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A look at how you should price a bet – politicalbetting.com

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  • dixiedean said:

    "Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband."

    @darkage

    Yes, I'm with BT. Been absolutely fine for years.*


    * so sod's law dictates it will crash tomorrow.

    Same here. The availability of public wifi points is an important bonus, but anyway it's fine, and includes my mobile contract for a fiver extra.
    Engineers have been to my house from BT maybe twice in ten or twelve years. Once to upgrade the line somehow or other (it is still good ole copper) and once when the wind damaged the line.

    Both times, the engineers have been excellent.

    Yeah. BT engineers were great with us. Fixed the problem within a couple of hours.
    After Talk Talk left us without Internet, and thus income for four days straight. And didn't seem to give a toss either.
    Don't start me on TalkTalk.

    We had them before BT. By accident. They took over the small business broadband company who were supplying our home office.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 81,419
    edited December 2021
    tlg86 said:

    Lock him up...

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/30/dominic-raab-photographed-at-chelsea-game-without-a-mask

    Dominic Raab photographed at Chelsea game without a mask
    Image shows justice secretary apparently ignoring club guidance to wear face covering while seated in stadium

    That's carefully cropped image, i have a feeling wide shot might show very few wearing one.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,080
    20,554 cases reported in Ireland today. That's the equivalent of about 270,000 in the UK. They still have fewer people in hospital than during November though.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,314
    edited December 2021
    tlg86 said:

    Lock him up...

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/30/dominic-raab-photographed-at-chelsea-game-without-a-mask

    Dominic Raab photographed at Chelsea game without a mask
    Image shows justice secretary apparently ignoring club guidance to wear face covering while seated in stadium

    A complete non-story - disappointing for Guardian readers (like me) that they ran it.

    However, I'm astonished to see Raab at a football match. Don't know why, but he just doesn't seem the type. Free ticket maybe?
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,637

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    Have you ever had a PC?

    Or a laptop?

    My 27 year old daughter never had the former and 10 years since the latter.


  • When I were a lad you had to be well-spoken and presentable to land a job with Auntie. I failed badly on the latter. Nowadays both attributes would be regarded as a fatal disqualification.
    To be honest, this was in the dead zone between xmas and new year. There was probably some recent graduate running the editorial show while everyone else was at home eating mince pies and she was swamped with work. Could just have been an honest mistake?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,190
    Immediate redemption for Auntie!

    (Before someone corrects me- I know).
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162

    Taz said:

    tlg86 said:

    Lock him up...

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/30/dominic-raab-photographed-at-chelsea-game-without-a-mask

    Dominic Raab photographed at Chelsea game without a mask
    Image shows justice secretary apparently ignoring club guidance to wear face covering while seated in stadium

    Just like most other people in the picture. Guidance isn’t law. This is pretty lame stuff.
    I thought the issue was that he's apparently a Chelsea fan. Disgusting.
    Glory doesn’t hunt itself.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,418

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    One less thing to dust
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528
    Alistair said:

    Pretty much the only good thing of buying our new build is fibre to the premise. And now Hyperoptic have installed cabling down the street and we can get a second FttP provider!

    We've had a leaflet from Cityfibre and the next street down is getting Hyperoptic. BT aren't scheduled to rollout full fibre until ~2026 for our exchange. BT are going to get buggered over the next 3-4 years, their full fibre is worse, more expansive and hardly available.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162

    tlg86 said:

    Lock him up...

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/30/dominic-raab-photographed-at-chelsea-game-without-a-mask

    Dominic Raab photographed at Chelsea game without a mask
    Image shows justice secretary apparently ignoring club guidance to wear face covering while seated in stadium

    That's carefully cropped image, i have a feeling wide shot might show very few wearing one.
    That very picture shows four people to his left not wearing them,
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    No nuisance calls?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,297
    edited December 2021

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.

    Also big shoutout to Sky when I had a faulty box or two.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,707
    Endillion said:

    @rcs1000
    Info on % Covid incidental admissions in the UK from 8:06 in this video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM2VgBm9pTI

    As he has been telling us repeatedly. The number of people being admitted to hospital WITH covid tells us very little.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576
    MaxPB said:

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    No nuisance calls?
    We get more nuisance calls on our mobile than we do on our landline.
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,162

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    We don’t use ours Altough, occasionally, we get calls from Amazon about our Prime renewal or a suspected fraudulent order for an iPad. Seems to happen once a month.
  • On Warwick model:



    Andrew Lilico
    @andrew_lilico
    ·
    2h
    One curious thing about this is that if you look at that Plan B line they don't appear to anticipate any either endogenous behavioural change or "seasons-related" behaviour change. Doesn't that seem rather naive, from a modelling perspective?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,418

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.
    Do you get the NatWest call centre for Coutts, like?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 38,528

    MaxPB said:

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    No nuisance calls?
    We get more nuisance calls on our mobile than we do on our landline.
    The Google phone app blocks these out, it's great.
  • Darkage, pretty clear that (tech-wise anyway) you are most definitely NOT alone!

