have to take off the blinkers and see the real problem.

I believe the UK is staring into the abyss. Too big, too stubborn, and too proud to admit it. Our healthcare system is a ‘bad winter’ away from collapse. Our Legal system doesn’t work, from the Police to the courts, to the prisons. Our economy is on the thinnest of ice, we’re not food or energy secure and we’re in a de facto war with Russia and a Political one with the EU. Every day in Westminster should be a crisis meeting, but instead we’ve got this grotesque pantomime, our Government is currently on Holiday and all our ‘in all but name’ head of state is about to be decided by 200k Swivel eyed loons who’s only similarity to the average British person is they’re human, mostly.

We were struggling, my Wife is a Nurse and was geting pay rises and bonuses etc, but it wasn’t keeping up with inflation. My Pay hadn’t changed since 2017 or so.

Shit started to get very serious towards the end of last year, weekly food shopping on the credit card and current account empty by mid-month type bad. We’re a 4 person family with 2 incomes above the mean average full time UK salary.

I was able to remortage at the end of the year when I deal ended and we were very lucky to hit the sweet spot of increaded value and low rates, I also shifted all our other unsecured debt onto the mortgage to reduce our outgoings and managed to secure a 4% raise with a new commission structure that’s worth 6% – despite all this, we’re still only treading water, petrol costs hurt us. We both have to drive for work and fuel allowances haven’t moved.

During my last, and quite serious work review I negotiated a payrise equal to RPI index every April. The boss added the caviat that it hasn’t to be affordable by the business, neither of us were expecting that to be 11%.

I was also very lucky to jump on the fixes the G&E people were offering a few weeks ago when it looked like wholesale prices were falling, 24% over cap for 2 years, it was a dubious offer then, it looks fantastic now, between that and the £400 grant, my bills won’t go up in Oct.

The chassis are cheap, so they flex and solder points fail,

I never thought about this at all. Good one. I assumed metal body was for w*nk factor only.

There is that too… most of our high end laptops go to ‘bosses’ who want something flash.

There’s a sweet spot with laptops. Dell Vostro 3000 series is pretty much entry level, but they’re pretty robust, we see 4-5 years out of them. Asus make complete and utter crap at the bottom level, but I chose one for my ‘out of office’ device because I could get a high end ASUS for the same sort of money as mid-range Dell. I also went for an i3 rather than 5/7 because everyone I do on it is cloud based or at worse Office Apps, and they draw less power then the bigger CPUs so longer battery life. HP stuff is dodgy, they make so many models for retailers that are utter dross, but their core products are good.

That’s the other consideration, a lot of the stuff you seen in Currys or discount online sellers is like outlet quality clothes, they look okay and have the badge, but they’re not the same. We had a client who against advice bought a few dozen HP laptops from Currys, i5/8GB/256SSD standard issue stuff, they were falling apart within a year.

There was a buy on HotUKDeals. Sub £400, gen 12 Intel i5, 521gb ssd blah… But 8gb soldered ram. Grr…

You get what you pay for, laptops are still in high demand for home working.

TBH, it’s a minefield and a lot of stuff is way overpriced, but you do sometimes get what you pay for. Cheap hardware, even from well-known brands can be a false economy. Currys, eBuyer, Hotdeals etc, they sell as lot of what we’d call occasional laptops. They’re fine for a couple an hour a day of homework, paperwork, shopping etc, but if you use them 8 hours a day, travel a lot with them, they wear out. The chassis are cheap, so they flex and solder points fail, the screens are made of cheese etc etc etc. The drives fail, the PSU fails etc.

I deal with a lot of hardware in work. We also loath soldered in, single slot RAM. especially as it’s not always easy to know it’s so, until you open the thing up.

It tends to be a featre at the oppsite ends of the cost spectrum, cheap (and pretty nasty) laptops built as cheaply a possible to sell on eBuyer etc when every penny counts. Some of the crap we bought during the first lockdown would make you laugh if you didn’t cry. I had a batch of nasty ASUS laptops which were largely empty chassis with a tiny, completely unserviable MOBO.

The other end is the ‘must be smaller than the rest’ market, the Dell XPS models that are sold as the smallest, lightest devices on the market are effectively sealed units (they don’t even come with USB-A ports) same goes for most the the Microsoft Surface devices and I think some of the high end HP stuff.

