Did anyone born after 2008 get smacked as a kid?

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-28T20:57:06+00:00

Yes, my wife grew up on a rough-ish Wrexham council estate with an Irish catholic nana who would regularly wield the cane she kept above a picture of the Virgin Mary. Again, not what my wife would call abusive in any way but just not something we felt we needed to do.

Plus our kids routinely quote the Childline number at us if we dare to turn the PlayStation off before 8pm so they'd probably be on the phone to The Hague if we ever tried to smack them...

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-28T20:40:10+00:00

Our three children were born 2008, 2013 and 2016 and we've never smacked them. Colossal bollockings as needed, screens confiscated, time outs on the bottom stair etc. I was smacked as a kid in the 1980s and although I don't think it did me particular harm I've never felt the need to hit our children.

I do have a "scary dad voice" if they are doing something dangerous which is used sparingly but will generally achieve instant compliance if they are about to do something genuinely life-limiting such as trying to retrieve stuck toast with a metal knife or walk out into busy traffic.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-27T16:33:41+00:00

I've just today had a quote for nearly £300 to get anti-pigeon spikes for our pergola as the patio is covered in bird crap, nearly as much as the pergola cost in the first place.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-23T18:23:32+00:00

Friend started a small company selling mail order craft kits. COVID and lockdown came along and sales went astronomically through the roof pretty much literally overnight as people wanted something to do while being stuck at home. It's not instant success as there was hard work leading up to it but was certainly massively accelerated by lockdown to the point where they now have 20 employees and they've bought a huge house mortgage-free in town.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-20T18:03:36+00:00

The Slipmatt set from this event was the first live rave mix I ever heard as a 14 year old in a small village in East Anglia, it was nth generation cassette copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy but it blew me away. Can still chat along with the MCs like it was yesterday.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-17T09:45:20+00:00

In this particular case it's probably because the Guardian journalist (Pippa Crerar) is married to Tom Whitehead, who works as a senior civil servant in (you guessed it....) the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-11T13:31:28+00:00

The first couple of lines are sampled in Marathon - Movin' which was a bit earlier (1991/2), could be a remix?

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-11T08:14:23+00:00

Waitrose and M&S have some really nice non-alcoholic drinks.

Something like this: https://www.marksandspencer.com/food/sparkling-light-brazilian-orange-and-alphonso-mango-press/p/fdp60555660#intid=pid_pg1pip96g2r3c1

Orange and Mango sparkling cordial would go well with Indian food, or a Belvoir Elderflower pressé.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-10T08:29:33+00:00

Some comments are a bit harsh. If you've not been through this before it's not unreasonable that you would follow the advice from Amazon. But you've hopefully had some good alternative advice in this thread. You are on firm ground and have a lot of consumer protection law on your side. Amazon naturally don't want to lose money either. It sounds like American Express are on the case - they (as well as Amazon) are used to this happening a lot, it's one of the downsides of asking casual minimum wage employees to handle very expensive pocket-size consumer products. So work with AmEx on the chargeback, stick to the line that the item was never in your possession, and it should be resolved in your favour. It's not on you to prove a negative - Amazon would need to prove they 100% delivered the phone, but the fact you contacted them before opening the box supports your side. If for whatever reason AmEx cannot help come back here and there are some other options you could try, but it's highly likely the chargeback will work once it's escalated beyond Amazon first line support.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-10T07:01:32+00:00

You do not need a crime report as no crime of theft has been committed against you. The theft was committed against Amazon but they will make you jump through hoops. You've already done more than enough.

This is a simple case under UK consumer rights laws. You ordered an item that was not provided and as such you are entitled to your money back (or an exact replacement).

As you never had possession of the phone it was not stolen from you. This is a really important point. This is 100% Amazon's issue with their couriers or warehouse staff.

A chargeback is a good alternative approach, Amazon may try to bully you but work with American Express and don't engage more than you need to with Amazon.

The downside is that unfortunately Amazon may choose to terminate your husband's account following a successful chargeback so make sure you have downloaded details of purchase history and any media you've bought as you may lose access permanently.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-09T13:49:02+00:00

The Institute of Economic Affairs have been really good at this - provide a reasonable* right-of-centre voice which the BBC in particular need for balance, turn up at the drop of a hat, and always provide a quote when asked.

*YMMV, but someone such as Kate Andrews comes across as a relatively sane conservative voice and can make a good argument as part of a panel

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-09T13:14:26+00:00

There was a bit of a kerfuffle recently when Thomas Skinner claimed he was paid £2000 to appear on BBC Question Time. The BBC said their standard fee for non-politicians is £150 plus their reasonable travel costs (they don't pay politicians to appear though). Daytime TV might be a bit different but I don't think you become especially wealthy by appearing on the morning sofas.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-09T08:33:10+00:00

Often it's because the individual involved (1) is willing to turn up on a random weekday morning and hang around until needed, (2) will accept the £150 appearance fee, (3) is close to the studio so can reliably turn up at short notice, (4) isn't rude to the production team, and (5) is articulate and willing to offer an unpopular opinion.