    Your issues sound very similar to my own, though instead of BT my ISP is the local cable company, which is NOT noted for sterling customer service to put it mildly. However, the logical alternative, the local landline phone company, will NOT serve my humble apartment building because it is old and too much botheration for them.

    With respect to internet connection issues, they have been re: my PC; on the other hand, have had zero issues with connecting to web via my (rather aged) laptop. Leading me to surmise that problem is specific to the PC.

    Got a new wifi connector and downloaded new drivers for it, and that helped quite a bit.

    BigG mentioned getting help from his tech-savvy relative. With savvy itself being a relative term in these matters! (For example, virtually anyone exceeds my own). Anyway, it can be VERY helpful, that's how I navigated getting my internet connection set up in the first place, a true ordeal during the pandemic.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 77,853
    He's checking it once,
    He's checking it twice...
    Massive Covid stats are coming
    Soooooon..
  • darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    BT have been great for me.

    Avoid Virgin like the plague.
    I have never met someone with a good word to say about Virgin fibre/broadband.
    Virgin when it is great is utterly brilliant but far too often it is terrible and their customer services are even worse.

    One of the reasons I'm migrating from O2 is I know they'll infect O2's brilliant customer services.
    All companies are the same. Every service is great when things go well and appalling as soon as there is a problem. Not just ISPs but shops, banks, delivery services, everyone. The suppliers probably do not use their own service, and certainly not their own complaints procedure. Nothing is tested. Customer services consists of a badly-programmed chatbot and two bored housewives in a far-off country of which we know little.
    Nah, I had a few issues with O2 and BT in the past, they were magnificent.

    Ditto Lloyds and Coutts.
    Do you get the NatWest call centre for Coutts, like?
    No, I had a relationship manager, normally it was a phone to my dedicated regional branch.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,946
    edited December 2021
    Stocky said:

    Thanks for the header @Fishing - looking forward to the other three parts. We should have more of this sort of high-level betting analysis on here.

    I'm not a statistician like you but have a good intuitive grasp of probability and value and one metric which I pay attention to always is the % book. For the Smarkets market to which you refer the book is at 104.38% on the back side and 94.47% on the lay side. I'd like to see these margins tighter than this in a two horse race.

    Thanks for the kind remarks.

    My colleagues would be amused to hear me described as a statistician though!
  • dixiedean said:

    Someone on the previous thread said Carlisle had its attractions.
    Citation needed.

    Nice cathedral: did a week singing there decades ago.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,113
    Pulpstar said:

    He's checking it once,
    He's checking it twice...
    Massive Covid stats are coming
    Soooooon..

    8pm it says
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576
    edited December 2021

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    One less thing to dust

    We've got one of these for nostalgia value. It's a bit of a curiosity for anyone under 30 - they all want to give it a try.

    image

    Still works fine - even in a power cut.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,946

    When I were a lad you had to be well-spoken and presentable to land a job with Auntie. I failed badly on the latter. Nowadays both attributes would be regarded as a fatal disqualification.
    To be honest, this was in the dead zone between xmas and new year.
    Somebody told me today the name for this period is now "twixtmas" which I quite like.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,190
    Pulpstar said:

    He's checking it once,
    He's checking it twice...
    Massive Covid stats are coming
    Soooooon..

    Applying the New Year sales discount.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    MaxPB said:

    Alistair said:

    Pretty much the only good thing of buying our new build is fibre to the premise. And now Hyperoptic have installed cabling down the street and we can get a second FttP provider!

    We've had a leaflet from Cityfibre and the next street down is getting Hyperoptic. BT aren't scheduled to rollout full fibre until ~2026 for our exchange. BT are going to get buggered over the next 3-4 years, their full fibre is worse, more expansive and hardly available.
    The only reason i haven't switched is that, of course, hyperoptic have to install their own fibre cable and modem into the house. The idea of having a second hole drilled in the wall and two fibre modems sat side by side is faintly ridiculous to me.

