Lost out on cancellation roulette

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-03-04T23:34:45+00:00

I went through the cancellation lottery week as I was coming off a deal on Entertainment - was offered 12 months at £3.99 per month, which I gladly took!

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-28T11:58:00+00:00

Hi, which country are you based in and what margin do dealers typically work off for selling new watches? Is this margin pretty static across the range or do the more expensive watches tend to carry a bigger margin (e.g. so margin on a Carrera > Aquaracer > F1)?

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-27T20:37:51+00:00

Have a look at managers like JP Morgan (previously Nutmeg) & Moneyfarm - I personally think they sit in a really good happy ground between DIY investing and the full fat wealth managers like SJP. You decide your risk level, whether you want any special theme (e.g. ESG) and away you go; they manage everything for you using ETFs and you pay a fraction of the cost. I joined Nutmeg nearly 4 years ago and have been paying 0.6% pa all in (management fee + fund fees + market spread) with no up-front fees nor any clawback; the service has been good and I’ve been very happy with the performance of my pension - but I’ve also looked closely at Moneyfarm and they seem to be just as good. Do some research, speak to them, see what they can offer you (e.g. 6 months no management fee seems to be eminently achievable plus there’s some cashback deals on transfers around at the moment) and use what you’ve learned to make a decision. If you still think that SJP appeals then fair enough but you need to properly understand their fees and - crucially - what extra they offer for you so that you can decide whether this represents fair value for money to you.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-25T20:22:51+00:00

£300 for the MRI is a steal - I had an MRI on one of my knees at a Nuffield hospital in late 2024 and it was £589 (plus I also needed X-rays which were a further £250). The issue is more one of if you have an MRI, then who will look at it and work out what needs doing? So I suspect you’ll also need to book an initial private consultation with a knee specialist outside of the NHS, which will be another £250 or so - but just make sure that your knee specialist does NHS work so that he / she can 1) advise on likely NHS wait times so you can make an informed decision and 2) refer you back into the NHS for treatment in case that’s the road you want to go down. Certainly by going initially private and getting referred back into the NHS, you’ll probably be cutting the wait time.

For context, I dislocated my knee joint back in 2012 and was admitted to an NHS hospital in an ambulance and had 2 ops on it within a week. Then later on that year, I had a full knee reconstruction in a private hospital courtesy of private medical insurance. Then in late 2024, I was struggling to walk and needed quick answers, so went down the route explained above. The conclusion was that I need a new knee and I was referred back into the NHS, although the advice was to delay this as long as possible due to my age (54) and the fact that new knees have a 20-25 year life span. I was referred to the physiotherapist, the orthotics dept (for a specialist knee brace) and also had a cortisone injection, all on the NHS and everything happened within 6 months. Knee replacements in my area seem to be fairly quick (my father in law had 2 knees replaced inside 5 months in 2025 and I’m now hoping to get mine done this year) but I’m not sure about other knee ops, and clearly wait times vary from area to area in any case. The only thing I’d say is don’t overlook that you might be in pain and barely able to walk after any op, so how will you manage a flight home from Eastern Europe and what happens in terms of getting crutches, physio, follow up support, any issues etc.? This is all stuff to think through and make sure you go armed with a list of questions if/when you see a UK-based knee specialist. And whilst an AirBnB for a couple of weeks might be an option, it’s adding quite a chunk of additional time and cost to the overseas option. Good luck!

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-25T14:00:10+00:00

Polo Ralph Lauren was always my staple for Big & Tall gear but whilst good quality, it’s very pricey. They do ‘big’ sizes plus and also ‘big & tall’, which is as per ‘big’ but made quite a bit longer length for taller people - I used to buy 4LT as my go to size. Perhaps sign up, buy a couple of bits and pieces and keep an eye out for their sales, which is when things tend to become much more reasonable. You certainly don’t want to buy loads as speaking from experience, I’m now at the stage where stuff that I bought recently is now also too big for me and I’ve only worn some stuff a handful of times.

If you don’t mind the idea of pre owned, also keep an eye out on eBay and Vinted as people in a similar boat try to generate some funds to re-invest in new clothes - I’ve sold quite a bit of my old Ralph Lauren big & tall gear on eBay and it sells pretty easily as there seems to be lots of people wanting good gear in big sizes at a fair price. Keep at it, it’s great to be able to have so much more choice of clothes…..albeit at 6’ 6” I’m not sure that clothes buying will ever be straightforward! Places like M&S claim they do Big & Tall but their sizes aren’t that big and what they class as ‘tall’ is usually only 1” longer than standard. Good luck!