I see a lot of STWers saying “oh I live in X city, it’s fine” please bear in mind, we’re not talking about a busy city or town centre, we’re talking about a whole Country (I’m not here to debate Wales is or isn’t a Country).

When the plan was first announced, I think most people heard “Residential Streets” and thought, yes of course, asking drivers to stick to 20 past homes, schools and shops is perfectly reasonably, and frankly most of the time, certainly where I live in Cardiff, you’ll be lucky to travel at half that.

The issues I have with it:

It’s completely arbitray, it applies to every 30 mph road, and in the last 3-5 years there’s been a huge push from Welsh Gov and Local Councils to reduce previously 40 and 50 mph roads to 30 without justification, no accidents, no new houses etc, just a lot of road paint and signage.

They won’t justify it, there have been trials running for years, not only about 20mph roads, but making a lot of dual carriageways and motorways 50. Reports have been promised, and delayed, and delayed and delayed. They introduced a 50mph limited on the M4 at Port Talbot around 2016 promising it would reduce Air Pollution which was high there. I’d doubt you’d need to be a genius to look at the huge heavy industrial complex with its huge chimneys just to the south to work out why, but despite promises, they’ve never published the report on its effectiveness.

The motivation seems political more than practical, “yay, we beat Scotland”.

As you’ve said, they’re for the largely ignored 2x set-up that Shimano seem determined to keep alive. I guess it was probally a bit cheaper than average.

I’d guess the cage is too short (or long?) for a 51t cassette, you could try it, but if you do and it breaks, you can hardly send it back then.

They seem to have settled and perhaps softened a bit near me. Branded Garages are still showing diesel at 199.9, they seem to be reluctant to break the £2 barrier. E10 is back to £1.85ish in ASDA.

I’m looking forward to the School Summer Hols starting soon, I’m going to try to mothball my Car 6 days a week.

What the good lord giveth etc.

This is the one that’s going to **** people over, 55% increase on the already high fuel cap is going to be crushing. I feel very, very lucky to have fixed at 22% over the current cap when they were a glimmer of hope a few weeks back.

On all these threads there are posts where people can’t use public transport because they have a 50 mile each way commute from a small village to an out of town office. Or kids in 3 different schools in two towns. Etc

2 points –

1 – there will always be people for whom public transport doesn’t work – that is not a reason not to improve it for everyone else

2 – we have built a society around car as primary form of transport. People have long car commutes because housing is built on suburban fringes/semi rural locations and work places decentralised. Shopping is out of town. Kids commute to schools miles away etc.

This change happened over decades and may be hard to reverse but to do do will take years and much infrastructure investment. But one thing that has become clear from areas where public transport has been invested in is that build it/provide it and it will be used.
The provide it point is important too, eg increasing frequency of buses on existing routes really increases use as it makes it more convenient and less impact of the odd bus failing to show

Finally to achieve any change it has to be publicly owned and run primarily as a service

Can’t argue with any of that, but going back to the start – even if PT was capped at £9 a month, or even free using the money saved from Javid’s ficational political pleadge it’s not going to suddenly mean a huge update in PT because for many, it doesn’t work and for those who it does, it’s probally already close to capacity.

My idea of transport Nirvana is Prague’s excellent Tram network, or Sydney’s excellent unified system, even London is usable for most. I’d give up my Car (which I love) without a moments pause of hesitation, but I can’t. The best I can do is cycle or use PT when I can and this isn’t ‘all about me’ I represent the majority of those bored idiots you see in traffic every morning, because we’re not all driving half a mile because we’re lazy or stupid.

The longer term plan includes things that you talk about – cross-city routes.

Point is, money and effort are being spent on making PT better and more integrated. Competence in delivery is of course needed as well, but at least there’s political will which is a crucial first step. Don’t let whingeing kill the whole concept.

I doubt my opinion will have a negative impact, I’m “whingeing” that the current system is overcrowned and not fit for purpose. Complaining could effect change, if I try to pretend the opposite and ‘admit’ I’m just too stupid or lazy to use it, because of some vague plans to change at some indetermined point in the future, you could accept our Gov saying “well, it’s great, they’re just lazy, let’s beat them with a stick until they do the right thing”.

Yes, and motorists get a disproportionate amount of those taxes spent on them.

Have you got any data to back that claim up?

As far as I can tell, direct motoring taxes like VED, Fuel Duty and VAT etc greatly exceeds the cost of maintaining our road network.

