Bellend Sebastian

Nobody has posted here since February? With Black Friday fast approaching I'm eyeing up a replacement for my 3 year old Xiaomi. To get 3 years out of a £250 phone seems pretty good to me and I'm only looking to replace it as the battery is starting to get a bit tired (it's probably 2 years old as the first one went haywire and was replaced under warranty). As the Chinese secret service have hardly tried to blackmail me AT ALL, I'd consider another Xiaomi or one of their offshoots. I'd also be prepared to pay a bit more - my wife has got a Samsung A54 which is very good but I'm not enthusiastic about because I'm a luddite and would rather have a phone with a headphone jack. Any ideas? There's a 'rugged' Nokia that has some appeal (and a headphone socket) but seems a bit expensive given the specs

Had the delight today of really pushing myself to get a PB on a 10k, nearly puking up, then finding I'd mis-remembered what it was and was about 30 seconds off it

Just go on the What Hifi website and look at the TV best buys. I've always been into tech but I have to say after decades of scrutinising specs of various devices I'm starting to get a bit bored of it

It would be like Chester nuking Wrexham. Mind you, can't even rule that out

Already tried that

Anybody know much about appliance repair? Our 4 year old previously trouble free Blomberg dishwasher has started tripping the electrics. The socket is ok (tested it with the iron). Haven't changed the fuse in the plug because a) I haven't got one b) if it is the fuse it would be nice to know why it blew and c) in three decades of adult life I've never had a fuse go in anything. Anything I can try before I ring a repair man?

When my son was very small a Caramac as a treat for the way back was about the only way I could get him to come shopping with me, so I've fond memories of them for that reason. I really like them but Cadburys launching Caramilk has done them hasn't it because it's pretty much identical?

There's something out of the ordinary going on at the minute. I've never known a time when so many people are stressed, angry, depressed, ill, intolerant, having relationship problems, friendship breakdowns etc etc. I'm sure there are a lot of factors at play but I cannot help but think it's some sort of hangover from the pandemic, which undoubtedly made a lot of that stuff in the list above worse. Although the pandemic has gone (sort of) it's left its fingerprint in that all those things that it exacerbated haven't recovered to how they were before. Add in the cost of living crisis, the weirdest, most vindictive government I can recall, grimmest world events we've had in a long time and public discourse dragging itself ever deeper into a toxic mire and it's no wonder so many folk feel like shite, it seems like everyone's resilience is being chipped away from all directions. I almost feel guilty feeling a bit less insane and anxious these days and being slightly more at ease and on top of the stuff that used to weigh me down. I suppose being marginally less self absorbed is making me look outwards and tuning in a bit more to what's going on with other folk. I want to do something positive for people but Christ, everyone's dealing with so much I don't really know where to start, and of course you have to be careful not to interfere in other folks' business and remember that however good your intentions are, we can rarely actually fix stuff for others. It feels a bit trite to say but look after yourselves and each other

Saw a bloke trying to pinch about 5 boxes of Smirnoff vodka from Sainsburys and could easily have stopped him if it hadn't taken me so long to realise that was what he was doing. I'd make a shite policeman

I'd view the Ombudsman as a weapon of last resort. It varies from case to case but it takes them forever to deal with, so although they will make a judgement eventually anyone wanting a speedy resolution is much better off arguing/negotiating with the institution. This in itself costs them time and money and is an incentive to get it sorted. We get threatened with the Ombudsman occasionally and I think, great that means I don't have to think about it for about 8 months

I had two cats, one of which reacted like a human would in an actual air raid, and the other I found sat on the wheelie bin watching them

The EE website. It's like a website from 2001, so much of it doesn't work

Sometimes two shelves, sometimes just one. Sometimes on something completely different, sometimes in a series of compromising positions leading my wife to call me "immature"

I've got a brilliant reason to destroy the Elves on the Shelf now

Aye, that's the bunny. I was never arsed about being a release completist but I wanted to have all the recordings if that makes sense, and this helpfully filled some gaps. They released There Is A Light That Never Goes out as a single not long after (Sandie Shaw on the cover) that had some other rarities on but I think that was the lot as I don't think they sold very well Edit: they re-released How Soon Is Now as well as part of that series, but it was completely pointless as it didn't have any non album tracks as b sides

As well as being Johnny Marr''s birthday, This Charming Man is apparently 40 years old today, which I'm struggling to get my head around more than I should. This means it's 31 years since I bought the re-release, which really doesn't feel very long ago

I don't think this is unusual and I've spent a lot of time over the last couple of years working on rebalancing my guitar relationship in favour of the latter! I used to have an Epiphone Casino with P90s, but whilst it was a very beautiful thing its neck was just too narrow for my big daft hands so I flogged it to my mate

I think collectively we've lost sight of how this could actually help, and that's the real tragedy

I'm as disappointed as the next guy when a discussion about some issue, be it politics or anything else gets closed down, and sometimes I'll agree with that decision and sometimes I won't. I don't moan about it though because ultimately I would feel like that lad I saw kicking off once because they wouldn't let him into the Highcross shopping centre without a top on. You get so used to going into and using a space that you take that freedom for granted, and only occasionally are reminded that there are rules associated with it, and as you don't make those rules as that space isn't yours, you just have to accept them

At the height of its popularity, Mrs Brown's Boys used to get 10 million plus viewers an episode in the UK, figures that most programme makers can only dream about. Whilst some of them may have mistakenly believed they were watching a particularly disturbing fly on the wall documentary about a foul mouthed cross dressing Irish man haunted by 250 unseen souls who break into spasms of laughter literally every time he says anything at all, most will have accepted it as the inconsequential, accessible and humorous entertainment that it was intended to be. Get your head around that and all sorts of seemingly inexplicable behaviour on the part of the British public suddenly makes sense. Well they would do that, wouldn't they?

My profound contribution to the debate about what comedy is good and what isn't is why bother when I've had my Auntie Barbara lecturing me at interminable length about how Last of the Summer Wine is "proper humour" and "really, genuinely funny", "unlike the stuff you get these days", and also been in the company of a colleague who had tears of laughter running down her face when recounting what had happened in an episode of Mrs Brown's Boys she'd seen the previous evening

Park Run this morning in about 26:20, so not too bad. I might owe this satisfactory performance to eating nearly a whole box of York Fruits last night, it's hard to tell

Truly the turd that won't flush. That he has ever enjoyed any sort of popularity or following is indicative of what a basket case of a country we've become

Finally got round to acting on some of the very good advice on here and went for a run where I was going to ignore what time I got and would mix up the running. Did 4 miles including about half a dozen sprints going as fast as I could, and at the end of it my legs felt like jelly (in a good way, if that's possible) which they're not usually. They're still feeling like they've done some work this morning so hopefully this will have some effect

We have solar panels at work and charge points and yes, I'm very fortunate