    That and i can already imagine the cockup of the switchover happening and losing all internet for x days.
  • kamskikamski Posts: 5,125
    MattW said:

    FPT:

    rcs1000 said:

    MISTY said:

    Covid hospital-admission stats are looking pretty grim, in fact appreciably worse (or at least showing up slightly earlier) than the much-derided LSHTM model of mid-December.

    https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1476603552193724417/photo/3

    Still, this isn't really a surprise. We knew that Omicron spreads super-fast, and the government took a deliberate decision not to impose tougher restrictions. I still think that was probably the right call, not least because by the time they got round to making a decision it was already too late for restrictions to have much effect.

    Fortunately the triple-boosting looks as though it is working extremely well in avoiding too many of the most serious cases, and of course deaths, but the hit on the NHS is (as I expected) going to be dire over the next couple of weeks, and a lot of people are going to have a nasty bout of illness (albeit mainly the voluntarily unvaxxed).

    What is clear is that the naïve takes on both extremes, ignoring the very real uncertainties and selectively picking snippets of data that supported their preconceptions, were equally irrational.

    In which country are the restrictions having an effect? France? Germany?
    It's pretty hard to argue that restrictions didn't have an effect in Germany:



    As an aside, are you going to withdraw your lie about Gibraltar?
    That German curve is delta not omicron.

    They are still below 40% of new cases being omicron, so we don't really know the impact of German measures on omicron.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/30/germany-may-follow-england-in-cutting-isolation-time-as-omicron-spreads
    1. Just because "Omicron accounted for about 17,000 out of Germany’s almost 43,000 new confirmed cases on Thursday" doesn't mean that Omicron is still below 40% of cases. If Omicron is much milder, and given the much reduced routine testing because of the holiday, there's probably a higher percentage of Omicron cases being missed than Delta.

    2. You can still try and see how fast Omicron is increasing in Germany in the last weeks.
    This
    https://www.rki.de/DE/Content/InfAZ/N/Neuartiges_Coronavirus/Situationsberichte/Omikron-Faelle/Omikron-Faelle.html?__blob=publicationFile
    seems to suggest that Omicron cases increased from 0.3 cases per 100,000 in calendar week 48, to 10.2 cases in calendar week 51. I'll leave it to someone else to compare that with the rate of increase at a similar stage of Omicron in a country without any restrictions, but I'm guessing it's going to be slower - and remember Germany has a higher percentage of people without immunity from previous infections.
  • My mother was initially distraught when I got rid of the landline and then within a fortnight she was like 'the quality of the phone call is much better on mobiles.'

    Hurrah for HD voice calling and wifi calling.
  • Funny reading all these complaints about ISPs and remembering the pearl-clutching in 2019 when Labour proposed free Jezzaband. Back then the private sector had it all sussed. Never mind that even Boris proposed state-run broadband infrastructure to fill the gaps.
  • New York state reports 74,207 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase on record, including 43,985 in New York City
  • kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
  • Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    Have you ever had a PC?

    Or a laptop?

    My 27 year old daughter never had the former and 10 years since the latter.


    Which nicely illustrates that yours truly is a true techno-peasant! As what I'm using right now is my PC, with an old-school laptop my most advanced option.
  • Funny reading all these complaints about ISPs and remembering the pearl-clutching in 2019 when Labour proposed free Jezzaband. Back then the private sector had it all sussed. Never mind that even Boris proposed state-run broadband infrastructure to fill the gaps.

    Nonsense, as my father will tell you, it took nationalised BT nine months to install a landline at our house, and that was one of the quicker installs at the time.
  • "There are 16 separate phone numbers for Prince Andrew"

    https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ghislaine-maxwells-little-black-book-25816997
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,573
    edited December 2021
    Fishing said:

    When I were a lad you had to be well-spoken and presentable to land a job with Auntie. I failed badly on the latter. Nowadays both attributes would be regarded as a fatal disqualification.
    To be honest, this was in the dead zone between xmas and new year.
    Somebody told me today the name for this period is now "twixtmas" which I quite like.
    Oh, is that what twixmas means? I had seen the word but thought it must have something to do with the popular confection, and an advertising campaign I'd not seen because I have no telly. Maybe I should file my papers to be a high court judge.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,637

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    One less thing to dust

    We've got one of these for nostalgia value. It's a bit of a curiosity for anyone under 30 - they all want to give it a try.

    image

    Still works fine - even in a power cut.
    To add to my WC credentials we had a "party line"
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,134
    edited December 2021
    Yes, what the BBC did last night on the news channel was arguably one of the biggest gaffes they've ever made, interviewing someone connected to the Maxwell case as if they were a neutral observer. It was one of those "What the hell is going on..." moments.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,418
    edited December 2021

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    Have you ever had a PC?

