I always bought secondhand but also went for a Vitus Nucleus 24 when they were on offer for my eldest. It’s a really nice bike for the money.

almost no-one is running an Ethernet cable to a Ring doorbell.

I did – well, a Reolink one. No existing doorbell wiring for power, battery ones are a faff, I have PoE switches so it deals with power and a reliable connection in one. Plus no subscription needed and it’ll store on its own SD (for the app) and push to FTP as well, or a network recorder if you have one.

I didn’t particularly need a video doorbell, had a camera on the driveway already but our old wireless doorbell was getting unreliable and it’s nice to get a push to your phone rather than carrying a battery powered doorbell chime into the garden.

Channel meetings perhaps? The behavior has changed a few times over the years but these days in Teams you can schedule a meeting in a channel, don’t bother adding individual attendees and flip the “invite members” switch. They’ll all get a meeting invite for their calendars, and I’m pretty sure any new additions to the team after it’s been created also get notified about the event too.

Picked up the base E-Sommet nearly a year ago when they were on offer. It’s been ace.

The Mythique LT is near identical geometry but has a Bafang motor that you can buy easily if it blows up out of warranty. Absolute bargain at £2300, even if you did swap forks and a few other bits down the line.

Overcoming the “can’t be arsed” factor is one of the great bits about ebikes. Whether that’s making a boring road climb to the good stuff easy, or letting you ride with a group that’s a bit too quick for you, or knocking out a quick loop on boost when you’re short on time.

750Wh is loads for some big rides. Fork aside, looks great!

Yes, most are going significantly up. Higher labour, materials, energy costs drive up repair costs. Compounding that is many parts take longer to get now, so people are in hire/courtesy cars for longer.

Tesla insurance is high anyway because of the performance but also Tesla aren’t great at supplying parts for repair quickly.

I don’t see it changing the trajectory much, most of the EU states were going for 2035 anyway. Fleet average CO2 fines still mean that no-one will be interested in selling you a cheap basic ICE car, it’ll be expensive higher margin stuff so you’ll get hammered for tax and likely the extra over-£40k VED too.

Engine development costs a fortune and many have decided to stop doing new ones – they’ll go on with existing designs for as long as they can get away with it. Euro 7 is coming in 2025 (2030 for small volume manufacturers), some of those engines will be possible to get through, some won’t. Those that do, it’ll add even more cost on to a new ICE car. I suspect the vast majority of new diesels will go away then – it’s already under 8% of the market for this year so far, and they’ll be harder to meet euro 7. “ICE” cars will actually be petrol hybrids and PHEVs long before 2030.

In the meantime, the tax efficiency of EV company cars and salary sacrifice schemes will put plenty of affordable used EVs into the market, public charging will get better and better, more petrol stations will close, and more people will choose an EV.

I assumed audio is from a mic on the bike, you get a little bit of drone rotor noise when it’s close in the slower sections.

The flying is amazing, they show a bit of the glitchy, low-res feed that pilot gets into his goggles early on so incredible to get through all the trees and other hazards with that going on – there was a similar one from one of the urban DH races and he was having complete dropouts in many places. The drones also don’t slow down very well – a few places where he got really really close.

Cool to see a full top to bottom that isn’t a helmet/chest cam, there’s so much to that course beyond the huge jumps.

Yep, lasted 3 weeks. I’d had a couple of months off after getting married so figured it was worth doing an interview at least. They seemed good, talked up the big projects they had that fitted my CV, but was actually pressed straight into doing basic IT MSP grunt work. Actual office (not the bit I’d interviewed in) was awful, desks barely wider than a laptop. Twice in that time was asked to attend a team meeting at 8pm – couldn’t happen in the day as “everyone is too busy”, and both times I politely declined as I had other plans.

Had the “we don’t think this is working out” meeting one afternoon, I wholeheartedly agreed, grabbed my bag and left. They paid an extra 4 weeks notice, and I got the interview a couple of days later at the company I’ve been at for more than a decade now.

IKEA do a few other designs of that daybed now (Brimnes, Flekke, or the steel framed Fyresdal) if the Hemnes look doesn’t suit.