The ideal for me would be a network of Trams, we had them in the past in Cardiff, that allow you simple access to every part of the city

Have you seen the South Wales Metro plans?

Yeah, more of the same, more faster trains from the Valley’s into Cardiff and vague promises about more buses.

TBH one of the guys in my office is the son of the head of TFW. Lets just say, there’s not much faith they’ll be able to deliver even their modest goals in any sort of useful timeframe.

These are the weekday goals from this £800m+ project

“four services per hour between Cardiff and the Heads of each Valley
two of the four services from Treherbert, Aberdare and Merthyr Tydfil will go on from Cardiff to Cardiff Bay
an extra service-per-hour between Cardiff and Bridgend via the Vale of Glamorgan Line from December 2023
two services per hour between Cardiff and Shrewsbury via Abergavenny from December 2022
an hourly service between Cardiff and Cheltenham via Chepstow from December 2022”

It’s all about getting more people into the city centre everyday, it will still take an hour and a change to get from Llandaff to Taffs Well etc, or Llanishen to Danescourt etc.

I’d love to, I like driving, but I **** hate driving to work, it’s wasteful, expensive and annoying.

Public Transport just isn’t practical for me because of the school run. It’s 90 mins on the Bus, or 48 mins on the train, but involves a 3 mile walk each way. It’s only a 45 cycle, but the walk / cycle is too much for my 8 year old to do every day.

The problem for us is that public transport in Cardiff is like the spokes on a wheel, if you want to get from any of the suburbs or other towns/cities into the centre, there are options, but if you want to get from Suburb to Suburb, there aren’t.

As for increasing Public Transport use in general, it’s already at capacity. The commuter trains and buses are packed, it’s unplesant at best when it’s warm but pretty danagerous during a pandemic or with small kids.

With the Summer Hols starting at the end of next week, I’ve going to try to cycle as much as possible. I’ve agreed with Work that I can take physical meetings / site visits on a ‘next day’ basis so I can bring my car only when I need to, but come September, I’ll be commuting 9 miles a day at a cost of £3 or whatever it costs, until they either improve the system, or she starts High School in Sept 2025.

The ideal for me would be a network of Trams, we had them in the past in Cardiff, that allow you simple access to every part of the city, I don’t mind if I have to change or it takes longer, or even if it costs more then petrol. I’d gleefully give up my car, and perhaps keep a small, cheap van for bike duties at the weekend. I might do that in 2025 anyway.

I remember reading it at the time it came out and being genuinely confused about all the ****-ups. They were supposed to be this elite highly trained group of soldiers and literally everything they did either fell to bits in front of their eyes, or failed because they weren’t prepared well enough, or some other cock up (including, but not limited to, bickering with each other like a bunch of fisher-wives). Even basic stuff like “What frequencies shall we use to communicate?” was wrong. They were discovered by a boy herding goats etc etc.

Total farce from start to finish.

But then that’s largely what our armed forces seem to specialise in, finding themselves up to their necks in cock-ups entirely their own making and somehow painting it as both simultaneously the thing they planned all along, and incredible story of bravely to overcome it and get away.

The worst part is that, all the cock ups were true, as was the conditions they faced in captivity, unfortunately all the heroic fighting stuff was made up. Even in that famous and heroic mission, they likely killed at least 1 unarmed civilian (claiming he was a uninformed solder) considered killing a shepard who ultimely tried to help them and stole a civilian taxi at gunpoint.

I’ve read a bit about this sort of thing, there’s a not very pleasant video of Australian SF solders shooting unarmed Afghans on YT.

I’m not surprised really, but I question the morality of it all. Like so many others I read all that Bravo Two Zero type stuff years ago and it’s all very exciting and that, mix that in with a bit of Hollywood and all the pro-military propaganda we’ve enjoyed since 9/11 and we reached the point where Forces Personnel, and Special Forces types are held on quite a pedestal, but the SF ones are stone cold killers, psychopaths with a purpose. They will kill Men, Women, Children, Cats and Dogs without pause if they can/need to. They were ordered to ‘kill or capture’ people based on very flimsy intelligence and it seems it’s possible a few of them decided to just kill anyone who was in the house they were sent to.

Got back on Thursday, Hell of a trip, including SleazyJet cancelling our flight 12 hours before departure and driving down (€2 really hurts over 1600 miles).