    Or a laptop?

    My 27 year old daughter never had the former and 10 years since the latter.


    Which nicely illustrates that yours truly is a true techno-peasant! As what I'm using right now is my PC, with an old-school laptop my most advanced option.
    To be fair my 2015 Macbook Pro still shits all over the Dell crapbook given to me by work, which seems to have a 10 minute battery life and sounds like a Harrier Jumpjet.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,871
    edited December 2021
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    No nuisance calls?
    We get more nuisance calls on our mobile than we do on our landline.
    The Google phone app blocks these out, it's great.
    Even better than the spam filtering is the call screening, making unknown callers talk to your phone first.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    On Warwick model:



    Andrew Lilico
    @andrew_lilico
    ·
    2h
    One curious thing about this is that if you look at that Plan B line they don't appear to anticipate any either endogenous behavioural change or "seasons-related" behaviour change. Doesn't that seem rather naive, from a modelling perspective?

    Of course, Andrew's watertight model saw no possibility of cases rising in London last year in the event of a second wave nationally.

  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205
    Stocky said:

    Pulpstar said:

    He's checking it once,
    He's checking it twice...
    Massive Covid stats are coming
    Soooooon..

    8pm it says
    20.30 now ...
  • Andy_JS said:

    What the BBC did last night on the news channel was arguably one of the biggest gaffes they've ever made, interviewing someone connected to the Maxwell case as if they were a neutral observer.
    Erhhhh....mhhhhhh.....biggest gaffe....ever....are you sure?
  • Andy_JS said:

    What the BBC did last night on the news channel was arguably one of the biggest gaffes they've ever made, interviewing someone connected to the Maxwell case as if they were a neutral observer.
    Nothing will ever top this gaffe by the BBC.

    https://metro.co.uk/2016/05/09/its-10-years-since-a-man-was-interviewed-on-bbc-by-mistake-5871153/
  • dixiedean said:

    Someone on the previous thread said Carlisle had its attractions.
    Citation needed.

    Carlisle has one nice cocktail bar
    A great railway Station and nice Castle
    Shame they decided to build a four lane dual carriageway between the town and the castle.
    and it - at least in 2016 - not open on a Sunday.

    I got stranded in Carlisle one late Summer Sunday that year, the hostel didn't open until 1800, the pubs - bar some cavernous outfits on the outskirts - were all shut and in any case the football that day was West Brom vs Middlesboro ...

    Absolute state of it.

  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576
    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    The Crown, The Dig and Queens Gambit are the only things we have enjoyed on Netflix. I assume there must be other things we should take a look at bit if we weren't getting Netflix courtesy of a family freebie I doubt if we'd pay for it.
  • BannedinnParisBannedinnParis Posts: 1,884
    edited December 2021

    tlg86 said:

    Lock him up...

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/30/dominic-raab-photographed-at-chelsea-game-without-a-mask

    Dominic Raab photographed at Chelsea game without a mask
    Image shows justice secretary apparently ignoring club guidance to wear face covering while seated in stadium

    That's carefully cropped image, i have a feeling wide shot might show very few wearing one.
    even in that photo, I can see 8 more going maskless.
  • Funny reading all these complaints about ISPs and remembering the pearl-clutching in 2019 when Labour proposed free Jezzaband. Back then the private sector had it all sussed. Never mind that even Boris proposed state-run broadband infrastructure to fill the gaps.

    Nonsense, as my father will tell you, it took nationalised BT nine months to install a landline at our house, and that was one of the quicker installs at the time.
    Yes but that was about the technology as much as anything. In any case, as a medical man, iirc would have got priority if he'd bothered to mention it.
  • Funny reading all these complaints about ISPs and remembering the pearl-clutching in 2019 when Labour proposed free Jezzaband. Back then the private sector had it all sussed. Never mind that even Boris proposed state-run broadband infrastructure to fill the gaps.

