Tate and Lyle appear to have been continuing with the slave labour and forced sale of land up until 2013.

https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/tate-lyle-reneges-on-promise-to-pay-compensation-for-land-taken-from-cambodian-farmers-by-sugar-supplier/

I live in North Wales, where I live it’s been dry all day.

Missus was visiting her family in Anglesey and it was pouring down with really low cloud. Her drive home was through just about every weather system we have. We certainly don’t bother with weather apps here. The mountains and the sea mean that the weather isn’t exactly predictable.

New watch day today and I’m a happy chap!

Wanted a Sinn for a while but took an age deciding what one to go for. Decided on the 104ST SA A. Apologies for the tacky photo, tried my best to take an in focus shot!

Most definitely fell out of love with my ex wife.

I was totally the opposite of eatmorepizza, the respect I had for her had died. We both changed as we grew older, I became a lot less tolerant of certain aspects of her personality. Respect for a partner is such a massive part of life, for me, once that had gone the marriage was never going to last.

For me this happened fairly quickly. When life changed (kids), I didn’t like the person whom my ex wife became. I also know my ex thought the same. I wouldn’t say it was a case of waking up and realising I didn’t love her, just a fairly quick series of events, maybe over a year or so.  I don’t blame my ex in anyway, the vast majority of it was down to my lack of empathy I had developed towards her. This is again related to the lack of respect I felt. Once it was there it was insurmountable, there was no therapy or help we could have received to fall back in love again. She did the right thing and divorced me.

I should have left a lot earlier, unfortunately I made the mistake of “hanging around for the kids”. This just compounded the dislike we had developed.

Thats a brief summary of my story. And in all seriousness, good luck OP, life isn’t always easy and divorce and separation can be difficult paths to navigate.

Nightmare day today! Made an offer on a watch this weekend while on holiday. Was accepted and all good….

But I don’t really use eBay so my details were all out of date. Im moving into a new flat in early March so girlfriend says to use her address for delivery….

I put the wrong address in to the delivery on eBay , correct post code, but put Lane instead of Road. Everything else was correct but it’s now being returned back to sender. Tried ringing the PO DO where its been sent back to, just an automated message with no way of getting through to a human.

Let’s hope he gets it safely! I’ve offered to pay the postage again once he gets it back. Sinn 104 ST SA. Same as this one…

https://www.firstclasswatches.co.uk/sinn-104-st-sa-a-classic-pilot-watch-dark-brown-vintage-leather-104011-bl50202002007125401a-p-42154

Missus used to have the Audi S1, little 1.2 tsi engine. Was very nippy around town. Think it was 110hp.

Quite noisy on motorways, but apart from that was a good car. £12k she paid for a 2018 car.

Beard here and I wear cologne and moisturiser as well……

I love my performance cars, but to be fair my Merc AMG GLC 43 handled like a dog. Nice place to be, straight line was nice. Long steady journeys were nice, but clattered and jarred over every piece of rough road. From a driving perspective I much prefer the drive from my smaller lighter Cupra.

I completely get why people want and need sporty estates…….I’ve just ordered another fast SUV (Audi this time), but if I could I’d rather stick with the Cupra.

Regarding the phev, when I bought my Cupra (300hp petrol) I was given a Cupra Phev for 3 days while mine was being prepped. I really didn’t enjoy it, 245hp but then it felt like it dropped to 140 or something. That was a good mix of town and motorway journey.

Subject change, but for anyone interested in lead times for new EV’s, I ordered an Audi Q4 eTron in December and have a ready date of 31st May. It enters the production line on the 19th February, so a fairly long build and customs process.

Now going through the process of trying to switch to Octopus and order a home charging point.

I’m clearly not a MAGA fan boy, I just reposted what Bruce had said earlier. I just did the cut and paste very badly so it looked like they were my words.

FWIW I’m married to a beautiful lady from Tanzania and we have two daughters. I’m not in anyway looking for outrage, I personally didn’t see the original joke as racist, just poor form that could be construed either way.

Other posts have been confusing!! And as said earlier. If I’ve misunderstood what Bruce was saying, I apologise. I’m still confused by what ever it is he is saying though.

It’s hard to explain the racism we see though. My wife is a successful businesswoman, earns significantly more than me, in most shops and sales environments we go to she is ignored. The higher end shop or restaurant the more it happens. This really is a daily occurrence. Even in her business, if we meet clients or contractors working for her, they treat me as the person behind the company. It’s massively blatant.