Arrvied to near perfect trail conditions, a storm was forecast the whole time we were there, but never arrived. les Gets mainline a continious line of painful braking bumps as per normal. Les Gets 2 side was reduced to a tough Black trail and an unmarked, off-piste line that looks like it might be easier, and really wasn’t. The Bike Parks were in great condition, it seems they actually maintain the XC route to Chatel because it was lovely. The Retort DH from Les Gets back to Morzine was actually dry!

Thanks to some great company, I think it’s the best trip there I’ve ever had, and I’ve been going since 2007.

Sunak is likely to be the clear favourite amongst Tory MPs and the Public, but if he ends up in the final 2 with Mordaunt I reckon She’ll just have to align herself with the ghost of Maggie (who for her very many faults would never have done the sort of shit they’re doing now) and she’ll get it.

Frankly, it doesn’t matter, the die is cast, and they’re stuck in a corner, they simply cannot do what needs to be done to fix the cost-of-living crisis, it’s so alien to Tory dogma to see it as a corporate greed crisis.

If Labour can’t win the next election, we don’t deserve to survive as a developed Country.

Good.

Honestly I was expecting one of those mad US sentances like ’15 life sentences plus 400 years’ or whatever.

He’s 55 now and it’s 30 years withour parole, so he’ll very likely die in prison. He’ll have appeals of course.

My 2p on this might be a bit more stoic I suppose.

In the OPs circumstances, I’d know instinctively based on my Mate’s personalities how it would go.
I have friends who’d work out their share to the penny, and if they had a voucher it would come off the cost of what they had and that would be it.
I’ve got other friends who’d take it off the top, because after all it was them who suggested the change of venue but would probably be as generous when it came to ordering and spend a bit more than everyone else and expect the bill shared.
I don’t have the kind of friend who would do the double! Order more, expect an equal share of the bill AND present their voucher as sole payment, I think it would irritate me, but not enough to worry about it.

Ultimately though, a meal with friends is a great thing, and whatever happened when the bill came. I would try my best not to not let an irritation spoil it for me. After all, your Mate with the voucher might be a bit short at the moment, it might have been that or not going out at all.

The worst are the “walked to get bread from corner shop”, wattbike rides, zwift rides and the same 3 mile commute crowd. I have removed a few who don’t ride outside as their stuff just clutters up my feed and I have no interest in it.

Do you follow me? I’m terrible at that, what makes it worse it the way my Apple Watch is set-up, it doesn’t upload to Strava straight away, it waits until I’ve finished a ride recorded with Strava and they dumps whatever ‘walks to the shop’ ‘gym workouts’ and ‘Commutes’ I’ve had in the last week or so. All at once.

I don’t really have a ‘best’ and certainly not a worse. I like different people for different reasons.

Paul Aston was our Guide in Whistler about 10 years ago, he was(or is?) Pinkbike Tech Editor and lives in Italy now. Seems to spend most of his days riding near somewhere called “NATO Base”.

There’s a Dude called Gary, I don’t know him but a Mate and I were pissing about and racing each other down the last bits of Cafal. We know the trail really well and we caught up with Gary who didn’t. I felt I’d harassed him, I didn’t mean to, we were just a bit boisturous and caught him at speed. He came up on Flybys and he’s from Winsley so came a decent way for a ride, so I give him Kudos whenever I spot he’s been riding as a sort of ‘sorry mate’. It’s been 5 years.

My Mate who moved to Norway last year, he does a lot of riding and running out there. I miss his cheeky little face.

Timmy Mallet of course.

That blows my mind, as much as some of these time since comparisons.

Not talking about musical merit in comparison to the Beatles and what people think of them, but picking undeniably important or influential bands (also ignoring many are in gestation for years before they become ‘a thing’, and others then reincarnate – so ignoring eg: New Order, and just counting from breakthrough to demise)

The Doors – 5 years

Joy Division – <2 years from TV debut to Curtis suicide, < 1 year from debut album. ONE YEAR!

Smiths – just over 4 years from Hand in Glove single on Rough Trade to Strangeways and break up

Nirvana – 5 years from Bleach to Cobain’s suicide

Even the Spice Girls were done and dusted in 6!!

Meanwhile Coldplay, – 22 years and counting 😉

I don’t want to drag this thread down too much of a path, but there’s loads of other Cultural Icons who has short runs.

