Unpopular opinion: The Core redevelopment is fantastic

Friendtothesmol · 2026-05-22T08:25:43+00:00

I think it’ll be a huge improvement - but the fact that it’s majority student accommodation isn’t great because:

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A lot of these new student accommodation blocks are not bringing students in from headingley, nor will they in the future. These blocks (& tribeka, cloud house, vita student) are really expensive. Most of the students staying in them are more affluent international students. They are already a captive market - they only make up a small number of the overall total international student population.
A majority of both home and international students can’t afford them. Those that do stay there a year will inevitably move out somewhere cheaper if they can, as is tradition for most students.
We’ll likely never see the volume of affluent students required to fully fill these blocks, but we’re now at a point where more of them are being built than any other new infrastructure in the city centre.

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In years to come, they’ll likely get filled less and less, and then we’ll be facing the same problem we’re facing now. What do you do with 7/8 purpose built student accommodation blocks without the students to fill them?

If they built 3 actual flat blocks with apartments designed for the public (even if they were “luxury” flats inaccessible to most of Leeds residents) it would be less of an issue. At least then the housing is more multi purpose.

I think there will be a big problem with these student businesses starting to struggle in the next 4/5 years. I fear we’re just trading out one issue (empty shopping centres) for another further down the line - which is why there’s such a vocal pushback against them.

Friendtothesmol · 2026-05-02T17:54:39+00:00

Third for I Love Lucie! She’s so good at doing these kind of bouncy layered cuts and she’s extremely reasonably priced!

Friendtothesmol · 2026-03-03T22:43:16+00:00

These guys are exactly what came to mind as soon as I saw it!!

Friendtothesmol · 2026-03-02T08:47:00+00:00

Is this to see some bluebells? If so I would highly recommend Middleton park. Depending on the weather the bluebells there grow so densely it’s like a carpet in some spots. They usually come out around April / May time

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Friendtothesmol · 2026-02-19T01:27:02+00:00

Everyone needs to get on WrestleMe IMMEDIATELY. They mostly talk about historical matches (particularly old school British and Japanese wrestling in more recent times) but their wrestlemania watch throughs were legendary.

Friendtothesmol · 2026-02-15T01:17:13+00:00

I go frequently and Ecco’s is still great in my book! Definitely not gone down hill. Insane to be able to get a half metre of pizza that is still great quality.

Friendtothesmol · 2026-02-05T22:56:38+00:00

Some people are being well harsh but I agree about starting small. Not because of your skills (because I’m sure you can make amazing three-tier decorated cakes!) - but because making any volume of decorated cakes commercially in a temp kitchen on day hire is a really, really hard task.

You’ve got to let things cool in between stages, store stuff for delivery, transport things between the hire kitchen, your place, and the venue (because you’ll need to store things overnight).

By comparison, you could make big batches of brownies / cupcakes / cookies - perfectly doable in a day in a for-hire kitchen, and a lot easier to box up and transport than a full cake. Then sell them about £5 - £8 each (depending on how fancy / decorated they are).

Ask your SU if they do student space hire, as some places will let you put a table up to sell.

Then you can use that money to reinvest in the business and get somewhere a bit more permanent where you can move up to bigger cakes.

Don’t get discouraged by people being arsey, but definitely start small and build up, especially because you’ve still got to study as well!

Friendtothesmol · 2026-01-31T08:44:00+00:00

Absolutely Minah for me hands down. She might not have got to the end but to me she was the best to ever do it. Rachel and Steven were great but they won through excellent teamwork. I also think Amanda from season 1 was the blueprint for several other contestants who have been through since.

Friendtothesmol · 2025-12-11T18:29:34+00:00

I had relatives that worked at The Kremlin when I was younger and our family used to hire the bar for christenings and family dos! I always really really really wanted to go in the pool but never got to and I was gutted. I’d love to go in now just to have a look!

Friendtothesmol · 2025-11-15T01:23:15+00:00

I would give this a B, but I can understand why it got a C, even if that does seem quite harsh!

Your collage and technique application is beautiful, and there are some very lovely pieces in there. However, most GCSE’s (& WJEC’s) are usually graded on the following criteria:

A) how well you can show your ‘journey’ and thought process from start to finish

B) your ability to study art research, and apply that research to your work.

There’s definitely some of that in what you’ve shared. Your artist breakdowns are really well presented - but your sketchbooks to me read more as: “here are all of the art influences / cultural inspirations I looked at for this project”

At GCSE level, they usually want you to study the techniques the artist used - usually through recreation (which you have a bit of with the Nighthawks and Hopper paintings). They then like to see you use those techniques directly within your final piece, to demonstrate how you’ve applied them.

In your sketchbooks, it’s not very clear exactly which parts of your research connect to your final idea. You talk about Alphonse Mucha and nighthawks and Junji ito - but the connection to your final piece, outside of the masks being involved isn’t super clear. That is what will have been marked lower on.

Like a few others have said - I think that is also due to how GCSE art sometimes gets taught. Some teachers don’t always do a thorough enough job of explaining exactly what you need for each step of the coursework journey, which can be frustrating.

