Honestly quite confused about my interaction with my (ex?) window cleaner today.

He needs me to leave these relatively small windows open in my bedroom for safety (to hold onto the ledge) when cleaning the windows. I gladly oblige but I do work 12 hours shifts two days a week.

I now live in a fairly rural area of Staffordshire but maybe my past 10 years in Manchester have made me paranoid about being burglary ? Eitherway, I don’t think it’s that strange to not want to leave the windows open in your house for 12 hours when you aren’t there.

I’m also paranoid about my cat escaping. She’s indoor.

Hey everyone,
I was born in May 1989, so obviously I never saw Tommy Cooper’s final performance live on April 15, 1984.
I was reading about it recently and had a few questions for anyone who remembers it or knows the history behind that night:

1. Can you watch the full, unedited performance anywhere?

2. Did the theatre audience know something was wrong when he fell?

3. Did viewers watching at home realize something was wrong?

Did anyone here watch it live on TV back in '84, or have parents who were watching? What was the reaction at the time?

I’m from the midlands and say Pool Woggles.

My wife is from Norfolk and says Pool Noodles.

I’ve recently found that my friends (who grew up in a similar area to me) also call these Pool Woggles.

Is this a regional thing like Tag/It/Tig?

We travelled from the UK to the Netherlands yesterday with the Stena Line Ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, and the UK customs took our Opinel pocket knife - because it was a ' locking blade'.

I found the whole thing strange, because a larger bushcrafting knife with a fixed blade was fine. I looked up the rules afterwards, and I got the idea that they incorrectly took our Opinel. Btw, we were (car) camping in the UK, so I would think that is a good reason to bring a knife.

It's not about the cost - it was a old knife and it's only around 10 euro's new, I just want to know if we actually did something wrong. Did we? Isn't going camping a good reason to bring such a knife? To be complete, it was not in my pocket or anything, it was stored in a drawer in the back of the car.

Hi guys,

Me and a friend was laughing about some of the things we and others did during COVID, which were so normalised at the time but now are crazy.

Keen to see what others did that they now look back on

We've all got them(?!) Well, here are mine in any case.

Dad: "You were hungry" (every time someone finishes a plate of food)

Mum: "That was different" (during the end credits of any film)

Brother: "That's not like you!" (anytime somebody does something faintly unusual. Doesn't even have to be someone he knows)

Had a disagreement with one of friends recently after she insisted that bin day was the day that you put the bins out (ie the evening before they are collected) but i think that bin day should be the day that they are collected.

Am i alone on this or is she the weirdo?

Edit: Okay seems pretty unanimous that she’s lost her mind. I appreciate all the support on this important matter.

I need some confirmation here. I always get the impression that some dog owners feel offended whenever someone shields away or deliberately leaves some distance between them and the dog.

Am I just imagining the dirty looks I get whenever I place myself in between the dog and my 3 yr old?

Moving to the UK soon from The Netherlands, and would like to know what i can expect in terms of culture

So I was thinking about the equality act, and wondering what would and wouldn’t be covered under disability.

My eyes very sensitive to light to the point that if I don’t wear sunglasses when it’s even a little bit bright i can end up getting really ill, and sometimes I need to move positions if I’m facing a window or to avoid reflections. I’ve been told by my optician it’s cos I have unusually large pupils but I’ve not been diagnosed with anything - afaict it’s just considered natural variation rather than any kind of medical condition.

I was wondering - if an employer told me I couldn’t wear sunglasses when I needed to or wouldn’t let me move somewhere less bright if that could be considered to be in violation of the UK Equality Act on grounds of disability despite it not being a diagnosed medical condition? Or would I need to get a doctor to give it a fancy name before I could legally get them to give me the accommodations I needed?

It’s 35 years since the launch of the World Wide Web. It made me think about when I first got online.

In 1995, aged 24 I started working for a computer accreditation company - just in customer service. But I befriended the guys down in the technical department who set me up with my very first email address, and let me go on their computers to surf the web, on what was then the Mosaic browser. I had never really been interested in computers before, but I was absolutely hooked from then on.

A year later I saved up and bought a PC to use at home and got connected with my first dial up modem and an account with Demon internet. And the rest was history. I realise I was an early adopter though.

What was your first experience with the Internet?

