We opted for PerfectFit DuoShade from Blinds 2 Go for our conservatory. They fit ‘inside’ each pane, have a honeycomb design and can be opened in any position top to bottom. Look very modern.

Not cheap, but not too pricey as we got them on sale.

We’re so happy with them that last night I measured up for the MIL’s house and ordered her a few.

Have used Nikwax for years and it’s always done the job AFAICR.

Ah balls, paid £43 for Elden Ring two weeks ago. Oh well I reckon I’ve got my moneys worth in swearing at it.

LOL. ER still on my wish list but having put 65+hrs into DS3 earlier this year, I’m loathe to invest that much time in another game.

Having said that, I did recently pick up RDR2 new for £15 and can now see what all the fuss was about. It is insanely immersive. Shame the old thread is closed.

For some reason, my YT link didn’t embed in my earlier post:

Then yesterday I read about Greta’s take down and suddenly YouTube started pushing videos relating AT, including this one by Coffeezilla (the dude that investigates scammers and fraudsters).

I joined Andrew Tate’s cult and it was worse than I thought

12 yr old monkey jnr started talking about AT a few weeks ago, and having no idea who is was, I brushed it off as the usual pre-teen wannabe social media hype. Then yesterday I read about Greta’s take down and suddenly YouTube started pushing videos relating AT, including this one by Coffeezilla (the dude that investigates scammers and fraudsters).

Very interesting, and illustrates how must of a smug, arrogant, narcissistic and dangerous $&*( AT is.

Hope he and his brother spend many uncomfortable weeks at the hands of their Romanian captors before being properly sent down.

I’m also going to have a quiet chat with my lad to see what his previous thoughts were on him.

Hmm, could be good timing as one of the soles on my Meindl Burma Pros came loose last week. 10 years old, very tough and waterproof, but I’m no longer keen on their extra weight. Looking for a lighter 3-4 season boot and both those Inov8s are now on the shortlist.

I’ve just set up a new Inov8 account and it too won’t give me the extra 10% discount. Not the end of the world.

And those 400s are currently £130 instead of £200, so a tad less than 40% off. I’m not a fan of all black footwear, but I like the functionality of this particular pair. Prefer the look of the 345s and am confused why there are so many excellent reviews mixed in with several poor ones.

Food for thought.

Loved the first 2 series – laugh out loud for sure – less so the third. Will defo catch the Christmas special.

We’re down south but the outlaws live in Chester and they’ve been fretting over everything they sent on 5th Dec because none of it started arriving until literally yesterday, ie 14 days. Apparently their hub has been sitting on thousands of letters and parcels for days and days, so I imagine other hubs have been doing the same, hence there’ll be quite some backlog to clear.

Lots of Xbox games discounted up to 90%, eg Red Dead Redemption 2, Star Wars, Lego, Assassins Creed. I’m going to get a few and set them aside for a rainy day or 10.

Does anyone happen to recommend an external XSX SSD (optimised for XSX)? I can’t justify buying the official Seagate one but 1Tb for backing up downloads to save re-downloading will do the trick.

Well, we’re halfway through Day 1 and Eng have been bamboozled by this new kid on the block who could find himself picking up all 10 wickets on debut. Yes, we smashed the ball around at a rate similar to the first session in the first Test, but we’re now down to ‘just’ 5 an over on a wicket that looks to be benefiting the bowlers we’ve opted not to select.

Going to be an interesting challenge this.

Have you replaced the nib with the spare in the box?

IME yep. Been with them for broadband and telephone for 10 yrs or so. Had a few moments of downtime, but can’t recall anything that was their fault, ie it’s been BT/Openreach instead. Had some persistent downtime a few weeks ago and they diagnosed it as a fault inside the house, so they assigned a BT engineer who came 2 days later and replaced our internal cabling and sockets for free.

The only difference I’ve noticed in terms of customer service is that they now take anything up to say 15 minutes to take a call, where until a year ago it was no more than 1 minute. Having said, they’re all natives of this island and always willing to go the extra mile to test things and follow up.

Overall: spendy but worth it

A Uni mate used to keep an empty 2L Fanta bottle on his mantelpiece and p155 into it during the night because he couldn’t be bothered going to the bathroom. He was quite odd.

I gave a friend a lift home once because they had crashed their car only for someone to drive into mine while it was parked outside her house.

A few years ago a friend received a call from her boyfriend saying he was in hospital after a car accident and wanted her to take some things in for him. Off she went, only to have a car career into her as she was approaching the hospital car park, breaking her wrist.

