I expect they give a better service to the people who tip them

That sounds like a protection racket! 😀

I’ve got a tip for my bin man – if you fail to get the rubbish/recycling into the truck, please pick it up instead of leaving it all over the road.

I don’t recall feeling in the mood to instigate any swelling for quite a while. :(

The point being though a rash might not be apparent, so watch out for other symptoms too.

About 3 years ago I found a tick on the end of my penis. I had sat down on grass the day before wearing running shorts.

I’m not really sure what the bulls eye rash would have looked like in this case?

In my yoof a friend studied archaeology at uni. Another friend and I hatched quite a detailed plan to go and plant false artefacts at one of the digs he was working on. Unfortunately mañana got the better of us and we never followed it through.

The small town that I live in is 1Km from the next town. There is an existing path that connects the two that crosses a field 250m back from the main road. It is designated a core path (including cycling) already, it just gets very muddy in winter. Sustrans have agreed matched funding for it. It is such an obvious route you would think the council would be pleased to use the matched funding and crack on.

They opened a public consultation to get views on the route options; the obvious, existing one and a mysterious 2nd option that has popped up. Option 2 is next to the road, takes a circuitous route full of 90 degree bends. The consultation is full of nudging language and bias towards the 2nd option. Sounds like they can cover future maintenance under the roads budget for option 2. Huge campaign, glossy materials, posters everywhere, roadshows in both towns for weeks on end. How much did you spend on this?! This consultation gives the local mouth breathers a lovely platform to air their anti-cycling tropes.

Result of the consultation is 70% in favour of the obvious, existing route. The council are now ‘considering the options’. I wonder which one they will choose…

I know Sustrans can withhold funding if the proposed design isn’t acceptable, is there a route for appeal to Sustrans?

Oh how I hate those bloody things.

That was my start point, but a bit of artistic licence is allowed.

Donald Trump’s Wig

Mar-a-Lago resort will be most educational.

Not my experience, it saved our sale that I suspect would have fallen through pretty quickly in England. While it’s true that actual enforcement may have been more trouble than it’s worth, knowing that legal protection is in place allowed our (good) solicitor to throw their weight around with enough substance to their threats to get the buyer back to the table and sale went through.

Fair enough, but I wouldn’t really want to drag an unwilling buyer back to the table. Obviously depends on individual circumstance.

Are these course just a load of power point slides, a reading list and a fat pay day for universities?

Just like an on-site Masters then.

Joking aside, it is going to vary hugely between providers. I did an OU degree and the materials were excellent. Followed it up with a Masters on-site at a red brick uni – some of their materials/teaching approaches were appalling.

I think the difference between the Scottish and English systems is overplayed.

All the offers over/sealed bids stuff is dependent on a hot market. I sold a house in England that went to final offers, no real difference to sealed bids. I bought a house in Scotland in a sealed bid and I know I wasn’t the highest bidder, the owner had reasons to prefer us over the other offers.

The supposed legal lock in early on in Scotland would take a lot of time and money to enforce, most people will just move on and find another buyer.

The up front survey is pretty useful, but no substitute for your own, independent survey.

By far the biggest stumbling block in both cases for me was solicitor incompetence.

WhatsApp started as just a communication tool for me, then the dreaded creep started. Had to leave some family groups in the end, I got some stick for a couple of days then they forgot about it and carried on with the cat photos without me.

Utterly despise the “look at me” idea of social media. Who cares a s*** what you are doing/have done?

Isn’t that what you have just done ;)

Confirmation bias innit. You aren’t going to spunk 5k on a road bike whose entire USP is ‘makes you faster’ and say it made no difference.

Crate in the boot.

Bought my last sofa from somebody on gumtree. Barely a year old, 1/3 of the new price, in stock😀, if sh1t don’t buy it. People change this stuff so often that if you are patient things normally turn up.

I’d keep as many options open as possible to make the most of whatever the weather chucks at you. There can be dramatic West/East coast variations depending on wind direction. There can be pockets of good weather to be found when wet in the hills. Spectacular sunrises from the East Neuk of Fife at this time of year. But you wouldn’t chose to be here in an Easterly.

Yep, splicing a fibre is bread and butter stuff for field engineers – up a pole, in a ditch etc. Everytime a fibre gets cut someone is sent out to splice a fix. A JCB digs through a BT duct and you can have 50 fibres cut in one go!

But the splice would be quite bulky, a bundle of 50 would be huge. Wouldn’t they just drag a new cable down the duct and rejoin at the existing terminals?

The presence of the splitter boxes on the poles is the give away. If you are being bypassed there won’t be any, if your address is in scope there will.

Also looking to get a gravel bike at some point. What existing bike in the stable to people use least after adding a gravel bike to the collection? I need to get rid of either an aging hard tail or aggressive geo carbon road bike to make way. I can see myself barely riding either tbh.

16k doesn’t go far on a 5 series. By the time the 4 year term is up it is going to be pretty old. Is secured finance on cars that age actually a thing?

