It feels like my favourites have all gone (vanilla coke, lilt/Fanta Pineapple and Grapefruit) to make room for several iterations of cherry coke that all taste similar or are point blank revolting.

What happened to diversity in our drinks?!

We have a unique currency to this country, and we had to pick 4 species of animal from UK that represent this country and we came up with the barn owl, the buff tailed bumble bee, the Atlantic puffin, and the European hedgehog. All species that are found across Europe and some even in Asia.

The criteria the Bank of England set was that the animals had to broadly present across the whole of the UK. Which narrows the pool to widespread species. I feel it was an opportunity to show some of the endemic species or sub species found within this country.

My final four would have been:

£5 - Welsh Arctic charr / torgoch char - An isolated Welsh lake populations with distinctive lineages.

£10 - Orkney vole - Microtus arvalis orcadensis, an endemic subspecies of vole found only in Orkney.

£20 - Red grouse - Lagopus scotica, a British and Irish endemic taxon closely tied to briths moorlands.

£50 - Scottish wildcat - Felis silvestris in Scotland, a uniquely British population, though its status as a separate subspecies is debated.

My baby loves James Blunt. He immediately stops crying when I play James Blunt to him. Now I have a dilemma, is a crying baby or James Blunt more annoying to the British public?

Turned on call screening on my iPhone now.

Surely I’m not the only one??!!

Honestly, I'm sick of this.

There's been this conversation about UK mobile connectivity for years and somehow we're still expected to accept it as normal.

And before the inevitable "well Britain has rural areas and dense cities" comments:

Norway.

Mountains. Fjords. Massive sparsely populated areas. Arctic territory. And yet they manage to take mobile coverage seriously, including areas where there's no obvious commercial reason for a company to build a network.

And if you want the other extreme:

Singapore.

Obviously Singapore isn't geographically comparable to the UK. That's not the point. The point is that they've built a dense, reliable mobile infrastructure because they actually treat connectivity like important infrastructure.

Meanwhile in the UK:

"You've got one bar, what more do you want?"

I want my damn phone to work.

One bar is frequently basically useless. Yes, technically my phone is connected. Brilliant. Can I actually make a call? Can I send a message? Can I load a webpage? Can I use Google Maps? Can I do literally anything?

Most of the times the answer is no.

And don't even get me started on trains.

You can be travelling through supposedly well-connected parts of the country and watch your phone go:

5G → 4G → E → nothing → one bar → SOS satellite → 4G

Then magically come back 10 minutes later.

This isn't some tiny niche problem either. The FT, Bloomberg and others have been reporting on Britain's mobile connectivity problems and lagging network investment for years.

So no, I'm not claiming the UK is some apocalyptic failed state because my Spotify stopped working.

I'm saying that for a wealthy developed country, this is quite embarrassing.

And the "but rural areas are difficult" argument really needs to die.

That's what infrastructure policy is for.

If there's genuinely no commercial business case for a mast somewhere, then fine — figure out how to deal with that. Subsidise it. Share infrastructure. Make public land and buildings available. Make planning easier. Require better coverage as part of spectrum licensing. Encourage national roaming. Whatever.

Just solve the problem.

Because we've somehow reached a point where people look at a coverage map and say:

"99% of the population has coverage!"

Cool.

What percentage has good, reliable, usable connectivity when they actually need it?

That's the number I care about.

And honestly, I think part of the reason this doesn't get more attention is that people who've lived in the UK their entire lives don't realise how much better it can be.

Go somewhere with genuinely good mobile infrastructure and you notice immediately.

Your phone just...

works.

No thinking about which network you're on.
No walking around your house looking for the magic spot.
No standing beside a window to send a WhatsApp.
No losing connection halfway through a journey.
No staring at one pathetic bar wondering whether the page is actually going to load.

It just works.

That's what I'm asking for.

Not perfection. Not 10Gbps 5G in the middle of a sheep field.

Just a mobile network that doesn't feel like it's constantly doing me a favour by allowing my phone to connect to it.

I don’t think I’ve ever made a toastie that was sealed all the way around the edges. The press is square and the bread is rectangular.

Majority of the time they have extra long hoses so can park either side regardless of your petrol cap position. But sometimes theres just straight up free spaces for both sides and people sit in the entrances.

At least we’ve fixed them, I guess.

We’ve redone all our fencing all round, new posts and gravel boards, drainage for new garden room, removed four 8 yard skipfuls of stone chippings, gravel, sand, rocks and artificial grass all before even getting the base for the garden room done.

Still a month away from birth and rain has delayed our builder doing anything for a few days.

This was a great idea.

I think it's just quite annoying. I do somewhat get that doing it digitally saves a bit of money on their end, but for me it's quite blergh.

I'd even pay a quid or two to get a paper railcard, I don't want to use my phone for everything, why do I even have to have a phone for that?

My complaint isn't done there, because I do now have a Railcard but it has to be in the app, for whatever reason. There are ways to securely create a wallet pass for exactly these kinds of things but nooooo, I need to use the Railcard app or the app of my train company.

I don't know, I just find it annoying that there's no option. No physical smartcard, no paper Railcard, no wallet file, not even a PDF, it has to be on your phone in the app.