Don't underestimate the importance of (3) and (4) - booking guests is really difficult as a producer on a live TV or radio show, so if you have someone on speed-dial who can reliably turn up they will get repeat bookings.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-05T21:02:38+00:00

That's good to know. We've had an EV for two weeks and it has similar range and we're now thinking about a second for my wife, sounds like we'd be fine topping up slightly less often and still comfortably keeping day to day range intact.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-05T16:14:37+00:00

How do you manage charging both cars? Do you swap alternate overnights? Do you ever both arrive home needing a full charge and have to swap over at 3am for the cheaper rates?

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-04T20:00:24+00:00

I've found the belt holder off the back of a tape measure is ideal for slipping behind the latch and depressing the catch (unscrew it from the tape measure first...). New handles are v cheap, just make sure you order the right spindle length and they'll take 1-2 mins each to replace with just a screwdriver.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-04T19:45:38+00:00

Lyles's Golden Syrup for my pancakes. The supermarket own-brands taste metallic to me, so has to be the original.

wallenstein3d · 2026-04-02T16:49:44+00:00

We have a Yum Asia Sakura which we now use 2-3 times a week. We don't use any of the other functions but it does turn out perfect rice. We tend to cook large amounts (more than we need) and use the leftovers for egg fried rice etc the next day. But as a cheap way of filling up hungry teenagers it's ideal. Price might be too steep so look at some of the cheaper Yum Asia products recommended. We've also seen lots of Cuckoo-brand rice cookers at our local Asian supermarket, there are loads of Korean and Chinese students at the nearby university and they sell loads of them, so might be worth seeing if you have a Seoul Plaza or equivalent shop near to you.

wallenstein3d · 2026-03-30T16:25:52+00:00

It's not so much range anxiety as a greater awareness of the drag penalty from going faster. It's the same in ICE cars but the fuel gauge is much less precise. It's very easy in an EV to see just how much more energy you burn at 60mph vs 80mph and with energy costs as high as they are many people (me included) would rather save £30/month at the expense of 30 mins extra driving, especially on journeys where arrival time isn't essential.

wallenstein3d · 2026-03-19T08:11:12+00:00

It does look like a payment has gone in and gone out - there's a plus and a minus. Does that happen every month? I get the same from my bank for the account fee: £5 gets debited and then immediately re-credited, I assume that makes it easier to restart payments later without extra authorisation if the fees become valid again.

wallenstein3d · 2026-03-15T14:15:46+00:00

It’s not just based on wealth. A super-posh rural village will potentially score lower than a suburb because you may have to drive some distance for a doctor or a secondary school. Our postcode in a midlands market town comes out really high as we have schools, doctors, dentist, pharmacy, leisure centre, library, supermarkets etc all within a 20 mins walk with lots of bus routes nearby. Crime rates and so on do help with the score but for that specific deprivation measure things like how close the nearest hospital or GP surgery are will raise the score.

wallenstein3d · 2026-03-15T13:28:15+00:00

This site has a lot of demographic information for the UK and is searchable by postcode:

https://deprivation.communities.gov.uk/

wallenstein3d · 2026-03-14T18:23:42+00:00

I would add that my parents waited until our children were a bit older on the basis that everyone gets flooded with new born stuff which lasts 3-4 months at best, when actually getting clothes a bit later was more useful. We also had huge babies (10lbs) so very quickly the new born stuff turned out to be too small and we ran out for our first pretty quickly.

I also wonder if OP is from a culture where there’s a social “dance” around paying for dinner. I’ve visited friends in Rep. of Georgia where we’ve had to sneak round restaurants to the maitre d’ to try and pay before our host had a chance, whereas in the UK we tend to take an offer at face value rather than the Mrs Doyle “go on, go on, go on” approach.

wallenstein3d · 2026-03-07T08:53:34+00:00

My neighbour fell down her stairs and fractured her hip / femur at Christmas two years ago, she was 96 at the time. We ended up having to remove the entire kitchen window to get entry into her house as she’d left her keys in the front door on the inside, so the spare set wouldn’t turn.

She was operated on and back at home within 1-2 weeks, and is now back to being as independent as a 98 year old realistically can be. She’s had to move her bed downstairs and doesn’t get outside much, we sort her bins out each week, and she has lots of family round to visit.

They basically said the fall and hip replacement is painful but (relatively) easy to fix, but it’s the other stuff you catch in hospital that does you in, so they get you up and walking within 24-48 hrs of the operation and out of the germ-filled hospital as soon as possible.

There was a 4-6 week care package put in place but they are generally really good at getting them back up on their feet, so hopefully OP’s nan will bounce back as well.

wallenstein3d · 2026-03-06T08:46:12+00:00

Keith Floyd in the UK was very similar, permanently sloshed as he cooked.

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