If you prioritise something that works, will continue to work for a long time and cost as little as possible then a Toyota Avensis.

Bit late to add now but Toyota will reinstate and extend a manufacturer’s warranty if you do the annual service with them. It doesn’t need to have been in warranty before and you don’t need to have it from new. Service prices are very reasonable, and if you do the last service at 9 years and 11 months, you can stretch the warranty up to 10 years and 11 months from new.

AI responses to these questions are even worse than those from forum users: it’s just a hodgepodge of inane, generic-enough-to-sound-plausible toss.

 I had to start taking it because of a dog.

Don’t a lot of people start taking it because of a (black) dog?

not really considered a film may not be able to be shown because music licenses have expired.

For a long time, Wayne’s World had to replace the few seconds when Wayne plays Stairway to Heaven in the guitar shop with another song, which of course ruins the joke. It’s only just been fixed.

Another reason why obscure films got yanked from streaming platforms is that initially they were licensed from the IP owners on the basis of a flat fee for unlimited streams during an [x] year period. It wasn’t like Spotify and music where if a song only got played twice, the artist only got paid for two streams.

North Macedonia has been an independent country for 33 years and is on an EU accession path. I’m not sure they have much to learn from the Alba Party…

What I find more interesting is that Sandy Irvine was only 22 ..

I thought it was odd he was wearing socks with a name tape sewn into them…now it occurs to me that he might actually have been wearing socks from boarding school…

If I was going to guess I’d assume hurty words meant calling someone a **** or telling them to **** off.

Perfectly possible, sure. But does anyone genuinely believe that you get locked up longer for telling people to **** off online than tax fraud?

if you’re self employed then your business address is presumably home

Not necessarily. Maybe it’s your butcher shop, bakery or candlestick production facility…

But if you’re self employed and you work from home, you’re not missing out much on a scheme that’s supposed to be for buying bikes for commuting…!

There’s at least half a dozen folk on this thread that could have used that phrase without it being offensive.

Totally agree that it’s possible that guy in OP didn’t know the phrase and might not have been using it as coded/diminishing language for incitement to violence, racial hatred etc. Totally possible. I don’t think I’d heard the phrase “hurty words” before but I could guess at the implication.

But what would he have been referring to? No one is being locked up for saying “your mum smells like farts” or other hurty words on Facebook. So maybe the guy is just a general bellend for repeating second hand nonsense rumours.

Commuting to normal place of work isn’t a deductible business expense for the self-employed (or anyone else).

@OP: thank you for acknowledging my notification that I will bill you £50 every time I read a post by you, and that further posting by you is acceptance of my terms

Thank you!

Can I bill OP a reasonable amount every time I read one of their posts?

Say, fifty quid?

Does this record 24/7 to the Homebase 2 (that is bundled with it on Amazon)? It’s not clear to me.

The Eufy stuff looks really good but the website and product naming conventions aren’t clear at all!

Serious hat on it needs to be contrasting, so visually impaired can be aware of it. A band of high Vis yellow would be good in conjunction with a white band

Ahhh, very good point, I wouldn’t have thought of that. I’ll go for some of the orangey-yellow diamond grade.

I’ve got a ton of the black-reflects-as-white stuff in a box somewhere from when I covered up a commuter frame. If another middle aged busybody peels the orange stuff off, I’ll put the black stuff on. But I suspect if I do it stealthily and tidily it will be fine.

It looks like one of these – and actually it has a very thin white/silver reflective strip at the top of the bollard’s shaft. ?

If you work offshore, are you even within the scope of GDPR? In any case, here is what the ICO says: https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-resources/cctv-and-video-surveillance/guidance-on-video-surveillance-including-cctv/

Has the employer shared any controls/rules about how the video can be reviewed, by whom, and for what purposes? It’s one thing to use it after the fact to work out what happened in a crash – it’s another thing if they were using it every morning to check you had worn the right uniform while on duty.

Until you have to buy essentials in another currency and the issuer of that currency doesn’t rate the stability/value of your currency.

It doesn’t even have to be foreign states – it’s quite easy for domestic banks, companies, and even employees that it’s not worth being paid in a currency that doesn’t inspire confidence.

We have a representative model of democracy where we elect local MPs to represent our interests.

