£10,000 in premium bonds should get you ~0.75% per year.

Update. Having slept on it I called up the Southampton branch of LCE and had a chat with the manager on the classification of ‘Excellent’ relating to the 2nd hand lens for sale pointed out by @Jerm at £349 which is £100 less than retail. He went and got the lens as he personally hadn’t classified it and reckoned it was the same condition as if was unboxed and left on display in the shop and it came with box and caps. That was good enough for me so I bought it.

Thanks for all the advice above.

Thanks for all the replies and to @Cougar for domain research. I’ve got £47 credit in my WEX account but not in stock. The second hand ones do seem to be less than mint.

Thanks for the feedback guys, looks like I’ll take a punt.

@Cougar here are a couple of links link1link2

I’ve got a non-widescreen 40” Philips and use Divvy to setup the windows on my MBP. Works a treat.

Apologies if this has been mentioned already but if you have any adverse reactions to the jab you should log it on this website.

I had my second Pfizer jab yesterday and after the first one I woke up with a resting HR of 122 and a temperature. Yesterday I woke up with a resting HR of 144 and a temperature of 40.1 which wasn’t pleasant. Spent most of the day in bed taking paracetamol and felling much better today but not 100%.

Saw an A400 fly over me on Tuesday en route to landing at Liverpool. According to flightradar it started from Brize Norton, down to Newquay then pretty much due north up through Wales.

I was sporting my blue England cricket hat in the pub this lunchtime. Looks ok according to Mrs S.

I came across some whitebells today

edit:oops didn’t read the rules so these have escaped form a nearby garden. At least I could try out the macro setting on my new camera.

You don’t actually have to take the 25% in one go.

You can have 25% of each drawdown payment as tax free (small % of overall 25% tax free amount) and leave the rest in the fund to grow. Your remaining percentage goes up with the fund.

This is the way that most people will probably handle things. Martin Lewis uses a good analogy based on a jam roll representing your pension pot. The jam is the tax free bit and the sponge taxable. When you cut a slice of the jam roll (thick or thin), you get 25% tax free and 75% at marginal tax rate. The remainder of the jam roll will grow or shrink based on your investment approach and then you take another slice at a later date etc, etc.

2017 X1 – all the toys, head-up display etc etc. Hideous crashy ride on all but smooth surfaces which let’s face it you are never going to get much of in the UK. Massive wind noise from the wheel arches and all together an awful driving experience. Lasted 6 months before I got rid.

‘came in hot’ – bit of an understatement.

Rural broadband provider, it is going to be a massive growth area and not necessarily tied up by the big guys. We’re just getting fibre to the property (FTTP) installed by these guys and I imagine there will be similar companies in your neck of the woods. Also kind of IT related so maybe easier to make the transition.

I’ve always put in the maximum matched pension amount into the company DC schemes but more recently I’ve been shovelling lots more cash in for the tax breaks.

This is still the best tax break available, especially if you are fortunate to be in the 40% tax bracket. The other thing to be aware of is the pension carry over allowance which means any unused amount from your £40k maximum annual pension contributions can be carried forward for up to 3 years. I get my payoff in May so will be putting a fair chunk of it in my pension and will start drawing down next tax year.

Switching out of final-salary pensions is usually not a good idea, no matter how much money is on offer.

ignore…

For the first time today I truly got an impression of the speed of these boats. They came into the end of leg 4 from opposite sides doing 43 knots and the speed at which they closed on the buoys was awesome. It’s at 1:01:20 on the YouTube feed above.

Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men – menacing evil

Thanks @Tom-B and good you are back in the classroom again. I’ve been out on the bike 3 out of the last 5 days so not all bad ;-)

Listen to the professionals treating you, not news headlines.

Very much this. I was initially told I wouldn’t be offered the jab as the chemo would kill off the antibodies and also potentially any antibodies from my recent Covid infection just before I started treatment. But then a couple of weeks later I was offered the Pfizer jab and went ahead and was told in no uncertain terms they couldn’t guarantee how effective it would be so I should continue to shield. ‘Live’ vaccines are not generally given to people having cancer treatment but as the Covid vaccines are not live the experts have decided it should be given. Bit of a bugger that it’s not that effective, especially for blood cancers.

ignore, missed a decimal point in my question

3 Series GT

Pros
More luggage space than a Touring with the seats down.
More legroom in the back than a 5 series
High ride height

Cons
Looks

Almost as good as the NASA comment “ As if the flight test was not exciting enough, SN10 experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly shortly after landing”

SpaceX website

Sadly these seem to have been discontinued.