Evans have loads: https://www.evanscycles.com/brand/five-ten/freerider-sn99-140110

Can you go wider? If so then something that you sleep across rather than out/along (ie the width of the sofa is the length of the bed) works better at the cheaper end IMO. We have the IKEA Hemnes daybed in our spare room/office, it does fine at both particularly if you get the better pocket sprung mattresses. Plus usually we just have one person sleeping on it so no folding out, just take the cushions off, add a pillow and duvet and you’re good to go.

The sort with a frame that folds out into the room will be horrible at that price (but you could probably get a decent one secondhand), and the ones with three bits of foam that stack on each other are awful for both sitting and sleeping.

My parents have a Cocoon which I can thoroughly recommend but they’re about 3x the budget.

You can usually overpay a credit card, eg if you had a 2k limit and wanted to spend 2500 on it then overpay 500 beforehand.

I’d always go direct if possible, have had bad experiences before where a flight has needed to be changed but the airline need the agent to do it but the agent can’t/won’t.

Presumably named after Professor Neil Barron https://www.litelok.com/pages/our-story

They do look impressive, this Bennetts video shows quite a bit of resistance to a mains grinder and more than one disc needed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUwjh8J4uec . Given how cheap and available battery grinders are, it’s good that there’s locks being designed to resist them a bit better.

I’ve thankfully only had one bike (attempted to be) stolen, they managed to bend the frame trying to twist the U-lock off and ended up taking the bars, stem and anything else that could be unbolted easily.

You can buy Lifeshine kits off ebay for £15 or so and you’re likely to do a better job applying it.

Buy GAP insurance if you want it from elsewhere (I’ve used click4gap before), and spending the rest on a proper detail and ceramic coat from a proper detailer will get you very smooth shiny paint that dirt just falls off when you wash it.

+1 for Find My.

If you’re concerned about the “hit a tree and knocked yourself out” scenario then even the lowly Apple Watch SE (or series 4 on, if you’re buying secondhand) do fall detection. It’s very obvious when it’s about to trigger so you can cancel it if you’re OK.

Quite a few Garmin watches will do similar if paired up.

Will this mean the 13 mini will get cheaper?

It’s gone. There were some on the refurb store but now they’ve gone too. Grab one from remaining stock somewhere like John Lewis if you want one, I think the price there has dropped (£604 for 128gb, £714 for 256gb) but I don’t know if that’s just currency price changes.

I’ve normally replaced every 2 years, sell on the old while it’s still worth something. But I’m actually still very happy with my 13 mini, so I think I’ll give it another year.

We must be due a new SE design at some point, they normally get released in spring, a faceID/USB-C one would probably be more tempting than a 15 for me.

Less obvious stuff (or if you’ve done the big tourist things):

– quick train to Maze Hill (from London Bridge), can walk up through Greenwich Park for some ace views and up to the observatory if you fancy it. Then either head past the Maritime Museum or to the NW corner of the park, short wander through Greenwich, past the Cutty Sark and to the riverboat pier for a scenic ride back.

– https://novelty-automation.com/ by the wonderful Tim Hunkin is tucked away on a backstreet by Holborn.

– 120 Fenchurch St ( https://www.thegardenat120.com/ ) has a free garden terrace on the roof, it’s not as high as the Sky Garden but way less busy and still has great views.

– https://markethalls.co.uk/ are in Victoria, Oxford St, Canary Wharf – they’re big bar spaces with several street food vendors at each, order food and get a buzzer to collect when it’s ready. They open early for breakfast and tend to not be too busy at lunchtime too. Victoria one has a nice roof terrace.

Wonder what that means in practice

We’ve already passed the national stop sell date for changing or ordering new voice lines on copper (WLR / ISDN).

If you’re already on them then you can continue until your local exchange has the service withdrawn – the first couple were supposed to be earlier this year but got pushed back a bit. Once there’s 75% FTTP coverage there’s a process that starts to force the remainder off.

