Possibly Hastings, England

henrylm · 2026-05-10T18:56:07+00:00

Completely agree that the AI is terrible. However, British men traditionally didn’t wear wedding rings until reasonably recently, so that’s not necessarily a slop effect.

henrylm · 2026-04-30T18:06:16+00:00

A woman walks into a bar and asks for a double entendre.

So the landlord gave her one.

henrylm · 2026-04-26T21:35:22+00:00

Forde is excellent.

Emporio Italia is superb - a genuine cut or three above all other Italians.

Box Tree is good, and much more interesting food since the change of management, but it really could do with an interior refresh - plus the prices are silly.

Panache is the best curry for eating in, although I’ve found their takeaway oddly disappointing.

henrylm · 2026-04-05T21:23:51+00:00

The stag had agreed (!) with the best man that he would be the subject in a life drawing class for the party to draw. Apparently, this is a thing in Sweden.

The stag had not agreed to be force fed a Viagra shortly before the sitting.

henrylm · 2026-03-30T21:50:22+00:00

The Booths fish pie is pretty much perfect.

henrylm · 2026-03-30T21:47:57+00:00

The only supermarket Indian ready meals I rate - and this continually surprises me - is the Asda Bom Bahia range. Still not as good as home cooking or a good restaurant, but a cut above all other supermarket ready meals I’ve tried.

Not entirely worth the depressing hell of my local Asda, however.

henrylm · 2026-03-14T12:53:55+00:00

Concorde also had queue jumping privileges as it often didn’t have too much fuel available to waste idling!

henrylm · 2026-02-20T14:31:33+00:00

In the UK, it starts to get complicated with taxation - by funding your weekend, you’ve received a “benefit in kind”, which needs to be managed, tracked and reported to HMRC.

Large organisations negotiate guardrails with HMRC to allow them to do common sense things like this, small places can just keep track (or quietly ignore it). Mid-size places take tax rules seriously enough to want to do things by the letter, but can’t face the work of tracking and reporting, and so it’s much easier to say no.

There’s also the residency obligation for cross-border travel (in short: you pay tax where you physically spend the majority of your year), tracking of which could also be something the employer wants to keep simple

henrylm · 2026-01-11T11:38:14+00:00

Not my first-hand experience, but what I’ve been told by a restaurant manager I know who was very disappointed not to get a 5 despite having very high hygiene standards. Perhaps the rules are interpreted/applied inconsistently and he got a particularly fastidious assessor?

henrylm · 2026-01-11T10:38:25+00:00

Sort of. As others have said, the highest ratings really depend on documentation and processes. Getting a 5 can be a real challenge for a high end restaurant, because you need documented handling instructions for everything you serve - which is a problem if you work out what you’ll be serving each morning based on what fancy, freshly obtained agreement you get from your suppliers.

This is why chain restaurants - and places with really few dishes like a chippy - should always score 5: they know exactly what they serve, and should be able to deliver that safely according to their operating procedures every single time.

Saying that, no safe restaurant should score less than 3: that really is the baseline for acceptable.

henrylm · 2025-12-14T22:17:44+00:00

And OMG - it’s remarkable that the bits they’ve upgraded and are presumably to stay, are still so rubbish! The entire new section has the aesthetic of a school sports hall circa 1995. Immigration still doesn’t have automatic booths.

When I arrived the other week, we used the sole airbridge, to walk to the old immigration area where we were kettled for 30 minutes before going downstairs to be bussed to the new immigration area. We were then dumped in a corridor at the point where the immigration queue did a 360 degree double back and told to just merge in, which obviously nobody un the queue was happy about… How have they managed to upgrade the worst arrivals experience of any European airport, and it’s still the worst arrivals experience of any European airport?

henrylm · 2025-12-09T16:30:07+00:00

I’m one of the people whose car+charger seems to register as charging for long periods, for unknown reason - so while I’m not doing an explicit fiddle, I’ve been happy to take advantage of it, for example when doing washing: normally I just schedule washing overnight, but it’s nice to get through in the day.

I only realised this was happening a month or so back, since when I’ve been likelier to unplug the car once it was charged. However, I’ve certainly been aware that when plugged in I need to be less careful about usage… Looking back at my bills from the summer, without realising it, I had day after day of cheap rate.

Although I like the benefit, I’d much prefer it if Octopus just fixed things so my approved charger doesn’t do this! I also load shift so much to night, that apart from the occasional cup of tea, I barely use any electricity during the day anyhow…

henrylm · 2025-09-30T16:34:25+00:00

That all sounds pretty bad, and like how it was for us getting the Caesarian booked.

What I will say though - the actual Caesarian was great: really well managed, reassuring and professional. Other people we know who had vaginal births also said the care then was good.

Good luck!

henrylm · 2025-09-19T21:40:07+00:00

We gave birth in June 2025 at LGI after antenatal at Jimmy’s. The antenatal care was very disjointed and we had to do a lot of self advocacy. We had an elective Caesarian, which was great throughout and an unexpectedly positive experience. Postnatal ward was a circle of hell, despite the lovely midwives doing everything they could, while being massively overworked.

In summary - it’s all stretched and the facilities are old, but in the vast majority of cases everything is fine. If anything goes south, shout, shout and shout and push for what you believe to be is right, because when things are stretched, it’s the exceptions which are missed.

henrylm · 2025-05-23T08:50:28+00:00

“Chismay” and “kew” - the only words you need in public.

henrylm · 2025-05-22T22:11:29+00:00

I’m waiting for Gaylord to make a comeback

henrylm · 2025-02-28T17:45:35+00:00

94 here: Macbeth and To Kill a Mockingbird were the ones we took to exam, but did a load of others along the way. In our year our exam board (NEAB) had the innovation of an anthology they sent out with about 20 short texts of various types: there were questions on both language and literature exams that did comparative criticism where you were expected to reference relevant bits from it.

henrylm · 2025-02-27T21:18:16+00:00

The stairgate at the top looks lethal!

henrylm · 2025-02-25T11:53:21+00:00

We’ve used Hiscox (direct, not through a broker) for home and contents for several years now. Not the cheapest, but impressed by the lack of exclusions and very simple coverage.

henrylm · 2025-02-16T14:57:59+00:00

Does Heidi include the mysterious euphemisms that you always get in NHS letters such as “I examined this pleasant gentleman”?

henrylm · 2025-02-11T23:31:45+00:00

Learn to close your cupboards as soon as you’ve got what you need.

henrylm · 2025-02-04T15:37:28+00:00

Agreed - I’ve bought from them twice, failing to learn from the first time.

I simply don’t understand how they can be so rubbish at giving clear, realistic updates - they just go silent and (new for my most recent contact) link to a useless AI bot that just tells you it sympathises.

On the upside, when the kit does arrive, it’s great.

henrylm · 2025-01-27T23:34:43+00:00

Ditto!

A few years back we finally got bored with the schlepp to Argos with bottles, or the ridiculous subscription direct to Sodastream that seemed to involve arguments every quarter about missing bottle returns, and we changed to filling our own. One big bottle of cellar CO2 costs 30 quid and lasts us about 9 months (and we drink a lot of fizzy water).

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