Sometimes, weird sh1t just happens.

Out walking the dog early this morning and Pak were ticking over nicely. Fast forward to Eng taking 2 quick wickets after tea, then Pope’s acrobatics and we end up with the most remarkable finish. Seeing how we didn’t even know if we’d have a team fit enough to play until a couple of hours before the start, and 3 seamers having to toil away on the flattest of tracks… astonishing.

Only Test cricket can do this.

I’ve been unimpressed with Senegal so far, probably reinforced by not having Mane available. That said, England were insipid against a workmanlike US (who got unpicked by a more incisive Dutch team), and the first 45 mins against Wales. I reckon we’ll win, perhaps even by 2 or 3 goals, but wouldn’t be surprised if play cautiously and go out.

If we do progress, then I really don’t think we should fear France (who should obvs progress) too much. But I can see Southgate reverting to a defensive mindset, and France dominating possession + territory and making us look toothless as they win 2-0. Would like to see us start with a high tempo and take the game to them, but can’t imagine our starting 11 being given such freedom.

530Kw elec used in 6 weeks = £205 inc standing charge. Both of us WFH 4-5 days/week + jar’s usual consumption

93Kw gas used in same period = £22 inc standing charge. Approx 1-2hrs of 16c CH/day for the first 5 weeks, but now ramping that up to 5-8hrs.

So that’s £227 for 6 weeks, with a bias towards more gas use in the last week.

Re drying clothes, I was going to get one of those heated ones a few weeks ago but they were sold out… So I’ve been par-drying heavy items, eg jeans, hoodies, sheets in the tumble drier then putting them and all other items on airers beside a radiator, with an old sheet over the top to contain the heat. Much quicker all round.

Timely thread because the MIL wants to get us a Cosori AF based on her neighbours telling her it’s the best thing ever. They’ve even offered us a demo and to cook for us, so might have to take them up on that.

But, really not sure we want another appliance sitting on the worktop and we’ve run out of storage space in the cupboards (even after my recent declutter). I might feel like justifying it if we get one with all the pressure cooker / slow cooker functions because we have those already and could move them on… but knowing the missus, she’ll want to keep them as backups!

Just tuned in at lunch. 174-0. Ridiculous. What kind of swashbuckling voodoo is this?

Has anyone spotted a good deal on a hooded waterproof/breathable biking jacket? I’m hot running so would sacrifice a little waterproofness for breathability…

Check out some of the jackets at SportsShoes. I picked up some BF Higher States kit last year and am well impressed.

xWhat is the quality of the reading like on the Audible ones?

It is variable.

Yep, dissonance has it. Some narrators are excellent and bring the book alive, others are incredibly monotone/disengaging and do nothing to keep your attention.

By all means try some samples, but you don’t always know until you’re a fair few pages in.

For reasons that only my missus can explain, we have 4 (yes, 4) hoovers; a portable Makita, a cordless Dyson wand for giving the house a once over most days, a corded Miele and a corded Dyson animal thing. It’s ridiculous.

Last week the Dyson animal blew up and naturally the missus wants a replacement. I’ve informed her that we really don’t need to go down that road, but she’s adamant we do. Now, this isn’t a battle I’m going to win, and she’s the sort of person to do literally 2 mins of research and hit BUY on the first (often expensive) thing she finds. So, with BF deals in the offing, does anyone have any pointers? I’m thinking of Shark this time round. Reckon I can convince her that we don’t need to go above £200.

I’ve been using Audible for 3.5 years now and have spells where I dip into it regularly then drop it for a few months. Overall I recommend it.

Pausing membership – I think you can pause ony once in any given 12 month period

Audible Plus catalogue – lots to listen to when your subscription is active, but I think you lose it if you pause

Special offers – they regularly do Black Friday deals etc, and that’s when it’s worth buying books for say £2.99 instead of using a credit on them

Edward2000, ive had the powerbeats and i wasn’t a massive fan. For under half that price i now have the ESC Sounds Series 3. Better in every way 🙂

I started looking yesterday for something similar for running and found The Best Running Headphones among other articles. Main criteria for me is waterproof, decent sound quality and optional noise cancelling. Capping my spend at £100 so the Jabra Elite 4 Active are now heading the shortlist… and these peeps rate them:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81R2nIlvDFY

Never heard of ESC, but this chap reckons the sound quality isn’t great (which is of course very subjective):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CInsA–7_KA

MIL has a Dreo space heater that she uses in the living room in the evening. I think it runs at something like 900-1500W. Warms up really quickly and we’ve now looking at getting one vs committing more to either Hive or Tado.

