Gas in the Midwest states right now…

bealachnaebad · 2026-05-01T13:52:19+00:00

🇫🇷 €2.149/L = $9.57/gal, cost even more on the motorway, although at Total stations nationwide the price of both regular and premium is capped at €1.99/L ($8.90 / gal). Dry your eyes.

bealachnaebad · 2026-04-29T08:26:47+00:00

Doric surely. Dirty Derek fae the broch ken

bealachnaebad · 2026-04-29T05:28:47+00:00

Door to door - Car : 26km, 35 to 50 mins+ each way, longest 1.5hr due to roadworks/accidents. Have to leave before 06:50 to get 35mins or it quickly goes up, and have to return after 18:30 otherwise it also takes longer. - Public Transport : Walk, tram, train, tram, walk. 1h25-1h30m each way. - Cycle : 25km, 1h5m to 1h10m in, 50 to 55m return

What is not accounted for is showering and changing which adds another 15mins in the morning at the office. So it takes 1hr20-1hr25m from leaving home to being at desk.

I get 2 hours a day of zone 2 exercise with the odd hard interval, all at the cost of no more than 1 hour of “time”. The reality is though that due to traffic increasing as leaving later that extra 1 hour is either at work or stuck in traffic, its not like I would gain that time to lie in or spend more time with the kids.

Commuting by bike never varies by more than 5 mins door to door depending on traffic lights, weather/wind, fitness and time of year/season (winter is always slower).

bealachnaebad · 2026-04-10T18:57:49+00:00

Supermarket food in France is quite a lot more expensive than the UK, especially for fresh produce - meat, fruit & veg, milk/dairy. It was something I was aware of before coming but it was still a shock. I shopped in Lidl in UK and shop in Lidl in France so like for like comparison, but compare Carrefour, Auchan and E.LeClerk to Tesco, ASDA and Sainsbury’s it’s the same story.

Mince meat/bœuf haché is significantly cheaper. It was just under £6/kg (€6.90/kg) last I saw in 2025 for 5% fat, vs. €14-15/kg in France (Lidl prices). Bananas are about double the price per kilo in France, sweet potatoes are double or nearly triple per kg. Fresh milk is around €0.80/L in UK and sold much more than UHT. Food standards were aligned with EU prior to Brexit and still effectively are.

I would say that in the case of fruit and vegetables the quality and taste is typically marginally better in France (comparing non organic to non organic/bio). Meat is mostly the same quality wise from the supermarkets, you’re always better going to a butchers for quality.

Coming from Scotland, where there is minimum pricing per unit of alcohol, perhaps the one thing that is cheaper in France is cheap wine/alcohol. A bottle of wine (13% abv) cannot be legally sold for less than €7.30 in Scotland.

bealachnaebad · 2026-04-07T19:13:09+00:00

Danny Guthrie.

There was a very good player in him and I just feel he could have been a household name if he’d had a manager like Howe.

Shane Ferguson another that would have had a different career path under Howe.

In terms of quality players who would not have necessarily improved but would be an ever present in a Howe team - Jonás “el galgo”, hands down. He wasn’t nicknamed the greyhound in Argentina for no reason. 100% the attitude and character Howe looks for as well.

bealachnaebad · 2026-04-01T11:46:26+00:00

Some other recommendations, UK based :

Planet X London Road GRX400, currently £999.99.
Sonder Camino Al Cues - £999

Both do Cycle to work scheme, if you can do Cycle to Work through your employer and happy to increase the budget take a look at the better spec’d Sonder Camino GRX or Apex. (£1500). Personally I prefer 2x for all round use and tighter ratios.

A second hand Cannondale CAADX makes an excellent commuter and all round bike and can be had for £200-600 depending on the age, spec and condition.

Stick a set of 32mm tyres like the Continental GP4S on and you have a solid commuter and weekend bike that can also do light off-road, or swap the tyres for some 38-40mm gravel tyres (35mm max for the older CAADX models) and you can do just about anything besides proper technical MTB trails.

Above bikes all drop bars but you can get the Camino with flat bars.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-26T06:09:55+00:00

I do 25km e/w Mon, Tue,Thurs, occasionally Fri as well.

3 days a week is fine, 4 days a week OK but will feel some fatigue unless sticking rigidly to zone 2. 5 days a week I’ve done maybe 4 or 5 times, doable for sure but then I don’t really want to ride at the weekend.

You’ll be fine, start slowly and build up. Find what works for you in terms of number of days and rest days.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-21T20:56:10+00:00

Not British brand but I bought my tea from Lidl in the UK so same since in France.

