The trick is to buy reasonably open devices, then provide the smarts yourself.
If it can talk to / be configured by HomeAssistant, and doesn’t require internet to work, it’ll probably be fine.

Reminds me of the time the dregs of Portsmouth went hunting a Paediatrician.

In that case, the NHS (assuming they don’t have a separate agreement) will have to reduce the amount of it they dispense.
Our health spending is pretty much capped each year: If the price of a drug rises, then the impact/£ ratio will eventually shift that money towards treating something else.

I had a really chatty test, it was great.
It doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Some people would prefer a more human experience test, and others would prefer a more “exam conditions” formal one.

Or in true shit company fashion, promise to follow the rules, not follow them, then sue/petition the various bodies that they can’t make money unless the rules are removed.

Not at all surprised.
A Large, even with the DFS-style half-price offer, is £12.50 for a 13.5".
And they’ve apparently started charging £3.50 for delivery.

Meanwhile, my local pizza place is £14 for a 18".

Making the job uncomfortable won’t help make the police more reasonable.
It’ll just drive reasonable people away, while not affecting people joining just to have power.

Same way people moving to the UK are referred to as migrants, but people leaving the UK call themselves ex-pats.

Crap idea? Check.
Unpopular with everyone? Check.
Lumbered on the current government by the previous, so hard to reverse quickly? Check.
The conservatives (and Labour’s lack of action) just handed reform a beautiful less-racist onramp.

“Tonight, I attempt to access some pornography.”
3 minute shot of Clarkson angling a camera at his visibly fed-up face

The worst part about privatisation is the level of “who, me?” that happens.
Huge corp doing bad? Fining an entire org takes forever (if it even gets there), and every shitty cog just does their small bit of arseholery, while pretending they’re not the problem.
And the C-levels mostly walk away with a slap on the wrist, if any.
A revolving door of executives, making small parts of the awful changes each.

😬

Doing a few things well, rather than microwaving everything Sysco can load into the freezer would be nice too.

One of my locals does chips, and hotdogs, in an air fryer. That’s it. But they’re amazing chips and hotdogs.

IIRC, isn’t one of the conditions from last year that universal service obligation must be fulfilled for 5 years?
Which, really doesn’t feel like that long.

Especially if they start throwing clay pigeons.

After seeing the mess the US in, codifying things that are generally accepted seems like a good idea.

I fully expect all the prices to drop by 20%, and not just rise to meet the lack of tax…

I do kinda support this though. I repair everything I can, and regularly buy better quality refurb kit rather than crap new stuff.

On the positive side, UK to distract Trump from MAGA crap for a week.

I’m the slime, oozing out, of your temporal net.

I should probably write a bot to auto-reply when someone pulls a state as a comparison.
(Or ask the resident flamingo nicely to write it 😀)

I’ll put the gist of why hot weather can be a pain in the UK so it’s in the thread, not aimed at you obviously:

• Most housing was built around coping with -5 to 25’c comfortably.
  Which for a long time meant no insulation, and a fire/wet central heating system.
  And not a damn was given about air-tightness.
• A lot of the housing pre-dates WW1
• Air conditioning was not commonplace at all when the majority of houses were built (you could argue it still isn’t)
• Heatwaves were so infrequent, it wasn’t worth the cost of installing air conditioning domestically.
• It gets muggy as hell, with the high humidity making it worse. (But again, it’s variable, so tricky to justify spending money)
• Swamp coolers don’t work due to the humidity
• Lots of people grew up with the weather being (generally) mild enough that opening a window to get airflow was enough to keep cool. (I’ve had family members open the windows on a 30’ day to “cool” my 20’ basement…)
• Leccy is expensive. This is improving with solar and plunge pricing, but most people will want to tighten up their house in other ways before spending £8/day cooling it.

With both our warming climate, and more kit being installed, things are changing, and people are adapting.
More people now understand that cooling the fabric of the house at night when it dips into the teens, then closing the windows in the morning, is a better way to keep it cool.
Building regulations stipulate significantly more insulation, air-tightness, heat gain control.
And air conditioning has dropped in price a lot.
For anyone curious, you can DIY a mini-split for about £500/room, or get a better quality one installed for under £2000.