If you’re not on FTTP (distance or other difficulties) then it’s SoGEA which is basically data over the copper line with no voice. In either case if you want a phone it means a digital voice service over your data line.

FTTP generally isn’t more expensive and you usually get a lot more speed for your money. The only sub-£20pm services these days are on FTTP.

It works, just ignore it and when you get FTTP you can cut all of the wires 🙂

This. I had something much worse looking in an old bakelite box where it came into the house (through the door frame) but it all worked OK. Was very glad of FTTP coming along so it could all disappear.

I like it (bar price, obvs). Have a heavy ebike with 60Nm and 500Wh, I know it’s dependent on the riding you do but it’s been fine for me so far, same goes for the guys on Orbea Rises. There’s a wide range of offerings with different compromises and that’s fine. Want 90+Nm and 900+Wh? It’s not the bike for you, but that’s OK.

Hunt have 20% off a lot of theirs, the £40 first order offer works on top too.

And the T7 is car based, has a payload as low as 485kg (LWB phev) so after filling the seats with people I’m not surprised they have to restrict what else you can add.

There’s a basic training requirement at present to unlock the higher limit for alternative fuel vehicles (ie you don’t need C1) but they’ve been consulting about scrapping that.

https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/driving-licence-flexibility-for-alternatively-fuelled-vehicles/changes-to-driving-licence-flexibility-for-alternatively-fuelled-vehicles#executive-summary

Vivaro is just over a ton for the longer range, 1226kg for the shorter range and similar to a T32 Transporter.

3.5 tonnes, 4.25 if electric.

Payload of something like a Vivaro-e is over a tonne, similar to a T30 Transporter.

My (hopefully soon replaced) work laptop has an i7-7500u. Lower cpumark than the Celeron in the Trigkey I bought 🙃

The modern quad-core Celerons are really capable things.

How often would you need to go inside a clean air zone – not just London ULEZ but places like Bath, Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Sheffield, Tyneside, and more to come in future? Even if it’s several times a year then it can be a good saving getting a non-compliant van and paying the fee each time.

Similar are rolling out through Europe, Austria have a sticker system like France that relates to the emissions standard with restrictions in some places.

Electric campers are still rare, partly people want to cover big distances which suits diesel, but mostly because they’re expensive new with long lead times (as all the fleets want them) and not many of the longer range ones are old enough to come off lease yet.

Would you use it? I think having a big useful vehicle is always handy, if it can also improve a family day out by having a fridge to keep your lunch and drinks cold, or making cups of tea or hot chocolate when it’s chilly out then that’s a good thing too.

I got my dad a Trigkey one off amazon in May to replace an ageing early Intel NUC I’d given him years ago. They change spec often but I got a 11th gen 4-core Celeron N5095 with 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD for about £140.

Ran it as my desktop for a week to check it was OK (I was a little wary at the price) and it did great for the usual office, browsing, etc. Blazing fast compared to his old one.

I think this is the current equivalent spec with a newer CPU, same RAM/storage at £124 after voucher: https://www.amazon.co.uk/8109U-TRIGKEY-Speed-Personal-Computer/dp/B09P88NLKK

That caught my eye in their email too. They’re doing the usual Planet X naughty thing of putting a cheap heavy SX cassette and chain on their “GX groupset” bike (but they’d do until they wear out), and the tyres are very cheap, non-tubeless, wired things (which I’d bin immediately).

Leaf was the first new car I’d bought, before that it was four 2-year lease deals on the trot, I’d start shopping around 6-8 months out and jump on a good offer for a car I liked. Usually well under £300pm, low deposit, and less expensive than the depreciation. Last couple were a Golf GTE (wasn’t sure how well the PHEV complexity would hold up long term, and ultimately wanted a BEV) then an eGolf (not the greatest BEV but it was a cheap way to try it). Then covid happened and most of the cheap offers just dried up. It’s always been a relatively expensive way to do it if you want a specific model rather than cruising the offers and more so if you want to option it up.

Leaf is also well under £300pm on PCP but at least I can buy it for £14k at the end if I want to. Have been saving separately to cover that so it’ll be owned outright at 4 years old.

