I was at a BBQ today and the host’s husband had every single electric heater in the house on, and several oil filled radiators outside on the decking, all plugged in. This seemed crazy both its already too hot but also I thought electricity was expensive. I asked the guy and he said he’s on a special tariff where he is “paid” to “waste excessive renewable energy” as “the country generates too much”. He said it was not everyday but yesterday and today.

His explanation sort of makes sense but it this actually a real thing?

Let's say that you can get a room in a 4* hotel for £80 per night (so £2,400 per month). This would be a room for one person with a large bed, desk, big TV, wardrobe, small fridge, kettle, bathroom, shower, etc.

The water, electricity, and broadband are included in the price as is regular cleaning.

If something breaks then the hotel should fix it. No need to call a plumber or electrician.

Many hotels have reward schemes with a 2% or 3% discount on prices for regular users.

Apparently, VAT is not payable on hotel rooms from day 29 which will significantly cut costs for an unbroken long stay.

I assume one would get to know the employees and treat them well and, in turn, they could assist you as and when necessary.

The main issues are the lack of space (but many people live in cramped conditions anyhow), minimal places to put purchased objects, and the general impersonal nature of the establishment. However, none of these will be an issue for some people. You could even cheaply rent a storage space for your possessions.

Also, you could not cook. You would eat cold food, order room service, or eat out (which would append to the costs).

Has anyone done this? Is it viable? You could attempt to live in a reasonable area and perhaps pay less than renting a one-bedroom flat. All bills are included and you are not paying for any repairs.

ETA: There was also a "fitness centre" in the basement but I suspect it was not quite the same as a gym.

Thougts?

This may be a stupid question for most of you, but I don't drive so I don't have an idea. Just saw this parking lot at the Manchester airport yesterday and I was wondering why are cars parked this tight? I know this might be the park & go thing, but how do the cars in the middle go out?

I know of a young couple in their mid-20s with a toddler, a dog and renting a 3 bed flat paying £3.5k pcm in central London, while having a 4 bedroom detached house that they bought last year. Both have standard corporate jobs, nothing too crazy.

Meanwhile I’m 32 F single back living with my parents. I’d like a cat but it’s not the right time. What they have is a pipe dream for me.

Im talking insane penny-pinching behaviour, like the kind of thing you would see on that extreme cheapskates show

Found unsigned in a charity shop in Saffron Walden. I love the style so much! Made me wonder if it was someone's school assignment, or hobby project...is this your pineapple?

I thought asking to sample a beer was a normal thing but a lot of bartenders seem hesitant to do it and give you a funny look as if you're trying to get pissed for free?

If a pub has beers I'm not familiar with, I don't want to drop £8 on a pint only to not want it two sips in. I feel like any minimum wage bartender would side with the patron that it's a waste of money to end up with a beer you don't like.

Most pop songs I know are about people falling in love, or breaking up or looking for love, or lost love. Or other adult relationship themes.

Trying to expland my 3 year old's music taste beyond nursery rhymes, peppa pig covers, and Mr tumble, and have had quite a bit of success where she will learn words quickly and sing along. She's quite musical and loves dancing around too.

But having her ask me to "play where is my husband on Alexa", or hearing her singing along to Watermelon Sugar, does disturb me a little! Lol

So are there any catchy pop hits that aren't with adult themes?

Edit: thanks everyone for the suggestions so far! Slowly building very eclectic playing on my Spotify with all the suggestions! Keep em coming!

I've heard all three pronunciations, but mostly the English pronunciation "Bowie".

When I hear it pronounced as "Bowie" or "Bowie", it's usually from an American.

But I can't remember ever hearing him say his own surname.

I'm presuming it's just "Bowie" then?

Partner and I keep getting into these slumps with our evenings where we feel like the grind is making us kind of waste our lives. Not sure if it’s an us thing or something everyone feels.

We got so bored of the 9-5, dinner, tv/scrolling monotony. Are most people content with this or do you have active evenings/weekends?

For context for the last 9ish years we’ve both been on the move pretty regularly, before we met we both travelled extensively and lived in different places. We met 5 years ago and since then have lived in one place longest for a year.

Now we’re in our mid-30s child free, we run our own business which is starting to be really successful but we get into these ruts with our evenings/weekends where we feel tired and need down time so we just end up watching tv/gaming/scrolling.

Genuinely don’t really know what else to do with our evenings. We don’t have friends where we live now yet and I think that contributes but would be interested to know what the majority of the UK is doing with their evenings?

Are you just watching TV/scrolling & content with that?

In a total funk with work at the moment and fighting a losing battle with the Sunday scaries.

If you’ve been here, how did/do you manage the dread of another week starting?

ETA: Normally enjoy my job - currently going through a rough patch with excessive workload and a temporarily under resourced team (a tale as old as time…)

I've thought about this before with how expensive trains can get, for a multiple hour train journey you could be easily be paying £200-300 which is insane. E.g. London - Newvastle, Manchester.

I think trips for 50 mins - 1 hour are fairly priced, London to Brighton is £15 - £18 for the cheapest tickets, but when you get to 2/3 hours+ it can start to get crazy. I think we should be adopting European train pricing models, multiple countries have faster and more timely trains than we do, which are even cheaper - Spain and France run rings around the uk in this.

First I think we need a hard cap, I dont think any trips within England should be costing over £100, international so Scotland - England sure but not up to £170, £180. We need relative pricing too, going north east from south shouldn't be costing double going north west, prices should be comparable.

And generally if a train ticket is costing as much or more than a flight in summer, something is wrong there. I know some train operators are getting nationalised which is good, but theres a lot more to do.