    Nonsense, as my father will tell you, it took nationalised BT nine months to install a landline at our house, and that was one of the quicker installs at the time.
    Yes but that was about the technology as much as anything. In any case, as a medical man, iirc would have got priority if he'd bothered to mention it.
    He did, that's why it was one of the quicker installs for the time!
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576

    Andy_JS said:

    What the BBC did last night on the news channel was arguably one of the biggest gaffes they've ever made, interviewing someone connected to the Maxwell case as if they were a neutral observer.
    Erhhhh....mhhhhhh.....biggest gaffe....ever....are you sure?
    Biggest gaffe this week anyways.
  • Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    One less thing to dust

    We've got one of these for nostalgia value. It's a bit of a curiosity for anyone under 30 - they all want to give it a try.

    image

    Still works fine - even in a power cut.
    Can still remember how impressed me and my sisters were when our grandmother got a "Princess" phone, think it was pink.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576

    Stocky said:

    Pulpstar said:

    He's checking it once,
    He's checking it twice...
    Massive Covid stats are coming
    Soooooon..

    8pm it says
    20.30 now ...

    Having to redesign the web page to take more digits?
  • Sweden reports 11,121 new coronavirus cases, just below the all-time record in December 2020
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    dixiedean said:

    Someone on the previous thread said Carlisle had its attractions.
    Citation needed.

    Truly exceptional bonfire night fireworks/bonfire art.

    My favourite was the skeleton vs clowns battle through the multi story giant skull but the bonfire in the shape of a motorbike burning along to "Bat out of Hell" was pretty sweet.
  • dixiedean said:

    Someone on the previous thread said Carlisle had its attractions.
    Citation needed.

    Carlisle has one nice cocktail bar
    A great railway Station and nice Castle
    Shame they decided to build a four lane dual carriageway between the town and the castle.
    and it - at least in 2016 - not open on a Sunday.

    I got stranded in Carlisle one late Summer Sunday that year, the hostel didn't open until 1800, the pubs - bar some cavernous outfits on the outskirts - were all shut and in any case the football that day was West Brom vs Middlesboro ...

    Absolute state of it.

    At least you weren't in Barrow.
  • kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
    I've just realised my plan to have Father Christmas give me the box set of The Crown series 4 seems to have gone awry. Maybe I should hit the second-hand electronics shops in a month or so.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,423

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
    The whole Hyde Park Corner sequence is superb. Good timing with the London Bridge article in the Guardian.

    Aberfan was great, too.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,190

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    One less thing to dust

    We've got one of these for nostalgia value. It's a bit of a curiosity for anyone under 30 - they all want to give it a try.

    image

    Still works fine - even in a power cut.
    To add to my WC credentials we had a "party line"
    Was that so Downing Street could advise you directly of "events" during December 2020?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,134
    edited December 2021
    Allegedly connected I meant to say. Please edit it moderators. Sorry about that.
  • Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    Have you ever had a PC?

    Or a laptop?

    My 27 year old daughter never had the former and 10 years since the latter.


    Which nicely illustrates that yours truly is a true techno-peasant! As what I'm using right now is my PC, with an old-school laptop my most advanced option.
    To be fair my 2015 Macbook Pro still shits all over the Dell crapbook given to me by work, which seems to have a 10 minute battery life and sounds like a Harrier Jumpjet.
    My laptop is HP something, given to me by my lovely & talented computer consultant out of the kindness of her heart, to ensure I could get on the web somehow; she added a longer-life battery.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,423
    Data delayed again.
  • Darkage, pretty clear that (tech-wise anyway) you are most definitely NOT alone!

    Your issues sound very similar to my own, though instead of BT my ISP is the local cable company, which is NOT noted for sterling customer service to put it mildly. However, the logical alternative, the local landline phone company, will NOT serve my humble apartment building because it is old and too much botheration for them.

    With respect to internet connection issues, they have been re: my PC; on the other hand, have had zero issues with connecting to web via my (rather aged) laptop. Leading me to surmise that problem is specific to the PC.

    Got a new wifi connector and downloaded new drivers for it, and that helped quite a bit.

    BigG mentioned getting help from his tech-savvy relative. With savvy itself being a relative term in these matters! (For example, virtually anyone exceeds my own). Anyway, it can be VERY helpful, that's how I navigated getting my internet connection set up in the first place, a true ordeal during the pandemic.


    He is head of IT so very useful to be able to call on
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576
    edited December 2021
    Eabhal said:

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
    The whole Hyde Park Corner sequence is superb. Good timing with the London Bridge article in the Guardian.

    Aberfan was great, too.
    Er?? Could be worded better tbh.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,637
    8.30 for updates now
  • Its about eight years since I've had a landline, and about double that since I used one much.

