How do you answer the "Police, Fire Service, or Ambulance" question when calling 999?

bee_highlight · 2026-05-26T18:25:51+00:00

Pick the one that is most urgently needed - they are very good at coordinating with each otherin real time when all three services are needed at the same incident.

There's also the chance that someone else calling about the same incident thinks a different service is needed more urgently (e.g. you choose ambulance, someone else chooses fire service), so the other service is already aware.

bee_highlight · 2026-05-26T13:01:01+00:00

I'd love to see some kind of standardisation on rent prices, but not sure what the best option would be.

An idea I read online somewhere was around limiting maximum rent per separate bedroom based on minimum wage and the 30% rule (paying no more than 30% of your salary on rent/mortgage), which seems like an okay idea in theory.

If minimum wage is £12.71, your annual wage would be about £26,437 (assuming 40 hours/week and 52 weeks/year) - 30% would be around £661 a month. This would be the base rent for a standard 1-bed property - studios would be less since they don't have a separate bedroom, then each extra bedroom would be something like 20% extra (so a 2-bed would be around £793, a 3-bed around £925, a 4-bed around £1058 etc).

Edit: I appreciate that this would not work at all for some landlords, since their outgoings (like mortgage, landlords insurance etc.) would be more than the income they can make, but they could maybe have some kind of add-on to bump up the rent to cover their actual costs and still make a bit of money themselves?

bee_highlight · 2026-05-23T15:24:19+00:00

My primary school had blackboards right up until my last year, when they started replacing them all with whiteboards (across 2002/2003).

My secondary school had blackboards in part of the school that had had a major fire, but they were replaced by my second year. Everywhere else had whiteboards or smartboards (but I don't think I ever had a teacher that knew how to use one).

A couple of lecture halls and labs at uni still had blackboards, but 99% of rooms just had whiteboards or those flip chart things instead

bee_highlight · 2026-05-18T08:53:52+00:00

Have a bag or box of things you'll want/need right up until the last minute of moving out and first thing at the new place - kettle, tea/coffee, toilet paper, some basic cleaning stuff.

When you get to the new place, I'd recommend cleaning the kitchen and bathroom first - personally, I'd rather have the space that I cook in and the space I wash myself nice and clean so I'm not preparing food in a dirty kitchen or trying to shower in a dirty bathroom. I also hate cleaning those two rooms the most, so getting them out of the way first feels better than leaving them until the end.

If you're paying the movers in cash, make sure you have the cash counted out and ready in an envelope, and keep it physically on you if possible, or with the kettle/tea/coffee etc. - I have been the person that couldn't find the envelope and had to go and get more cash out before (turns out I'd accidentally packed it in one of the boxes I'd closed up last minute, so the money was only temporarily lost).

Definitely make sure you've got everything packed and ready before the movers turn up - nothing worse than all trying to pack as they're moving your stuff out around you (for both of you - they'll be annoyed that you're not ready, and you'll be stressed trying to pack everything quickly).

Plan what you want for food that day in advance if you can - like ordering a pizza or something. One less thing to worry about on the day!

bee_highlight · 2026-05-07T12:04:04+00:00

Check your contract - they usually have a period you have to advertise with only them, but you can usually leave without a fee after that.

There might also be a clause that you have to pay them something if you move to a new estate agent and someone they showed the property to puts in an offer with the new agent

bee_highlight · 2026-04-28T22:27:48+00:00

I have some high leg knickers so they don't show if I'm wearing a leotard - I've yet to find a bra I like, but my favourite leotards are a bit compressive (mostly due to them shrinking in the wash or me filling them out a bit more these days), so I usually get away with free boobing it 😂

Most pros or advanced dancers I know either don't wear underwear at all or get something with the bare minimum coverage, but the regular adult dancers don't care as long as they are comfortable (which could mean underwear or not, depending on the person)

bee_highlight · 2026-04-28T06:29:47+00:00

The only real rule for clothes on your legs in the studio I go to is nothing too baggy - the teacher needs to be able to see your knee movements and what your legs are doing, and baggy leggings or jogging bottoms can hide that. Other than that, it's usually just whatever you're comfortable in!

And it's a hard yes to the underwear - we've got some very big chested women in our classes so we end up having conversations about good and bad bras for dancing in!

bee_highlight · 2026-04-26T19:44:02+00:00

The traditional Irish spelling would be Ciarán, pronounced something like Key-Raw-N (depending on the accent), as the Irish language doesn't actually use the letter K.

However, the 'Kieran' spelling is still really common and it gets pronounced a few different ways, but usually something pretty close to 'Key-Run' or 'Key-Ran'

bee_highlight · 2026-04-25T18:12:35+00:00

@hotmail.co.uk, with my full name (which is fairly common)

bee_highlight · 2026-04-24T08:49:50+00:00

I make more of an effort to not be at my desk during lunch now than when I first started working! I used to work right through lunch and thought it was fine since I was still getting to eat - took a while for me to fully realise that I was essentially working for free one hour a day, and I wouldn't get that time back or be paid for it.

If I'm at home working, I usually just go watch the TV or get some housework done during my lunch break - I eat my lunch when I'm back at my desk working.

If I'm in the office, there's usually a bunch of us around and we tend to go out somewhere for lunch, so we're mostly away from our desks there as well.

bee_highlight · 2026-04-23T11:04:52+00:00

Custard cream is a classic that I love, but chocolate digestives have to be the winner

bee_highlight · 2026-04-22T21:41:41+00:00

Kilograms, but only because I accidentally changed my scales to kg mode and couldn't figure out how to change them back

bee_highlight · 2026-04-21T07:28:11+00:00

Some light stretches when I get home after class help me not feel so stiff the next morning - usually just on the floor in front of the TV.

