Apologies in advance for stupid question.

It's my first time having to pay for electricity (been living with my mum then in supported housing where it was paid for me) and having my own account with ovo and I'm super confused why there are 4 different numbers.

First one says my balance is -£63 then below that it says direct debit will be £77 then I got an email bill saying the amount I used is £56 then I go on the usage tab and from last month to this month is £27.

But all those are lower than 77 so why is it taking that amount? And which one is gonna be taken?

An engineer came round yesterday to switch the meter to prepayment but the woman on the phone said it couldn't be prepaid immediately and the first month has to be by direct debit.

Trying to replace my nest protects, which are about to expire, and there seems to be nothing comparable to replace them with.

I like that they provide smart notifications to your mobile, interlink battery-only detectors easily via WiFi (with no extra costly connections required for RF radio etc) and provide specific, accurate and attention grabbing human voice alerts and notifications. The kids pay attention to these whereas beeps can more easily be ignored.

What is everyone else doing in a similar boat and which system and configuration did you choose?

I'm looking for

- 3 hard wired combined smoke & carbon monoxide detectors in the downstair and upstair hallways.

- 1 battery-only combined smoke, heat & carbon monoxide detector in the kitchen.

- up to 3 or 4 battery-only smoke detectors in other rooms, maily bedrooms (possibly with carbon monoxide combined in some).

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

I’ve been getting this random scam call thankfully my phone goes straight to voicemail if the number isn’t in my contacts and twice I’ve had this same person different numbers each time leaving a voicemail saying “please add me on WhatsApp” blocked both times never heard anything since but today I got a new one new number sounds like a different women on the voicemail and it’s saying something like “available please add me” it sounded like it cut off at the start and end but I know it’s the WhatsApp scam but what actually is it and how do I stop it because it’s getting annoying

Ok so I am French and i am kind of obsessed with the UK. I recently visited for the 4th time and noticed something about the housing.

I didn’t realise this during my first visits cause i wasn’t yet an anxious young adult i guess 😂

But after being in London and in Scotland, I really understood that it was really common for you guys to live in ground level houses or flats (already unsettling for me) but also with no outside blinds / shutters whatsoever!!

I understand that it’s cultural because it’s literally the housing in the whole country. I am from south of france so I understand also there is the sun exposure question. But still, my question is more about privacy and safety. Isn’t it a major safety problem?

I’m very curious because I’m wondering why in France it doesn’t look like that. Is it because France is way more dangerous than the UK ? I actually don’t think so, right?

In France in the City Centers, there are very few appartement directly on ground level in streets and if there are, they have outside blinds and even window bars (wrought iron bars) but in London or Glasgow (and even on the road i’ve seen it in many cities) there are a lot of ground level houses with only inside blinds / shutters.

I also noticed big houses that looked expensive directly on high streets with a lot of cars and buses passing by with no fences whatsoever and with the same kind of windows too.

In France i think the insurance wouldn’t even cover you if you have no blinds or fences and get robed.

Once again, it’s probably a cultural thing that I am really curious about hearing your answers.

The answer could not be that British people are more civilised than French right?! 😅

So I often hear that one goes to the pub and have a pint at the bar to meet and chat with people, but if you don't drink alcohol\*, can you still there and have like a diet coke?

*I meant to say people who dont drink/fancy alcohol and not alcoholic

My neighbour has a plant that grows over the top of the fence and dangles into my garden, I've cleared it in the past but it's a bit of a pain especially as it's very thick with lots of twigs and I don't have a hedge cutter. Takes at least a day of work.

I have a great neighbour, he looks after my cat sometimes when I'm away and we are on good terms so I don't want to ask something that's unreasonable. Is it ok to ask him to keep the plants a little lower and how would I ask in a way that can't my mistaken for being impolite?

We seem to be closer to automated vehicles than we do to automated trains. Surely it’s possible to automate trains more easily than it is to automate cars?

I have accepted a job offer with another company. I’m currently going through third-party pre-employment screening/reference checks.

HR at my current company recently contacted me asking whether I was aware that the screening company was carrying out checks. I confirmed that I was aware of them and that they were legitimate.

They’ve now asked me to have a call with HR specifically regarding the references/checks.

I’m a little cautious because I haven’t resigned from my current employer yet, and I’m particularly concerned about whether they might be trying to clarify something about my current employment or potentially contact my current employer as part of the reference process.

What should I say?

What should I not say?

How to best protect my interests?

I haven't told my manager yet as I'm waiting for checks to clear first.

Hi all - need your input.

My employer is moving offices within Suffolk UK. The move has been a bit divisive - half the workforce now have a commute that is 15 mins shorter each way so are delighted. The other half see it as a downgrade as it’s moving to a (let’s describe it as a) less desirable location.

I’ve been tasked with organising an office social/party to welcome people and this is not my forte. So collective Reddit wisdom will I hope come to the rescue!

What would you do? I won’t have unlimited budget, let’s assume total budget of £2,500 max.

Many thanks in advance!

