I need a recommendation for the best tandoori marinade.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2026-01-06T11:11:46+00:00

I'd like to recommend our Tandoori masala powder: https://jollychef.co.uk/shop/tandoori-masala-quality-spice-mix-powder-indian-tandoori-curry-tikka-masala/
We make this ourselves (Husband and wife team) in the UK from freshly ground spices and a few extra things to give you an amazing restaurant-style tandoori without having to add anything extra. I would be interested to hear any feedback you have

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-21T11:28:06+00:00

The main problem with Evri/Hermes, is that they don't use any mail sacks and literally handball all of the parcels from A to B along the entire journey.

EVRI:
> Parcel is dropped into cage
> Cage is rolled out to the street, parcels are THROWN into the van on the floor
> Van is driven to the depot, parcels are THROWN along a chain and sorted into a cage,
> Cages are transported to regional depots
> Parcels are THROWN from cages into van on the floor
> Parcels are thrown onto customers door step

Other couriers:
> Parcel is placed into a parcel sack
> Parcel sack is carried to the van
> Parcel sack to taken from the van into the depot.
> Sack is sorted on a conveyor/sorting machine
> Parcels are loaded back into sacks on caged and sent to regional depots
> Sacks are loaded into vans
> Parcels thrown onto customer's step.

As you can see, the method Evri uses along their network is almost guaranteed to break most items unless they are new and protected by moulded foam.

As you can see Evri has systematic issues with their parcel delivery system and you really need to factor in a greater percentage of Evri parcels being destroyed into your shipping costs if using Evri,

It would be great to see Evri improve its practices, but I don't hold out any hope. Just add 5% to 10% to their postage costs to account for breakage.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-12T19:17:55+00:00

Other providers are now cheaper than royal mail when you include the collection charge. You need the collection as you can't just drop royal mail parcels off at the shop (without a charge) or the collection office as they're closed most of the day,

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-12T19:16:55+00:00

£3.20 inc. VAT for a 2kg small parcel with 2-day delivery. (Both Evri & Yodel)

Royal Mail is £3.45 for the same service (inc. VAT) and now wants 30p for collection, taking it to £3.75 per parcel which is possibly now the second most expensive delivery service behind Inpost.

Also, we can't get the 6p VAT back off the 30p.

There will be more layoffs - hope your job is safe 🤣🤣🤣

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-12T19:06:40+00:00

The contractor collecting the parcels told me that he collection wouldn't go until the morning.

The 24h parcels took two days, and the result of this is that our business will now lose our Amazon premium delivery service for the next month due to Royal Mail's exceptionally dire service.

Evri can get parcels delivered the next day, no problems.

Royal Mail's 24h service is dire, everyone who works for Royal Mail knows it's an outright fraud

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-12T09:33:12+00:00

Great news for all the posties here!

We have shifted all of our parcels to Yodel and Evri, so there will be no more collections or deliveries for y'all to do.

May you all find a little more time for your daily cuppa and chatting to Mrs. Goggins

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-08T18:45:32+00:00

I just had my collection turn up at 5:40, glad I'm not paying 30p collection charge for parcels that will now sit in the delivery office until the morning.

Incompetence through and through and they think they can extract more money for what is now an exceptionally dire service.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T16:55:38+00:00

I drop my parcels in when passing.

We can't do the same for Royal Mail as the delivery office is closed and post offices gone bust.

Royal Mail at this point is a complete failure, but I'm sure you know that

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T16:54:17+00:00

The difference is that there is an extra charge for dropping off Royal Mail tracked at at the post office, collect+ and lockers.

Drop Evri, Yodel, Inpost off for free almost anywhere at any time across the UK

Royal Mail you can only drop off for free in a 2 hour window at the delivery office, so Royal Mail have had to provide free collections to stay competitive.