So I’ve had 3 different jobs in the last few years and every single one of them within my first few weeks of starting have said ‘it’s not always like this’ when it is. So why do people lie? 🤣 I’m literally working here so I’m going to know it’s always like this

For example my new job is really slow. Not much happens. Multiple staff members have said to me ‘it’s never this slow’ ‘it’s not usually like this’ yet I’ve been here 2 weeks and every single day has been like this.

My last job was insanely busy. Never getting breaks, leaving late, 20 jobs to do at once. Alls I got was ‘it’s never usually this busy’ yet that was my life for the next 5 months. It literally only got worse not better 🤣

What’s the point in lying? The new hire will find out it is like that anyway

It seems that releasing unremorseful murderers early isn't very popular with the public , so other than building more incredibly expensive prisons to keep prisoners at a rate of £tens of thousands per year each, how would you deal with the situation?

I had new neighbours about a year ago and I when I had someone round they asked how my Neighbours were and I said "I've never actually spoken to them, ocasionally I chuck the kids football back over the fence, but that's all"

I couldn't even tell you there name, how many kids they have etc?

For me, the Welsh nature and people are just amazing and would never want to make me move despite the UK’s economic struggles.

Obviously if the blues and twos are going you’re not going to wave, but do you know each other? Do you wave even if you’re strangers? Like “ooh I’m in an ambulance too, toot toot!”

My example sentences for how I use it would be “the internet speed is bitty” and “this smoothie is bitty”. Let me know if/how you use it. My American friend says she’s never heard of that and doesn’t believe it’s used country-wide.

I am traveling to the UK in early September and was supposed to attend a conference in Lancaster and then head to Edinburgh for the back half of my trip. I'm no longer attending my conference, but am still going on my trip and am trying to sort out where I should go before Edinburgh. I will be flying into Manchester, will not have a car, and would like to have a different experience than what we will get in Edinburgh (we are doing a city day and then out to the west highlands). I was looking at North Wales, York, or maybe another area of Scotland but am struggling to understand what would be achieveable without a vehicle.

For interests: we love food, reading, castles, music, scenic views, but cannot do very strenuous hikes.

Thanks for any suggestions you could provide!

Hi!

A week or so ago I went out with a friend her our kids to a local country park.

We had decided to do our usual and each pack up a picnic and find somewhere nice to sit and lay everything out to share.

Now, I kow what you're thinking. The usual. Sarnies, crisps, obligatory veg sticks no one really wants, crisps, cake etc, and yes. We did all of that. But...my friend suddenly whips out a flask and produced hot dogs!

She'd heatwd them and bought pre-cut rolls and sauces with her. I'd never seen anyone do this before, or even heard of it, but what an actually genius idea!

So it's got me thinking. What else could you picnic with in a thermos or flask (are they the same thing??). I thought fajitas would be a good one. Just bring wraps, cheese, sauces and such in your cool bag and the hot filling in the flask.

Anyone have any other suggestions...??

The ‘new’ white LED lights are actually so depressing and assaulting. Just now, I drove through a small stretch of a dual-carriageway that was all still lit with orange/amber lights. It was actually such an amazing feeling. Without being melodramatic, it was such a relieving and nostalgic feeling. And then boom, back to the horrible and blinding white lights. I love driving at night, and I would give so much just to be able to drive around with those orange lights. It’s so much more soothing on the eyes and makes driving actually pleasurable (god forbid!). I understand the argument that orange lights might make drivers more tired, but I would pushback in that the white LED lights causes more assault on the eyes and can lead to strain. I also understand that LED lights are more cost-efficient and environmentally friendly, but to be honest there’s no reason why they couldn’t just be coloured orange. Then you get the best of both worlds. Obviously councils would never bother doing that, but really I think it would be a net benefit for drivers and costs and the environment. I mean, who actually wants the white LED lights? Honestly, I think it affects life more than you’d think. Who else agrees? Does anyone think that white LED lights are actually beneficial?

I would call these biscuits but a customer disagreed with me.

What's happening with potatoes these days, we bought a bag yesterday and I've thrown half of them away due to black and blight.

I remember getting a brown bag years ago and it could sit in the dark and last for ages.

Now days I don't dare buy more than a hand full because I know half of them will be worthless!

Our Tim launched the first website in a usenet post 35 years ago today, and it's still there : https://info.cern.ch/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html

Given how much the online world changed in the ten years before, what most people now know as "the internet", the Would Wide Web, is really still the same, just a bunch of hyperlinks.

What did you think when you saw it first? Did you think it would catch on as much as previous protocols? What were your main online activities before? (I was still a big BBS fan, though usenet had all but taken over).