    OTOH I've had the same mobile phone number since ~2003.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,423

    Eabhal said:

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
    The whole Hyde Park Corner sequence is superb. Good timing with the London Bridge article in the Guardian.

    Aberfan was great, too.
    Er?? Could be worded better tbh.
    The episode, that is :neutral:
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 3,851
    edited December 2021
    Eabhal said:

    Data delayed again.

    omg, it must mean the case number is nearly 500,000 !!

    Don't panic, PREDICTION
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    8.30 for updates now

    Lizz Truss voice

    This is a disgrace
  • Alistair said:

    8.30 for updates now

    Lizz Truss voice

    This is a disgrace
    sounds cheesy to me.....
  • Andy_JS said:

    Yes, what the BBC did last night on the news channel was arguably one of the biggest gaffes they've ever made, interviewing someone connected to the Maxwell case as if they were a neutral observer. It was one of those "What the hell is going on..." moments.
    I enjoyed the Daily Star's follow-up tweet

    https://twitter.com/thesundaysport/status/1476574541346394114?s=20
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,637

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    One less thing to dust

    We've got one of these for nostalgia value. It's a bit of a curiosity for anyone under 30 - they all want to give it a try.

    image

    Still works fine - even in a power cut.
    To add to my WC credentials we had a "party line"
    Was that so Downing Street could advise you directly of "events" during December 2020?
    Could only use your phone when other party line household wasn't

    You could listen in if you were quiet and a bit of a stalker (I am told)!
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,080

    Funny reading all these complaints about ISPs and remembering the pearl-clutching in 2019 when Labour proposed free Jezzaband. Back then the private sector had it all sussed. Never mind that even Boris proposed state-run broadband infrastructure to fill the gaps.

    My first phone/internet contract was with BT, but they lied to us on the phone, so we switched to Virgin Media. They overcharged us for something, so we switched to TalkTalk. I have some vague feeling of terror and dread that I can't crystallise into a specific recollection of why TalkTalk were awful, so we then switched to the Phone Coop.

    They were good. We had no issues with them, except when we tried to upgrade to fibre broadband, and they weren't able to do that. So we've switched to Aquiss. So far they've been great.

    It has felt at times that trying to find a phone/broadband company that aren't a bunch of arseholes is a futile endeavour, but I'm happier with my situation now than if I'd been forced to stay with a nationalised BT and there had been no way to get redress for being lied to.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576

    Its about eight years since I've had a landline, and about double that since I used one much.

    OTOH I've had the same mobile phone number since ~2003.

    When we bought our first house in a small village we were dead pleased to get a three digit telephone number - Launton 243 (or somesuch - I can't honsetly remember now). Very select.
  • dixiedean said:

    Someone on the previous thread said Carlisle had its attractions.
    Citation needed.

    Carlisle has one nice cocktail bar
    A great railway Station and nice Castle
    Shame they decided to build a four lane dual carriageway between the town and the castle.
    and it - at least in 2016 - not open on a Sunday.

    I got stranded in Carlisle one late Summer Sunday that year, the hostel didn't open until 1800, the pubs - bar some cavernous outfits on the outskirts - were all shut and in any case the football that day was West Brom vs Middlesboro ...

    Absolute state of it.

    At least you weren't in Barrow.
    I was in Barrow later that week. It's really not that bad.
  • Eabhal said:

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
    The whole Hyde Park Corner sequence is superb. Good timing with the London Bridge article in the Guardian.

    Aberfan was great, too.
    Er?? Could be worded better tbh.
    Aberfan was an utter disaster with 116 children losing their lives just 8 days before our eldest was born in Oct 1966

    We will never forget
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,113
    edited December 2021

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    The Crown, The Dig and Queens Gambit are the only things we have enjoyed on Netflix. I assume there must be other things we should take a look at bit if we weren't getting Netflix courtesy of a family freebie I doubt if we'd pay for it.
    Gosh. I disagree. I love Netflix. Knocks the spots off Amazon Prime.

    A few random suggestions off the cuff:

    Series:

    Fargo S1, S2 and S3 (don't bother with S4)
    Top Boy Summerhouse
    Breaking Bad
    Better Call Saul
    Unbelievable
    Godless

    Documentaries:

    Making a Murderer
    Wild Wild Country
    The Confessions killer
    Losers

    All free on Netflix now.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,205

    Its about eight years since I've had a landline, and about double that since I used one much.