I could go on about this but I’m going to leave it along and go to bed.

Again, Bruce. I apologise if I misread your posts.

Reading back through Bruce’s previous posts, I am very likely to be missing some context. It’s a bit of a mixed bag. Looks like I’m wrong and being the arse, so for that I apologise. Seriously sorry Bruce if I’ve taken your posts out of context.

Maybe, maybe it’s my own prejudices….but these words do not seem supportive. It could well be the rum though….

Like I said, it’s tough being a white man.  It’s never simple and we just have to accept we’re never right.

Anyway, as is often the case, it’s not what was originally said that exposes prejudices and bias.  It’s the reactions to someone saying they think something is racist that are really telling

I just thought it was very dominant from Ireland at key times. Some massive performances, back row and locks were immense.

Tournament over realistically.

And I can see England having a tough game this weekend as well. The battle for the wooden spoon could be quite closely run!

Wow. Some serious crap being written on this thread.

As someone in a similar position to Kryton, married to an African lady with mixed race children, I see on a daily basis the casual racism that is being elicited in this thread. Not so much the poor joke that was made, but in the other responses. Especially Bruce’s. I’ve had a few drinks so may be I’m misreading it, but it seems to show a complete turd of a human being. But I could be misreading it. I’m pretty sure no one on this forum would try to equate the hardships of what black and other ethnic races have been through to that of being white?

Ive deleted this message/reposted it a few times as I’m pretty sure Bruce wouldn’t be the person whom I am misreading his post to be.

If I’m p1ssed and mis-read what he wrote, I apologise and I’ll apologise again in the morning. But for some reason that post has really annoyed me.

I have a speech impediment, lisp and a stutter. It’s a lot less noticeable now so I can talk to people and they might not realise.

Part of the way I was taught to overcome my speech problems was to visualise words and break sentences down into parts. The downside to this is that I can’t pronounce a lot of words, when words are pronounced different than the English I always get it wrong. I work with a lot of Irish and have been told of on a number of occasions for what they consider as me being bloody minded English!

Newbie question…..my EV is on order, should be here in July hopefully.

Is motorway electric charging reasonably priced? I’ll be making 1 long journey t that at the moment I do with a single stop on the motorway. I don’t need to put fuel in so avoid motorway costs, but with the EV I’m going to need to top up on the way down and do a proper full charge on the way back up.

Total will be about 500 miles that would cost me approx £80 in petrol (at supermarket price).

I don’t mind the stopping as I would normally stop at the same services (M6 toll). I’d normally stop and have a coffee there anyway so happy enough with that.

Thats a blast from the past, Bogota Coffee was my local when I lived in a flat in the hub for work reasons – about 2010 to 2013. Very good coffee.

Can’t recommend any pay as you go gyms, I was a member at the Virgin (now Nuffield). If it is a one off you can sign up for a 3 day pass pretending you are thinking of joining…..

Hotels wise, I would stay at the Holiday Inn close to the City Centre, fairly decent. Clean, has a good bar and restaurant. Has a Marco Pierre White restaurant, the health club has a pool and a small gym (weights, rowing machines, elipticol runner things).

I have the petrol Leon (well, it’s the girlfriends but I’m driving it while waiting for my new car)

2.0 Petrol (194hp), since reading this thread I thought I’d try to see how economical I can be in it. Since filling up I’ve done 218 miles, averaged 36mph at 48.1 mpg. That’s a commute with 70% on motorway and flowing dual carriageway plus some city centre urban (Liverpool, so fairly busy)

Theres no way I could get over 50mpg in that car. Car is in eco mode, it’s automatic and I’ve used cruise control when I could.

(And the infotainment is also annoying)

Looks good on that strap Countzero. Orange is always a good colour on watches….says the man wearing this today….

Oi! As an overpaid IT worker I resemble that remark!

It’s a strange one for sure. With my massively limited knowledge of the industry, I’d have thought Santa Cruz had one of the highest % markups per bike sold, and they appeared to sell well.
Not just in the US or the UK, for some reason I always thought they sold a lot of bikes through Europe?

Over the last 10 years I thought they had become more mainstream, just with a higher price….and that’s not a dig at Santa Cruz, I just thought they had lost the Californian skater boy vibe.

I’m thinking I’d sacrifice being fast in the road for more comfort and control for the off road rides. Something like a Trek Supercal or BMC Fourstroke.