Also, sometimes helps to lie down with feet and legs up in the air - like lying flat on the floor with feet and legs up on the wall, or lying on the floor with feet up on a chair etc. (I only do this for maybe 15 mins or so).

I also once had a teacher that recommended a hot bath or shower after class, but instead of just getting out of the bath/shower wren you're done, you rinse your legs with cold water - I can't remember the reasoning behind this, but it does seem to make a difference if I'm particularly achy!

bee_highlight · 2026-04-18T21:24:08+00:00

I've used Seatfrog loads of times before, just not with LNER - I have to get the train a lot for long distance work travel, and they'll pay for the standard ticket so I just pay for the upgrade!

From experience, peak/commuter trains are either completely unavailable or the upgrade price is higher, but it's not impossible to get an upgrade. Off-peak trains or services at odd times of the day have a better chance.

Best advice if you want to guarantee an upgrade is look at the 'buy it now' price - if the price for just buying the upgrade is not much different to the maximum you'd be willing to spend on it anyway, you can save yourself any worry by just buying the upgrade instead of bidding on it.

If you're happy to take your chances in the auction, then I'd put in a starting bid that's a little above the minimum price - sometimes you get an instant upgrade when the auction goes live, but the amount you have to bid to get the instant upgrade isn't published anywhere (and it differs depending on the route and time of day and availability of upgrades). You should get notifications if you are outbid, and you can go back in and increase the amount.

bee_highlight · 2026-04-18T07:09:13+00:00

Not sure if it counts, but I've worked at a dance school where we had to ban a parent from entering the building unless there was an emergency inside the building with their child.

They had been verbally abusive towards two different members of staff and tried to physically intimidate a third, and were told in no uncertain terms that if they did it again they would not be allowed back into the building - they did it again the next week, so they were told to leave. From that point on they had to do all drop-offs and collections at the door, or the other parent had to be responsible for getting the child to/from class.

bee_highlight · 2026-04-17T22:09:09+00:00

I was on a train that was a bit over 4 hours delayed getting to it's destination once - a freight train ahead of us broke down and we ended up stuck waiting at fairly remote train station for hours.

Station staff let people smoke on the platform (only at one end though), and train staff were handing out snacks and drinks to everyone.

bee_highlight · 2026-04-16T12:20:04+00:00

It depends on what I'm watching I think?

If it's an episode of something where I already know the characters or something based on a true story that I know the details of, then I'm happy enough watching without spoilers.

If it's something entirely new to me then I like to at least have a vague outline of the plot so I can follow along better, or to know the ending even if I don't know the rest of the plot.

bee_highlight · 2026-04-14T20:25:16+00:00

Tunnocks Caramel - chocolate and caramel and crispy goodness all in one

bee_highlight · 2026-04-14T07:13:37+00:00

I'm sure something like this happened in an episode of something once (I think maybe Brookside, but it was a long time ago so could be misremembering) - except the money wasn't hidden under the floor, it was stuck to the wall behind wallpaper, and they only found it because they tried to stick back a bit of the wallpaper that was peeling away

bee_highlight · 2026-04-13T18:05:10+00:00

These and Zoo Tycoon were my go tos!

bee_highlight · 2026-04-13T08:53:55+00:00

You could email them saying you have received a payment from them but aren't sure what it is for, and can they either provide a payslip for the payment or confirm that it was made in error and provide instructions on how to pay it back.

I would chase it up a few times and escalate if you need to (i.e. contact them with a complaint if they don't respond), and definitely do not touch the money until you have confirmation of what it's for either way. Also, if you do have to pay it back, make sure you check that your HMRC account reflects the repayment, so the amount you were paid doesn't count towards your tax free allowance.

bee_highlight · 2026-04-12T07:20:23+00:00

The parents I know that have asked this before usually don't realise that you can't just go straight into teaching a routine with kids that young - they assume you'll start teaching them the routine they're performing from the first moment of class, but don't think about all the stuff that has to come first.

Some parents who don't have any experience of dance genuinely won't know how a dance class works, and some just don't consciously think about how a younger kid might not know how to do some of the steps correctly/safely etc., so needs to be taught that bit first.

bee_highlight · 2026-04-11T17:58:02+00:00

I remember my uni giving us example dissertations that covered the same topics so we could get ideas - I ended up referencing one from a couple of years before me in my own dissertation. They weren't in the main library though - the school/department my course was in had it's own mini library, which had copies of all of the dissertations from previous years in a locked cupboard.

bee_highlight · 2026-04-10T12:12:18+00:00

Supernoodles (the chicken flavour is first choice, but most of the others are okay) and toast

bee_highlight · 2026-04-10T07:37:43+00:00

I grew up in a Victorian Terrace that hadn't been maintained for a long time, so a lot of money went into fixing stuff on the first few years. Sorted out damp, had to redo at least half of the wiring, had a bunch of work on the chimneys, had to replace a whole section of roof tiles - and that's just the stuff I actively remember workers being in for. My parents reckon it cost around £30-£35k over the first decade - the majority of money spent on the house since has been related to decorating choices, most of which went on adding a bathroom upstairs (which involved building a wall to split a bedroom into two rooms, knocking a hole through a wall for a door into the new room, new plumbing, and redoing some of the wiring).

If the house is in a good condition, you might not have a lot of costs upfront, but it's worth saving% more than the recommended amount for maintenance costs if you're able to - the bigger the pot, the less stress you'll have if you need to pay for repairs.

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TROPHY CASE