The heating is kicking in to keep the house at 19 degrees which is honestly too cold for me, jumper and slippers on and it's still chilly indoors but at £7-£8 a day when we're not even in winter yet I'm not sure on turning the temp up higher.

I'm shocked at how expensive it is and worried about the price in winter. It seems ridiculous to feel like we're asking too much to afford to have our home be a comfortable temperature after both working 40 hours a week.

Is this around a regular price or is ours silly expensive?

Edit as asked in comments - It's a 4 bed Victorian terrace, seems like a lot of people are paying a similar price! It's the heat loss that's killing us, as soon as the heating is turned off we lose 1.5 degrees within an hour so it's working a lot to keep the temp higher.

i’ve had thai food in Teesside, York, Chester and Northumberland this year and it’s all been amazing. why is it all so nice? have i just been to 4 really good places?

eta also had some in Gateshead that i forgot to add. was also banging

Please also state the year/decade. Trying to find happy stories to cheer everybody up. Sometimes one wonders if people were more friendly in the past or whether it is just nostalgia.

I’ve noticed that most of the music I listen to which are video game and anime soundtracks aren’t enjoyed by any of my family to my knowledge. I like metal too which they also don’t listen to. How about you lot?

I grew up in Dorset and we always had apple crumble with either ice cream or cream. Never custard.

My wife grew up in the Midlands and thinks I’m mad because she always had hers with custard!

It’s got me wondering whether this is actually a regional thing or just down to what your family did growing up.

So, where in the UK did you grow up, and what did you always have with your crumble?

Curious to see if there’s a north/south divide or whether it’s completely random!

Edit - oh god what have I started…

I'm a remote IT worker getting a bit bored of my four walls I've been in coworking spaces a few times and they seem pretty cool, but seem to be mostly self-employed people. I'm an employee, not self-employed. Cheapest place I've seen locally (Manchester suburbs) is about £180/month which is enough to discourage me, but not totally prohibitive.

I wondered:

Is 180/month the going rate?

Can you somehow pay this out of your pre-tax pay?

Has anyone managed to get their employer to pay, or contribute?

Can you mentally offset this against saved heating/electric/internet bills?

Is it social - do you get to know the other co-workers?

How is it for taking calls? I think one place I saw had private booths for calls but most did not.

Have you bumped into any other issues? e.g. confidentiality of working in a public place

I'm primarily interested in people sharing their experience.

without using a dehumidifier

my meter says its 70% in my bedroom and its starting to smell musty.

Have you ever been in a physical fight like fist fight and if so what was the outcome did you win, did you lose, were there multiple people involved, were there weapons involved and what was the reason for the fight in the first place?

I'd like to start taking longer holidays, perhaps 6-8 weeks over the winter, preferably in Europe but open to anywhere a reasonable flight time from the UK.

However it feels too long for hotels, too short for apartment rentals, and too expensive for AirBnB type places.

Does anyone currently take longer holidays without owning your own holiday home? Is there even a market for this type of thing or am I hunting for unicorns?

I recently watched clayface in Cineworld but there was not enough leg room so what would you guys recommend?

Was listening to old XFM with Ricky Gervais, Steve Merchant and Karl Pilkington. Karl uses the word 'grid' in a sentence and is corrected by Ricky, 'he means grate'.

I live in NW England and have always called it a grid (or drain), eg 'I dropped my keys down the grid' - I think most people would gather what was meant by that sentence even if they didn't call it a grid themselves.

Any other offerings? Is it region specific?

For the past 6/7 years I have used Mealime but it has just closed. It was perfect for what I needed. I select however many meals and it creates a list of ingredients. The recipes were added to each month and it had quite a large library. You could favourite the regular recipes into a custom list. It wasn't linked to any specific supermarkets and was generally just really easy to use!