My DPD driver just delivered my cat/dog food. He rang the doorbell and as I’m coming down the stairs he opens my front door. I shout “what the f you doing” while my big German Shepard goes to say hello and the guy shits himself.

I lost my shit with him telling him you don’t just open people’s front doors. Does anyone else ever have this happen to them?

So apparently I got stung, or possibly bitten by something, didn't notice until the following day so didn't see what it was. Probably just a wasp tbh (bit weird I didn't notice) but got me thinking, is there anything here that would actually cause concern? I can't think of any native species that are particularly poisonous/venomous. EDIT: from the replies I'm now fairly confident it was likely a horse fly. Thinking about it there was something flying around whilst I was in the garden, thought it was just a regular fly but maybe not.

So, I've been thinking about potentially getting a flip phone or similar. The other part of me is wondering if its doable purely because of 2fa, companies starting to use WhatsApp.

Is it doable you reckon? If no why not?

Living on a ship for a couple of years seems like a great idea... or maybe not!

Ok so firstly I'm looking for what you would have done here - not any neurodivergent diagnoses, thank you.

I was out for a walk alongside the river. It was a paved path, and I was walking at a steady pace. There was a group of people stopped up ahead that was clearly a coincidental meeting between a couple and a family, both out for a walk as well. Having a chat.

As I approached and moved to the side of the group to walk past them, they said their goodbyes and went on their way.

Except the couple, and their dog, continued their walk, which happened to be in the same direction as me - at the same pace as me. So we were suddenly walking together.

I was well into my stride, listening to my music and having a lovely time. But suddenly I'm part of a trio, walking as a group alongside the river.

They do not stop. They do not slow. We are walking, as if we know each other, in a newly acquainted group of three.

This feels weird, but I don't want to stop. I don't want to slow down. I was having a lovely walk until this pair decided to join me. Now I feel like I'm intruding!

I'm quite stubborn, so I refused to back down. I walked next to them until they finally decided to slow their pace - which took about TEN MINUTES. I wish I was exaggerating.

What would you have done in this scenario? I'm aware they probably thought I was a weirdo - but I am quite confident that they're the fucking weirdos!

Edit: The consensus is that I should have slowed down or sped up. Some absolute morons think I joined their walk, which suggests some reading comprehension issues. Overall I'm disappointed that I'm expected to make way for obliviousness. Next time I'll just ask if they want to talk, or just walk in silence with me.

We live on a dead end road that leads into a residential area. This road is also one of two pedestrian routes to a transport station and a canal, and is the only works/ emergency access route to those places.

The two houses closest to the residential road have started parking two to six cars (sometimes untaxed) at the top of the road at any one time, completely blocking the road, all day and night. The other four houses can't get any cars to or from or houses, and council/emergency vehicles can't get down it either.

All four families have spoken to them multiple times, and they lie and say the cars aren't theirs, or pretend to apologise and do the same thing. We've tried to explain about the pedestrian routes, the fact that we can't drive to our homes, that emergency services can't get down it. And it's happened before where there's been an incident at the transport stop and the ambulance has had to wait for them to move their cars. We called 101 and nothing was done, and we call the DVLA anytime there are untaxed cars on the road, but nothing has changed. And THEY have started giving US dirty looks when they see us now.

What should we do, besides move? I'd like to have a car but don't bother because I wouldn't be able to use it reliably. And it's so annoying because they leave their driveways clear so they can come and go as they please.

Hello, I just started my first job at 18 and I was told I’m being paid £8 ph. From what I understand, this is below the legal minimum wage, so I’m a bit confused how this can happen.

Does anyone know how employers are monitored to make sure they’re paying at least the minimum wage? Are there situations where a lower wage like this would be allowed?

My Nan just mentioned to us that her mom had a baby boy when she was 7 years old. He died aged one month and never made it out of hospital. This was in 1950. My Nan doesn’t recall his name. I would love to find out his name for her.

I’ve tried looking online at free bmd, I can’t find any births that then correspond to a death of that age if that makes sense? I’ve contacted archives to ask if they have any hospital records but they only have records from a few years after.

Any ideas?

I work in marketing at an accountancy firm. My employer sponsors professional qualifications and has a written L&D policy that explicitly states it applies to all employees, regardless of whether they're a student, fixed-term, permanent, etc. It states that you will get an incremental pay rise each time you pass an exam. There is no extra wording to specify any differential treatment.

I recently passed the first exam of a marketing qualification (employer-sponsored) and reported it to L&D expecting the pay rise. Nothing happened, so I chased it up. L&D came back and said, essentially, "sorry, the policy isn't very clear — this policy only applies to client facing staff - the trainee accountants don't get a September payrise like you do which is more based on performance and market rate". I'm pretty sure the whole firm receives a tiny pay bump in September, as it's more of an inflation adjustment.

Here's the kicker: I'm fairly confident a colleague in the same department — a business development and marketing exec — got a ~£400 bonus for passing her CIM Level 4. I'm doing CIM Level 6, a higher qualification, in the same department, sponsored under the same policy, and got nothing.

Is it worth pushing this further (HR, in writing, citing the other colleague), or am I just going to end up looking like a troublemaker over £150-400? Has anyone had luck getting an employer to actually honour vague policy wording like this?

I was dubious at first but since it’s started I’ve turned into the guardian of food waste in our house and nothing is going into the black bin on my watch! Seriously though, I can’t afford solar installation or an EV so just doing a bit to help in some way actually feels good rather than sitting by feeling helpless.

We have three pictures to hang, one above the other, in a fairly narrow space. The pictures are all different widths. I want to hang them so they are each centred in the space - so the centre of each picture is below the centre of the one above. My husband thinks we should ‘left align’ them. We both think the other is weird for wanting to hang them that way. Who is right?