AlwaysAVFC

10 minutes ago, Genie said:

Try and “chat” them through the website browser rather than the app. I found it worked better.

Edit: Just checked and the button is live for me

Cheers, just trying website now and waiting for advisor. App just said now advisors available. As I write I'm in and 147 in queue. As the app isn't live chat as such I guess they are focusing on the live chat on the website.

Trying to sort my direct debit amount out. Looks like British Gas have turned off their chat feature on the app, for whatever reason. Found it quite useful in the past but will have to ring instead.

Went to the swimming last night, which was the only event we had booked. Enjoyed it apart from the Aussies clearing most finals up. The girls enjoyed it which was the important thing, the youngest managed to keep cheering and dancing until the end, although got noticeably more tired as is it got later. 

Went into town before hand for the touristy things bull ring bull, Victoria & then Centenary square for the mechanical bull and also went to see the gorilla. There wasn't as much going on as I thought there would be at King Kong Park but it was Monday afternoon, not sure if that's more of an evening/weekend thing.

Something definitely needs to be done by the government. I think the price cap will be confirmed by the end of August but there's no chance of anything being sorted quickly with Johnson ticking off his bucket list and the leadership not being resolved until September. Can they get anything in place before the end of the year?

I took a recent fix offer, which on the face of it seems like a very good decision. Even that is a crazy price to be paying but the figures suggested are staggering.

Just now, sidcow said:

Don't quote me but I was under the impression that there was no parking at any venues and they were relying on public transport and shuttle buses to venues.   Maybe this is just the Alexander Stadium though.

Thought it would be easy enough to find some street parking but just seen the road closure/restrictions map. Definitely need a bit more planning rather than turning up and parking the car. 

I'm going to the swimming session Monday evening with the wife and kids. Anybody know what the parking is like around Sandwell Aquatic centre?

Planning on getting there early, then getting the train into town to make a day of it, before coming back for the swimming.

36 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

Still not true, although obviously depends on areas I guess.

I disagree. Like you say location can make a difference and there are extreme negative examples, but on the whole kids are so much more tolerant now and are less sexist, racist and homophobic than our (think we're similar ages) generation and older, and that's not because they're snowflakes or woke or whatever. It just means people have learnt from others mistakes and there is more respect for people that are different and a desire to find out more. As well as campaigns, protests, celebrations & marches to do just that.

Things have changed for the better but there is still improvement to be made.

10 minutes ago, Genie said:

With British Gas I can set the monthly DD to anything I want myself in the app.

I tried and when I put £240 in, it said it couldn't be lower than the the amount set. Well that was on the website, the app says something went wrong. I'll try again when my payment at the end of the month goes out.

1 hour ago, Demitri_C said:

Ill never understand why people pay big money for dogs when there are so many lovely dogs you can pick up for rescue

My wife previously worked for Blue Cross so it was never a consideration for a puppy. We got our rescue during covid restrictions so demand was high all round puppies and rescue dogs.

At the time my youngest was 3 and another 7, it was quite a challenge finding a dog we wanted (not too small) that was suitable for young children and the few that became available went very quickly. Some you could only get if you have experience of the breed, often familes have no dog experience. I was very frequently checking several rescue centres. Some people won't do that and just go the puppy route.

The whole puppy thing is a big factor at how cute they are, often without realising the demands of a puppy.

Sadly if they go through with it or not, many people think it might be a good idea to have a litter of puppies at some point, which you can't do going the rescue route.

And as mentioned people can have very specific ideas what they want and some your very unlikely to to be able to get from a rescue.

Had an online conversation and didn't seem like it's not possible to lower the DD so that's a start, but can't do anything until after the payment (old amount) on the 28th comes out. So will try again in a week.

My wife works for a housing association and reguarly gets sexist abuse over the phone from residents.

Some will refuse to have a female trades operatives to fix things "because they don't know what they're doing"  When in actual fact the women often do a better job than the men as they feel they have more to prove and take extra care. Then there are the homes that they can't go to because them or another female has had abuse there previously.

3 minutes ago, Genie said:

I had a good run but it finally got me.

Just landed back and had a cold since yesterday. Really didn’t think it was covid as no sore throat as other have mentioned. Just feel really tired.

Hopefully it gets no worse and the vaccines are keeping the symptoms mild.

It's just got me for first time too. Felt more and more crap as day went on Thursday, so thought I should test. Feeling a bit better today. Head is a bit fuzzy but not sure if that's the humidity. 

It appears you can only increase your direct debit rather than lower it, online at least. They also say that the direct debit increase is a recommendation, if you can lower it its hardly a recommendation, is it? Sent an online message and will see where that goes.