James Dean. His big break was ‘East of Eden’ released in April 1955, he died in Sept 1955 and Rebal without a Cause released in Oct 1955. 7 months from being a small time supporting actor on TV and Theater to his death, becoming a huge icon in the meantime.

Jimi Hendrix, first big hit in 1967, dead in 1970.

The Sex Pistols, 1 single, 1 album and you might argue lasted about a year.

Definitely Maybe is as old today as Sgt Pepper was when we were all getting excited about Brit pop in the 90’s

Music is one of those things that constantly suprise me when it comes to time.

Katy Perry has been a mainstream pop star for a quater of a century now. Her breakout single is older than Kylie’s Spinning Around, both of which came out pre-Millenium.

RHCP 2nd greatest hits album will be 20 years old next year.

Speaking of Oasis and The Beatles. Oasis lasted 18 years, and you could argue aside from the in-fighting and lineup changes ended being the same band they started. The Beatles last only 7 years and changed as much as they changed the musical world.

That’s

to

In the same amount of time from when Mark Ronson released Uptown Funk and now.

Eve

Gwen Stefani

Also, Gwen Stefani is 52 and a mother of 3, yet somehow still looks about 28. Kate Beckinsale who is 4 years her junior looks about 24.

I can only assume they no longer own their souls?

No STW thread gets to the 3rd page without turning into a binary, attack and counter attack argument, even ones when STW seems to have a collective agreed stance.

If you spend your life thinking you’ll be happy once you get the next ‘thing’ on your list, you’ll never be happy.

Every Married Man has at one time or other, but usually multiple times – blamed their Wife for not being ‘allowed’ to do something they don’t want to do.

No one likes the taste of Coffee, in the same way no one likes smoking tobacco. You’ve grown to enjoy the feeling of easing your cravings.

Alcohol Free Beer only exists so brewers can circumvent advertising restrictions.

When you get old, your kids will spend as much time thinking about the value of your possessions as much they do your health and wellbeing.

Apparently £900/hr just isnt enough to live on.

Those days are over. My Wife’s Uncle was QC before he retired, he specialised in ‘Heavy Crime’ and Serious Fraud. The Daily Mail went after him and a few of his peers a few years ago for claiming over £1m a year in Legal Aid cases (the cases he worked on lasted months). He also had some wealthy clients. He’s very wealthy.

My Next Door Neighbour is also a retired Barrister, he lives with his Sister in a house they inherited. He drives a 20 year old Astra, he could be a miser, but I’ve never got the impression he’s caked.

Anyway, my point is, there’s a tiny % who make a lot of money, especially back when we actually funded criminal law, but these days there’s almost no money in criminal law. We’re being pushed toward a US system in which defendants are incentivised to plead guilty to avoid a trial (and 2 years on remand waiting for a date).

I’d go pebbledash, I don’t really like it either (and living Cardiff know there’s a lot around!) but personally I’d be happier with a uniform finish.

What, is Starbucks not open this morning?

You know a recession is coming when they start making unnecessary shit out of Gold.

I don’t think so. VOC gave him a 12 month buffer to do whatever he wants.

I hope he stays exactly where he is, the goal (for me at least) it to get rid of them. Johnson is polling station poison now, his key players are looking more and more ridiculous by the minute trying to defend him. The last thing I want to see now, less then 2 years before a GE is Bozo, Dull Rabb, Mad Nad and Gov the Pob being replaced by a new crowd who might not be so utterly and obviously useless. No, far better this right wing, small minded, populist style of Tory is so utterly destroyed that no one would try it again for at least a generation.

You just love to see it don’t you?

The Tories are done, it’s over. Ending the same way all Tory governments end, with in-fighting and back-stabbing. It’ll be like the fall of Saigon now, they’ll be scratching each other eyes out, some trying to get on the last Helicopter and onto public sector board seats, the others fighting to lead them into opposition.

Things might actually get better for us now too, once the Tories remember they need to keep voters happy and not just their rich backers. There’s talk they might bring in the 19% income tax rate now, rather than in April, they might even make it 18%. Sure it won’t help the Poor and it’ll mean they can’t offer public sector workers inflationary rises, but neither of those groups vote Tory anyway and, if I’m honest and as someone who has public sector pay as part of their household income, a tax cut for the majority is fairer than a salary bump for the minority.