Nice, I might steal the unwin rail idea for fork mounts.

Do the Caravelle rear seat backrests fold flat to be part of the bed?

Ours both have the cheapest ikea pocket spring ones, they’re comfy from the odd times I’ve slept on them.

Most ikea beds and mattresses are standard UK size now.

@freeagent I’ve had a 62kwh Leaf for 18 months or so. As molgrips says, how good they are is relative – as a cheap buy they’re pretty good IMO. Ours was new but I’d looked at most new hatchbacks available at the time and it rode better and had a bigger battery than the Zoe, the Stellantis stuff (Corsa, e208, etc) and the deal on offer was much better than those too.

It can feel a bit dated but buttons for climate control etc are no bad thing. It’s well built, big boot, has very few issues and the powertrain is probably the best understood for third-party repairs. Tekna or one of the lower ones specced with Propilot gets you a very good cruise/lanekeeping system for relaxed motorway trips. CHAdeMO has definitely lost out to CCS but there are loads of cars out there with it (Leaf was still the 5th best selling EV last year, 4th before that), and almost all charging sites have it, a great many of which put it on every rapid charger. I do 300-400 mile round trips for work every month or so and have no problems charging along the way.

Thing is for £18k used there’s quite a few other good options getting down there now – eNiro, Kona, Soul give you more range and CCS (and a longer warranty). The Ioniq is efficiency king, well specced and also great on range, CCS, good warranty. MG5 long range too if you want an estate (albeit with very staid looks).

😂 nope, they’ll just post you some bearings (about £20 retail worth) FOC.

Oversupply, and for the brands that do model years this is the traditional time for discounting and clearing out older stuff.

The 5010s on offer are the newer mullet ones, so not as unfashionable as the previous 27.5-only. It’s probably playing to the stereotype, but the folks I know with Santa Cruz aren’t really price sensitive and if there’s a new model they want they just get it bought. That 5010 was launched over a year ago, Stif seem to be sitting on loads of stock as they have all sizes and most colours/specs available. Wonder if there’s an alloy version on the way.

Greenwich is a good shout – there’s also an excellent playground in the NE corner of Greenwich Park close to Maze Hill station, a quick and easy train from London Bridge if you’re not doing the riverboat thing (or just do it one way). It’s a “natural” playground with lots of sand and water so take some spare clothes.

A1 is good these days, I tend to plan a stop at Markham Moor – no single massive hub but 4 at the Shell then a few other Instavolt sites close by.

If you’re CCS then Newark services has 12 new 150kw chargers under Welcome Break’s own brand.

100 is fine for most, and most ISPs let you increase speed/cost within contract if it wasn’t.

As said, main thing you might want faster for is better upload speeds. Our ISP (Zen) do 18mbps upload on the basic 100 package, but 47mbps upload on the next one up (300 down, for a fiver more a month). That does make a decent difference if you’re chucking big files around, particularly if one or both of you are on a video call too.

The thing is that with the main museums being free, you don’t have to see all (or even much) of them in one go. Science Museum is worth a look if you’re in the area, even if you just do the first three halls after you enter.

Lego store often does have a queue but it tends to move quickly, you’ll rarely be waiting more than 10 mins.

Southbank Centre often has things on for kids particularly in the holidays. Unicorn Theatre near London Bridge is just for young audiences, can fill much of a day with a performance there, lunch and a wander about including over Tower Bridge.

Yep, one of the small Garmin ones. Sits out of the way behind the rearview mirror so you don’t even see it, straightforward job to put in a fuse tap and run the cable up. You just forget about it until something happens (although it’s a good idea to check that it’s actually working occasionally).

I’ve used one since someone on a forum had a bit of timber fly off an oncoming tipper Transit into their car, smashing the a-pillar and windscreen. Would have had no chance of getting the numberplate otherwise (driver hadn’t even realised it had come loose) but as it was they could send the footage to their insurance company, no dispute from the other insurer, all sorted in no time.

Not had it personally save me but I’ve caught a couple of other silly accidents that it’s helped sort out.