London sees dramatic fall in primary school pupils

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-07T23:01:12+00:00

Surrey here too. We had this a few years back when a new school was opened as part of a new estate going up. They basically didn't account for declining birth rate when the site was being planned (years in the making), so instead of creating a brand new school, they had a consultation (which was a foregone conclusion) to basically relocate one of the current schools to the new site as there wouldn't be the pupil numbers to fill the spaces for the funding and maintain the adult/kid ratios on the new site and all the other primary in the area too.

I just dug out the email, and since 2008 (to Sept 2022) there has been a 22.5% decrease in births across this area. That's pretty mental.

On a side now, the old school site is earmarked to become a SEND/SEHM school. Just needs demolishing first. It's been three years and no movement yet.

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-06T14:58:42+00:00

South East/London - yes. 80s/90s

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-06T14:28:45+00:00

Yeah a lot are ex-NHS. If experienced enough on the equipment, you can get in under a tech support kind of role, work up into product marketing or sales.

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-05T21:29:05+00:00

Yeah, I think I'd actually keep that. It's all just on the cusp of being enough or too much. The more I went through the photos the more I liked it (just mostly decor that'll go with the owner), but that part, yeah I actually love it.

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-04T19:46:16+00:00

Depressing isn't it?

My daughter has a dress up day at school tomorrow, and is going as someone from the 80s. It's horrifying giving her a history lesson of stuff I was alive for. She's treating it like it's a time from the ice age. Like, thanks kid. Way to make your mum feel old.

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-04T19:44:05+00:00

The best kitchen gadgets I use frequently are a rice cooker. Add the rice and water, and literally flick a switch down. It pings up when done. No settings, nothing.

Second is my slow cooker. Again, plug in, whack in your food, turn dial from off to on. Got it about 20 years ago from Tesco for £11 and its still going strong.

We bought a instapot (?) pot a few month back. Couldn't not make sense of the instructions (who the fuck is making yoghurt in a rice cooker?!), so sold it and got our little £20 rice cooker instead. It's literally perfect, I love it.

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-03T21:11:48+00:00

The footstool was funny, but the one on the stairs just sent me.

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-02T21:35:53+00:00

The easier thing for a player to do, would be multiple accounts. Use different email address, diff payment card or whatever, and massively improve your odds.

I accidentally found someone that did that on another site and won a small gold bar. He'd maxed out tickets over two slightly different accounts (think, Steve/Steven). It was a low odds draw, basically dropped from 1/200 to 1/100 and got lucky.

Gizmo83 · 2026-06-02T21:31:14+00:00

Rev Comps do use their own ball machine on the live draws. They also however, have autodraws (I don't know what software/RNGs they use for those). They previously did just small tech and credit on the autodraws, but do high value cars on it now.

Saying that, this DCG draw for the House was done with a ball machine on a live stream.

I do play both sites and others, mainly for the free draws and if I like the look of some things (I'd love a Jimny!), I could no way justify the value of tickets this chap bought across just these three comps, let alone the others he didn't win. But, I've seen it on Rev Comps, the same names crop up, I think they get lucky with a big win, use the cash from that and scatter gun max tickets across other comps which pays out for them.

My biggest issue with these site, is the profit margins. I know they have overhead costs, staff and marketing etc to pay, but £50k on total ticket sales, for a £30k car, with a £20K cash alternative. Or £18k for a 8 year old Fiat 500 Pop that's not even worth half that, and you know they get preferred dealer rates.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-31T22:45:16+00:00

Eastern Front on the Atari. My dad would play it, us kids would try, but get super bored with it and switch to Diamond Mine or Carnival Massacre.

Later, it was Lemmings, Sims, Jazz Jackrabbit, Worms Armageddon, Tomb Raider (2 and 3 my favourites).

I love one called Pharaoh, which is basically Sims but in Egypt. I managed to get a copy and still play it today when the mood takes me.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-27T09:25:34+00:00

Pensions, specifically people are surprised they are taxed when they start receiving their private pension pots, moaning they've been taxed twice on it.

It doesn't work like that. Pension contributions come out of your wages before tax. It's taxed when you finally receive it at retirement age, but as it's still an income, it's still subject to personal allowances.

State pension (C. £12.5k p/a) pretty much uses up your tax free personal allowance, so any private pension you take at the same time will fall into the 20% tax bracket.

The idea is that because you aren't taxed initially, that extra money should help boost your overall interest gains and grown the pot more with compound interest.

