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rolaaand

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Everything posted by rolaaand

  1. Air Traffic Control? NATS, the largest UK service provider is recruiting at the moment.
  2. Bit of a long shot. Down in Great Yarmouth on a family break. Don’t know the area at all. Anyone with any local knowledge of a nearby local(ish) Scottish boozer that will show our game against Croatia tomorrow rather than the England Czech game? Can always watch it in the hotel room or on my phone but fancied a pub.
  3. In for a penny then. 1-I support independence but the SNP leave me cold. 2-Boris Island airport should have been given the go ahead. 3-The speed limits on motorways should be raised to 90. It’s what most of us do anyway. 4-Donald Trump is fantastic entertainment. 5-Nuclear power is a good thing and should be embraced. 6-Faith schools should be banned. Teach kids about religion by all means, don’t teach them to be religious. That’s a choice they can make as adults. That's just off the top of my head. I’m sure if I thought about it there’s loads of unpopular crap in there.
  4. No need for the hard hat. What was once a cracking Scottish sitcom died a bit of a death with the last series and has just got worse at the start of this series. Totally contrived pish about pensioners fishing booze through a pub roof,an angel of death undertaker and methadone mick can gtf. I don’t blame them for taking the BBC’s millions. I’ll be glad when it gets taken off air.
  5. I’m not openly inviting a commision based salesman into my house when he is selling a product I neither need nor use. Even if they give themselves fancy titles like enforcement officer so that it sounds like they have a right to enter. They simply don’t. TVL presume guilt rather than innocence and I’m just refusing to play their game.
  6. We don’t,therefore are completely legal. There is absolutely no way I’m letting what is basically a salesman on commission into my house to snoop around though. Not happening. I get a letter a month now which goes straight in the bin.
  7. Been licence free for a while. All correspondence is sent to The Legal Occupier. Two visits from TVL staff in the last three years. Confirmed nothing and told them to leave. It really is that simple. The letters are toothless rubbish. Don’t even open them,bin them. Don’t confirm anything to anyone at your door and never let them in your house.
  8. If it is a desirable house in a nice area which is going to sell regardless then use one of the fixed price people like purple bricks. I sold for the first time about a year ago. Got three local estate agents round and ended up going with the middle one pricewise as the guy unbeknown to me used to own the flat opposite mine and was the most optimistic price wise. He set up a a staggered % based price based on achieving under,over or well over the offers over price. He ended up getting me 10% more than I was expecting to sell for so I was happy with that. Definitely haggle with them though and don’t be shy about telling them what other companies are offering.
  9. My head says that they should listen to the doctors and take the boy off life support, any treatment would be life extending rather than saving and may cause more suffering. The dad in me hopes I never have to face a similar decision as I'm not sure what I'd do. Such a shame that the fate of a very ill wee boy has turned into a media scrum.
  10. I'd be happy to go cashless for the vast majority of things. Apart from that I would get rid of the copper coins and make a 5 the smallest. Any cash change is rounded up or down. You win some you lose some,works fine in Oz.
  11. I sold my flat in Ayr town centre last November. Home report was £145k,marketed offers over £135k and sold for £147k. A pretty good result. If the property will generate interest I wouldn't worry too much about it.
  12. Aye skyscanner is always a decent place to start. United fly direct to Newark from Glasgow and Delta start direct JFK at the end of May. Icelandair sometimes do some good deals via Keflavik. Going gia Dublin as Parklife suggests also has the advantage of having US customs and immigration clearance in Ireland. You then land at JFK as a domestic passenger,grab your bags and straight into a taxi.
  13. Not cheap the full outfit. If you're wanting to cut the cost a bit then the MacGregor and MacDuff ex-hire shop in Clydebank is a good shout. My kilt from there is about ten years old and still going strong.
  14. Aye. Three emails buzzed me five minutes ago. Same amount £170. Hopefully nobody falls foul of that. They shouldn't though,it is a fairly poor phishing attempt.
  15. Has the SNP support for Heathrow expansion really done any electoral damage though? As far as connections and business links for Scotland are concerned then Heathrow is better for us than Gatwick. I don't think it does any harm that the Scottish Government said so. There is plenty of capacity at Scotland's airports so if the long haul airlines wanted to fly here,they would. They don't though,they fly to major hubs so for the SG to voice its support for the hub that works best for Scotland is just fine. Bigger picture wise. The UK government should have allowed expansion at Heathrow,Gatwick and Stansted to cope with future demand. London is being left behind in aviation terms by its European and Gulf competitors.
  16. I got rid of my extortionate Sky package and the TV Licence a couple of years ago now. They will send regular letters threatening to take you to court. Bin them. If any of the lovely "enforcers" pay you a visit you are under no obligation to speak to them,let them in your property, or to sign anything. Just close the door. As it happens I only use catch up services so I'm on the right side of the law. Although my opinion is that what a person does in the privacy of their own home is nothing to do with the BBC or TVL, and that includes watching live telly.