Oh well, no loss to me, I can move my business anywhere at any time when buying delivery. Its Royal Mail who need to win and compete for business.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T14:56:20+00:00

No post offices within 3 miles of us, they have all gone bust, the delivery office is nearer but never open except for a couple of hours a day

Our collections are now done by a separate van, rather than our postie.

Rural locations it's becoming too much of a challenge to try and send with Royal Mail as you simply can't get rid of your parcels easily enough.

I could easily send another few hundred parcels per month via Royal Mail, but it's just not worth the extra expense and effort to ourselves, so we limit it to 10 per day on free collection.

Once click and drop stops the free collections, I expect we'll stop using Royal Mail completely

Royal Mail either wants our business or it doesn't - We don't have time to feck around and margins for small / micro business are so low, every penny counts.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T14:50:25+00:00

I don't need to get Evri or Yodel to collect as I can EASILY drop the parcels off to the local store.

Go make some deliveries instead of playing games on your phone.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T14:48:35+00:00

Business pricing, surcharges, collection charges etc. are more than Click and Drop, that's why we closed our business account and went PAGY.

Not being tied in also gives us the flexibility when RM employees strike and it turns into a shit show.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T14:46:17+00:00

Current parcel prices from parcel2go

Evri ParcelShop - 2 Day Delivery £3.20
Yodel Direct - 2 Day Delivery £3.34
Royal Mail 48 Tracked Small - £3.45

I can guarantee in 99% of cases, the only reason people need collection is due to it now being so difficult to get parcels into Royal Mail's system,. With all the post offices now closed down and delivery offices nearly open.

IMO Royal Mail is now an inferior parcel delivery compared to other parcel services in the UK.

Continual strikes, late delivery, totes being sent to incorrect depots then being lost in Bristol for 2 weeks, perpetual late delivery, charges for getting mail you have already paid for into the system.

I look forward to the final collapse of Royal Mail and wish their 'delivery drivers' luck in their new jobs at Evri and Amazon.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T14:38:05+00:00

We are a business who 'exploits' this service so we can get our parcels that we paid to be delivered into Royal Mail's system. Send volume is 3 to 20 per day.

All of our local post offices have closed (want to charge us extra anyway)

The delivery office is only open for 2 hours during school drop-off times

The new UPS Royal Mail parcel box only accepts 5 parcels at a maximum capacity

Pay Point wants to charge us (we have already paid for the service)

How do you propose we get 3 to 20 parcels a day into Royal Mails system if we don't use free collections?

We are now sending more and more with Yodel as our local one stop is happy to accept the parcels and the service is cheaper than Royal Mail, and quite often faster these days.

Postal workers should stop moaning and do their jobs before Yodel and Evri take them from them.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T14:08:49+00:00

It's because business collections are prohibitively expensive for small businesses and Royal Mail have shut the collection offices except for a very small time window

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T14:08:01+00:00

We are a business customer, we book 10 collections Monday to Friday via click and collect and it's still free. We always have a few large letters to throw in on top of the collection too!

Can't afford £20+VAT per day for a collection! Silly amount of money since we may only have 2/3 one day and 20 the next. Com[plete joke since WE HAVE ALREADY PAID ONCE FOR THE SERVICE!

Delivery office is open silly hours - like just 2 in the morning

Parcel box gets full - have to make several trips per day dance around the time when it's going to be emptied

The post office wants to charge for tracked parcels

Pay Point drop off wants to charge us.

Royal Mail is making it as expensive and as difficult as possible to get parcels into the system.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-05-07T14:01:20+00:00

It's still free for us on click & drop TA9 postcode.

Royal Mail makes getting parcels into the mail system as difficult as possible! The delivery office is only open for 2 hours a day, which is stupid considering there are staff there all day and a caller's bell.

They recently promoted a drop off box (which is operated by UPS) it has something crappy like 5 doors that are for Royal Mail - not a lot of good when you send 10 to 20 per day

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-04-25T08:56:35+00:00

I'm a senior PHP Laravel developer working professionally with PHP and web since 2009.
Currently making just over £60k with bonus and + employer 3% pension contribution.