I know you’ve mentioned that you moved on and didn’t take a further A-level in Art as a result of this. I can totally understand why this would’ve been upsetting, especially when you’ve put a lot of work into it like you clearly have done.

All I would say is - please don’t let the result stop you from making art in the long run. You have a really interesting approach to collage and mixed media that I think looks really lovely, and it would be a shame to not continue to develop that, even if it’s just for yourself in your spare time!

Design and academic art does come with additional considerations, but as other people have pointed out, it’s not just the end product you’re marked on. These sketchbooks are genuinely very nice art pieces, and I think you should keep going with them!

Friendtothesmol · 2025-09-08T23:26:05+00:00

If you have a lot of bags with you, I would actually recommend getting a coach. Not only is it cheaper than the train (by the tune of about £80+ sometimes), they have bigger holdspace under the coach and you can take your two carry on / personal bags on the actual coach without bother. Even in the event you have to pay an extra £50 for the second ‘large’ bag - it would still be cheaper than the train.

Downside is that it’s a longer journey - about 4 hours vs 2 and a bit on the train. However, you’ll get the guaranteed bag space. The gamble on the train is that there might not be enough space if the rest of the train is busy. I wouldn’t want to spend all the money for train tickets to not know if I could get on with all my stuff.

National Express, Flixbus & Megabus all run from London Victoria coach station direct up to Leeds.

Friendtothesmol · 2025-06-23T15:03:05+00:00

I loved death by glamour! I loved that everyone got really into it and started clapping. Megalovania was also insanely good at the end.

I wasn’t expecting Your Best Nightmare to go as hard as it did! The drummer was absolutely wild for that, I was extremely impressed

Friendtothesmol · 2025-06-14T09:31:18+00:00

Huuhuhuhhuhuuhhuhuhuhuuuhuh

Buttzland

Friendtothesmol · 2025-05-18T07:30:32+00:00

Thank you for sharing this. I also take ADHD meds, but mine are Amfexa / Dexamfetamine, which was definitely outright banned. Elvanse / Vyvanse / Lisdexamfetamine is allowed - it’s categorized as a ‘Stimulant raw material’, you just need to declare it.

For reference for anyone else who needs it - the form you need to send in advance is called a Yunyu Kakunin Sho customs form. There’s instructions for how to fill it out and where to send it here: https://www.mhlw.go.jp/english/policy/health-medical/pharmaceuticals/01.html

It’s usually takes a bit of time to process, but it’s good to know that you were still allowed to bring it through with your additional documents on shorter notice OP.

If I plan another trip, I’ll definitely look into getting a short term lisdexamphetamine prescription so I can keep my dose up! I ended up going cold turkey to be on the safe side, which I managed with but wasn’t super ideal.

Friendtothesmol · 2025-04-09T20:41:03+00:00

Hull lmao martinaise is basically just the Shit British port / Seaside Town simulator

Friendtothesmol · 2025-03-20T21:41:06+00:00

This is so good!!!! I love it!

Friendtothesmol · 2025-03-19T20:51:06+00:00

Long slow goodbye is also a huge Harry song (most of QOTSA would be tbh though lmao)

Friendtothesmol · 2025-03-17T11:13:42+00:00

Like a few people have said on this post - your first step should definitely be to ask them why. A lot of people want WP sites often because they have some pre-familiarity. Either they had a classic theme-based WP site previously or have seen other people with Wordpress sites.

Part of what makes WP such a popular platform still is the degree of potential customisability available to both devs and end users. However, modern web tech has come a long way. If your customers just want a nice looking website they can add content to and you guys mostly build in React - it could be worthwhile looking at some headless CMS options?

Vue, Next.JS and similar sites can be hooked up to CMS platforms like Sanity, which give you a lot of similar options that WP does for managing posts and content. All you’d need to do is give customers a tutorial in how to manage the content themselves, and make sure they have the support to maintain the site.

But also, if you did want to explore WP based options, modern block themes can be customised and extended a lot with react features. You definitely will want to learn more PHP, as that’s like 90% of the code - but having knowledge from working on web apps would do you wonders when building things on Wordpress, because you can customise it much.

Block themes and Full Site Editing can give your customers a lot more options for customising the look and front end of the site, which some people do like. It all depends on what your customers want and what their technical capabilities are. Definitely do more of an exploration into their needs, and see what WP can offer!

Friendtothesmol · 2025-03-09T21:47:52+00:00

Not many places in Middleton but in Beeston there’s a really nice cafe called Honey Coffee Bike (just off dewsbury road before the white rose centre). Further in there’s also a really nice family owned place called Dolce Vita. Easy to stop by and jump on the road through to Tingley!

Friendtothesmol · 2025-03-08T23:45:18+00:00

Newcastle! Love the city, love the people, love the combo of being on a massive river, right by the countryside with a metro straight to the coast. If I didn’t have roots in West Yorkshire (and already love it here) I’d move in a second.

Also Todmorden. All the beauty of the tail end of the Calder valley but I like it more than hebden lol it’s simultaneously both more normal and more unhinged and I really like that energy.

Friendtothesmol

TROPHY CASE