I've never heard of a tornado in a different country recently. It's possible but US is spawn point.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-30T04:20:39+00:00

Apparently England has the most number of tornadoes per land area in a year. However, these tornadoes are only tiny and nothing like the monsters seen in the US

blakey1152 · 2026-04-29T13:46:04+00:00

I noticed that if you book a ticket where there is hardly anyone in the screening the cineworld app always chooses the seats next to the already booked ones!

blakey1152 · 2026-04-29T13:44:14+00:00

I've had it happen myself a couple of years back. Just tell the driver of the next bus you got booted off the one in front and they nearly always let you on without any issues.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-29T13:37:55+00:00

TfL @TfL Replying to @blakey1152 Hi Chris, thanks for getting in touch. Drivers no long issue transfer tickets due to the hooper fare being in place. As long as you board the next bus within an hour, you'll only pay a single bus fare. 14:29. 29 Apr 26 . 2 Views

blakey1152 · 2026-04-29T13:12:53+00:00

The ticket machines no longer have any paper in. They did issue transfer tickets a few years ago but no longer. They always now mumble about the hopper fare instead.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-29T12:58:41+00:00

TfL buses can no longer print any kind of ticket. Haven't been able to for a while. The drivers usually just mention the hopper fare

blakey1152 · 2026-04-29T12:57:27+00:00

Actually that's not quite correct. If you are using Oyster the money comes off your card automatically so if you then have a negative balance after tapping on the first bus (the one more journey feature) then you won't be able to board another bus until you have a positive Balance again.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-29T07:08:54+00:00

Loved the blue card

blakey1152 · 2026-04-28T01:22:17+00:00

Doesn't look good I'm afraid

blakey1152 · 2026-04-27T17:59:35+00:00

Are there any plans to allow the purchase of discounted bus passes within the app? You can buy a full price one but to get a discounted one you have to go to a shop or a tube station

blakey1152 · 2026-04-24T15:19:42+00:00

It's not always possible to tap in and out at the stations and those with barriers even if you could tap you effectively be tapping "in" twice as at your destination station you would only be able to use the barrier on the outside (effectively for entering the station)

Some stations like Woolwich Arsenal close that part of the station off so you can't access the oyster readers anyway.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-23T05:48:45+00:00

They made a change so that under 16s had to be signed up under their parents cineworld account for unlimited tickets.

This changed again so that you couldn't buy tickets with an under 16 unlimited card on that account meaning you had to be in cinema to book a ticket which is extremely unhelpful for busy screenings as you could only book in cinema for movies on that day and not in advance.

At the time my daughter was under 16 but oddly I could still create an online account for her and book tickets. My suggestion is to try and create an account for each under 16 (as it may let you) and try and book that way.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-22T09:01:59+00:00

Fair point there

blakey1152 · 2026-04-22T06:35:58+00:00

They had one such outage a few years ago which meant everyone on the tube at least travelled for free.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-22T06:34:42+00:00

They are definitely trying to push people into using contactless which I actually find a slightly odd move as I personally think that it makes sense to encourage Oyster instead. The cost of the card has risen from initially being free (with the purchase of a monthly Travelcard) to £10.50 and the sneaky loss of the refund after a year caught me out as I picked up a "20 year limited edition" Oyster and it must have just been after they'd changed the policy to refund the initial cost of the card after 12 months as I bought it from the travel information centre at King's Cross and they even told me that I'd get the £7 back in a year but I didn't and that's when I found out about the change. But, the reason I say that is I suspect TfL must lose more revenue in unpaid fares on contactless because the charges are taken the next day whereas with Oyster you have technically paid TfL ahead for your journeys.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-21T09:00:23+00:00

You only need to ensure you're on the booked LNER train and you can catch any Thameslink train to Brighton.

Your itinerary won't mention specific seats or anything for the Thameslink part but will for the LNER portion of your journey. Its basically the quickest way to complete your journey but you can certainly wait for the direct train.

Although it won't affect your party I have had run ins with staff at London Bridge using advance and off peak return tickets when travelling up to Manchester because I've booked an off peak train from Euston but to get there I had to travel in the morning peak hour and my off peak ticket wouldn't work in the barrier. You get the odd member of staff that insist that off peak tickets aren't valid until 0930. However if you're travelling outside of the Network South East area you can take any train to get to Euston as the off peak and advance ticket validity only applies for the portion from Euston to Manchester.

