Harry Peterson

Thanks - they are. Everything was planned out in advance (she’s a teacher who gave up teaching to home educate) quite meticulously, including several of the things you mentioned, but additional local knowledge always welcomed! This extract from an email sums it up: “We're off to the zoo today. Having a very lovely time...I really, really like Edinburgh. A lot. It’s proving to be a really very pleasant city to be in. I'm amazed that we haven't been here before but I'm pretty certain we'll come again.” They’re off to Paris in August, rioting permitting. I always boast about being there, on the boul’mich, in ‘68, carefully omitting to mention that it was in August and not the Spring.

Absolutely. Our two were great as teenagers for most of the time (obviously the odd disagreement, but nothing of consequence) and they still are. One more year and our daughter will have her own teenage daughter, but they get on so well together I’d be amazed if they had major issues. Perhaps it helps if everyone’s broadly on the same wavelength on social and generational issues.

I don’t think rockets were greatly in evidence at that time in that particular shop. I think he just thought it was a slightly unusual branch of WH Smith, concentrating rather more on magazines than pencil cases!

Fair point about the whisky! Which reminds me of having to drag our son, aged about 6, out of an Amsterdam sex shop he'd dived into. We used to go every year from Boxing Day to the New Year to escape family 'commitments'.

Thanks again. Forwarded! Not sure about the children and whisky though!

Certainly an interesting article. I’m a bit out of touch on prices at the moment, but the suggestion is that there’s a lot of discounting going on, and some unusually aggressive pricing. Is that the reality?

Thanks so much for that! Emailed accordingly.

Did this chatbot by any chance answer to the name of Paul and tell you that 99% of all P&O customers said they preferred dealing with a chatbot?

Absolutely coincidentally, my daughter + family arrived in Edinburgh yesterday and they’ll be there somewhere. Came as a bit of a surprise last night! Certainly not Royalists, but nice for the children to see. My granddaughter will, I’m certain, have been warned not to express her opinions too loudly! She’s 12, but highly political, and covered the front of the house in banners at the last election. Until she was told to remove them!

They reinstated the old website today - temporarily.

This is true. But when a building society or bank prevents its depositors from accessing accounts for several days, and chooses not to announce the fact via its website or social media pages sometimes the message that sends out could be mistaken for an alarm bell.

Had to ditch mine when it got jammed in the USB slot.

Neither website nor app functioning today for a lot of people, and looks to have been that way for a few days. No mention on their FB, Twitter or website - but plenty of mentions elsewhere. Website ‘upgrade’ apparently.

Quite a few from Yorkshire here. Anyone having fun trying to access their Yorkshire Building Society money?

Couldn’t agree more. The incident that horrified my wife was the woman who left the cubicle in a supermarket toilet, and walked straight into the shop - seen 5 minutes later rummaging through a fresh food cabinet. I doubt it’s that exceptional though.

If you’re interested in the Tracker tariff, it’s being made available again in the next few days. There are some risks attached, but I’ve decided to make the move. Today’s rates are particularly low: Electricity Unit rate:8.46 p/kWh Standing charge:44.12 p/day Gas Unit rate:4.39 p/kWh Standing charge:26.84 p/day

No EV here either, so there wouldn't be any opportunity for switching usage. I'm probably going to take a chance on it though because the wholesale rates Tracker's based on are currently so much lower than the cap, and have been for months. Could take two weeks to switch away from Tracker again, so if rates do rocket again, taking you to the Tracker cap it could be very expensive for that period. "Tracker features Price Cap Protect, which caps the maximum daily price at 100p / kWh for electricity and 30p / kWh for gas – keep in mind that's a lot higher than the Ofgem Energy Price Cap."

Don’t suppose there’s anyone else in here currently weighing up the options on switching energy supplies to the Octopus Tracker tariff after all the invites went out earlier today?

Good. It’s their new AI system being put to practical use: your name appears on the system and the P&O algorithm is temporarily reprogrammed to say yes! And quite right too!

Is that 0100? A little too early for us………😉

Very true. I’ve found that the easiest and safest route (for me anyway) is just to scoop the food from the serving trays with my hands straight into my mouth. It’s called the Les Patterson manoeuvre, and although it can attract a little more attention than you might otherwise attract, it does guarantee an easy and surprisingly unhindered journey to the table (if you still need one). And, more often than not, a totally empty table. Sometimes, even an empty buffet.

To be fair to cruise lines, this isn't just a cruise issue - it's relevant to all outlets where the public at large are allowed to handle the food, and that includes Waitrose! After watching mother and child picking up, poking and putting back the breads and pastries we somehow went off the idea of buying any. And the only time we've ever had any kind of nasty bug was immediately following a visit to a supermarket serve yourself salad bar - my wife was really unwell following that (we were on holiday at the time). Never again, and all buffets are off-limit altogether. It's not the food, it's not the staff putting the food out - it's the people with poor personal hygiene handling and mishandling the implements used to transport the food from its containers to the plates. Many's the time you see a handle finding its way into the food.

No problem with that Phil - less comfortable with the idea that they might end up in my sausages!

Bamboo fibre is popping up everywhere, it seems: https://uk.openfoodfacts.org/ingredient/en:bamboo-fibre And then you get health warnings about its use in materials that come into contact with food: https://www.food.gov.uk/news-alerts/consultations/call-for-evidence-plastic-food-contact-materials-containing-bamboo-and-similar-plant-based-material-as-additives An increasing number of scientific reports on the harm done by ultra processed foods, and I’m more and more coming round to the view that if your grandmother wouldn’t recognise an ingredient as food, it’s best avoided!

Of no relevance to anything, but: Tesco Finest British Pork Sausages 400G INGREDIENTS: Pork (90%), Water, Rice Flour, Potato Starch, Salt, Acidity Regulator (Calcium Lactate), White Pepper, Sage, Stabilisers (Tetrasodium Diphosphate, Disodium Diphosphate), Coriander, Preservative (Sodium Metabisulphite), Nutmeg, Dextrose, Bamboo Fibre, Caramelised Sugar Syrup, Colour (Paprika Extract). Finest? Really? Using bamboo as a cheap filler? Ordered from the local butcher instead.