Yep, this is why it’s easy to envy all those Americans with their massive basement displays.

Not that I was naive enough to think Eng had this in the bag after restricting Pal’s innings… but we’re now 3 down and it’s looking twitchy

Hmm, hadn’t really thought of donating locally. Have a few spares in need of a new home so if anyone knows of such a place in Surrey let me know. I’ll have a look online too.

Very entertaining, especially with Hales banging a 6 off just about every over.

Oof, that’s quite a blurt there mboy. Glad you’re on the mend and it’s brave of you to share. Here’s to a clean bill of health – and some riding – in 2023 and beyond.

The other day I was going to do the usual thing of recommending what I use, ie Salomon Speedcross. No real complaints TBH, although I found the durability of the upper on my 5 weaker than my 4. So, this week I decided to get curious about other options and ordered a pair of Merrell Moab Flight Trail. Maybe a bit more conventional and less techie than the Speedcross but I’m happy to give them a go.

Sports Shoes have another of their sales on if you’re still looking.

Watched ep 1 and 2 so far, and can certainly see Steven Knight’s (Peaky Blinders) influence. Not sure the OTT tone nor the anachronistic soundtrack does it any favours. I can see why they’d go with that, but can’t help feel it’s unnecessary and does the chaps a disservice.

It’s fun to watch, mainly because of the engaging leads, but also a little grating.

Sporadic here on iP13 Pro. Happens a lot on the certain threads, eg Ukraine, making it completely unusable until some random time in the future.

Similar experience here last year. Was offered a contract with a military manuf and informed I’d have to go through security clearance etc. Not an issue, as I’d successfully completed the same process with the MOD 2 years prior. All was well until 3-4 weeks went by and progress wasn’t being made. After week 5, the offer was retracted with no explanation given. Sh1t happens but I dislike being kept in the dark, so I asked someone to do some digging and it turned out one of my references (in the US) didn’t respond to their request. That individual was literally the last person I thought would let me down. Lesson learned.

Funny timing that… I was taking the missus to a hospital appt this afternoon when a teenager was dicking about on his 26er, weaving all over the road no-handed, playing with his phone. He looked round at me approaching and I decided, with there being a clear road ahead, that I would overtake. Then the **** decided to literally turn right in front of me – literally 2m ahead – with no indication/hesitation whatsoever, to cut across the road.

Saw him a few mins later whilst in traffic and he was still riding like an accident waiting to happen.

A 1300 SuperSport!

Oh yes, I had one of these too. I think it was my second car.

I remember taking a mate – who was a year younger than me – down an old dirt road one night, so I could give him his first driving lesson. Needless to say, he drove very much in a straight line and without braking, ignored the left hand bend, and smashed into the gates of a sewage treatment plant. I reversed out of there sharpish, returned home and called it a day on teaching him to drive.

The front grill, bumper and bonnet were all scrunched up and I was contemplating i) how to hide this from my mum, and ii) how to fix it on the cheap, ie parts from breakers yards etc. Anyway, the following morning I went off to Uni for the week, only to receive a call from my mum the next day saying the bin lorry had reversed into my car that morning and damaged the front. What a stroke of luck, I thought. Grabbed a statement from her and my ex-gf who also heard about it from her mum up the road, sent them off to the council only to be informed that they were denying it happened. Couldn’t be arsed to take it further and ended up getting bits from the scrappy. That was one of the cool things about cars back in the day – you break something, you find a part and fit it yourself or with your mates.

Fun times.

Yep, needs fact checking obvs.

Having said that, we had a supply teacher step into Year 6 last year and she would i) walk around the class and hit pupils on the head with a book if they got a question wrong, and ii) send children to the dunce’s corner facing the wall for various other acts.

Complaints were made and she didn’t hang around any longer.

PSA: Lego Ferrari Daytona SP3 now £235-ish at both Argos and Amazon (RRP £389).

The BMW M 1000 motorbike also £121 (RRP £215).

Note that both require voucher for the extra 10% off. LEGO10 at Argos.

Another mtb-haunt location was Jelley’s Hollow in the Surrey Hills.

Is that not Sleepy Hollow (between the Windmill and Judges Seat)?

I quit 3.5 years ago. One of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Before making that decision, I never would have thought I’d be capable of fully quitting. I drank regularly, at home and socially – and had a high threshold so I could put away a fair bit.

Anyway, like others have said, many tomes have been written on the subject in this parish, including many a comment by myself. Do a search and you’ll find plenty of tips.