Adamski

Ah, man. I'm so sorry to read this, @Jimi Shandrix . All the best to you and your loved ones. Whatever happens, take care of each other and hope that you all have the chance to make some happy memories.

What are these places like? I don't think I know anyone who has been to Kiribati.

The countries on that list were the ones that nobody had claimed yet. About six months before Covid I started a job that should normally involve regular trips to Africa, maybe including those two. However apart from a trip to Uganda in October 2019 I've been well and truly grounded so far. Anyway, a few more crossed off since I last updated the list. Afghanistan, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Dominica, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia, Mozambique, Nauru, Niger, Palau, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Samoa, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Togo, Tonga

The total mass of coronaviruses currently infecting all humans is somewhere in the region of 4kg: about the same as a domestic cat.

I've been on a jury once - a rape case at the high court. It took nearly three weeks, I found the process really interesting, the subject matter pretty depressing, and was particularly taken by the range of people on the jury and the opinions they held. There was lots of waiting around, as others have mentioned the food was dreadful, and deciding the future of the accused weighed pretty heavily. I spent much of my spare time during evenings thinking about it. I felt quite emotionally exhausted by the time it was over. Don't want to post many details, but some of the tactics deployed by the defence lawyer (who was female) were utterly deplorable and left at least a couple of jury members pretty upset. Comments about the role of women in relationships that would be considered beyond the pale in any other situation and I'm amazed that it was considered fair game. The timing worked out pretty sweetly though: directly after the Christmas holidays and directly before I'd booked three weeks holiday in Thailand. Two months during which I was in work (in a job I hated) for a grand total of two days.

I've had the same picture on here since 2008. I'd be surprised if there are many that have been around for longer. Benjamin Massing made one notable contribution to world football. Anyone who remembers Italia 90 will know it, and anyone who doesn't will enjoy the results of a quick google if you're partial to a robust challenge. Quite why he ended up as my profile picture I'm not entirely sure. There was a bit of chat about him among my group of pals at the time. Probably thought it showed off my football hipster credentials or something. Crosses my mind to change it every so often but never felt bothered enough, or thought of anything worth changing it to.

Scotland's top 10 by that method: 10. Stephen Hendry 9. Judy Murray 8. Jamie Murray 7. Jock Stein 6. Bill Shankly 5. Andy Robertson 4. Kenny Dalglish 3. Alex Ferguson 2. Matt Busby 1. Chris Hoy (I.e. the member of the Murray family missing from that list highlights a bit of a flaw in that method.)

Using [country name] most famous sportsman as a search in google will give you a decent guide. Top answer by that method: Scotland: Chris Hoy England: Lewis Hamilton Wales: Gareth Bale Northern Ireland: Rory McIlroy Ireland: Paul O'Connell France: Zinedine Zidane Spain: Rafael Nadal Italy: Francesco Totti Brazil: Pele Argentina: Diego Maradona Finland: Paavo Nurmi Sweden: Zlatan Ibrahimovic Norway: Marit Bjorgen Denmark: Christian Eriksen Belgium: Eden Hazard Holland: Johan Cruyff Fill your boots with the others.

I'm trying to get on there, but got put in a queue for about half an hour, and then when it said I could enter the site crashed.

I've found myself unexpectedly at a loose end tomorrow night, and thinking about the Sweden v Ukraine game. It's more of a 'quite fancy it' than a 'must go', so only really looking for the cheapest seats. Anyone selling a category 3 ticket? I'd also be happy to take a more expensive one off someone's hands for category 3 prices if they're stuck with one that they can't use, but don't want to take the p.

All the very best to you for the coming weeks and months. Obviously I've got no idea on the details or whether this helps, but mentioning this as you mentioned cancer on your spine. My partner's uncle had/has stage 4 cancer with significant growths on his spine, and things looked pretty bleak. 4-5 years later and immunotherapy has truly worked wonders in his case: no trace of cancer, wound down all the drugs, and apart from periodic check ups essentially back to living as normal. Fingers crossed for you.