Any ideas on how to get fleas out of carpets? Mate came to stay with us about 4 years with his mutt and since then we get some fleas every few months in the spare bedroom carpet. What’s the best way to stop them coming back?

First use of the ooni on Friday and everyone raved about the pizza. I bought some Caputo gluten free flour and can recommend it for anyone who has the same requirements. I slightly mis-read the instructions and piled all the ingredients into the mixer but should have mixed the flour and water for 5 minutes, then added the yeast, oil and salt and mixed for a further 2 minutes. The mix was a bit on the wet side but good enough to roll out by hand with some extra flour and by the end I had managed to get a raised crust around the outside, but on the last pizza the dough was slightly under although the topping and crust looked well done.

I also bought a fold up aluminium table from Argos which worked really well. Big enough to hold the oven plus plenty of space for flour and plates. It folds up really small so can be stored alongside the oven.

Does anyone use a temperature gun?

With my prescription I have the left eye set for reading and close up work and the right eye for distance. This means that trails are more 2D than 3D so I have a supply of distance lenses for my left eye for riding. Makes a world of difference to my Strava times but it means you can’t read a map or phone very well.

Just been reading the new BestInvest Spot the Dog report which highlights bad funds as well as Pedigree picks in each sector. Worth a free download as it highlights a few ethical funds in different categories/regions within the pedigree picks and no ethical dog funds. Download here

I like that idea kentishman! In fact I think it should be based on a percentage increase in body weight :-)

Here’s a left field question. My adult daughter is using my zwift account to do a few work outs but as mentioned in a previous post is pedalling my 13st instead of her 9st. Her partner wants to have a go tomorrow and is the same weight as me and I will set him up on a course my daughter has already ridden. There’s already been a bit of banter on who is the fastest so is there a way of re-calculating my daughters time on Watopia KOM based on her 9st weight?

The sick pay at our place is quite generous. However, there is a clause saying it is discretionary which I guess is to stop people taking the piss. Worth checking the wording on your sick pay policy before you go any further.

Reported via Council website.

Same topic but different problem. In our village we have a 30mph limit and as you enter the village there is a permanent sign which shows your speed. I reckon these types of sign are dumb and just display speed but in theory it should be really easy to turn them into an iot device with a sim and small processor that can report back the readings. I’ve got a 1500l lpg tank in my front lawn and recently had a tiny box fitted with sim and small antenna that reports back the gas level and the lpg company come and top up when it gets to 25%. So the question is are these signs ‘smart’ or can they be adapted to be smart?

Similar for me molgrips. Resting usually around 60 but after a good ride doesn’t drop below 80 for the rest of the day, but back to normal the next day.

120 on mine. But it does move with a two tone tick-tock sound.

I had the Pfizer jab on Thursday having had Covid in December. Firstly I was told I wouldn’t get the jab as the chemo I started in January would probably render it ineffective and that chemo would also hit any anti-bodies so I could easily catch it again. But when I went for routine blood tests a couple of weeks ago I was told I could have the jab but they didn’t know how effective it would be.

Woke up yesterday feeling dog rough and with a heart rate of 122 and my average for yesterday was 93. Much better today but it did hit me hard yesterday. Not looking forward to the second dose.

@oopnorth cheers for that. Daughter did Greater London Loop yesterday and wants to do a similar work out around New York tomorrow. Looks like 2 laps around Park Perimeter Loop should do it.

We’ve reached a new lockdown low. We’re binge-watching ‘Married at First Sight – Australia’ on All 4.

It takes car crash television to a frankly staggering new level. It’s weirdly compelling. 😳

@Binners – we’re in the same situation. Ines is a piece of work isn’t she?

If you select a Zwift course and complete it what happens when you reach the finish and carry on riding. Does it take you around the same course again?

I’m tempted by the Lambo as I can get 15% off at Argos at the moment which brings it down to £223.

My daughter has started using zwift but I haven’t changed the settings. She was puffing up the last climb in the centre of Harrogate last night when I told her she was pedalling my 13st instead of her 9 st