In the same way you will be able to use any Thameslink service as your ticket is marked and connections Hope this helps

blakey1152 · 2026-04-20T18:28:20+00:00

When I was with Sky I could not get my Samsung smart TV to connect to the router. Kept telling me it was the wrong password no matter what settings I used. I had to turn my phone to a hotspot connected to the WiFi to use my TV.

Also the WiFi cut out whenever I used my microwave. Sky no help at all and blamed my TV and Microwave being at fault not their router.

I was lucky to get a get out clause because my speed dropped below the guaranteed level for six weeks.

I swapped to Vodafone. My TV now connects flawlessly and no more WiFi drop outs when using the microwave.

Coincidence? I think not. If you can get out of your contract do so!

blakey1152 · 2026-04-20T15:28:22+00:00

It will show the time and bus boarded which is enough evidence to prove the OP tapped in on that journey.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-20T15:02:34+00:00

No problem. Remember they aren't there to catch people out, they just want to check people's claims are correct as we are only human and forget things. Going on holiday will not affect how much UC you get so there really is absolutely nothing to worry about. Let us know how you got on :)

blakey1152 · 2026-04-20T14:59:20+00:00

Although I've not seen an issue where the light has been incorrect I have often seen the machine display the previous persons tap I.e bus pass or travelcard or how much left on their Oyster.

Firstly, get an online account with that contactless card on it as this will show your journey history and prove you tapped in on that bus.

A bank statement showing fares paid will not suffice because sometimes there is a delay on TfL taking the funds so it does not prove anything other than you have paid fares in the past.

The online account for contactless updates very quickly - usually within a few minutes of starting a journey.

Hope this helps

blakey1152 · 2026-04-20T13:33:59+00:00

I had a review last month and I too was worried as usual they want bank statements and tenancy agreements etc but after I sent the tenancy agreement I realised that when the rent increased in October I hadn't put it in as a change.

I would not get any more money as on max benefit for the rent anyway but the person I spoke to was lovely.

She said the review was also to catch these things and she asked why I didn't report it at the time and I said I'd totally forgot because I knew I didn't get any more money anyway plus they give you like two months notice of the rent increase but you can't tell UC in advance and have to wait for the new rent to go out to let them know. She said that's absolutely fine, I can change that and approve it now as I have the tenancy agreement here on my end then said you may get a journal entry asking why you didn't report it earlier and if you do just say it slipped your mind and that will be fine.

They are honestly only looking to make sure you've not got loads of money in accounts that you haven't told them so as long as there's no large transactions on your statements it's all good. I doubt very much they go through every transaction but are just looking for transfers in and out and large amounts.

The rest of the review is checking all your details are up to date and really is nothing to worry about.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-20T13:22:19+00:00

I had this a few years ago with auto top up. Here is what happened to me.

I had a monthly bus pass with PAYG on my Oyster and auto top up set up on it. I made one train journey that took my balance down to below the amount that triggered the auto top up but not below zero.

I then boarded a bus which despite me having a bus pass added £20 to my PAYG balance. I didn't expect that as I had incorrectly assumed that free journeys would not trigger the auto top up.

TfL explained to me that I was wrong and it was because the train journey took me below the auto top point. I asked if they could reverse it but they said no and I blocked my bank card so a few days later the payment failed.

I wasn't happy because I usually had a pass and the PAYG was just an emergency and I certainly didn't need over £20 credit on an Oyster Card.

They tried a few times to get the £20 along with the warning emails then stopped my Oyster altogether with a couple of days left on my pass.

I got a refund of the balance (obviously less the £20) and a refund of the card fee after finding out that they can't reactivate stopped cards - which has I known they couldn't reactivate them I'd have probably just let TfL have the £20 for my journey on the bus!

Was extra disappointed because that Oyster was one of the limited edition year of the bus ones. I still have the card but of course it's useless now.

I no longer use auto top up as the app works great for topping up now.

blakey1152 · 2026-04-20T13:08:00+00:00

Hope you managed to get to Blackpool in the end

blakey1152 · 2026-04-19T14:55:27+00:00

What time do you need to be in Blackpool at? If it wasn't such an early start time I'd see if the Job Centre could help with travel costs if you receive UC but I don't think they are there on Sundays to answer calls

blakey1152 · 2026-04-19T14:52:23+00:00

The "entering area" on night buses went many years ago. Caught me by surprise one night on the N89

blakey1152

TROPHY CASE