This is an important thread - I'm glad it's here. I lost my mum to cancer when I was 17. She had it for six years - pretty much all of my time at high school. The first five years had their ups and downs, but she lived a pretty full life through it - she was Finnish (which fairly stood out in small-town Scotland), whip-smart, artistic, had vegetarian/lentilish tendencies long long before it was cool, and I was really close to her. The last few months were brutal. It was hard to process seeing someone you love grow weak, frustrated, and desperately sad about what was happening. The thought of her dying terrified me, and in some ways I did a lot of grieving before it actually happened to the point where things felt quite numb for a while in the aftermath. Also, given the age I was it all played out at a time when outside my home there were usual seventeen year old things like meeting girls, passing my driving test, starting to go to the pub etc. I saw all that as an escape and told very few people that she was ill. If I had my time again I think I'd be a lot more open, but I guess that's something teenage boys find harder than most people. Since then more than 25 years have passed - my father remarried (to someone fantastic), and I've got a partner and two kids who all came along a long time after she died (my daughter gets her middle name from my mum and people who knew her often comment how alike they look). I often wonder what she would have made of the world today and how she would have got on with the family that she never met.

Insightful feedback. Interested to know how a positive move such as this, from an account linked to a prominent fan group, from which there have been two posts since January constitutes spam.

Ah, it's probably this. I never had anything cancelled. I had tickets for Czech v Croatia but cancelled them myself as I thought at the time that I'd be OK for a ticket for Wembley.

Not showing for me.

Not from what I can see (although granted you posted that about an hour ago). Do you have a working link?

Regionalliga playoff final tomorrow in a stadium that has already reached the Champions League of amusing names.

That's so sad. Poor guy. Condolences to his family. Must be so tough for them. Same age as me, and kids of a similar age to mine by the look of that photo. Fairly hits home about how precious it all is.

I'd say... It needs a boundary just south of places like Irvine, Kilmarnock, Darvel, etc. Dumbarton sneaks in, places like Helensburgh and Balloch don't. Largely agree with the northern boundary on the map otherwise. In the east I'd say the boundary is closer to Edinburgh - just to the east of Presonpans and Tranent. Basically as someone else wrote - if it's somewhere that people from Glasgow/Edinburgh go for holidays, then it's not in the central belt.

Yes, but I didn't anticipate that the market would gallop even further on in the months between selling and buying. Sold at about 10% over value, bought at about 20% over. Painful, but pretty standard in the area at the moment. And all being well the place we're moving to will be home for the next 15-20 years.

We sold at the end of last year, and had our offer accepted on our new place a couple of months ago. The property market is bonkers at the moment. We thought we had done quite well out of it when we sold, only to have to go a fair bit higher as a percentage over value when we bought.

Thanks for the replies, everyone! Very much appreciated. We have a financial advisor who we have a good relationship with, but for some reason getting this info has been a bit less forthcoming. There's commentary around how it varies: I get that people's circumstances are different, some people do X, some people do Y, etc. However in getting my head around things like this I like a good bell curve: of course some people lie at the extremities, but I'd like to know what constitutes the top of the bell - what sort of % income or % mortgage repayments constitute 'average', and take it from there.

I couldn't find a thread on this sort of thing, so I thought I'd start a new one. My partner and I are in the process of buying a house. We're looking into things like life cover, income protection, etc. Any advice on income protection? I know that the standard advice is along the lines of 'pay what you can afford', but it's something I've never had much cause to think about before, so it would be useful to know what constitutes a 'normal' amount. Protection against your full income? Protection against a percentage of your income? Enough to cover the mortgage? Or would there be a better way to make sure that we're covered if one of us died or got ill? We're both early 40s, in decent health, non smokers.

Reading about his passing sent me down a Rainbow Wikipedia rabbit hole and at the bottom was the best fact I learned today... Turns out that at Jane has been married to Rod AND Freddie. They’re basically the Fleetwood Mac of 80s kids TV. Anyway, RIP.

One for my fellow 11-pointers on here - sounds like there's a few. A bit of number crunching here this evening. By my reckoning we need 13% (397 of 3051) of those with 12 points or more to not buy a ticket for Wembley for any 11 pointers to get one. If 33% (1007 of 3051) of those on 12 points or above don't buy for Wembley there's enough tickets for all the 11 pointers. Not sure what to make of that: 13% seems possible I guess (under 18s and people who can't/won't go for whatever reason), 33% seems pretty unlikely.