Probably nothing compared to kidney stones, but playing rugby back in the 1990’s I cracked a rib and pulled the muscle between the ribs, every breathe was horrendous for what felt like months while it was repairing, very little sleep during this time!

Also have frozen shoulder and quite a lot of muscle damage in my shoulder from my rugby days, had pretty much zero movement in my shoulder. Going for the MRI scan, I had to lift my shoulder up above my head while lying down on the bed thing, impossible for me to do it, so the hospital staff member yanked it above my head, the pain was horrendous, I then had to lie with my arm above my head for 10 minutes, pure agony.

Had all sorts of bone breaks playing rugby but the frozen shoulder and the yanking of the arm was way worse than most of my injuries.

As mentioned earlier I’ve just ordered the Q4 Etron Sportback. Watched a lot of videos before ordering and from what people are saying >3miles k/h seems do-able.

I think the original etron is bigger than the ipace?

Review on the Q4 etron, tbh eh are suggesting real world of a 40 mile commute getting 3.6 miles in the summer and 2.5 in the winter.

https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/cars/reviews/audi-q4-e-tron-40

Girlfriend has just recieved a brand new Toyota Yaris self charging hybrid. She’s getting about 62mpg at the moment, but the car has done less than 600 miles. She only does small journeys commuting to work, gym etc.

Its a nice car, drives well, quiet and with a decent infotainment system. I’m quite impressed by it. Its not nippy, but it just feels like a well made car. Price wise, I don’t really know whats good or bad, but her’s cost £23k.

I’ve just ordered my first electric car, Q4 eTron. I haven’t decided if I’m going to get rid of my ICE yet (Cupra Leon). I really like my petrol cars, as the Q4 is on salary sacrifice lease I’m stuck with it for 3 years…..so I’m going to see if I can cope entirely with driving just the eTron for a few months – if so the Cupra goes.

I live in Liverpool city centre. No chance I can ride from my door. I do the odd gravel ride from my door, but roads are horrendous, nearest decent mtb is North Wales. Even road riding isn’t particularly nice from my door.

I generally drive over to the girlfriends in North Wales / English border and we take the gravel bikes to Delamere or ride gravel rides from her door. River ride over to Chester is ok for us to bimble around and then back roads home.

Would love to live nearer real mountain bike territory, but work and family mean I’m stuck here for the foreseeable.

Sky Puck user here…..garbage. Every so often I have to reconnect the remote to the puck, sometimes that works other times it’s a complete reboot. BBC iPlayer on mine doesn’t allow me to “watch from start”, that service is unavailable right now….. Fast forwarding the ads (that I have paid extra for) sometimes causes the puck to freeze. Sky customer services blame my broadband….also provided by Sky and is 330mb so fast enough.

I was a Sky Q customer, should have stayed on it. Worked fine with zero issues.

Very boozy December for me. Back at work today and m my suit and shirt is very very tight….so tight I’ve just had to issue my colleagues safety specs as buttons look and feel like they could be pinging about the office any time now!

Dry Jan and back to training from today. So glad December is over, towards the end of the festivities I was feeling rotten, just from over indulging.

Go on holiday in February so got to try and slim back down to fit my summer clothes!

My present to the girlfriend. On a Xmas day walk up Moel Famau.

Initial thoughts is that a turnover of £500k seems very low. (I work in investment banking and own a number of small companies)

But without having sight of the books and knowledge of the business and working practices it’s really hard to say. If you can afford to take the risk of a year with limited salary then go for it. All depends on what you have to lose. Along with the ……what is the ultimate aim of the new company? Are the partners ambitious, intelligent and entrepreneurial enough to make the new business a success?

How is the handover to you guys being structured? Management buyout or a Transition to Emoloyees? I work on mergers and acquisitions and currently working on a MBO for a large multinational organisation.

Is there a future business with x amount of secured clients rather than just projected? Just remember that you absolutely cannot rely on a single (or small number of) contracts, you have to factor in growth and this means multiple secured contracts.

When reviewing the financials it’s incredibly important to look at them forensically. You have to look at drivers of performance and to understand if this is from one off deals or whether there is genuine longevity within the business model.

In terms of “the books”. It’s not just about the profit and loss. Understand the balance sheets and ensure your account looks at this in detail.

Sounds a great opportunity, but I would also be thinking about what Brian2 mentions above regarding you taking a team with you to capture the market under your own team.

I’m in the camp of being not mechanically minded and absolutely hopeless at DIY and jobs around the house.

