somewhere cheaper and nicer, like Scotland.

The nice bits aren’t cheap.

Dogs sleeping on your bed?! No thanks.

Scapegoat has it. Although I (and the dog) am a fan of crates. Doesn’t need to be shut in it, more use it as a den. But they are awesome when you stay elsewhere or in car as you are taking the dogs safe space with you.

You would be bonkers to buy it if you weren’t going to use Sky services. And if you weren’t paying for the TV monthly you could get a cheaper TV elsewhere. Contract by stealth. If you like it and Sky content then fair enough.

No contracts (other than the credit agreement for the TV),

😂

But experience says that most sellers are pretty a) greedy and b) unrealistic.

Tricky one isn’t it. Most people I know have almost their entire wealth wrapped up in their property. And generally you also need to buy somewhere else. So you don’t really have much choice but to get as much as possible for your major asset.

I had a neighbour who suggested I sell my house on the cheap to a family in need. This guy was a baby boomer landlord with multiple properties. Go too low and somebody will just flip it for a profit.

I did sell a house to a lower bidder than the highest once. They really loved the place, had tried and failed to buy the house next door, were in a slightly better position to move. But if the difference in offer had been much more it would have gone to the higher bidder.

I don’t think it works like that. People aren’t really swayed by analytical arguments – they’ve an idea in their head about how much it’s worth, and they’re pretty emotionally tied to it. Picking holes in their home has a chance of alienating them.
Putting together a full blown price analysis also makes it feel like you’re trying to get one over on them.

Absolutely this. The last house we sold (4 years ago) there were 3 offers on the table in 24 hours. One of them had snag list. For a 130 years old house. Straight in the bin as awkward buyer.

Took the dog for a walk this morning (central Fife) and saw 2 trees blown over in front of me within 5 mins. Huge cracking sound as one large tree was snapped in two. We just wandered around the grounds of a house rather than our normal woodland route.

Saw some guy on a road bike aboslutely tanking it on the coast road, Strava KOM hunting my guess. He couldn’t keep it in a straight line mind and I don’t fancy the return leg headwind.

A new statement this morning. Really sounds terrible, I hope he heals well but racing a bike isn’t going to be high on the agenda for quite some time.

Tom Piddock’s comment about aggressive TT position on public roads is pretty damning. Not being able to see where you are going at the speeds these guys do does seem like a risk too far.

£50k debt for something she doesn’t really want to do?

I try and steer ours away from thinking of it like debt. It is a massive mental burden to carry when you first leave Uni. It isn’t really like a normal debt, as you don’t have to pay it back. Many won’t.

I have a screen saver of a bookcase on my giant TV.

There was a report recently about how unused these things are shortly after purchase – link

My personal experience very similar and now completely unused as I went full luddite.

And as for

if you want nicer quality you really want an echo link (£200ish) or link amp (£280ish)

Just sums up streaming in general – get rid of your nice quality sound system for the wonderful convenience of this shiny new tech. A few years later – doesn’t this cheap cr@p we flogged you to replace your sound system sound sh!te – buy a better one using newfangled hi-res audio.

The whole premise appears to be built around lightweight fan service rather than plotting something that would stand alone as a good story.

Does it really matter, bit of light entertainment set in star wars universe. I do think expectations are unrealistically high for streaming services pumping out hours of content. They need to keep something in reserve for feature films.

Clearly it is preferable to have a decent OS built into the TV, but it is a miniscule faff to add a streamer to an existing one.

I have an older Sony with a rubbish OS and good picture, it needs a streamer but I don’t need to replace it. I also have a newish LG OLED with a good OS but it is verging on unsupported by LG now. When the OS starts to creak I won’t be binning a great TV.

On topic – 65 inch was almost a marriage ender when delivered, but everybody used to it now. Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and all that.

A great panel, superb image quality and a useful selection of ports, but my god, what a pain in the arse

Old TV with good picture quality and crap operating system – buy a cheap streaming stick and it is sorted.

Yep, my wife bought 2 in a sale. Both bamboo lids warped in a few weeks.

That chase scene really was rubbish. They were going so slowly. I wonder if this something to do with the new VFX tech they are using – filming in front of giant screens instead of green screen with CGI added later.

Overall, I’m enjoying it though. Certainly better than the disappointing finale to The Expanse.

A new start up near me is producing sea salt. £60/Kg. No ta. A bloke who works there mentioned they were aiming to become like Maldon sea salt. Ok, yes, why not. But theirs is £9/Kg

That’s outrageous. We buy salt for cheesemaking (PDV) at £5.00 for a 25kg bag!

I mean, these weren’t commercial quantities, it was retail packaging. The wonderful design and witty blurb on the back must be worth something. I doubt they have made 25 Kg yet…

Salt. It all tastes of, well you know, umm, salt.

A new start up near me is producing sea salt. £60/Kg. No ta. A bloke who works there mentioned they were aiming to become like Maldon sea salt. Ok, yes, why not. But theirs is £9/Kg.

There’s nothing wrong with it, but I really don’t like it and can’t put a finger on why. I think its my hatrid of SUVs.

but if I’d had the choice, a biggish estate would do most things better.

