joefife

Seems surprising to me. I've not swiped a UK card in many years. Honestly can't remember the last time.

It's curious you're seeing so many stripe fallback incidents. Is this a USA issue?

Yup - and this is where we're at with car safety too. Car marque CEOs are free to say "Yeah, it'll cost hundreds of millions to fix, it's cheaper to pay out per death for a rare event".

We're all worn down by this and, in essence, we operate on blood money.

Because people who you want to come and work in the UK won't bother coming if it's hostile. The quality immigrants will simply not bother turning up. There are not the British bodies to fill these roles.

Instead, you'll be left with the less desirable and desperate.

Do you really want a workforce of those who grudgingly turn up, or would you rather the happier workforce of those who can enjoy family life?

You can get residential interest only mortgages - at least here in the UK.

I used to have one, but remortgaged to repayment ten years ago.

It's quite common to see "buy to let" mortgages as interest only rather than repayment, where the owner is concerned with cashflow rather than the asset itself.

Unsure if it's law in the UK - but every UK supermarket I've visited has price per 100g / kg / litre / 100ml on every product.

Rather amusingly (to me!), lavatory paper has a price per sheet, which is abbreviated "sht"... https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/304782328

The author talks about many aspects of traveling in London as though they are novel.

Signs to hold on to the handrail, or to report antisocial behaviour are not new in London - and many famous styles of public information poster originate from this area, in particular, the Underground.

The opening paragraphs suggest a level of paranoia, frankly.

Oi. Fife isn't ENTIRELY about bowling clubs and dogging.

Are you having a stroke?

NHS practices are private businesses, which are contracted to provide NHS services.

That's why there's the complex business of 'partners', which buy into the "business".

The rest of the civilised world manages just fine.

At a tangent - I'm quite worried about software licencing costs due the divergence in fortunes of the USA and the UK.

As a UK small business, we've seen software licencing rises between 10 and 40% this year, on software purchased from US companies. Clearly, those companies must price for their home (and much larger) market. But, it is making it much harder to budget for software commitments, and to buy the tools needed to run and secure small and medium businesses.

I realise this isn't a problem to enterprise, and there's nothing anyone here can do - this is just my observation working in the SME space in the UK.

Ah got you. I live in the Scottish countryside where property is cheap. Forgot about insane city prices.

While I'm inclined to agree - I wonder why you are still in a basement if you're renting?

Surely the benefit of renting is the ability to quickly change living environment as you want, rather than stay somewhere you're unhappy for ten years?

You don't need to be an immigrant. Vegetables are cheap in UK supermarkets.

1kg carrots - 39p https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/morrisons-carrots-2...

2.5kg potatoes - £1 https://groceries.morrisons.com/products/morrisons-white-pot...

And so on. Vegetables are cheap. It's frustrating seeing people complain about food but not learn to cook. Making casserole is cheap.

Even within BBC News, there is notably different content between the World Service and home stations.

Only if they're aware that the information was manipulated.

Counting spots? Not the biggest challenge for a robot.

I wonder if there are any disability legal concerns with this?

Agreed - although remember the MOT only starts once the car is there years old. There is no MOT for the first few years.

Also, and more of an edge case, there are some vehicles that don't require an MOT, such as vintage vehicles (which also don't pay VED) and don't public sector fleets (such as police cars)

That's insane. I'm in Scotland and this sort of maintenance is just part of my council tax bill. Shared with everyone else in my county.

The Spanish manage?

Indeed. It's a very strange argument - sidewalks require significantly less to sustain.

For a start, the build quality can be a lot lower - a sidewalk doesn't need to support lorries with 13t loads.

As for maintenance, the damage to them is far less, and repairing a sidewalk would usually be a small diversion rather than the drama of a road closure.

I'm not quite sure why anyone would think sidewalks are an unthinkable burden.

They also have a good podcast on this.

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/49

Contemplate suicide?

Four post masters actually did it - https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/post-office-scandal-worke...

It does sound insane, but sometimes these things are founded.

Just a few months ago, a local government body finally awards as millions to someone their formed chief executive had been persecuting for two decades. During that time, the random member of the public was imprisoned. This case involved multiple corrupt people.

If it wasn't for the happy conclusion, I'd have said this was the tale of a lunatic.

The podcast is at https://www.private-eye.co.uk/podcast/68

I'm afraid my experience is with local companies, so unless you're in the central belt if Scotland, it won't be much use.

The two companies I'm thinking of recruit only for IT. If you have a local IT recruiting company, give them a call. If they take the time to understand your motivations and skills, it's probably a good start.

I've noticed a huge difference between specialist IT recruiters and regular firms. I don't bother speaking to firms not focused on IT. At list the specialist firms actually know what it is you're offering and understand what their clients are after.

Yup. I simply exit the process if I'm confronted with this nonsense.

I know they're popular to hate, but I really rate IT recruiters for removing the pain out of job hunting.

Perhaps I've just been lucky, but my involvement with recruiters seems to be little more than an introductory chat about my CV, and they line up interviews.

I've found them hassle free.

"This isn't some fringe crackpot theory - and it shouldn't ever have been treated as such."

A big concern was the bloodlust against China - and that by humouring this theory, there could be fatal consequences for Chinese nationals across the world, and a potential public desire for retribution.

I can understand why the theory was shut down - a large chunk of society isn't capable of understanding that "this is just one of those unfortunate occurrences. I can forgive this lie.

I've seen intelligent people, who are experts in their domain, fall from grace through age or illness.

Once critical thinkers, now vulnerable and gullible.

I wouldn't be so harsh.

I've found the complete opposite effect.

Allowing people to work undisturbed has, for my team at least, allowed faster delivery of goals.

People for in from all over the world. That is literally burning oil.