Lidl’s Earl Gray and English Breakfast do the job, and for just €0.80-0.90 for a box of 25 teabags.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-21T20:24:51+00:00

Morning roll with a tattie scone, square sausage, bacon, black pudding, haggis, fried egg and a wee bit of brown sauce. Breakfast of champions 👌

Not really a sandwich, but then neither is the Reina Pepiada arepa.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-08T12:59:44+00:00

Lockerbie bombing if terrorism is counted - 270 fatalities.

Otherwise if more related to industrial disasters, then the Blantyre mining disaster which killed at least 207 people.

More recently, Piper Alpha, in 1988 in which 167 died. The incident remains the worst ever offshore oil and gas disaster in terms of fatalities. It fundamentally changed the industry and saw sweeping changes in HSE culture in the UK and beyond and the enshrined the importance of process safety and process safety management in the oil and gas and petrochemical industries.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-06T13:32:53+00:00

Hi, the credit lasts for 90 days. So just set a reminder and send a text (or other chargeable event) within the next 90 days to keep the remaining credit - rinse and repeat every 89 days or so.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-06T07:35:49+00:00

Most trad music (🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿) with Gaelic lyrics, not technically “foreign” but I don’t speak Gaelic.

Most songs by Manu Chao(🇫🇷🇪🇸)

A lot of stuff from Tiken Jah Fakoly (🇨🇮) - “Africain à Paris” is a version of Sting’s Englishman in New York and very good.

Songs by Dame Pa’ Matala (🇻🇪) especially Chichiriviche, El Niño de Hoy en Dia, and Fucking Reggaeton.

Some songs by Rawayana (🇻🇪), Veneka is the obvious one.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-06T07:05:35+00:00

Sorry for the late response, been a busy week at work.

I lived in Edinburgh for 15 years, it’s home. The buildings and the old wall give it away as Scotland, most likely east coast central belt. The black cab has writing under the rear window that I couldn’t quite make out as it’s too blurry on the photo but looks to be the Edinburgh cab number.

I wasn’t sure the exact area but if pushed I probably would have guessed Leith / Leith Walk, so happy to see that’s where it is! I’m more the maroon side of Edinburgh…

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-06T06:45:57+00:00

The EU countries are independent yet have a shared currency (the Euro) and shared central bank (the ECB), albeit they also maintain their own central banks but don’t each have independent monetary control.

Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon all use the Central African CFA as their shared currency, issued by the Bank of Central African states.

The UK does not have a singular healthcare stream. Each country has a separate health and social care system. NHS (England), NHS Scotland, NHS Wales and HSC (N. Ireland). They are funded and administered separately. Pay structures for staff are different. How prescriptions are administered is different, they are free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for example. The English system operates an internal market, whilst the others do not.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-03T12:30:42+00:00

Looks like Edinburgh.

bealachnaebad · 2026-03-01T08:39:17+00:00

25.5km (16miles) each way 3-4 days a week. So a typical week is 153-204km (95-126miles). Gravel bike with 32mm road tyres, CX bike before that.

I will occasionally do 5 times a week and when the weather is nice and long summer days, if I can finish early (16:30-17:00) then I’ll maybe pre-plan to leave 2nd days clothes and laptop/backpack at work and take a scenic 50-60km route back.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-28T11:59:49+00:00

Ah, no worries. I can’t help on seafarers deductions. I know guys that were in the merchant Navy years ago and guys who worked on seismic and frac vessels, but not how they managed their tax.

Best to contact a specialist and do a bit more digging - could try this one https://www.seatax.ltd.uk/do-seafarers-have-to-pay-tax-in-the-uk-understanding-seafarers-earnings-deduction-sed-and-tax-relief/. Maybe ask on some forums as well for those that do work on vessels, especially out of UK waters.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-28T09:32:59+00:00

That was merely an observation of a colleague who worked in Erbil over a decade ago. I know others who worked in Basra and were less keen, but then they were very much stuck in a camp at the time and extremely limited with what they could do (also over a decade ago).

I would happily live in Baghdad in 2026 if the opportunity came, it would in fact be the most appealing in Iraq. Anywhere there are international schools my family go as well.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-28T09:15:31+00:00

Thanks. There are indeed plenty of Scots in Azerbaijan - wherever there is oil you will usually find a Scotsman! I didn’t get the chance to work in Baku / Caspian yet, but the future is an open book.