The car has been there for a few weeks, has some body damage and damaged vent grilles, and cannot physically go anywhere. Unless the owner appears with a pump that is.

What would you all do here peeps?

Surprised to see local news has made it to the BBC, but less amused that its for Stagecoach cutting back on a load of local bus routes. One I use, that goes near to my doorstep is going altogether. The only other bus route, which still requires walking up/down the hill when getting off/on is being cut back.. so what used to be an every 9 minute bus service a decade ago, and is an half hourly service now is probably going to be scaled back to one an hour which means it'll end up getting completely full and people will miss journeys because of it.

utterly useless w4nkers - "because fewer people are travelling" well maybe between changes to pricing and all the other stuff didnt help did it

I know there are a lot of awful drivers out there of any age but it’s terrifying to see elderly people who look like they might collapse at any given moment and have zero reaction skills and then get in their car and drive away.

Getting quotes to have the 4m x 4m dining room in my house replastered, one wall insulated internally and some shelves put up. After turning up one evening, and hanging about for a good 45 mins chatting about anything other than plastering, sends me an email 2 days later with a quote for £16K, £11K of which was marked as labour.

I would have rather he just made up an excuse why he couldn't come to quote or wouldn't have time to do the job. I'd have been less annoyed if he'd just told me he couldn't afford to buy me dinner before he tried to bum me.

Trying to watch Netflix in my hotel room, can hardly show the program without it looking like an n64 game, but will happily give me period/shaving adverts like it’s a 5 star cinematic masterpiece

removed from askUK and redirected here

I usually ramble and over explain on here but this is incredibly important so I'm gonna *try* to keep it short.

I'm a 19 year old photographer. I've been working factory nights for over a year and it sucks. I had an interview around a year ago to be an assistant photographer at an auction house:

- My CV had relevant photography experience, as well as warehouse experience handling heavy, fragile and expensive goods.

- I spent a weekend copying their photographer for a portfolio. He loved it, and said my process was identical to his. He also said that everyone else had been quite lazy and he liked that I had gone the extra mile.

- I showed good work ethic, love for the work and a lot of motivation, I also said I was available to start Monday (the interview was on a Friday.

- I dressed well, kept casual and polite, even gave the car a wash just incase they saw me pull up.

- At the end, the interviewers said that it's looking good for me, they like me and see me as part of the team, and I had shown the most skill so far. They said there were a few more people to interview and they'd be in touch with an answer.

After 3 weeks of silence, I gave them a call to find out that I hadn't been chosen. It didn't knock me because I hadn't been chosen, it was because they hyped me up so much. These people really, really liked me and I thought I was in. Since then, I've been working at a different factory and hating it. But now I find myself in a similar situation.

I have an interview tomorrow morning to be an assistant photographer for a fashion retailer. This one suits me even more because I have in my CV that I am into fashion, resold clothes for a while, actively practice fashion photography, and have a few ongoing partnerships with some small fashion brands. This place is also right next to my house which is really valuable to me, it would be truly life changing it I got this job.

I spent the weekend with a model friend taking some photos more accurate to what I'd do for them, and sprinkled a couple into a 15 photo portfolio which I'll show them tomorrow. I'm writing this post, thinking about what questions they might ask and how I would answer, and then going to sleep. If anyone can reply I would be incredibly grateful and will read in the morning around 8am.

Sorry I rambled... My questions are:

- If the last interview seemingly went perfectly, what in the world could I have done wrong? Can a tiny mistake in an interview cost you the job?

- I try to go the extra mile because these jobs are far and few, it might be another year or more till I get another shot. How can I go the extra extra mile and really stand out?

Any guidance would be really appreciated, I'm slowly losing my spark to the long night factory and getting this job would genuinely get my life back on track...

edit: this post got accepted a bit late, the interview was yesterday!

I ended up being 5 minutes late because their car park was full and the closest place to park was a 10 minute walk, in the rain. but, I think the fact that I did the 10 minute walk in the rain and showed up apologetic looking like a wet rat maybe did more good than bad?

there were a few times in the interview when a question caught me completely off guard and I froze a bit, but I just tried to act natural. someone in r /photography said that I've been selected for the interview which already shows that they think I can do the job. another person said that it's more about whether the head photographer likes me. i combined those and just tried to not worry, and be a friendly dude.

I have no idea if I will get the job. I really really hope I do, but there's nothing I can do from here so I will just try not to worry. I do think we got along well and had a laugh, and she bigged me up a lot. but that's exactly how the last one went, so I'll hope for the best while preparing for the worst..

thanks all

Had two people do this to me yesterday. It's a bloody Pay at Pump Only for a reason. No-one wants to then wait behind you while you go into the kiosk and do your weekly shop 🤬

An entire chicken share box and not one of the 4 dips that are mandatory to complete the order.

Not a single dip? A share box? JFC.

Sunday night ruined.

I haven’t felt disappointment like this since the last time this happened.

It’s just cruel.

They weren't even premium pints, one ghost ship pale ale and a cider at 4.2%, and the glasses aren't nice enough to nick

Then when you do start changing lanes they undertake