  17. Aye. Insurance can be pricier. Get some quotes before you buy. Insurers will ask if it is imported and even though your car will comply with EU laws and have been built on the same production line as a UK car,they will charge you more. Worth it for 4k off though. I bought an EU import Subaru from Malta about 12 years ago. Insurance was about 30%ish more pricey than a UK car. Still worth it given the price I paid.
  18. I find there's nothing wrong with the actual vehicle itself, whether it's bus,train,subway whatever. The problem with public transport is sharing it with the public, most of whom are strangers to soap and manners. Unless the weather is brutal,I'll take a half hour walk over five minutes on a local bus every single time.
  19. Have travelled the world but as far as living away goes,I lived in Bournemouth for nearly two years and also a short three month stint in Belfast. Hardly exotic but I liked both places. The south coast of England really is noticeably warmer than most of Scotland in the summer and the folk were fine. The best thing about living in England were the country pubs, they are excellent. Belfast was different. I really enjoyed nights out there and found the pub and restaurant choice was excellent. It helped that we had a flat right in the city centre. I had originally feared that I would get wound up by the same "what school did you go to/what team do you support/protestant or catholic"nonsense that I grew up with in south west Scotland. But I found that very few people asked and that type of chat only came about if you were daft enough to initiate it or drink in some obvious sectarian boozer. I live back in Scotland now,don't regret living away at all,and would happily emigrate if the right opportunity came my way.
  20. I did permanent nights many years ago when I was still young and living with my parents. I completely switched my eating pattern around to fit my sleep/work pattern. Woke up early evening and had cereal. Took in a couple of rolls to have for lunch in the middle of my shift,and had a main meal when I got home early in the morning. My old dear thought I was an alcoholic as I was sitting at eight in the morning with a can of beer watching the telly. There was no convincing her that this was my "evening" time and I was just winding down before bed. The pattern I work these days is two early,two backshift,two nightshift, four off. It's horrific as my body can't get a sleep pattern going. You'll find that if you don't actually have to switch your sleep pattern back to normal on your days off (childcare,other job maybe) then you'll be fine. As long as you're getting a regular eight hours kip,you'll be grand. And as others have said,blackout blinds and earplugs are the way forward.
  21. I was a late starter to the Scotland games. Moldova 1-1 Scotland. 2004 Aged 26. An awful game on a freezing cold night in a dodgy and dangerous city that I would never have visited otherwise. I had a great time and I've been hooked since. Still have my towels that I robbed from the Hotel Cosmos to wrap my cheap vodka in!
  22. One of the lads at work got caught out thinking it would be an auto renewal. Apparently auto renewal for car insurance is a thing of the past. I'm not sure as I change my insurer every year anyway,so I've always called the old imsurer to cancel.
  23. A live update to our trip so far, and a few tips for anyone interested. We managed to wander between planes in the 90 minutes we had at T5 on the way out but our bags didn't, cheers BA, a day without our luggage. We got the Maglev in just to say we'd been on it. It's quick but drops you off nowhere near where you want to be. Despite Broono's advice, we were jet lagged, tired and angry about lost luggage when we got off the MagLev and jumped into a red taxi without thinking. Broono was correct, we got ripped off! Took an hour in rush hour traffic to reach our hotel and despite a meter running, when we got near he pressed a few buttons and hey presto, the price doubled. Stung us for about £10 on top of the fare. Argued a bit,called him some names and payed him. Although the Mrs pointed out that as we were standing outside the cab with our hand luggage and nothing in the boot, we could just have told him to get tae and walked away. She had a point. Not harm done really. We haven't used a proper cab yet as we're on the Pudong side of the river next to a metro station and the traffic is mental, so metro it is. It's quick, the signs and announcements are in English too, and it is dirt cheap. 30-40p each one way into town,about six or seven stops. China is still very much a smoking culture, every bar,hotel,shop,restaurant etc absolutely reeks. It reinforces that the smoking ban at home is the way forward. A real nasty habit that both men and women have in Shanghai is spitting. Just no need for everyone to be snorting up big greeners onto the pavement. The skyline looking over from the Bund back to Pudong is absolutely stunning, one of the most spectacular in the world, and best appreciated at night. There are a couple of nice temples to visit. There are several observation decks in the big Pudong skyscrapers, one of them is worth a look on a nice day. We went up the one in the Jin Mao tower. The open top tour busses are gash and not really worth the money. The commentary is a bit thin on the ground. The street food looks great but the Mrs is five months gone and is paranoid about food poisoning so we've been eating in restaurants. We're kind of glad we've visited but won't be in any hurry to visit again. We much preferred Hong Kong,Tokyo and Kyoto as Asian city breaks. If you are coming out here, two or three days and you'll see everything Shanghai has to offer, combine it with somewhere else in China or further afield in Asia. The Hola VPN app doesn't seem to work, don't know whether it's me being computer illiterate or the Chinese have blocked it. Either way, five days without Facebook and Twitter is no bad thing really. Apologies to the OP who I think was enquiring about Shanghai living rather than to visit.
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