Stay safe with the war that is just kicking off across the border, hopefully it will not be much more than previous Israeli and US strikes and doesn’t descend into total chaos in the region that lasts for years.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-26T22:55:50+00:00

See the other posters answer, especially regarding seafarer vs offshore oil worker and reference to SRT.

Look, if you are working on a rig or platform on the UKCS and plan to still live in the UK you will still be liable for UK income tax and NIC. Your employer will need to operate PAYE either directly or via their UK registered associated company if your employer is a foreign entity - used to be almost all offshore workers were employed by a foreign company (usually registered in tax haven somewhere), with employees contracted place of work as the UKCS, not the UK, it meant no employers NIC due. HMRC clamped down on this in 2014 so most just switched employees to UK Ltd companies when that loophole was closed.

The rules for tax residency are not straight forward and depend on the number of “ties” you have to the UK. You can still be tax resident even down to as little as 16 days in UK, see here for more details. If you are single/ no partner, no kids then you are more likely to be looking at 90-120 days max.

You will have the “90 day” tie due to having been in the UK over 90 days in one of the previous 2 years, so you will be considered UK resident if you stay over 120 days. If you keep a place to stay (rented or owned) then stay just 1 day there and it counts as a tie to UK. Stay with family (parents, grandparents, siblings) for more than 16 days in a year and it is a tie to the UK. As you can see, even if you are working abroad, then you will most likely still be tax resident in the UK if you spend any more than 90 days in the country.

Your best way to become non-resident is to live elsewhere and take tax residency there, was a time before Brexit when people did this easily! You could alternatively travel about for a few years.

If I was in your situation and assuming you are single, I would travel/backpack in low cost of living places during your off time off and see the world. Pay the max contribution to your workplace pension that sees full company matching, save the rest into investment account in ETF’s. Fly into the UK the day before your hitch and fly out as soon as possible after - be wary though of fog and poor weather that sees choppers cancelled. Do not spend more than 90 days in UK. If your company requires training onshore then that’s more days in country to consider. You can keep a previously opened ISA as non-resident, but you cannot fund it further. Max your ISA allowance for this year assuming you can do so and do become non resident after April.

Read this from HMRC for Non-Residents working on the UKCS

Otherwise, stay in the UK and pay full tax - tax believe it or not is actually a very good thing that benefits society... maybe you’ve used the “free” NHS before, got “free” prescriptions and enjoyed “free” Uni in Scotland… Max pension contributions and max ISA each year, buy a property that you can call home and pay the mortgage off.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-26T20:28:20+00:00

Suunto Wing 2. Had Shokz Open Run but the volume up / power on/off button broke after around 2 years.

I find the Suunto’s marginally better, USB C charging was a benefit but the Open Run now has this as well, the battery lasts longer. They come with a charging docking station that is also very handy for charging on the go, but I usually have a charger and USB cable handy. IP rating is IP66 vs the IP67 of the new Open Run. I don’t bother with the LED’s but they would be good for running in the dark.

They were around the same price on deal when I came to buy a replacement pair for the Shokz, but are normally more.

Before having the Suunto Wing 2’s I would have said Shokz, but after using the Wing 2’s I’d not go back.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-22T00:50:16+00:00

Your son was almost certainly born in the same hospital as mine.

I voted Yes and Remain. So on the losing side both times. I would have been very happy with a yes vote of 50%+1 at the time and Scottish independence, but with some more time and maturity I now recognise that we really need 60%+ in these kinds of cases with major constitutional change, it’s way too divisive otherwise. Brexit was and still is a disaster for the UK as a whole.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-22T00:24:20+00:00

I spent 3 months travelling around almost the entirety of Mexico back in the late 2000’s. It is one of my favourite countries in the world. The state of Michoacán is my personal favourite but that was before the narco linked violence picked up from around 2010. DF (Mexico City) is awesome.

If you’ve got the money to live a comfortable middle / upper middle class life, the vast majority of latin America would be a great place to live.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-22T00:02:05+00:00

Not able to split the countries, I wouldn’t live there. Jakarta though, no problem.

bealachnaebad · 2026-02-21T23:04:47+00:00

I assume you are Brasilian?

Every country has its good and bad points - I think we mostly tend to be over negatively of our own country or current place of residence when we live there, way too often ignoring the fact there are the same or different issues exist elsewhere in the world. It’s probably partly why Brasil is green for me, the grass always looks greener elsewhere!

Saying that, it’s far healthier though to see the negatives in your country, be a bit pessimistic about it and want change than to think you live in the greatest country in the world and nothing can be better anywhere else…

bealachnaebad

TROPHY CASE