Well, true in theory, but in practice most people are voting for the candidates in their capacity as representatives of a particular party. The party publishes its manifesto and voters are generally entitled to expect MPs to stick to the manifesto once they’re elected.

There are, to be fair, exceptions – independent MPs and the Speaker’s constituents, for example.

a word of caution on Bastani….. he’s gone flirting with fascism

Really? Where?

I can’t stand his work, and his recent-ish piece on George Galloway (Bastani wouldn’t vote for him, but only because he discovered his intolerant views on LGBTQ+ issues. Really? Not the decades of grifting or apologetics for awful people or dodgy practices around “charities”?) was very eyeroll-worthy. But I haven’t seen any signs of fascist sympathies.

Until the SNP sort out their governance and move on from 2014 and try and appeal to all the no voters they will continue to decline, and get slaughtered in the MSP elections.

I’m not sure about that. By the time they roll around, Scottish voters might think the General Election was enough of a punishment for the SNP, and Labour isn’t quite as shiny in (UK) government as it was in (UK) opposition. And at the risk of being repetitive – Anas Sarwar can’t pull off the Upright and Rigorous routine that Kier Starmer could.

But anyway, all of that is off topic for this thread…

https://theseatpostman.com/ ?

Never used him – just seen on here.

80% of the public are against lifting the cap.

That’s a very, uhhh, specific number.

Anyone who defies a three line whip to vote against their own government must be suspended

That’s not true. There are a variety of possible outcomes. They didn’t have to be suspended or didn’t have to be suspended for so long. A 24 hour suspension would have been enough of a spanking for the rebels to make their point without lasting consequences. Now they’re going to be determined to be the awkward squad forever.

But in any case – it wouldn’t have killed the PLP not to have the vote whipped. Or only lightly whipped. They still would have won and it would have been possible to avoid a confrontation of this scale so early in the life of the parliament.

I wouldn’t recommend just showing up to the airport without prebooking the extra baggage. I did that with an extra suitcase of documents (admittedly that’s heavy) at the suggestion of my works travel agent…and the airline wanted £2000 for it. They generously knocked it down to £1200 and worked paid for it. I was panicking when I told my boss though…

I think the withdrawal of the whip is a miscalculation politically. Yes, I understand the desire to have a tight ship, and no I don’t think its antidemocratic to require MPs to confirm to the party platform on which they were elected.

However, if you have a majority of ten zillion,  including a whole bunch of people you never expected to make it, it’s inevitable that some of them are going to dissent esp if it’s symbolic. It’s also not like they’re supporting some mad anti-Semitic or trolling motion for which there really can’t be any tolerance. The whips should have let it ride, one way or another.

HS2 should have been started in the “north”

If you build a linear road/railway/metro etc in phases, you start by building the busy end, not the quiet end.

1) the SNP gets to influence UK policy because err they represent UK constituencies. If they propose something that has no support outside their party, it will sink without a trace. I don’t think that will happen here.

2) Practically no-one in Israel and Palestine wants a single, binational, secular state. It’s a dream of foreigners and mad idealists alone. Plenty of people want a one state solution (in which the other lot have been run off the land).

3) the suggestion that the UK can simply cancel arms exports licences to Israel is ignoring one thing: Israel is transferring plenty of arms to the UK. The Elbit offices here are for selling, not buying. That’s pain that could go two ways. Some people might think that’s worth it – but in any case it’s more complicated than “UK should turn off the tap”.

4) it’s a myth that Israel will have to do whatever the US tells it to, and Washington simply needs to decide. Removing US support would be painful but not insurmountable – 1947 was fought with Czech weapons, 1967 was fought with French planes, and since then the Israelis have been very careful not to be dependent on others. They are sufficiently friendly with France and Russia and Turkey that they would not struggle to find alternate suppliers if they needed them.

It is the civic duty of every sane thinking american to do all they can to get her elected, for no other reason than to have any personal credibility if they choose to travel beyond their borders for the foreseeable.

This is one of the least compelling arguments ever made to actual Americans. The US, Russia, Israel and Serbia all take a Millwall approach to how they’re perceived by newspaper-reading softies abroad.