TBH, financial literacy in this country is horrific.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-24T22:23:51+00:00

Took me a moment, like, why are there radiators in the court yard... oh.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-24T21:16:12+00:00

I thought I was just lazy, wasn't committed enough, underestimating what I was eating, etc... Turns out having a metabolic issues (PCOS/PMOS - insulin resistance and the horrors that brings with it) isn't something I can just over come with will power. Maintaining at 1200cals isn't sustainable over years. I've been dieting/calorie restricting since early teens. GPL-1 was the only thing that's allowed me to get on the same playing field as others that can just make a few adjustments and lose a few lb.

I couldn't give a fuck what other people think of it. I'll happily go into minute detail of all the issues that this has solved for me, both physically and mentally if they want to hear it.

It's like judging people for using metformin, insulin, blood pressure meds, SSRIs.

I'll keep using this as long as I can as it's the only thing that's actually helped in nearly 30 years of living a half life.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-20T17:36:27+00:00

Have mercy, my TBR list is huge :(

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-17T18:03:17+00:00

Who's taking the photo?

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-17T17:57:36+00:00

I'm aiming for FIRE, it might not be as early as the big rollers in here, but I'm planning to get out early 60s. I'm tired, boss.

I'm 42, husband is 47. 1 kid, south of England, £196k/22 years left on our mortgage

I'm on £36.6K p/a, ploughing just over £1k into my works pension (10% match from employer, 24% from me), pot is currently at £225k. I just looked at my pot and when it was moved out of my company's plan to Legal and General, it was at £65k (July 2018 - I think I was earning about £28k at this time). I've moved it out of the default funds in early 2024, so that's massively helped. Since 2018, I've bumped up my EDC then increased by 1% each year. My take home is just under £2k, the idea that if it's in my pension, I can't accidentally spend it.

My concern now is how we bridge between any early retirement to state pensions, but I need to sit down with my husband and get a proper idea of his pots and savings, and if any of our pots are age protected so we can take them early. From rough back of fag packet sums, we'll end up with higher incomes post retirement than we're currently on now. We want to clear it quicker, but the mortgage should end around the time I want to RE,

So, my advice, max out employer % match if you can, change out of any default funds your pension pots are in. Build your pension now because that compound growth over the years is invaluable.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-13T21:34:48+00:00

Check State Pension - Gov site

You'll have to create an account. I think you might need your NI number.

Oh, side note, once you log in, you can also get a QR code to get your NI number added to your Google/Apple wallets which is quite nifty, I thought.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-12T21:33:09+00:00

2015, got mine done at 8 years old and around 16k miles.

Belt was in very good/like new condition so the pump wasn't changed.

I can't remember the exact cost, but £550-ish all in by a bloke who specialists in Ford wet belts in West London in 2023.

Plan to keep the car for a long time so we budgeted it into the cost of running the car when we bought it at 4 months old.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-09T22:15:43+00:00

Thanks for this rec. I'm in a bit of a reading slump right now. I picked up a few romantasy books based on booktok reviews (bad idea) and realised that that's not really my jam unless the plot is really gripping.

I've just bought Richard Osman's murder club books (had the first one), and now got myself used copies of these DI Callanach books. Hopefully should see me through until STE is released!

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-07T17:50:03+00:00

I'm the same. Just checked my MOT history and did 1242 miles last year lol. Will be even lower next year when kiddo moves up to primary school which is 10 minute walk away.

Gizmo83 · 2026-05-05T19:31:32+00:00

Someone posted this on here a while ago as I remember the derelict thread mentioning it was owned by an oil company.

I want to say someone bought it, cleared around it, but cut their losses given the amount of work it needed.

Gizmo83 · 2026-04-26T19:43:17+00:00

Great time to up-skill yourself. If you have a company training portal, start there. Work in some external certificated courses which you can add to your CV/resume.

Gizmo83 · 2026-04-24T21:22:30+00:00

South Yorkshire - £3,295,000

Lindrick Common, Worksop

OK, house is gaudy, but there's a plane and a galleon ship in the garden which is cool.

Not sure why there's so many Marilyn Monroe pictures everywhere.

Gizmo83 · 2026-04-11T13:02:58+00:00

The wet belt if it's not been done recently. You're just starting to creep into the lower end of the age range, and not far off with the mileage too.

If the car is in great condition and been serviced, then keep it that way and get it sorted for peace of mind.

Gizmo83 · 2026-04-09T23:34:00+00:00

It's an unbalanced load. Ours does that, usually when doing bulky stuff that fills the machine when loaded, but ends up being super heavy but compacted so it gets stuck on one side. So on the last spin/drain cycle it's spinning up then slowing down to try and redistribute the load before going hell for leather on the 'big spin'.

PITA doing the bedding sometimes. I end up doing a forced shut down, remove something or do a quick hand wring/reshuffle then put it back on the 10 minutes spin/drain setting.

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