Going through our usage it seems their annual estimate for us was slightly over our usage after 12 month living here (from Feb 21) so the estimate seems right. So unless I'm looking at it wrong it does seem £70 a month heavy not even allowing for the £400 help. 

38 minutes ago, Xela said:

I'd be cancelling my DD. Who's your provider?

Luckily not had any of that nonsense from Scottish Power

It's British Gas

Just trying to get my head around what we use and how much that will cost us. A straight calculation of their annual estimated usage for us divided by 12 is £222.40. So need to try and work out if that usage looks about right. If it looks about right I will try and change it to £250 rather than £300. That doesn't include the £400 help later in the year either. 

We're on a smart meter and just had the 6 month statement, which has led to the direct debit review. Our direct debit hasn't quite covered our usage and a couple of months of that we were still on a fix. So it definitely needs to go up with the price rises.

We also recently took a fix they were offering. So from now until the new price cap figure in October we're paying more but if the price cap increase of 65% turns out true then we should be paying a chunk less than the standard tariff.

The topic of words used in football chat on social media has come up a few times but another one to add to list is 'Farmers league' 

A lovely email to wake up to on a Sunday morning.

It did make me laugh when I read a tweet today that he isn't good enough to start!

There will be games where he is ineffective, especially if we're struggling to get the ball and keep hold of it. Like today, the conditions were awful and the team weren't much better. If and when we start to retain the ball better, he will have less and less ineffective games.

2 hours ago, bickster said:

Royal Mail

A parcel arrived for me today except I was in work. My neighbours are in both sides and always take stuff in for us and we do the same for them.

So what does the lazy arsed postie do? Takes it to a post office. The local post office in our village has closed (bloke retired) so the nearest one is in Formby, no big deal except the one they took it to is only open from 10am to half 5. How is anyone working meant to pick that up?

Grrrrrr!

Was it Parcel force rather than Royal Mail? Guess it could be a local policy but we'd never take things to a post office apart from arranged local collects. I don't know how parcel force determine which post office to take it to.

I don't very often deliver to neighbours. Stopped that soon after starting as a postie after someone kicked off because they were working nights and I woke them up. The exceptions being if I know that a neighbour will take it, I've been asked to (a note or delivery instruction) or the neighbour is outside or visble in the house.

Only just got round to looking at the challenge. I think any competitive game and he'd have been walking off the pitch.

I don't think he intended it though. The player left his leg in and Digne was stretching to block the ball. Unfortunate, clumsy and obviously could have been a leg breaker but not malicious. As I said at the start though, that would be irrelevant in a competitive game and he'd be sent off.

Mis-timed challenges are part and parcel with preseason games as players. get their fitness, feel and touch back.

8 hours ago, Ingram85 said:

My apple weather app is saying there’s a 50/50 chance of rain at 18:00 and a steady drop in temp from 20:00 onwards. Should be a more normal temp at bedtime tonight. Just got to survive until the rain comes. 

As it was approaching 18:00 it was saying 76% chance of rain by me. I did feel about 3 drops of rain shortly after but the clouds have gone and the sun is out again.

29 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I'm quite surprised they're not postponing deliveries, it's madness having people out in that direct sun for hours

We are actually going in a couple of hours earlier than normal so should hopefully be done by midday. I had to do double mail today which wasn't great but at least the round is clear now for Monday.

41 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Yes, it's daft really.  What do we do? Spend unnecessary energy heating water to a stupidly high temperature and then add cold water to it to make it a usable temperature. Meanwhile the world is dying. 

I guess its partly to kill any bacteria in the system? I can't remember how regular it was, once a week maybe? but the boiler that we had would periodically heat to a higher temperature to kill any bacteria, then go back to its normal operating temperature.

5 hours ago, sidcow said:

They do operate at a lower temperature than boilers so you generally need bigger/more radiators (ideally underfloor heating) but good insulation is the most important thing. 

I've not heard of issues with water temperature though. 

I think the lower temperature thing is a reason why the rumour of not heating the house rumour exists.  The set up needs to be right and they will work just fine at heating the home.  And they should get better as they become more mainstream. 

We had one in our old place. Like you say, radiators don't get as hot as traditional systems. It tends to be more constant rather than cutting in and out. It did take quite a long time to warm up the house from cold though.

Water temperature did seem slightly down on traditional boilers but was never an issue for baths or washing up etc. just not scalding hot.

2 hours ago, The_Steve said:

Everyone please block Ekrem Konur on Twitter. He’s not an ITK or anything remotely journalistic. Barca aren’t in advanced talks. 

Yeah just saw this. I'm not naive enough to think talks don't go with agents etc behind clubs backs but for advance talks would mean a fee agreed or some serious tapping up.

Not sure where he got his followers from but he's always seemed no better than the fake ITK accounts.