WomblingFree

I was just in Japan and yes can confirm it's a lot cheaper than here. The flight was pricy, as was some of the accommodation. However, once there everything else was dirt cheap. We had some really nice meals at £5-6 for a main, though you can obviously pay a lot more. Beer/wine/coffee were often around £2. Public transport was great value - £3.50 for a day pass on the Tokyo metro which is massive, albeit more if you want to use the overground lines. We didn't do much shopping but Uniqlo (obviously a Japanese chain) was around 40% cheaper than here, plus a bit more if you go tax free. It is I imagine a lot easier for the non-Japanese speaker than in the 1980s. I survived for two weeks with little more than "thank you" and "cheers". Most people we dealt with in shops/restaurants/hotels spoke some English, and signs/announcements/ticket machines often have English translations.

I spoke to four agents when I sold last year. One came back to me with neither a valuation nor an indication of what their charges were Mundays agree were very helpful when they came round, but never came back to me Another was critical of my flat and came back with a valuation far below what I ended up getting I ended up going with Ludlow Thompson as they came back to me with a valuation and told me what their charges were. However, they no longer exist (merged into Foxtons) I guess my point is if you speak to a few agents then the decision might make itself. And I should have looked on here for recommendations!

Reporting it via the abandoned bins page (https://www.southwark.gov.uk/bins-and-recycling/abandoned-bins) worked for me a couple of years ago. Which makes sense I guess - they don't know (or probably care) whether a bin is abandoned or just surplus to requirements.

Choosing from a small sample size but Noel Gallagher at Crystal Palace Park in July was pretty special. Great venue, great support from Johnny Marr and a great set. I was never an Oasis fan so mostly there for his solo stuff, but almost lost my voice singing along to the Oasis songs at the end.

I got a letter from my credit card company telling me I was close to my credit limit. Postal date was two weeks before, so by that time I'd gone over the limit and got charged. Annoying, but reading the above I feel I got off lightly.

I recently moved from Virgin to Community Fibre - now paying £20 a month and service has been good so far. Cancelling Virgin by both phone and chat was incredibly painful and I totally get the Ofcom investigation. You can also cancel by letter which I wish I’d done. That said, the phone/chat people offered price reductions quite quickly, so if you’re happy with service that might be the path of least resistance.

Still using. I use Twitter mostly as a news feed for topics I’m interested in (sport, music, comedy) and it works well for that - on the Following tab I just see people I follow plus the odd promoted tweet. The For You tab is hit and miss though - it picks up some things I’m interested in, but a lot I’m not. I’d contrast this with Facebook and Instagram, where accounts I follow are just drowned out with spam these days to the point where they’re almost unusable.

I agree up to a point, but also hasn’t the problem moved beyond this? Just walking to the station I routinely see speeding/extreme speeding, people ignoring red lights, cycling on pavements, people jumping on the backs of buses without paying etc etc. Essentially I see more criminals than police. If graffiti and litter can lead to more crime then I’m pretty sure open criminality can too. A burglar might reasonably take a look around at all this and feel invulnerable. It might be that the pandemic has messed with my mind a bit, but were things like this in 2019?

If you’re not fussed about going out it’s free to watch on the BT Sport YouTube channel. Possibly this is common knowledge but I only read about it 3 days ago.

Useless fact of the day: Kemi Badenoch stood for MP (under her maiden name) in Dulwich and West Norwood in 2010. I’ve not voted for many Tories in my life, but she is the only one I can remember not voting for.

Wes Streeting (Labour shadow health minister) had some interesting thoughts on this in the FT the other day: https://www.ft.com/content/3592b0e6-6d8d-4483-9f89-4c909b2defd0 In case you can’t see it (the FT paywall is a bit random) he does say they can’t open the cheque book and “Reform will need to do more of the heavy lifting”. The incumbents have set the bar pretty low admittedly, but Streeting at least seems quite sharp.

People with multi-syllable names who refuse to accept the common abbreviation for those names, making you say/write the whole thing every time. Yes Jonathan, I do mean you.

Might be worth taking a look at the air bricks on your property if you haven’t already done so. A local handyman replaced the rusty metal ones on my flat and the “visitors” stopped overnight. Can’t guarantee that’s the problem but possibly an easy win if it is.

The four speed bumps in a row at the North Dulwich Station end of Half Moon Lane, and in particular going over them on the 37 bus. Anybody know the history of these? Why???

Men who use their phones at the urinal. (Is there a female equivalent out of interest?)