    OTOH I've had the same mobile phone number since ~2003.

    1999 for me. I got the mobile to take with me on the Pennine Way.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,534
    edited December 2021

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    One less thing to dust

    We've got one of these for nostalgia value. It's a bit of a curiosity for anyone under 30 - they all want to give it a try.

    image

    Still works fine - even in a power cut.
    To add to my WC credentials we had a "party line"
    Back in my misspent youth in WVa, friends of mine out in the backwoods were on a party line, believe THEIR ring was "ring-ring-(pause)-ring-ring". And they had the proverbial old lady who was suspected of listening in to most calls, out of mixture of boredom, curiosity and keen aptitude for intelligence-gathering.

    Another thing, there were two phone exchanges in the county, one for each town, which were local calls to each other, at time when long-distance was quite expensive. To make a call withing this network, you only had to dial four numbers: the last number of exchange plus four-digit individual phone number.

    Addendum - here is link to map of the original 1947 area code phone map of USA.

    By coincidence, that's year my mom went to work as a operator for the phone company, then the Bell system. Plugging wires into switchboards just like in the old movies.
  • Fishing said:

    When I were a lad you had to be well-spoken and presentable to land a job with Auntie. I failed badly on the latter. Nowadays both attributes would be regarded as a fatal disqualification.
    To be honest, this was in the dead zone between xmas and new year.
    Somebody told me today the name for this period is now "twixtmas" which I quite like.
    Indeed. It's a good time for a cheap citybreak, between the expense and annoyance of travelling at Christmas and New Year. Or used to be.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    I’ve used them for years and they are fine. They occasionally dig up the road and blow up my internet but are always quick and generous on compensation (I think they even have an automated claim function on their website)
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 21,965
    Fishing said:

    When I were a lad you had to be well-spoken and presentable to land a job with Auntie. I failed badly on the latter. Nowadays both attributes would be regarded as a fatal disqualification.
    To be honest, this was in the dead zone between xmas and new year.
    Somebody told me today the name for this period is now "twixtmas" which I quite like.
    I always consider it to be a dress rehearsal for retirement.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576

    Funny reading all these complaints about ISPs and remembering the pearl-clutching in 2019 when Labour proposed free Jezzaband. Back then the private sector had it all sussed. Never mind that even Boris proposed state-run broadband infrastructure to fill the gaps.

    My first phone/internet contract was with BT, but they lied to us on the phone, so we switched to Virgin Media. They overcharged us for something, so we switched to TalkTalk. I have some vague feeling of terror and dread that I can't crystallise into a specific recollection of why TalkTalk were awful, so we then switched to the Phone Coop.

    They were good. We had no issues with them, except when we tried to upgrade to fibre broadband, and they weren't able to do that. So we've switched to Aquiss. So far they've been great.

    It has felt at times that trying to find a phone/broadband company that aren't a bunch of arseholes is a futile endeavour, but I'm happier with my situation now than if I'd been forced to stay with a nationalised BT and there had been no way to get redress for being lied to.
    We were with Newnet for a time who were fine until we started having speed problems at which they blaimed BT and BT blaimed Newnet. In desperation we switched to BT - we still had problems but they sent an engineer out withing 48hours who diagnosed and repaired (foc) a problem with our internal house wiring.

    Moral of the story - if you're with BT they are responsible for the end to end service.
  • Eabhal said:

    kinabalu said:

    Finally caved and got Netflix and just now watched epi 1 of The Crown. Have a horrible feeling that's me for 50 hours. Help.

    That bit in the first episode when Churchill arrives at Westminster Abbey and I Vow To Thee My Country is being sung, utterly brilliant.
    The whole Hyde Park Corner sequence is superb. Good timing with the London Bridge article in the Guardian.

    Aberfan was great, too.
    Er?? Could be worded better tbh.
    Aberfan was an utter disaster with 116 children losing their lives just 8 days before our eldest was born in Oct 1966

    We will never forget
    Why would anyone off topic my comment, Aberfan was a very upsetting moment in our lives
  • Its about eight years since I've had a landline, and about double that since I used one much.

    OTOH I've had the same mobile phone number since ~2003.