Harris needs someone to play the role that “Scranton Joe” Biden played for Obama or Prescott played for Blair: while she’s being the dignified adult in the room, she needs a brawler who can punch back in what will be a dirty campaign. There is an appetite for that: look at Fetterman’s rise (even though he’s quirky on a good day). Democrats have been too hidebound and polite. In the politics of America as it is, Harris’s most “electable” sidekick would be a white or Hispanic guy from the Midwest, maybe from a working class or union background.

Another £200 million of government money for the nationalised Cardiff Airport…to be spent on (among other things) paying the state-owned airline of a fossil fuel emirate to restart flights to Cardiff.

https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-government-wants-give-further-29587844

There’s plenty of agreement in economics – it’s just that the stuff that everyone agrees about is not particularly contentious or interesting. There are still unknowns and disagreements in medicine and ecology, but that doesn’t mean they’re not sciences. There are also plenty of non-economists who claim what they’re doing is “economics” but it’s really just the exercise of power.

treat it like a proper science rather than one of the weaker social sciences

OOOOoooooOOOOOooooHHHhhhhh!

if there’s no contactability via other means, I’d suggest getting a ‘burner’ phone and a PAYG sim with just your numbers on it,

Alexa devices can sync with phones and their contacts list so a kid can go up to it and say “Alexa, call Granny P” and it will work like a speakerphone.

Biden would have to be in a coma or completely incoherent for him to step down as President.

The idea that Trump wouldn’t affect anyone outside the US is completely wrong. Even despite COVID, his first (and hopefully only) term had a huge impact on Israel, Brazil, the Philippines, Ukraine etc. A second term would again massively affect all of Europe, Palestine, Central America, China and Taiwan…

Since this is now halfway to being the Kamala! Harris! thread, this pic made me think of literally every british police drama ever.

https://preview.redd.it/kamala-harris-in-the-80s-v0-0qlre6f7o4ed1.jpeg?auto=webp&s=9e665931b87f8112c205052a2022d84a045ceb42

She’s a plucky DI who empathises – sometimes too much – with her victims, much to the annoyance of her old school superintendent. Her friends don’t understand why she came back to this hardscrabble seaside town after a decade at Cambridge and the Met fast track. She lives alone in the shambolic cottage her mother left her, unwilling – or unable? – to go through her effects. And now she is following up rumours of a serial predator hiding in plain sight – a successful local property developer who is running for Mayor. Watch the first episode of Home Town on BBC1 tonight at 8pm or stream the whole season on iPlayer.

If y9ou cannot prove anything is it a science?

Who says “you cannot prove anything” in economics? It’s just not true. Don’t listen to cranks – they want to degrade the established body of knowledge and academia because they want to present their oddball ideas as equally valid. And don’t listen to people whose only knowledge of economics is (sometimes amusing) aphorisms and quips.

It isnt a science. It is a social science.

lol

Is a glass of red wine good for you or not? So, it might be but it might not be.

I’m trying to find that list of foods the Daily Mail has said are simultaneously good and bad for you, but it seems to have disappeared…

Since everyone abandoned the gold standard, money has been entirely imaginary, worth only what the consensus of vested interests decide that’s it’s worth.

If it were entirely imaginary, you could just imagine yourself another million quid. Keep pursuing the “consensus” point, though, you’re about to stumble across why it’s a social science and not a natural one!

PS what caused gold to rise and fall in value in that golden era…?

In many ways yes, it is, but it’s not one that it’s easy to run experiments on.

No, it’s like the other social sciences or cosmology etc in that respect. You don’t get to stare at petri dishes, it’s true. But denying the existence of a science isn’t a promising start.  Notably some of the most fervent opinions on this subject are coming from people who not only disagree with the orthodox policy prescriptions (which is fair enough) but actually don’t seem to grasp some of the most fundamental concepts.

Sounds like a reassuring result – good on you ?

The problem with economics, is that like a science…

Despite the fact that there are no test tubes involved, economics is a science.

Labour should concentrate their efforts on fixing things I reckon rather than what the Tories have messed up. Let’s look to the future? What are they going to do to improve things?

Labour is fixing the leak of taxpayer money to the Kigali regime by stopping it. That is an improvement. It’s 22 July, they haven’t been in power 3 weeks yet.

Short of adopting your exotic monetary theory in full, is there anything this Labour government could do to win your approval?