Unfunkingsurprising, too. Give an expensive job to a private company and money becomes the deciding factor. Issue needs addressing at the contract level; good will cannot be relied upon when profits are at stake. Disgraceful state of affairs.

Learn inverse snobbery. This works with bikes AND cars. The key is to find the USP for your bike/car and feel pleased about it.

Example; I drive a pickup; look at all those poor saps driving their euroboxes; if I need to move wood/chicken coop/sofa/cheap sideboard off of eBay I’m sorted, and it’s cheaper than all these PCP/finance slavemobiles to own.

OR

I own a Fiat Panda. This car is AWESOME. It gets me where I need to go, warm, dry, comfy, quiet, economical and reliably, and it only cost me £750. That’s a lot of spare money compared to the expensiverer cars out there (almost all of them) and what are they really getting for all their extra thousands spent? Very little <smug>.

OR

I Ride a 26” wheeled bike. Yep it’s ‘outmoded’ but we all know that’s mostly just marketing bullshit that the gullible public fall for. Plus, I’ve owned this bike for 10 years or more, and in that time, I’ve upgraded/replaced the frame, forks, wheels, drive train, stem, seat, post, bars, brakes. And it’s now got a titanium frame that was a bargain coz 26 is so passé 🙄. Let the ones with the £3k new bike think their bike is better; I KNOW mine is better, and unique, and entirely personal to me.

(actually I’d love a new car and a new bike, but 99% of the time the above brain training technique works just fine for surprising b the urges…)

<waves> unusually Q one tonight here. Can’t wait to hit the sack; roll on 7am…

I’m lucky in that I’ve never had a problem sleeping during the day. My biggest challenge is waking up at a sensible time; I could get my head down at 0745, and easily still be dozing at 1700. Not good for the switch back to day living.

If I had to give one bit of advice, it would be that if you wake up too soon, don’t stress and worry about it; easier said than done I know. As soon as you start ‘thinking’ when you wake up, you’re done for. Be more zombie 🧟‍♂️

HETAS can’t inspect, they can only certify their own work (or work supervised by them) if I recall.

IANAHETASWBSF

😂😂😂 Apologies. As you were…

as I turned into my road a woman with a small – 5yo – kid on a scooter stood by the side of the road… …and then preceded to walk in front of the car dragging the kid/scooter with her.   After I slammed on the brakes still halfway across the opposite carriageway

Stop trolling Kryton 😂. He was clearly manoeuvring before the pedestrian made her move. HC Rule 170 is clear that the pedestrian only has right of way if crossing the road before the driver makes the turn. Which is common sense, really.

That sort of behaviour* will be the norm when autonomous cars take over…

*The crossing in front of cars, not (so much) the ranting, that is

Remap will only affect insurance if you tell them (which of course, you should). However, how they would ever find out, and how on Earth you are meant to know what the owner before you did to the car, I’ll never know…

I had an old (W reg) Merc C250 remapped, to take it from a ‘stately’ 150hp to ‘fairly normal’ 180hp level of performance and was very pleased with the result.

Just get in on gumtree or the bay. What’s the worst that can happen? Price it at £1200 and accept a grand. Laughing.

Ebay’s nearest offer system is good; hooks people into negotiations, gives you the chance to make counteroffers.

Now that’s the kinda response I was hoping for. Plenty to be working with there; really appreciated MartinHutch

might get a quicker answer on compulsion via the professional standards office of the force in question.

Yeah, but they are the ones being weasel worded; they really want this witness to attend, and they are the ones suggesting that they could compel the witness. Asked the question directly, I got a ‘kinda, sorta, our legal team says it’s possible’ kind of answer. I just smell a rat, and can’t for the life of me imagine that an internal hearing within an organisation (even the police) has this sort of power or jurisdiction.

Ha! That really is good news re ‘Line of Duty on Netflix, and weirdly coincidentally timed! 😁

It’s actually a very specific question.

Does anyone know whether the IOPC can compel (ie; summons) witnesses to attend misconduct hearings?

Also, rightly or wrongly, medical advice is always being dished out on here, lol!

Is there no professional/union support for this person?

Unions have little credibility in our workplace anymore, sadly.

Seek Professional Advice then. If needed pay for that advice.