Ah, I realise now, it’s a bragging thread! Possibly insensitive in these times where some forum members will not be able to afford to go anywhere apart from Ourgate!

Sorry missed the usual STW thread tilt before I posted.

If it makes you feel any better, my Trip to Morzine is using a flight I first booked in 2019 and our digs will be less than £200 each.

Croatia is Easyjet and AirBnB, it’s expensive, but not compared to normal package holidays, we’ve been saving / paying for it for the last 7 months.

Off to Morzine next weekend for 5 days with ‘the boys’ (the boys being in their 40s and 50s). It’s starting to feel like a second home now.

Pula in Croatia in August with my Wife and Children, we’ve never been before, really looking forward to it.

I’m not whining. But other festivals don’t get it and Glastonbury is a commercial venture.

It’s more of a social enterprise. The organisers take a salary, I think Michael and Emily earn £60k a year from it. A lot more than most, but a lot less almost anyone else who owns such a valuable business. They aim to make a profit of around £2m per year, which gets donated to charity. In fact in some years they donate more than they make, they run about a £10m cash reserve which allows them to do things like survive Covid, have rest years and keep a full time staff of around 50.

Personally I went to Glastonbury a few times over the years when I was younger, the TV show really doesn’t tell the story of what it’s like away from the stages. It’s far from mainstream and dull, whoever said that has obviously never been.

I enjoy watching some of it on the TV every year, from the comfort of my Sofa with a beer and reminiscing about when I was young and spent the whole weekend in one long party.

I’m sure there are loads of smaller, more niche festivals to appeal to the Hipster crowd, and I#ve enjoyed them too, but Glastonbury is really very special.

Sorry the OP doesn’t like, it but I find it hard understand why they’d be so upset about it – most of it’s tucked away on the Red Button so it doesn’t get in the way of The Wall or whatever the BBC usually puts out at the weekend. I just don’t get the hatred.

I’ll likely take a bit of a hit on the monthly, but not much. It’s about finding a happier place to live. But lets see, it will likely be a long and stressful process. I’m not really bothered about market crashes and all that, I want my next house to be the one I live in for the next 20 years or more.

It all depends, the lettings market is a bitch as well, I got told we have to move twice in a few yearsa because the LL wanted to get more for it. I hated that feeling of powerlessness.

At least with a mortgage, even with a so-so first time buyer rate, at least you get to ‘keep’ half the payments. Okay, you don’t exactly, but even if the market stays flat (which in reality is worst case over even a 2 year period) you’ve paid off a lot of money that would otherwise belong to a LL, and you’re largely fixing your housing expenses now. Rental inflation runs at 2% pretty consistently, except when it’s 10%! Yeah rates will rise, but it won’t outpace the value or rental costs.

And owning your own place, even if in reality the bank owns most of it when you start is a nice feeling. Some people love to work on their homes, some people don’t. Personally I like the feeling of security. No one can tell me I have to leave in 2 months, and as the years pass I have a real wealth that, even tied up in your home offers you a lot of financial security.

And add into this, thinking about moving. Never had a mortgage before….

Do this, despite all that I said about trying to live in the moment and all that, get a mortgage. The best time to get a mortgage is when you’re 21, the 2nd best time is right now.

The UK housing market is a complete swindle, but nothing will ever change that. Start looking into it today, make a plan, and do it.

It will make a huge difference to your income over the next few decades and a MASSIVE one to your retirement.

I could have written that.

Yeah me too, worse still, whilst I’m still getting over the fact I’m now 40, I actually turned 45 last week.

I think the most important lessons I’ve learned from becoming middle-aged are:

You don’t suddenly go from being 39 and 364 days and brilliant to 40 and suddenly a fat, grey misery.

As much as you might enjoy MTBing or everything else, you are NOT a professional athlete who can no longer train hard enough to maintain perfect fitness, there’s still lots and lots of gains you can make, for us normal people the tail off when you have to accept you’re just going to get slower is into our 60s.

“Life begins at 40” no, it doesn’t as others said, for our parents and grandparents who got married and started a family in their early 20s it did, they’d done their shift and finally had the time and money for some ‘lifestyle’, that said the lifestyles we enjoy now, even with kids and jobs is probably better. It’s not automatic, if you think you’ll suddenly find peace with yourself and the world because of what the calendar says, you won’t.

