I have made a coffee vodka. Saved the grounds up for days, only to realise you don’t need much to make it! Left it for much longer than the recipe said, but that was because I wanted a stronger coffee taste.

Not sure if you get it in the US the same as in the UK, but I find that even just squash is good with carbonated water, e.g. orange squash. Cheaper than syrups and it tastes good with still water too!

I generally follow this recipe, but normally do about double the amount of oats for the quantity of honey and oil, as I’m looking for it to be a bit less sweet and a bit drier. You can add anything after it’s cooked, and before it’s cooled - I normally add loads of sultanas and dried cranberries, and a dried tropical fruit mix. I also sometimes mix in some desiccated coconut.

Totally understand - each to their own! And we agree on forced fun!

I WFH since COVID, and I definitely wouldn’t go back to the office (we go in once every two months which everyone really enjoys). Personally, I’d swap the 50k for working in an environment that I enjoy, and that for me means working closely and collaboratively with my teammates, who I get along with. Everyone is different though, so what I want from a job is probably other people’s idea of hell.

I wouldn’t say party culture - it is what you make of it! You’re normally at work for a significant portion of your day. Something like a table tennis table can help to break up the day and is just a bit of fun. For example, we had a table tennis tournament at work, which people got really into - it was fun and people bonded over it. I’d take that over working somewhere where you don’t even know your colleagues.

This was at a tech company where culture was a big part of why almost everyone worked there. Definitely wasn’t a party culture, but it was collaborative, where people worked closely together. There was never an expectation to work outside of working hours, or to do anything social - it was purely optional.

Obviously pay is a big factor, but it isn’t everything. I’m lucky enough to be in a sector where I can afford to get paid less and have a better work (definitely not party!) culture and work-life balance.

Partner’s parents are with Gigaclear. Think it’s all been pretty straightforward. They aren’t at all techy, so haven’t swapped out the router or anything. As someone else said, the supplied router isn’t great - it’s quite simple in terms of configuration. Not sure about DNS management, but I know there are other annoying things you can’t do (some config around naming two WiFi bands).

As a child, it had to be the last day on holiday in Corfu. We hired a boat and went to a small island. I, knowing best, refused to wear my jelly shoes in the water. Promptly stood on a sea urchin. Being the last day, my parents decided it would be better to fly home and go straight to A&E from the airport to get the spines tweezed out of the sole of my foot.

Ohh, or that time when we went to America, and I wandered out of my depth in the public swimming pool, panicked and started to drown. Thankfully, people noticed and I was rescued! Ambulance came, but luckily I was alright, and didn’t need any treatment.

As an adult, definitely Egypt. Both me and my partner had food poisoning pretty much from day one. That, and the normal stories of leering locals and attempted scams that you always hear about. The sea was amazing though - almost worth the two weeks of a dodgy tummy!

Fully agree. I still have my 7T Pro, and I’m not looking forward to upgrading it when I have to! I loved when it was a simple upgrade on base android, but with the newer versions, it has veered away from that. I’m disappointed with the updates - I haven’t done the latest update as lots of people are complaining that it’s very buggy, and it doesn’t look like they are going to update it again.

I don’t think I’d go for a OnePlus again - I’d probably go with something more stock, with hopefully more reliable updates, like a Pixel.

I have a OnePlus 7T Pro, and I love the pop-up front camera. I don’t have an annoying notch or hole in the screen, and the screen is the full height of the phone. I’ve never had any issues with reliability.

They only used it on the 7 range, and moved to a hole punch camera for subsequent models. I’m holding out as long as I can before upgrading phones because of it.

I’m going to the north from London on the train, which confirms what I already know about how ridiculously expensive trains are. It’s barely cheaper for two of us to get the train (with a Railcard) than it is to hire a car for the weekend, and no doubt there will be delays.

Looking forward to the slightly cooler weather forecast up there this weekend though!