I've just looked at Cherrypick but it seems to be forcing you to Sainsburys, added a simple recipe and the list was 10p of onions at £0.95/kg, guess you have to do your own maths to work out how many you need! Was similar for nearly every ingredient. £0.89 of green pesto at £4.68/kg... I switched it to Tesco but it omitted almost every ingredient and said the experience was better with Sainsburys.

So, Is there anything thats fits the bill? Anyone else use Mealime and are now switching to something else?

I had a McDonalds Happy Meal today and didn’t want the toy so I offered it to a family next to me who had kids. I asked the parents not the kids.

The two blokes sitting there raised their voices and shouted NO! at me like I was the devil!

I wasn’t trying to be a weirdo, I just didn’t want the toy.

What are your thoughts on this?

This is a slightly odd one, but it's been bugging me for years.

When I was a child in the 1990s, I went on a Scout camp where our guides were miners or cavers. I have a memory of being told about a creature called the “galloping fan-tailed water rabbit” (or similar), as well as being warned about “spitting bats”. I think the camp was somewhere in South Wales, possibly around the Brecon Beacons, but my memory of the exact location and details is a bit hazy.

I always assumed we were being wound up, but the name stuck with me. Recently, I decided to see if I could find any reference to it, and to my surprise, I've found several.

A few things I've come across:

- A children's book: Wiff and Sniff... and special friends by Mal Riesner and Tim Ashton, published in 2026. It features a fan-tailed water rabbit, and the authors say their father used to tell them stories about it when they were children.

- An old pub storyteller: The Lincolnshire Folk Tales Project has an article about Walter “Harry the Liar” Parker, who apparently claimed that breeding a fan-tailed water rabbit was one of his achievements. Here's the article: (https://lincolnshirefolktalesproject.com/2025/07/08/harry-the-liar/).

- I've also found a couple of Facebook posts using the name casually as a joke.

So it seems the expression has been doing the rounds in different places, but I'm curious about how far back it goes and where it originated.

Has anyone heard of a fan-tailed water rabbit, particularly before the internet? Did your parents or grandparents ever mention one? Was it an old children's tall tale, a miners' or cavers' joke, or something that appeared in a book, on the radio or elsewhere?

I'm not suggesting it was ever meant to be a real animal. I'm just fascinated by the fact that this very specific, wonderfully daft name seems to have existed in different contexts.

I'd especially love to hear from anyone who remembers it from the 1960s, 70s, 80s or earlier. And if anyone recognises the associated “spitting bats”, or has heard the longer name “galloping fan-tailed water rabbit”, I'd be really interested to hear about it.

I have a wedding coming up and need to replace my old M&S tired business shirts (their so called luxurious slim fit range) - can any kind soul point me in the direction of where to go please?

Prefer not to spend £200 on something like Thomas Pink as I am now retired and so rarely need to wear a formal shirt these days.

Am a 'difficult size to fit' sort of guy - 17.5 inch collar, 43 inch chest, 36 inch waist and fairly muscular upper body.

Many thanks in advance

I’m in process of doing my house up I want internet to connect to a ring doorbell and nothing else - until I move in (approx 8months) so no contract. Who would you go with. Cheapest as possible.

I’m going to Norwich on the 29th and would like to know what other freebies I can get.

I don’t have Starbucks on the list as it’s expensive and it’s not my top hot drink choice.

Thanks in advance!

After an argument at dinner yesterday, i hoped the internet could help me settle this once and for all. i’m a firm believer you keep the skin-on and should keep the skin on, however my mother cut the skin off the breast pieces, is this as much as a cardinal sin as i believe it to be?

I just went to the GP for an emergency appointment after a 111 call yesterday and at the end she turned a screen around mentioned using AI and I saw the software summarise the consultation. She edited it for accuracy and that was that. I've heard this was coming but I can't believe I wasn't asked for consent to record. And didn't expect to be confronted with it like that.

Has anyone else had this happen? I don't like it one bit. No advanced notice or anything. My main thing here is consent. I wasn't asked and feel like I should have been. I think it's something I should be able to opt out of.