Why does it have to be enjoyable? Surely to earn the sponsorship it should be as miserable as possible.

At a previouse employer I saw a sponsorship request go out for a Subaru drive. Asking for cash to do your hobby…

I have an inkjet that dried out and got blocked. I manually cleaned the whole print head assembly, including pretty much submersing the whole thing. I put it back in the printer and it was dead. Took it out dried it again, still dead. Left it for a few days, or maybe longer I can’t really remember. Then just before chucking it out somebody asked me to print something, it worked perfectly and has done for over a year now.

(Who even does that)

People with old friends who they are desperately trying to lose touch with.

Sooo we have hunted down local private schools where they are just nice.

Says it all really…

Yep, warm and not sweaty like a synthetic one. Recommended.

That schedule looks to slipping at quite a rate!

I’m on the route, dropped him a line with an offer of a place to stay.

Recently bought a Montane Alpine Spirit, quite pleased with it. Good fit for me, very solid build. I know, not the hood you are after but I found it cinched down quite nicely.

However the DWR coating is utterly useless, used for about 4 hours in admittedly torrential rain and it is almost completely gone. It kept me completely dry from rain but it is dissapointing spending that much on a high end gore-tex only for the face fabric to wet out so early from new. I know DWR has changed recently but I wasn’t prepared for how much.

Err, sunrise in Calderdale? Chance would be a fine thing, you would need the perma-cloud to break.

But most of them aren’t suppliers are they? They are market speculators dressed up as suppliers. They don’t produce anything or own any infrastructure.

As usual it kind of works ok in the good times then falls apart at the slightest hint of stress, leaving the taxpayer carrying the can.

Brexit customs charge innit. That will be 10 branches we are taxing sir.

I wish I could get away with that too.

Is that last year’s photo? ;)

I was on full electric with induction at my last house. The new house we are in has a gas burner range, I absolutely hate it. Once you have converted to induction there is no going back.

I have been spammed with adds for a new Siemens induction that has an under counter extractor built in with an air vent slot right up the middle. Why oh why would you take a major selling point (being easy to clean) and put a massive food trap up the middle – madness.

Yeah, my EDF fixed deal just ended. Gone from £190/month to £225/month, so not too bad at the minute. The new fixed deals they offered were around £400/month which gives an idea of where they think prices are headed once the cap is lifted in April. Privatisation of utilities really is an utter sh!tshow.

@burntembers – Thanks for sharing that, it must take great reserves of strength to provide such love and support.

The range of experiences shows why neuro diversity is referred to as a spectrum.

There are clearly extremes of the spectrum where multi agency support is obviously required. But that spectrum also covers people who should, given understanding and support, be able to live happy, independent lives. Just because you or your child’s case isn’t at the extreme end of the spectrum don’t think support isn’t justified. Fight to get it if you think it is needed, it can be a lonely place without it. It is also very hard to tell a teenager who is already terrified of being different that they might have a condition that requires professional help.

Take care of each other.

This partly depends on what TV you are intending to use. If you going with 1080p TV (not 4k) then I would skip last generation at this point and get an Xbox series S with gamepass. Gamepass is a monthly subscription, that includes F1 I think, and the awesome Forza horizon games. It lets you try many different games, if you decide you only play one or two, ditch the sub and buy the games.

Indeed, get the diagnosis as early as you can. My nephew received an autism diagnosis at around age 4 I think. It has helped with support at school a lot.

Some very familiar descriptions here from my experiences too. My eldest step-daughter has just received an ADD diagnosis at the age of 24. This was a private consultation, there was virtually no chance on the NHS. This has come after many years of struggle including some extremely volatile behaviour (violence towards family, self harm, suicidal thoughts) following meltdowns with a whole range of triggers. These include sensory triggers, demand based triggers, social stress/exhaustion from masking. A lot of these indicators also align with Pathological Demand Avoidance, which is what my wife and I believe should be a co-diagnosis really. We spent years hardly going on day trips or on holiday there were just too many potential triggers for it to be worth it really.

My wife also attended CAMHS meetings where very sophisticated masking behaviour convinced the psychologists that all this was normal growing pains. They were quick to accept that and get her off the books.

The diagnosis was worth pursuing at her age as she is still at Uni, they need to provide additional support that was not forthcoming before.

A long and rocky journey that has involved a lot of examination of our own issues too. My wife also displays some of the indicators, she has worked very hard to curb her reactions to defuse meltdown situations. Trying to stay calm is easier said than done and I have had to learn when to just walk away and not get involved.

When I was in a lifting phase (done none since covid) I found heavy lifting depleted my body like nothing else. I was following a stronglifts program, and the ramping up of weight was very hard, especially when trying to fit in endurance training too. These programs are designed for lifting and nothing else alongside.

Definitely add some weights, the benefits are worth it. Just take time to dial in the technique, ramp up slowly and back off if you feel tired.