Bellend Sebastian

The pavement outside my house is taped off after the builder who did my driveway in very public spirited fashion fixed some of the wonky and broken paving. Watched someone this morning climb over the tape whilst on their phone, walk across the cordoned off section and right through the patch of wet cement as if none of it were there

I'm just watching American Werewolf In London and I don't think it gets much better for me than 1981 vintage Jenny Agutter

If only there were a cohort that would have me

Mine's nearly three decades out of date and I thought it was pretty shite then

Oh fab, Dominic Cummings has entered the chat. As usual, despite my university education I haven't a clue what you're on about

As a paid up member of the middle class, metropolitan, Guardian reading, left leaning, university educated liberal elite and moving almost exclusively in these circles I simply don't recognise 95% of the stuff that we're supposedly obsessed with

What's going on with them? I know someone that used to have one but he chopped it in for something slightly more sensible

I don't know if it's WhatsApp or my new phone but a "helpful" automatic suggestion on replies makes it very easy to send a smiley face emoji that I would never ever use as a response which has already made things slightly awkward with my builder

I must put my hands up and say it MIGHT have been to do with me enjoying one too many free samples on the brewery tour and bumping into the machinery (and Angela the tour guide, apologies Angela, I meant nothing by this or my subsequent comments) but either way I have learned from this and suggest we all simply move on

It's amazing isn't it? People get so irate about stuff and so quick to feel like a victim of any sort of change for good but take zero interest in why that change might be in their interests and how the status quo might actually be, well, a bit shit

We'll all be begging for a ULEZ at this rate https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/nov/25/air-pollution-impacting-pregnancy-mens-reproductive-health

It was all three of the lines stocked from one brewery, and judging by the amount of it on the shelves relative to their rivals, it was denting sales. One of the bigger ones so I'm sure they can take the hit but someone's had a horror

I just tweeted a brewery to tell them that all of their bottled ales in the supermarket had misprinted labels with part of the barcode missing, making them somewhat difficult to buy. Bellend likes to help

A slur on our glorious Prime Miniature, sorry, Minister?!? He'll attack you with a hammer for that!! Actually no need to worry then

She was only ever a member of a shadow cabinet, so more influential than me, perhaps

Here I am vainly replying to my own post, to just update you all that I've got it and I'm very happy with it. 120w charging is bonkers - a full charge in about half an hour. Screen is very nice and I'm glad to have a headphone socket because it sounds GREAT through my wired earbuds - certainly better than my last phone from the same firm. Blue and white models now back in stock as well and I'd say very good value at £319 even if you can't get it for less like I did

Oh boy

I know a cleaner and she told us a story about how hearing a door opening downstairs whilst she was cleaning upstairs, and whistling coming up from the ground floor and when she went to investigate there was nobody there, so just packed up and left there and then. I didn't think it was anywhere near as scary as some of the stuff she's told us about actual alive men basically just being massive weirdos, including a bloke she was cleaning for and was never comfortable around being convicted for rape. Never occurred to me that being a cleaner could be dangerous in that way, but of course there people out there that will make it so

Lost souls that can't let go of the past. I can see why you'd think that

Amazingly, there's a property in the county where LOADS of people have had supposedly paranormal experiences which as far as I can tell has absolutely no internet footprint in terms of being associated with this sort of thing, unlike places like Belgrave Hall and the Guildhall. I've heard some of the stories passed on through others but also direct from people who've had experiences there and whilst I do not believe in ghosts for a second, I do find listening to people recounting things that completely freak them out enormously entertaining and however sceptical I am cannot help getting a bit carried away by it all. I've been in the property in question and although nothing weird happened it's a truly unappealing place - old, poorly maintained, unsympathetically extended and repeatedly repurposed over its long history, a mixture of imposing spaces and horrible, cramped disorientating corridors - basically spooky as. Is it haunted? Is it bollocks. But you only need one person to hear something odd, think they've seen something, then tell someone else and the seed is sown. Bear in mind this place, despite being pretty big, often only had a few people working in it at a time, and the added bonus that the work could involve having to go into that building at any time of day including the dead of night, there were myriad opportunities for people to wind themselves up something proper and let their imagination run away with itself. If you're stressed enough all sorts of stuff happens in your head and in fairness I think all the people I spoke to about this thought there would be a rational explanation for their experiences rather than thinking they were being bothered by ghosts. It's been repurposed again in the time since the people I know worked there, and assuming the new occupants haven't heard the stories I wonder how they feel about the place? Possibly nothing at all. Would I spend the night there? No Sir, I would not. Being in it when there wasn't anybody else there in daytime was enough, thank you

I did this and it worked. When I'll get the £500 credit I've got with Shell back is anybody's guess. I've got a new Smart Meter coming as well for some reason. One is a bit temperamental but naturally they've not told me which one is being replaced

I completely agree. As a working parent - and one afforded a generous level of flexibility by a very family friendly employer, I might add - it would be extremely hypocritical of me to take issue with that. I'm talking about the mindset where an employee is always on the lookout for the things they can use to basically justify not doing any work. It's really damaging and undermines employee rights as it can make employers sceptical about genuine cases to everyone's detriment. There's more of this about at the minute than there has been, I think partly because work has been relatively easy to come by. In this instance nothing to do with parenting but I've heard some ASTONISHING tales from the workplace recently that may go part way to explaining the mysterious levels of productivity in the UK relative to other similar countries

I'm not sure about the populace's understanding of tax generally (but as with most financial things suspect it's close to non-existent) but there's definitely a massive misconception about Inheritance Tax judging by what I read on social media and conversations overheard in the barbers or whatever. You would think you couldn't inherit anything without "most of it" being taken off you by the taxman

9 times out of 10 when a sentence starts as you've described, it's followed by a completely unreasonable request to get special treatment in the workplace, and it's got F*£@ ALL to do with parenthood and is usually just the latest in an ever growing list of reasons to do less work than your colleagues. I'm fortunate to work in a very family orientated firm where people recognise this and don't push things too far, but crikey I've heard some howlers over the years

Tired cliché that it is and I'm sure everybody would see this as a tragedy, it is weird how you respond to things like this when you become a parent yourself. I was only vaguely aware of them being unaccounted for, and then you see the update and it proper gets you in the stomach. Awful news