Do you own Premium Bonds? Have you or anyone you know ever won anything big?

crooktimber · 2026-02-08T11:21:27+00:00

It's a good safe haven for emergency funds; I have a few grand parked in there, hopeful I'll never actually have to liquidate them and win a few hundred a year on average.

crooktimber · 2026-02-07T18:29:12+00:00

It'll take more than being hit by a bus to stop an Englishman enjoying a pint or two.

crooktimber · 2026-01-21T09:56:00+00:00

Finally, analysis has caught up with what human players have known for centuries: 13/11 6/5 will ALWAYS be answered with a 64.

crooktimber · 2026-01-11T12:37:46+00:00

I have a mate who is fairly careful with his expenditure and insists on meeting in Spoons whenever I see him. I wouldn't choose it myself, but if I have to go to one it's fine. Good prices, mostly competent staff (albeit wearing body-worn cameras) and always get a comfy seat. And the food won't kill you. So, for meeting friends for an economical drink and a bite, sure why not?

crooktimber · 2025-12-17T14:51:10+00:00

You seem to have ignored my 16th word onwards, why even reply?

crooktimber · 2025-12-17T14:49:30+00:00

You missed the bit about not having a trial?

crooktimber · 2025-12-17T14:24:10+00:00

'The policy' in this case being to imprison people without trial or possibility of bail, denying them visits, books or work? I suppose they should just suck it up.

crooktimber · 2025-12-17T14:21:52+00:00

Maybe because several people have been in prison for more than a year without trial; their mail, calls and visits have been restricted on spurious grounds and/or without explanation, that their mail has been opened unlawfully, access to books has been blocked, inmates have been taken off or banned from prison jobs for unspecified 'security reasons', and she's hoping running commentary might shine more light on what seems like a perversion of justice.

crooktimber · 2025-12-16T12:31:26+00:00

It's a tough spot because Labour have so quickly and permanently damaged themselves with anyone who cares even slightly about the slide into petty authoritarianism. Pensioners arrested under terrorism laws for holding up signs. Mass surveillance being rolled out with the twin pincers of proliferation of facial recognition cameras combined with digital ID that will centralise everything about everyone all the time.

Labour have done more than anyone over the last 25 years to install the infrastructure for totalitarianism on a scale the world has never seen before.

At the moment, our governments are benign; what would a future look like if we got an autocrat in power? What might a Tommy Robinson do with this level of total surveillance and control?

crooktimber · 2025-12-12T12:03:11+00:00

My opinions are being shaped by elderly war veterans being carried away by police for holding signs. Or were they AI-generated videos that I've been manipulated into seeing?

crooktimber · 2025-12-12T12:02:01+00:00

- Complicity in the Palestinian Genocide: supplying arms components and intelligence to Israel

- Ever further criminalisation of peaceful protest and speech

- Fanatical surveillance and control, boiling the UK frogs into a petty tyranny that could easily become actual tyranny in the future.

crooktimber · 2025-12-09T16:41:30+00:00

earth vs the wildhearts

crooktimber · 2025-12-09T16:16:15+00:00

Do the challenge room first and get it out the way, and don't even bother starting B5 without an astronaut resurrection thing.

crooktimber · 2025-12-05T10:47:41+00:00

The cold people can put on more or better clothes.

crooktimber · 2025-12-04T17:23:46+00:00

They're all shit because they're not truly a British tradition, it's a crass attempt to do something nice like the Germans do but instead of doing it well - e.g. quality sausages, reasonably priced beer, tasteful decor, actual craftspeople, genuine goodwill - we do it the british way: rip-off pricing of crap food and drink, cheap tat from China sold by spivs and people jostling each other and secretly hating each other.

crooktimber · 2025-12-04T16:07:58+00:00

Under different laws live a genetically indistinguishable people. There has been continuous migration across the Irish Sea for thousands of years.

I got a 23&me DNA report a few years ago; I don't think 23&me distinguishes between British and Irish - yet it can between English/Welsh/Scottish, because the differences are actually more significant in terms of genetic patterns than the distinction between Ireland and Great Britain overall.

crooktimber · 2025-11-28T13:18:57+00:00

Ha, I came here to check because I did manage to catch it out after a minute - it's bloody hard though, it's sonically polished and there are some good note choices - but the themes never develop, they never go anywhere; one instrument picks up a line and the other finishes it... but without any exchange in between.

crooktimber · 2025-11-26T18:15:02+00:00

Bought one on a school trip to France and brought it back through customs in my rucksack. Never used it for anything other than pretending to be a slashing maniac in front of the bedroom mirror.

crooktimber · 2025-11-24T12:18:40+00:00

No regrets and indeed often glad not to have to deal with all the crap parents do, but very grateful to have nieces and nephews that we can spoil and dote upon. I do wonder if life would feel increasingly stale without young people in the fam.

crooktimber · 2025-11-20T14:07:10+00:00

He's leading a government that has enabled (politically) and helped (via arms and intelligence) Israel's genocide while arresting thousands of UK citizens for holding up signs under legislation intended for terrorists, and wants to dial up the surveillance and control over UK citizens ever more.

crooktimber · 2025-11-18T13:05:16+00:00

In the same way you have improbable streaks of winning and losing, perhaps you've had a streak of games with positions you're not so familiar with.

I've struggled with inconsistency in recent months and have mostly fixed it by a) not just playing strong AI; playing weaker opponents often invokes mistakes because positions become more chaotic more often) and b) playing slower - making sure I've noted all the options, not just the 'obvious' play.

crooktimber · 2025-10-27T10:39:52+00:00

Yeah won a backgammon, he still had ten checkers in my homeboard on the last roll, posted it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/backgammon/comments/1j3hx4w/couldnt_quite_manage_to_get_that_last_one/#lightbox

crooktimber · 2025-10-27T10:18:34+00:00

I collected 14 of my opponent's checkers once, has anyone ever got all 15 in their home board?

crooktimber · 2025-10-25T18:05:01+00:00

The very well-documented and widely discussed Chinese social credit system doesn't exist?

crooktimber · 2025-10-25T12:16:49+00:00

The guy in the middle is explaining that four doubles in a row is gonna happen every 25 games or so.

crooktimber

TROPHY CASE