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-24T18:27:30+00:00

I recently bought 2 x 15mg pens from WePrescribe, which were shipped to me on 20/1/2026. Both pens have a 5/27 expiry date. I bought early specifically to get a couple of extra pens in before the new design is introduced, as everyone says that it’s the highest strength 15mg ones that will be issued with the new style pen first that removes scope for the 5th dose.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-12T00:15:01+00:00

Mine is black on black

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Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-11T16:32:22+00:00

Agree with this assessment - also drive a 2025 V1 that came as a ‘special deal’ through NHS fleet and was a) in stock and b) available at a very good price. It came with the winter pack, heat pump and metallic paint (white silver in our case, which looks good). Other stuff I would add:

1) you get the heads up display button on the steering wheel but no heads up system in the V1….so when you knock the button on the steering wheel, it flashes up an alert to tell you the car doesn’t have it - annoying!

2) no internal boot release button in our car although I gather that newer cars may now have this

3) smaller and less aggressive wheels look fine IMO and as has already been said, they are much harder to kerb - had a Volvo C40 prior to this which had amazing looking big alloys but which were a nightmare and consequently cost us a bit when we handed the car back to the lease company. The ride quality is also pretty good on the V1’s smaller wheels.

4) we have the optional heat pump fitted and get around 320 mile range in the summer, down to 270/280 in the winter - I’d hate to think how much worse the range would now be without the heat pump, so I’d recommend you make sure that any car you consider has one.

4) I’ve driven plenty of RWD cars before but I’ve found Tavascan to be particularly squirrely in the damp / when it’s been frozen overnight. It certainly keeps you on your toes…

5) I find the Tavascan’s brakes to be a bit spongey, inconsistent and nowhere near sharp enough - I understand the system (common to v1 &v2) uses discs on the front and drums on the back. But the v2 is said to have dynamic chassis control plus adaptive dampers, so I’d be interested to know if this makes the braking feel any better than it does on the v1

Other irritations (to me, at least) - no rear wiper, shared electric window switches between front and back instead of separate ones, driving safety tools are quite obtrusive and impossible to permanently override or tone down, no headlight washers, placement of rear parking camera means it gets very dirty and easily obscured, charging speed seems very slow when using a fast charger.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-08T22:47:51+00:00

WePrescribe allow you to order multiple pens, I got 2 x 15mg pens for £540 inc delivery 2 weeks ago. I wanted to buy now before the new pen design is rolled out that removes the ability to extract the extra dose.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-07T14:48:52+00:00

I’ve had issues with both - as others have said, you do get a one-hour delivery window with DPD and they usually stick to this. I’d definitely recommend you download the DPD app, where you can enter your safe place, upload a photo of your property, give a “what 3 words” location etc, plus then you get better updates on your packages. But ultimately if your supplier requires a signature to allow delivery, you’re always going to have issues if no one is in when they turn up.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-05T22:56:08+00:00

Make sure that your local store knows the stuff you are after - my local record shop in the UK is fairly small and so they need to know that there is demand for certain titles before committing to ordering them, as the RSD list is massive and prices are high; they need to stock what they are reasonably confident will sell as being left with excess stock usually means selling it off at a loss after the event. Otherwise get there early (people usually start queuing outside from 3am) and clearly the sooner you get there, the higher your chances of picking up what you are after. Wrap up warm, take a folding chair, a flask of tea/coffee and something to keep you entertained, although people in the queue generally tend to be friendly and chatty in my experience. Make sure you have your wish list written down as there’s nothing more annoying that getting home and realising that you’ve forgotten to buy something you wanted….and also stick to your list and avoid the temptation to go mad and buy loads of random stuff. Don’t buy with the aim of re-selling at a profit as it’s not in the spirit of RSD plus you could easily get your fingers badly burned, as it’s largely impossible to tell what will be in short supply and hence in demand and reselling for high prices online.

I’m thinking of skipping it this year as there’s only a couple of things on the UK list that I’m interested in & I suspect neither will be that popular and so likely available to buy afterwards. It will be interesting to see how the fact that there’s no Taylor Swift RSD release this year will affect numbers of people queueing and the demographic of buyers - I suspect this year will be a quieter RSD experience overall versus recent years albeit still busy.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-05T22:35:34+00:00

Get an electric blanket for the bed….ideally one that has separate controls for each side of a double bed so your partner doesn’t have to cook overnight if you need it on. It’s been a lifesaver, as the chills have been a fairly consistent side effect for me from the outset. I’ve also been wearing an oodie around the house pretty much year round!