I have my rationale behind it. I’m a director of an investment bank, pretty busy working long hours. I don’t want to spend my down time doing something that either has little interest to me or I can get someone else to deal with.

I know that’s incredibly non STW, but honestly I’m so bad at DIY it’s best for me to leave to other people.

Had two 911’s, 993 and a 996. Technically they were the girlfriends, but I drove them just as much as her. Running costs were minimal. They were always our second car so didn’t have to rely on them…..not that we had any major issues in about 5 years of ownership. These were both company cars so owner ship costs were covered under warranty. Alternator issue and an issue with water ingress on the soft top 996.

MPG wise, going back a few years but absolutely fine and far better than my AMG Merc.

Before the Porsche I had a TVR Chimera, the Porsche was a far better daily driver. It could be used in all conditions without any thoughts it was going to jump into a bush. And I have to admit, it was nice to have the speed should we want to drive quickly, but I found the 911 was a relaxing place to be and we didn’t really drive it to its maximum…..one caveat…..we lived on an island with a maximum speed of 40mph, so most of the driving was A and B road pootling. We did head over to the continent quite a lot, but again most of the time we drove sensibly.

Ive had other expensive cars, even relatively new cars of the same ilk as a 911, I would be budgeting about £4k a year for running costs.

There’s me and a woodster

w00dster was my school nickname and I’ve not come across anyone else called the same.

Went to watch Rianne Downey in Liverpool last week, small venue, maybe 400 there. Very good indeed, magical voice.

This weekend is Elvana in Chester. Not feeling it at the moment, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it once there, but don’t know why I don’t fancy it. 

Weather a major consideration. I did the Coast to Coast (200)road miles and that felt really tough as it was solo with a tough head wind in long flat sections. (Strava says 14 others but that was for parts of it, there was a very long flat section with massive head winds). It felt equivalent to the off road ride also pictured. The off road was harder, but the weather conditions helped almost equalise it. If the wind wasn’t so strong and I wasn’t solo, the road would have been a lot easier and faster….(single speed didn’t help)
The SDW ride was off road and bikepacking on a heavy bike and was day 3 of a fairly long set of days. Might help give a view in terms of height climbed, distance ridden and calories burned.

I save up monthly into a “new bike pot”. This is just a savings account that I don’t touch until there is enough for what I want. 

I regularly (maybe once a month) have sleep paralysis demons. It’s quite routine now, but was scary at first and it’s very disconcerting for my partner.

I’m unable to move whatsoever. There is someone/something in the room slowly coming towards me, I then feel them start to strangle me. I can’t move, completely locked in, I can’t shout or scream, just make very strange noises. My partner can see me trying to scream and escape…..but I can’t as I’m locked solid. I can’t even scream as my jaw won’t move, so I make really weird noises!

Before they are even entered into a test the learner will have had to have proven all the competencies and safety required. After that it is preparing the candidate for the test. But they should already be considered safe and ready to drive on their own.

My partner prepares a lesson plan for each student, leading up to the test they may familiarise them with the roads they may go on, but she wouldn’t just do that without being confident that the student is a good enough driver to be safe.

Its actually really interesting to speak to my partner about the subject, she is very professional about how she manages her students. She wouldn’t enter a student in for a test if she wasn’t 100% certain that student was ready to drive safely on their own at that time. All the other instructors seem very similar.

Personally I think that because now the instructors make a solid living out of their jobs, they are now able to focus on the safe driving aspects rather than getting people through quickly for the sake of it.

Nope, not common at all. My partner is a driving instructor, incredibly professional. The other local driving instructors I’ve met are also all very serious about safety, in fact being safe is their biggest coaching area rather than teaching them how to pass.

They are very keen on their pass rate though which it sounds like your step daughters instructor is taking too far.

I completely get that there are all sorts of differing incomes on here and different financial positions. The world, UK, is in a bad way and a lot of needy charities could do with our support.

However, this place is genuinely a crutch for me and for others on here. Sometimes the support for people when needed is incredibly touching. The people on here are generous, caring and knowledgeable. 

I massively appreciate the vast majority of people’s posts, be it free members or full members. I am in an extremely fortunate position where I can help in a small way to make this a better place.

I hope this is taken for what it is. Genuinely just me wanting something I massively enjoy to be successful. If by me being able to spend a bit more on my subscription helps the website and also helps to give a better a forum for people not in a position to pay for it, then I’m good with that. (There is absolutely no virtue signaling intended)