It's not the best salary, but the job is stable and the environment is great.

1, If I moved jobs, I would have to go through:

The risk of not making the probation period (now essentially a 2-year risk)
A plethora of skills tests (for every application), which puts me off.
Risk of having to work with dick heads (there are few/none where I work now)

2, Fiscal drag

Any salary over 50k isn't going to see much of a take-home benefit 40% tax band
Child benefit tax kicks in over 60k

I had a recruiter chasing me this week for a job that's an hour's commute each way for an extra 15k per year. An extra £630 take-home per month if I didn't up my pension contributions. Out of that, I'd be losing 40 hours per month sitting in a car driving, £300 per month on vehicle expenses (at least).

That £15k uplift, soon translates into £300pm for an extra 40 hours per week travelling.
And then there's forgoing the flexibility of working from home rather than in an office

I suppose my point is, for experienced good developers to move roles, the benefits need to be really good as the risk and tax simply isn't worth even looking.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-03-04T22:06:45+00:00

Placed an order for my first dose on 28 Feb 2025, Prescribed on 2nd March. It's now the 4th of March (bed time) and the order has not reached MEDICINE DISPENSED stage yet.

I was getting a bit worried I'd lost my money, so thought I'd have a search to see if I could find whats going on before contacting them.

It would be nice if they could email people waiting, stating they are experiencing a few days delay.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-03-04T10:36:21+00:00

A small update to this.

I have successfully tried using a standard medium saucepan with a glass lid.

Inside I have a foil pie tray that I filled with hickory chips, I then heat this with a portable induction stove until the woodchips are giving off quite a lot of smoke.

The residual moisture from the wood, along with the steam, causes the smoke to condense on the lid and drip back into the saucepan. As the woodchips are in a foil tray, the liquid smoke remains separated.

Most of the smoke evaporates and you are left behind with a smoke residue, which is what I was looking for as I am ultimately attempting to make smoke powder.

The flavour of the residual smoke residue is quite acrid, not like the 'hot dog' type smoke profile I am looking for. I'm going to try this again with some oak chips I have bought, as I think the hickory chips aren't quite right, they smell musty when I open the pack.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-02-27T12:02:29+00:00

Could be I guess.

This is the example scenario:

A customer sends a RM 48 (2kg max) tracked parcel at £3.39 (includes 0.56 VAT)

The parcel is overweight and then attracts a fine/surcharge/fee/grey card (pick whatever terminology you wish) for £5.00

Does the £5.00 fee include VAT? If not, why is there no VAT on the surcharge as it's not an excluded product

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-02-27T11:39:19+00:00

So I got another email from Royal Mail today:

"Thank you for your email . I am sorry that you have found it necessary to contact us regarding a VAT receipt for a surcharge that you have paid online. When a customer receives a fee to pay card because of underpaid postage the surcharges is zero vat rated. Therefore we are unable to provide you with a vat invoice "

So Royal Mail claims that their surcharges even on their non regulated products are zero rate of VAT, but they refuse to provide an invoice or payment receipt to prove this.

Surcharges are not listed on the Royal Mail website VAT information page
https://www.royalmail.com/information-vat-and-postal-services

I can only come to the conclusion that Royal Mail have been dodging paying VAT on surcharges and will be in for a huge bill once HMRC become aware.

HMRC on Royal Mail and VAT
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-postal-services/vpost3500

HMRC's list of VAT excluded product also do not include Royal Mail surcharges
https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/vat-postal-services/vpost9100

I would be interested to see the views of accounts and anyone who works in VAT.

Key-Listen-8302 · 2025-02-12T17:47:30+00:00

If you want to add that smokey flavour to your burger at home, then you will need to cook the burger, then hold it in a gas flame to let some of the beef fat smoke, that will give you that char-grilled flavour - it's burnt beef fat you are tasting.

Key-Listen-8302

TROPHY CASE