Useful, ta.

 So you ask on here?

Do you assume that I’m only asking on here? Used to be that STW was an enormous repository of individuals from all walks of life, willing to share their knowledge in a non specific, but enormously useful way. Now it seems to be a honey trap for snarky commentators, mostly. I’m sad for STW.

Presuming you are a rozzer OP

Not a rozzer, and not me, but someone I’m supporting (who also isn’t old bill) who I don’t want to give bad advice to.

Police officers lying? Surely that’s to be expected…

Yer, but… professional standards police? I mean; they police the police. Who polices the police police?

There’s four series?!? That’s why I don’t know. Only seen the three on Netflix 😂

Thanks PP🙄😘

Rich and poor people still need to eat, be clothed and heat their homes. I don’t accept that as a simple number poor people generate more VAT revenue.

No one is suggesting that. The point is that it is a higher proportion of their income. Regressive taxation.

A regressive tax takes a higher percentage of earnings from lower-income people than those with higher incomes. Most regressive taxes aren’t income taxes. They take a larger proportion from low-income people because they have less money left over after the tax.

Sauce; https://www.thebalance.com/regressive-tax-definition-history-effective-rate-4155620

Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.
In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

Not only is there no evidence for this assertion (read; threat) made by the wealthiest in society when tax is discussed, there is strong empirical evidence that it doesn’t happen. The stark fact is that you could tax at 100% above say 200k income and those individuals would still have a fantastically privileged lifestyle in their chosen country, with their family, friends, society, privileges etc. An income of many magnitudes greater, but NOT in their chosen country would not have the same quality. These people are VERY comfortable and VERY settled. This doesn’t mean they won’t employ exceedly clever accountants to fiddle their way out of paying the tax though, which is largely what happens already.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/beltway/2016/05/26/do-high-state-taxes-drive-away-millionaires-not-really/#760d2db4360f

What is it? Vitara? It’s amazing how far a 4×4 can get if driven with commitment and a complete disregard for causing damage.

Just looks like any other beemer. Unremarkable, a bit brassy, capable. It’ll be effective at it’s given job, and a proportion of other drivers will think that the beemer driver is a twunt. The beemer driver will feel smug. These are broad generalisations, but will be more often true with this car, than say, a big Volvo or  Discovery.

I don’t think escalating to blackmail is really going to help.

That’s not blackmail. That’s ‘restorative justice’, silly!

8hrs to load?!? That’s even longer than crystal castles took on my old acorn electron. Still, at least you don’t have to faff around with cassette tapes. Progress, huh? 😂😉

Our ambo trust introduced them last year. Six months later it reintroduced tympanic thermometers, after almost universal staff dislike of the fancy new ones. YMMV.

Community resolution or a conditional police caution is what’s called for here. neighbour agrees to apologise and cough up in exchange for no further action by the police. This would be a reasonable and proportionate use of police time and the car gets fixed. Suggest it to the bobbies maybe? Although I bet they are considering it anyway. They can’t just ignore it, it has to be resolved one way or another.

Impressive how Atlas can manage some thing that most of the people can’t do.

Thought that too. Sort of underlines how humans are soon to be outmoded. Computers aren’t that far away from being able to do the thinking AI equivalent of back flips.

what does the plate feel like? Does it irritate you when driving or carrying a rucsac?

I can only feel it if I feel for it. It’s just a slightly lumpy bit. No irritation in any activity, can carry bags, small children and logs etc on my shoulder as I could before. People are a bit squiffy about having lumps of metal implanted, but I’ve already got two plates and a load of screws in my radius and ulna from a nasty fall/collision with a mate on a bike when I was fifteen and it hasn’t given me a moments problem. Would massively recommend getting plated from my personal experience, although I appreciate some people aren’t as lucky.

The best thing is is that my clavicle has remained the same length and straightness as prior to the fracture, which wouldn’t have been the case if it had been left to heal naturally. Also, the ability to use the arm (for light duties) almost immediately meant I got none of the ill effects associated directly with enforced lengthy immobilisation, which is what the lengthy physio is actually for.