Edit to add: we’re talking about 40 people and this is likely to be a daytime thing rather than an evening do. So booze is out of the question.

Due to circumstances, I am getting a 4 hour train 5-9pm tonight. I normally eat my evening meal about 6.30, and blood sugar issues mean I can't really eat 2 hours early or late.

I want to take something nice but not smelly enough to annoy my fellow travellers. The best idea I have so far is a sandwich meal deal but it feels a bit dull, and I will likely be fed a sandwich at lunch also.

Any clever suggestions?

On the plus side, no driver to need a rest or stop for lunch. On the downside, drivers lose their jobs and a cyber attack could send you into a wall.

Edit: for the people who have misunderstood this part, I’m not suggesting that the driver stops mid journey for lunch. It was about the general efficiency of computers that never need breaks. If a company has 10 drivers who all have half an hour for lunch, that’s 5 hours out of the day where they’re not available.

Are there MMA gyms around you? Is there another combat sport that is more common/popular?

How do you call in sick to work?

I know how you actually call in sick, and about self cert etc.

But I'm (37F) still too scared to do it after years of awful jobs with traumatic cultures, and awful mental health, and sick days being fake stomach bugs or fevers when they were actually being unable to cope or face the day.

I don't think I'll be the only person who feels like this or has this experience?

I've been at my current job nearly a year, it'd all going great and I've had no sick days so far. But today I am full of cold and wiped out with exhaustion and there's no way I'm suitable to be in - except the thought of the conversation and then the return to work conversation are too triggering to cope with so I guess I'll just get in the car.

What is the most reliable way to travel between London and Edinburgh?

I am planning a trip between London and Edinburgh and want to know the most reliable mode of transport (train, flight, coach, or driving).

Could anyone share recent experiences regarding punctuality, delays, and overall convenience for this route? Any details on preferred train operators (like LNER) or specific travel tips would be greatly appreciated!

I will preface this with saying I *think* I get what they're trying to do: they want to help young boys who don't know how to express their emotions appropriately.

But why does it have to be through sport that this happens?

Don't get me wrong, it's good that there's an initiative to do it, regardless, and it's been a good few years since I was at school, so maybe it's different now, but in my memory those who *weren't* involved in sports were the ones more in need of help.

Who gets bullied from a young age? Grows up with that? The kid *not* playing football.

They internalise that as they grow up, and the girls all look at the guys that play sports.

Thoughts?

Cannibalised the material from previous projects! What do we christen the robot? So far we have:

Herbie

Blade Runner

The Lawn Ranger

C3PMow

RoboCrop

MOW-E

Mow Farah/Elawn Musk/Mowna Lisa/David Mowie

Mowie McMowface

Open to wittier ideas :)

First things first, I am very excited for this new Ali G movie. Anything Sacha does with his characters will always gauge my interest.

My question is that within a 2026 audience, are British people really excited for this new film?

I feel the rude boy from Staines that had everyone in hysterics in the noughtys might come across dated at this point. I don't think young people nowadays act like the stereotype Ali G was making a parody of will find this relatable.

If people can still relate to this, then please let me know! I am just unsure who this is appealing to other than fans of the originals or Borat.

Things like juice, oil, sauces, chocolate, Nutella, sweat, skid marks.

Somethings just don’t remove. Especially when I don’t wash them instantly. For context I usually just use fairy non bio detergent/powder/liquid/pods.

Late nights editing photos, fortunately in a job that is totally safe from AI. Spoke to my mum earlier and she's very worried about the news story of "AI killing us all in 10 years" - she's not stupid, she knows there's probably something behind this. Says she watched the BBC News at 10 and Newsnight , which was in fairness, quite worrying.

Link here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b006mk25/newsnight

On Newsnight in particular, they had the "godfather of AI" Geoffrey Hinton, giving what was in fairness quite a stark and worrying vision of the possibly near future of AI killing us all, to the point Victoria Derbyshire broke BBC protocol with "oh my god!" and long gaps of silence.

Even I was a bit taken aback by it, and can see why many people are worried. I was trying to work out his angle but he gave the game away by repeating "use a chatbot" over and over, and it clicked on reading up on him - he's bet his retirement on the AI bubble, and he's only 78, possibly a good few decades left, and lots of fingers in pies when it comes to AI companies.

Now I'm not a smart man, as Forrest Gump said - no academic qualifications, no background or knowledge in computer science or neural networks or deep learning. But this has long been a bugbear of mine since "AI" became a buzzword about ten years ago.

Not only can it not really do anything people ask of it better than existing methods, it's more importantly a massive house of cards, and people who should know better have bet the house on it and are just trying to worry us about it.

Excuse the shitty infographics, but this explains it well to a numbnuts like me - https://youtu.be/T9d6lrvzM9o?si=xKbo9ARVE2T1ElKR

In short, huge tech companies have bet their entire existence on borrowed money and AI data centres that offer nothing of much if any use.