    I haven't had a four digit number since the eighties.
  • The best response:

    Sunday Sport @thesundaysport
    Replying to @BBCNewsPR

    That's putting it mildly. It didn't even meet OUR editorial standards.


    https://twitter.com/thesundaysport/status/1476574541346394114?s=20
  • FishingFishing Posts: 4,946

    Fishing said:

    When I were a lad you had to be well-spoken and presentable to land a job with Auntie. I failed badly on the latter. Nowadays both attributes would be regarded as a fatal disqualification.
    To be honest, this was in the dead zone between xmas and new year.
    Somebody told me today the name for this period is now "twixtmas" which I quite like.
    Indeed. It's a good time for a cheap citybreak, between the expense and annoyance of travelling at Christmas and New Year. Or used to be.
    I find it a great time to get work done because colleagues and clients rarely interrupt you.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,190
    .

    Andy_JS said:

    darkage said:

    (reposted from previous thread)
    Sorry for going off topic but I wondered if people still use BT for their broadband. I have stuck with them, on the assumption that they would be no better than anyone else. But I have found them to be hard work. I had a problem with my router which means that it cuts out continually, I kept being told that I was imagining it or it was my computer that was at fault, I proved otherwise to them and they eventually sent an engineer around and it seemed to be fixed, only now the problems are starting up again, and I am stuck with another 9 months on my contract. The current situation is really bad because the WIFI is now so unreliable that I can't use it for work, mobile broadband is more reliable. I fear that I will need to go in to some kind of energy sapping consumer rights battle with BT. Am I just unfortunate or do other people experience/hear of these problems with BT?

    The only problem we have with BT is that an incoming call on the landline seems to knock out broadband for 1-2 minutes. Can't be bothered to work out why as we've trained everyone we know to call our cell phones, thereby conceding the landline to spammers who can safely be ignored.
    They have just moved my landline to digital
    What's a landline?
    It's the way most people's broadband works.
    Nah, that's line rental.

    I'm 30 in less than 2 months and have never had a landline phone!
    We've got a landline but hardly use it. But since we'd still have to pay the line rental would there be any advantage in dropping it? None that I can see.
    One less thing to dust

    We've got one of these for nostalgia value. It's a bit of a curiosity for anyone under 30 - they all want to give it a try.

    image

    Still works fine - even in a power cut.
    To add to my WC credentials we had a "party line"
    Was that so Downing Street could advise you directly of "events" during December 2020?
    Could only use your phone when other party line household wasn't

    You could listen in if you were quiet and a bit of a stalker (I am told)!
    I remember.

    We must have been quite posh. Until 1973 we had our own private red box on the pavement at the end of the drive.
  • dixiedean said:

    Someone on the previous thread said Carlisle had its attractions.
    Citation needed.

    Carlisle has one nice cocktail bar
    A great railway Station and nice Castle
    Shame they decided to build a four lane dual carriageway between the town and the castle.
    and it - at least in 2016 - not open on a Sunday.

    I got stranded in Carlisle one late Summer Sunday that year, the hostel didn't open until 1800, the pubs - bar some cavernous outfits on the outskirts - were all shut and in any case the football that day was West Brom vs Middlesboro ...

    Absolute state of it.

    At least you weren't in Barrow.
    I was in Barrow later that week. It's really not that bad.
    It's not even a good place to change trains. It's the worst place I have ever been on holiday, and I was there just to change trains.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576

    Fishing said:

    When I were a lad you had to be well-spoken and presentable to land a job with Auntie. I failed badly on the latter. Nowadays both attributes would be regarded as a fatal disqualification.
    To be honest, this was in the dead zone between xmas and new year.
    Somebody told me today the name for this period is now "twixtmas" which I quite like.
    I always consider it to be a dress rehearsal for retirement.
    Nah, retirement's much better.

    For a start most of the time the weather is better, the days are longer, everything's open, and other people are at work, so not getting in your way. This week is a real drag tbh.

    Next year we'll probably go away again for the two weeks (covid permitting).
  • Eabhal said:

    Data delayed till 8pm.

    The tension...

    Now 8.30....
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,705
    "Twixtmas" is certainly better than the "Chrimbo Limbo" I saw it referred to as in a BBC website article the other day.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,576

    "Twixtmas" is certainly better than the "Chrimbo Limbo" I saw it referred to as in a BBC website article the other day.

    Though the latter is a better description.
  • "Twixtmas" is certainly better than the "Chrimbo Limbo" I saw it referred to as in a BBC website article the other day.

    Annual perineum.
  • "Twixtmas" is certainly better than the "Chrimbo Limbo" I saw it referred to as in a BBC website article the other day.

    It's just Christmas though: it lasts twelve days remember?
This discussion has been closed.