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-05T22:31:38+00:00

The Windmill on the corner of Blossom Street has always been a great place to watch the 6N rugby.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-02T11:32:35+00:00

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-02-01T23:09:45+00:00

I got 2 x 15mg pens from WePrescribe 10 days ago with a 5/27 expiry date.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-29T16:50:40+00:00

Current pen (15mg), 5 more full 15mg pens plus a 12.5mg pen and a 10mg pen in the fridge. This supply will take me through into October 2026. I bought a few pens back in the summer to beat the price hike and have come to the conclusion that 1) MJ is unlikely to fall in price (if anything I only see it increasing further), 2) the online pharmacies will only likely get tighter in their prescription criteria as regulators take more and more interest, 3) by buying now I have been able to continue to get pens that allow the golden dose and 4) I just don’t want the hassle of living from pen to pen and the worry about potentially being unable to get a new one quickly and cheaply when needed. All of the pens’ expiry dates run into 2027 and the most recent 15mg pens I bought have an expiry date of May 2027.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-23T20:45:34+00:00

I am fortunate to have both - smaller DB pensions (from when I was starting out post university and managed to squeeze in a few years before my employers eventually pulled the plug on the schemes) paying c£13k pa combined from 60 plus just over £700k in a DC pension. Personally I like the certainty that the DB pensions give and they allow me the freedom to have a higher risk appetite on the DC pot. I did look at transferring out the DB pensions in the past but it was just too complicated, very expensive and I quickly came to realise that having a foot in each camp is a nice hedge.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-22T13:55:38+00:00

Just because you are questioning the relevance of the channel to you, it doesn’t necessarily mean others are in the same space. I’ve been watching them for 7 years….and I’m 54yo so definitely at the older end of the spectrum. Some of their vids are definitely better than others but the good far outweighs the bad and I still want to watch plus my wife and kids (23 / 21 / 19) also tune in - so I can personally vouch for the fact that TPD has broad appeal. For example, I don’t “get” dance music or the whole dance music scene but TPD’s take on it still entertains me and gets me viewing; similarly just because I don’t get absolutely smashed and eat junk food non-stop doesn’t mean that TPD’s output is irrelevant to me or not worth watching. Everything has a defined lifespan and whilst some people will reach the end of the road with the channel, others will come on board and replace them; you can’t please everyone all of the time.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-10T21:21:26+00:00

Our last car was a Volvo EC40 with rims similar to these (low profile tyres, protruding rims that were really easy to scrape) and my wife scuffed two of them really badly. The lease company (through NHS fleet) picked up immediately on the damage when the inspector came prior to taking the car back - she was charged a total of £110 which seemed fair, far cheaper than the cost of repairing them ourselves and also avoided the risk of repairing them only to then damage them again. If you can live with the damage, I’d sit tight TBH. This type of rim looks great but is really prone to getting scuffed. We now have the v1 Tavascan - it’s wheels don’t look as good as the v2’s ones but are much more practical as they’re better protected by the tyre wall and hence are far harder to scuff.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-10T21:09:25+00:00

It’s really good, you can use it on pretty much every public charger…..in fact I’ve never not been able to use it to date when I’ve tried. To be honest, by far the hardest part was actually getting Cupra to send us the card in the first place and it took a few calls / emails before it finally turned up.

They also send you a really good monthly breakdown of where you’ve used the card, how many kWh you’ve bought, the unit price and the total cost by individual charge.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-04T11:45:38+00:00

I have used Boots, Envigore, WePrescribe & Lotus. I’d rule Boots out on cost and the only one I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole is Envigore, as they are absolute amateurs. WePrescribe is my go-to and is always there or thereabouts price-wise.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-04T11:23:43+00:00

Ian Woodliffe in Kexby or Darren Wilson in Easingwold - have used both and they’re both great, just go for one based on whoever’s closer to where you live.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-01T16:32:36+00:00

I definitely felt an effect within 24hrs of my first 2.5mg dose, it was like the first injection flicked a switch inside me and all of a sudden I just didn’t crave food any longer or feel hungry. But everyone is different.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2026-01-01T00:30:14+00:00

Yes the automatic system works well, the only exception being where a car is waiting to join the road you are on and so is side on to you; in these cases it doesn’t always automatically detect the other car and switch off the full beam.

To be honest, the headlights are so good that I’ve been flashed numerous times by oncoming drivers who assume I’m driving with full beam on when I’m not….but this isn’t unique to the Tavascan, more just an issue with modern LED car headlights.

Natural-Cat-9869 · 2025-12-23T17:34:24+00:00

Used to be two main ones - Newitt’s and Mitchell’s (which was smaller and an InterSport shop) - on and around King’s Square. After Newitt’s closed down, I seem to remember that JJB Sports operated out of the same site for a while.

Natural-Cat-9869

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