I hate how AI is seeping into every area of our lives and I appreciate that this tool makes it easier for their records and note taking. I know time and efficiency is important but I don't think it should trump my desire to not have my voice recorded. I know GPs do a lot for us, I really appreciate the NHS and don't take it for granted but this just makes me feel uncomfortable.

Is it asking to much to want to have the ability to opt out of, or am I being unreasonable?

My wifes grandfather still uses an iPod Nano while doing the gardening, even though he has an iPhone (no idea which gen).

He still plugs it into one of those clock/speaker/charger things at night. Don't think it's had a song added to it in over 15 years.

I have a record player, but it's modern tech (uses Sonos etc).

Lately i have been trying to give some old british sitcoms a go, to see if i like them or not and how funny do i find them. Please dont suggest to me Dad's Army or Fawlty Towers, i already know that both of them 2 are good (esp the latter). Also do not suggest to me Only Fools & Horses, i already know that one is great. But here are some others i have tried

It Aint Half Hot Mam - I didnt really find this one that funny to be honest. It seems that the bulk of the jokes in this one come from either Windsor Davis shouting, or impersonating that guy who sounds like Alan Carr when he talks,

Open All Hours - Im rather disappointed in this one to be honest. Cause both Ronnie Barker and David Jason are very funny comedians, but this sitcom with both of them in just doesnt really have that it factor about it, the jokes just seem too mediocre

Are You Being Served? - Im gonna need more time with this one, ive only seen two episodes so far, and it didnt seem too bad, but too early to assess

On The Busses - I gotta admit, this one seems pretty alright. Esp the episode where they buy a new toilet for their house, and it just causes problem after problem lol. The inspector is a good ongoing villain character, I think id happily give this one more watches

Allo Allo - Now this one does seem good i must admit. Ive given the first 5 seasons a go and id happily watch more, but i got this feeling that the best seasons are behind me now. The relation Rene has with the Colonel is good, and the way they both try to pull fast ones past Hairflick (sp?) of the Gestapo. When Rene had to keep pretending to be his dead twin brother hand me laughing alot.

Maybe you're neurodivergent, maybe you just have particular tastes when it comes to eating utensils, but you know who you are and you know the problem I'm having.

I just can't find good forks anywhere. The trend just now seems to be for chunky/weighty forks, with wider tines, often with separate handles instead of just one single piece of metal, or in weird colours (I like weird colours, just not for cutlery).

I like a slender fork, petite, narrower tines, where it's just one solid piece of metal (because the ones with a different material handle gross me out because all I can think about is what sort of grime could get trapped in the joins).

I'm down to my last one that I "accidentally" pinched from an old property I used to rent so I have no idea where they came from originally, but I can't seem to find any that are pleasing. I have other forks of course, but it just means that there's always a hunt for "the good one" before dinner.

Asked by someone who has too many fivers. What if I wanted £25? I’d have to dispense £30 and hope I get a fiver.

Hello!

I'm currently in uni and despite having student finance I need to find a way to make more money and I'm having a nightmare. Job market's dry, I've chose an industry in which money is made by luck (music) and my online music services haven't been seen nor requested despite strenuous promotion

I need to get enough together to at least rent a studio flat with my girlfriend as she's in a refuge (domestic violence family case) and they've messed up her funding and might end up fully homeless soon, she can't go into work because she was automatically popped on UC. And although she's looking for work now, she's having an absolute nightmare just like me

I've tried everything, gardening, online music services, vigorous job hunting and so much more and I can't seem to find a single way to bring in a few quid.

I don't want to lean into benefits, I'm hard working and it just wouldnt feel right to get money for nothing

Thanks in advance 👍

Im from Estonia, im 18 and I want to work for some time abroad in a farm, who do I contact? Should I just travel somewhere UK or Wales and make contacts/friends?