At some point, if you haven’t already, you must accept you’re mortal this isn’t because you’re now 40, but the feelings you’re having are about becoming ‘middle aged’.
This was the biggest shift for me, and it might just be me. Time is finite and there won’t always been a tomorrow. You can cry about it or accept it and start living it. Time, unless you’re Brian Cox is fixed, seconds, hours, days, weeks, years – they all pass at the same pace, BUT our perception of time is far from fixed.
40-50 years of ‘good times’ is a lot, lot longer than 40-50 years of waiting for something in the future. I had to stop wasting my life waiting for that next ‘thing’ the new car, the new house, the new holiday. They’re all great, but if you limit yourself to only being happy in those extraordinary, special times you’re be miserable the rest of the time, especially when they pass.
Try to fill your life with simple joy now. Get off your arse and do stuff, it doesn’t have to be some mega expensive super thing, that’s just marketing departments **** with you. Walk through the woods. Go, and see a friend, nurse a pint and enjoy the view. Break the routine of Work, Tele, Bed that so many of us fall into.

Factor in the cost to replace the Clutch pack on any VAG auto. Especially since you can’t test drive it. It will most likely have worn/faulty clutches on the but not yet throwing a fault code. So the seller could say “no known flaults” but you have a bill for a few thousand to fix it.

Superbs come with either the 6 or 7 speed wet clutch DSG gearboxes, they rarely have clutch issues much before 150k miles.

DSG boxes have been around for 20 years and are well refined by now. I certainly wouldn’t assume it’s going to fail.

I bought my current car remotely via a small indie dealer. Went well. They’re a nice outfit and because we dealt via e-mail it gave me the breathing space to get a deal I was happy with. I sourced my own finance, far cheaper than dealer finance and I was very honest about the condition of my car (a Superb 4×4 ironically). I picked it up in person, they walked around my car for 5 mins and thanked me for my honesty and I did the same for my new car. I expected something to do wrong, but it never did.

As for the Superb, they really do live up to their name. I loved my 1904×4, it was huge inside and out (doesn’t fit nicely in some NCPs) seats were great, music system great and it was great on juice. 50mpg on a run was pretty easy if you didn’t drive like a prat didn’t put a step wrong in 3 years and 50k miles.

Downsides… the ride on 19″ wheels is crap on crap roads and terrible on speed bumps, a car with such a long wheelbase shouldn’t be so bad, my shorter, firmer and lower Golf R has a way better ride, the glove box lids warp and rattle and you have to accept that in addtion to normal servicing the gearbox needs it own service every 40k miles (£250) and the rear diff needs a another one again which is £160.

As for the 280 drivetrain, AFAIK it’s near identical to that of my Golf R, a little less power, but a little more weight. I averaged 40mpg in my Superb Diesel ‘just driving’ I drive super carefully in my R to get 30mpg, the driving I’m doing at the moment isn’t great for economy, but I’d guess yours will be about the same, also, they like Super Unleaded to get the best economy, it’s not economically worth running them on E10, so today you’ll be looking at £130 to fill it up and you’ll go about 400 miles.

Great isn’t it? :(

‘They’ keep saying it’ll be over by Spring 2023, which, considering a lot of it has been caused by a war that could last years is odd.

I get the impression that we’re collectively somewhere near the bargaining stage of grief for our former lifestyles. The RMT are striking over pay and conditions, but they won’t be the only ones, perhaps more worryingly, I read the other day that 50% of households in the UK, 50%! are borrowing money every month to make ends meet. I sure for some, that’s borrowing to eat, but for those in the middle who are going to be a large part of that, it’s borrowing to maintain their normal lifestyle they can no longer afford and this will have to end and it’s when the middle cut back, we get recessions.

I think the depression will hit in Autumn, when everyone’s summer tan starts to fade and days get shorter and home energy prices jump another 50%.

We’ll all have to accept that things have changed and it’s permanent. Things will always change, but for now, this is the ‘new normal’ there’s no going back to normal next week, or the week after. Perhaps it’ll be the end of the “two new German cars on every drive” PCP boom, or the “£5 a cup coffee shop on every corner” boom, I certainly think it will be the end of the weird Covid fuelled housing boom. I re-mortgaged 4 months ago at 1.3%, my Mate with a similar LTV got offered 3.4% last week. I wish I’d fixed for longer!

The Good news, well if you’re not a Tory voter is that no government survives a recession, and certainly not this government.