Or they’re used as a bargaining chip by the US.

New cabinet pick for the US on its way, I guess.

Remarkable how an industry working with a renewable resource is able to make sustainable money.

Nuclear plants are, unfortunately, mostly megaprojects that are tricky to finish inside a 5 year election cycle.
This means that they either end up in purgatory, or proceeding at a snails pace as changing governments change the goalposts/funding to suit themselves.

“I’m alright jack, pull the ladder up!”

That’s the main reason I haven’t bothered upgrading mine any more.
100mbits with 3ms latency is pretty rocking.

Like the arena in my area that keeps lights on all night (apparently to help the grass grow), while causing shitloads of light pollution. Why are there even regulations for grass quality? A bit of random pitch variance might make football interesting.

100% agree on this. The societal backstops get underpaid, then every other resource gets gutted, and every social problem comes crashing down on them.
Honestly, I’d consider teaching, and probably wouldn’t even mind doing the pastoral side of things, if it just paid OK, and wasn’t treated like “wow, you get to teach? And you get 6 weeks off in summer? Lucky!”

I’m glad the new builds are still required, there is no good reason a new build with proper insulation and appropriate radiators cannot be heated by a heat pump.

WRT your property: The only big practical difference in heating between gas and heatpumps, is the flow temperature of the radiators that can be reached while maintaining efficiency.

So while getting things insulated is definitely the preferred change to make, increasing the size and output of the radiators can also get an old property in range. If you currently run your radiators at 70 to heat the house(so, water delta of 50), dropping it to 40 (delta 20) for a HP reduces the effective output by 70%.

To make that up, the radiators either need to be sized for outputting 3x as much, the insulation/air tightness improved to reduce heat loss by 70%, or a combination of the two. If there is a possibility of installing underfloor heating, for example, that can make things a lot easier.

The important thing is that properties are properly surveyed, and options worked out, rather than just rule-of-thumbing everything.

I’m doing an ongoing project on my own house; gradually improving things from all angles, and as I go lowering the flow temperature of the boiler. Once I am happily running at 40, I plan to switch over to an ASHP.
I was amazed the difference swapping out the 60s radiators for new ones made. At a guess, they’re putting out 4x as much heat.
Not bad for £90!

When this first started getting discussed long ago, I made a decision that if the shitty US-standard meat ever got legalised in the UK without massive “this is chlorine-washed/etc.” stickers, I’d just give up on meat. Not worth the faff.

Probably thinks that Starmer will just overrule government objections to their poor meat standards…Missing the point that he doesn’t really have the ability to override things like that.

Smiths own a lot of their commercial property, so they can often hang on to a location when other stores on lease agreements might have closed up.

It’s been talked about for a while, when the vulture capital firms would eventually be in to squeeze all that real estate juice into billionaire pockets.

For me, the price difference between chain pub food and nice resturant food is now too small as a percentage.
If I’m going out, and the choice is £20 a head in a half decent local restaurant, or £17.50 for something mediocre in a pub full of sports fans, it’s not a hard decision.

Same as happened with a lot of the fast food places: When you’re approaching “proper food” money, people will spend a couple of quid extra for something nicer.

My local does decent cheap food, and does well because of it. (And in this comparison, it’s the £12.50 option)

I think Brum lives in the Cotswolds.
CT would never make it there, too many A roads.

Always nice to have a silver lining!
I really don’t want to think about a 10 year future where everyone has to go through this.

The bioaccumilation of PFAS in mortal blood is concerning for me and my colleagues.
It would be very sad to live for 600 years, only to be killed off by fire suppressant.

IIRC, the owner chose to support brexit because it might mean the UK implemented minimum alcohol pricing sooner, which might have increased his trade when the gap between supermarket and pub drinking got smaller.
It really rubbed me the wrong way that was his reason.

Spoons and BD have been on my “do not drink at” list for a while.
This underlines the BD one for me.

At this point, what’s left to cut?!

BIzzare, no idea why it didn’t populate. Fixed, anyway, thanks :)