Have to agree, I’m also a dissatisfied SUV driver. Went from a 4×4 Skoda Superb that was getting old to a Honda CR-V. Worse in pretty much every way. Now looking to change it for another estate.

soft fabric and felts in the boot.

Oh, I did think the some of the interior build quality looked a bit questionable.

Wow, you were so brave.

Strange reaction. Just an anecdote about an awkard conversation.

I did make a cracking social faux Pas earlier this year. Guy about the same age as me (early 40s) moved to our village from London. He is a bit of a mess, I had him pegged as classic lifestyle casualty. I had chatted to him a few times when walking my dog, got along ok. One day he asks me if I saw royal visit from Will and Kate the previous afternoon – ‘you would have had a great view from your window up there’. I replied ‘no, shame I missed it, I would have had clear line of sight with my sniper rifle.’ Tumbleweed central. ‘Not a royalist then, I’m from a background of privilege. Maybe we shouldn’t discuss politics.’ Turns out he is the tearaway son of a local aristo.

Too new for OP though, all the 2nd hand Swaces are north of £20k. A few Toyota Auris about though, and I think Toyota offer a 12 month warranty with servicing up to 10 years old/100k miles.

Current used car prices are a bit mental – have you considered leasing something new until the prices settle?

I was looking at this, very little available with less than 6 month lead time and that assumes any of the delivery dates can be believed.

For what it is worth the Toyota corolla and Suzuki Swace (rebadged, same car) are all petrol hybrid with good economy. Ideal for mixed use with short trips. I was close to ordering one but bloody hell they are dull…

Wikipedia says Keir house was sold by the Stirling family in 1975 to UAE businessman Mohammed Mahdi Al Tajir.

Is there a connection to Keir house over the M9 or has the money trail been hidden?

Indeed, they are no different to the other scalpers. £200 mark up on a PS5, no thanks.

How utterly depressing that is. But not in the least bit surprised; the country is littered with similar stories of sheiks, oligarchs, gangsters and corporations bulldozing their way through the planning system.

Day trip to Iona from Tiree? https://www.tireeseatours.co.uk/iona Get Fingal’s cave in there too.

Xbox Series X in stock at Amazon now.

How long did you run it after the bad noise? I have one that did similar, it sounded terminal. I left it running for a few minutes and it flung all the rubbish out and seems fine now, still going strong.

He’s just noticed the absence of the badges and has decided they prove a series of events to do with damage (which he can’t see) a repair (which he can’t see) and a respray (which he can’t see).

That’s exactly how I read it too. There is a whiff of buyers remorse.

I just went back to using the old URL as the new map didn’t work. It nags me every time I open it but it is still working. That is on a Windows pc though, and I’m not using an app.

So there is, I remember seeing that now. Amazing how blinkered you can be as a hardened car user.

@nobeerinthefridge what industry is that?

@tomd I’m well aware of that statement. Great that noise issues are being addressed.
But the nature of this facility is that if it needs to shut down it will. When it does they will burn the raw material.

“Next month’s £140m investment programme by ExxonMobil, the installation of noise reducing flare tip followed by a new enclosed ground flare in 2022 are major milestones to compliance which will mean less flaring and less impact on communities on the occasions flaring is required in the future.”

A new ground flaring system just means it will be less audible and visible, not that they will burn less gas.

Much as I would love to believe that Sepa have our backs, they are pretty toothless.

Quite strongly put there @mattsccm. I do broadly agree though.

Someone mentioned Grangemouth further up the thread. I would also chuck Mosmorran in there too. Waste at the industrial scale is absolutely off the charts. Regular shutdown of a major chemical production facility that is coupled to the North sea gas supply over a pipeline. If the chemical plant doesn’t run they just burn the gas as it can’t be shut off. I’ve no idea how many houses could be heated by the wasted gas but it must be a significant percentage of Scotland. A shameful failure of regulation.

it could even be limited to burners/fires within clean-air zones initially, as a house in the middle of nowhere running one doesn’t affect anyone else.

The definition of middle of nowhere is very elastic though. I used to live at about 250m altitude in a rural setting, out of the smoke control zone. It felt remote, but it really wasn’t. Less than 1 Km from the nearest village in the valley bottom. All the surrounding rural properties burning like there is no tomorrow. Fine on a breezy day, but on those cold clear days you can just see it collect in the valley.

You only have to go to any small middle/upper class village on a Misty or foggy day to see this is true, I remember riding through one such village above Hebden Bridge one morning and you could barely breathe because of it.

It can indeed be very grim in those steep sided valleys. Hebden Bridge has a few issues around this, the smoke control zone doesn’t extend very far up the valley sides so many of those hill top villages aren’t covered. There is zero enforcement of the smoke control zone anyway. I had a neighbour (in the smoke control zone) with a liking of peat fires, it used to coat our windows in soot. The canal is particularly bad on an inversion day as many of the long boats seem to like burning coal and obviously have very low chimney heights. Middle class lifestyle stoves also very prevalent.

Genuinely, if anyone has any suggestions as to how I can heat my old, cold, house in a less environmental and wallet-shredding way, I’m listening…

Old, cold houses are wallet-shredding no matter what you do. Complete refit with proper insulation.