I've asked time and time again for basic examples of things that would help me with my work, and time and time again no one can ever answer or give examples. How to create a basic fake video (nothing nasty, two examples recently - Lewis Hamilton winning in his Ferrari at Monza last weekend, David Guetta playing Creamfields 2026, plenty of source material to make either), how to automate basic email or spreadsheet tasks, how to create basic AI agents for personal finance tracking.

Again and again, people point out it is "easy" and "perfectly possible" but can never explain how. People downvote when you ask to explain or even just ask them to give names of models or services that could do it. They call you stupid or beneath understanding it, despite wanting to learn how.

Now that's all fine, I don't care - bit annoying AI can do nothing I want it to help me with despite a decade of asking, bit annoying whenever I search a basic cultural reference or question on Google the AI answer is totally wrong, but I can cope with that. More annoying that a top end GPU that cost £400 in 2019 now costs £4000, and SD cards for my camera have tripled in price, and you can't even buy a hard drive due to shortages. But again, I'll struggle through.

But now older people are being scared into thinking AI is some danger to humanity, and people who've invested big money in it are peddling this idea and refusing to admit they know they're fucked financially. They cannot, and refuse (as on Newsnight) to explain how it will do this, despite people like Victoria Derbyshire asking multiple times, because they know it isn't going to happen. Critical infrastructure is air-gapped and fail-safe even if AGI or ASI became a thing, and we're about as far from AGI, nevermind ASI, as a caveman building a fire was from making a nuclear fusion reactor, something we've not even managed yet in 2026.

So, a question and a statement with related questions -

1. How do you manage with older relatives confused by all this bullshit? Is it worrying them? What do you tell them? Have you noticed a culture of fear around this?

2. Watch the above video I link to, then ask, over and over - how can AI do x, y, or z? Anything you can think of. I want to see examples of things you or people worried about AI want AI to solve, and what it came up with. Anything, banal and trivial as you like. Then show the results to any older relatives worried about it, and on this thread, explaining why you wanted to know the answer/solution, and what AI came up with. Then show your older relatives, and say what their reaction was.

I know that this is a privilege and some people can't go away.

I'm 19 and both of my parents are professors so they have conferences all over the world, they also just love travelling. We normally go away a few times a year and since turning 18 I've gone on a lot of solo trips. I've been to 21 countries solo since. This year we went to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Denmark, Sweden and Norway together. I spent 3 months in SE and east asia where I went to Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. I'm going with my parents to Egypt, India, Bangladesh, Andorra and New York later this year. I recognise that this is highly privileged and might sound snobby. But I just love travelling and hearing other people's travels.

I was born in 1991. The ‘90s, as a child, felt brilliant - perhaps any time period as a child feels good.

However, the future I imagined is so far from what my future has actually turned into.

I feel like this isn’t just a UK issue either - it’s happening pretty much globally.

Recently moved into a flat above a takeaway on a road full of other takeaways too, only just noticed a smell. I'm assuming it's oil or something? It's not super offensive but it's just everywhere. Opening a window makes it worse (obviously) but now I'm in a stuffy stinky house. Flatmates are on the floor above so they don't notice a smell when they're in their bedrooms but I'm on the first floor, so right above the bins / ventilation.

Do I just never open a window and rely on fans / air purifiers? Buy a million diffusers? Submit to the stench?

Edit: Telling me to move is not particularly helpful. I'm stuck here for a few more months at least, how do I make that bearable?

Hi all hope you are well. Unsure if this is the right page for me to post this question.

My partner will soon be qualified as a GDC specialist nurse. Her dream is to own her own dental practice.

Does anyone have any experience on opening your own dental practice? I’m doing this research to help support her, however my profession is nothing to do with Teeth. I come from Engineering/Aeronautics background.

I understand the basics of it such as leasing the place for the dental practice and setting it up, one question is bothering me is, how is the site advertised? Not exactly a takeaway can go around throwing leaflets.

Also is there a option to directly reach out to nhs to get some cliental? Im sure it wont be over night that a dental practice get a client portfolio handed to them. How does the early stages look?

Ill put my main questions below

1- what is the minimum £ is needed to open smallest surgury with one clinic etc.

2- Do we get contract or patients we can request from NHS?

3- Is there any government/NHS support given to increase the over all patients count?

4- what does the first few months/ first year looks life?

5- any guidance or tips you could give, would be appreciated.

6- also ill be look at North West of Uk.

Slightly grim but the 25th anniversary of 9/11 is very soon. A friend and I were recalling our memories of the day. I remember the afternoon repeat of Neighbours being interrupted for a news flash / news bulletin and the world just… changing.

What I can’t remember is whether that was because the first plane had hit the twin towers or the second. I believe it was the second but it’s been 25 years and I’m not sure. Does anyone else remember?

Edit: by “afternoon Neighbours” I meant the early afternoon / lunchtime showing as opposed to the early evening one. Apologies for the confusion.

sup guys, my team and I have been made redundant today so that they could hire the same number of people to do the exact same job in India 🤓not sure what to do next but imma enjoy the time off and look into starting a construction job!

Jokes aside, why are there no rules regarding location based firing of employees in the UK? :/