And no, I don’t make the airport scanners go off. So know I know how to smuggle small gun components out of the country; simply get them attached to my skeleton…

I basically bullied the surgeon into plating mine straight away after a weekend of research about NHS acceptable outcomes VS Rest of World acceptable outcomes, whilst awaiting my fracture clinic appointment. Basically the NHS is happy to leave you with minor permanent disability and or pain vs the low but real risk of dying under GA, plus the low risk of unsuccessful surgery. It’s a logical but impersonal risk management strategy. I decided from the start that I was happy to take that risk; and my break was particularly nasty with ‘north-south floating fragments’. They were still counselling to ‘wait and see’ though. Thing is, longer you leave it, less likely surgery is to help. Fortunately Docs were open to listening to my opinion.

My result, perfect union, no post op pain, no physio required, no loss of range of movement. Only thing I’m left with is anxiety about falling off again, which would have been the same either way.

Trailer. Or get the body shop to collect on their insurance. Or ask them if it would be covered on their insurance if you drove it in? (Long shot).

Or maybe there was a fault. I would expect the gun to be isolated by a Safety Disarm Switch somewhere, and a Weight Off Wheels sensor.

Missing the point there. These are ridiculously complex machines, maintained by human beings. There’s always going to be a fault, or an error in the end. I suspect that the simple lesson alluded to would be to not routinely park your £35m highly focused weapon pointing at your other £35m toys.

So I bunged my spare £20k (first and last time in my life I’ll get to say that I reckon) into Fundsmith pretty much on the basis of reading this thread about a week or so ago, and it’s already worth, wait for it… £18k!

Now I know that stock and shares are a long term investment and can go up and down etc, but it does make me feel a little anxious… 🙄

Short sleeve shirt = fast food employee…

<span style=”font-size: 0.8rem;”>Or the paramedic scraping you up of the road; wind your neck in! 😉</span>

Seriously though, I don’t understand the anti short sleeve shirt sentiment; obvs not such a great look if worn plain with a full pen clip and tie, but surely worn open necked and untucked with a nice pattern is not a totally ultrashite look? (Not that I particularly care, I can’t stand my forearms being covered by anything but an overgarment, that can be removed when inside).

Similar spec Skoda Octavia VRS estate in that lovely/awful* understated flat grey that it comes in? Looks a nice as the golf to me, (as an ex GTD owner) plus additional boot space, and peak STW points…

*I genuinely can’t decide.

They seem fine to me. But fortunately I’m not northern nor have a victim complex. alright Jack.

FTFY.

So. People’s Vote, second referendum, Ref2… whatever. Seems to be a growing swell of support for the concept. Pie in the sky? Too little too late? Scare tactics to force a deal? Whadaya reckon? I think it’s possible, and whilst I hear the concerns about a leave backlash, I think that the masses of people who weren’t that bothered last time ARE bothered now, and they mostly fall on the ‘WTF are we doing to ourselves?’ side of the fence. I can’t help but thing Remain would walk it this time, which makes me think that it wouldn’t be allowed to happen. Thoughts?

Shouldn’t be insurmountable. Bit of a gamble on the life the new engine has had but it’s a gamble worth taking IMO. Sensors/senders/ecu/ancillaries can all come from your car anyway.

To shamefully misquote Verbal from The Usual Suspects;

”the greatest trick the Tories ever pulled was to convince the world that they weren’t entirely selfish nasty bastards.”

unfortunately I can attest first-hand that this happens as well.

😂😂😂 you poor sod! My other half’s best mate is currently on the dating apps scene; that group of friends LOVE dickpix. But not for the reasons that the sender was hoping, I’m fairly sure…

Hydrogen is both very floaty and very leaky isn’t it? (Technical terms😉) reckon you’d be VERY unlucky to have an issue.

Yes.

We could have ended up with Feltz shifting from the dawn slot up a bit..

Think yourselves lucky.

I came here to say this. A thousand times this. How that consistently condescending eejit has a job amazes me; I sometimes think her sole purpose is to make R2 listeners appreciate that there are worse presenters than Jeremy Vine. (Who, despite frequently massively missing the point during ‘serious’ interviews, I’ve grown rather fond of listening to. It’s Vanessa’s fault).

Also, I like the ‘no G’ thing. Sorry!

I like Zöe. She’ll be reet.