I tried to claim a refund about a year ago after my train back from London to Nottingham was delayed by over an hour.

I must have spent about an hour trying to submit my application online and giving card details etc. - it's a very complicated process - but it turned out to be a complete waste of time as nothing ever materialized.

Exactly. They deliberately make it complicated so that you just give up.

Bastards.

It depends on who the operator is.

When I used to commute by train, before COVID, I semi regularly put in delay repay compensation claims.

With SouthEastern they had a form online

Your sign in to the site meant it remembered some of your details

The browsers auto complete filled in most of the rest

So for every claim you pretty much just had to put in the start and end of your journey and click submit.

About a week later they did a bank transfer for the compensation amount into your bank account.

I don't know if they're the only ones who made it that easy though because I've only done it a couple of times with any of the other operators and they were long enough ago that they might have changed their system by now.

Tiny update: I asked the diabetes nurse about the bloods and she said that people who are treating their diabetes with insulin have to do the blood test every day. That's usually, but not always, type 1 diabetes.

The test they're using for mine is based on blood regenerating every 3 months so from now on they only need to test it every 3 months. I think there's a different test as well - that could be why weekly maybe(?)

Or it could be the same as mine but they're just a bit more concerned perhaps(?)

Well damn, I've just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as well.

So far they haven't mentioned diet, only to take Metformin. They also said my blood pressure and cholesterol were the high end of normal so because of the diabetes diagnosis I've got drugs for those as well.

But this is literally all within the last few weeks, so they still have time to add something about food.

Hopefully everything stabilises out nicely for you, and I, and a new stasis level comes around soon.

Ha, got high cholesterol and blood pressure was borderline too.  They offered me statins, but was of the view that restricted diet + Metformin + statins was too much at once.   They gave the impression, statins were up to me, as my readings weren't that bad.

Metformin has been a ball ache as I have a long commute and find I am half way to work before I realise I haven't taken it, but am getting better at remembering.

Going to see how my cholesterol is after the diet and take it from there.  With a bit of luck I won't need any of the drugs in 6 months.  If cholesterol is still high, will probably take the statins.

Weird question, but how much do you test your blood?  Turns out one of the other blokes at work was also diagnosed recently.  He has been told to test his blood twice a day; me once a week.  His sounds more extreme though.  Reading around, different sources say entirely different things, so might just do twice a week or something not too extreme.

I had a blood pressure and blood test, a month later I had another one - that confirmed the diabetes diagnosis and was when they said to start on the Metformin

 2 weeks after that they had a blood pressure follow up and that's when they suggested the bp medicine and Statins - but they suggested to delay starting the Statins for a couple of weeks afterwards

That is about now - and I have another bloods appointment today

So, I think, that means they're still in the process of deciding what the appropriate framework should be and there's no immediate crisis likely (maybe?).

I use a recurring alarm on my phone to tell me to take the drugs, but also my wife checks at least 4 times a day that I'm going to take the one's coming up and have taken the one's just gone 😄

Well damn, I've just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes as well.

So far they haven't mentioned diet, only to take Metformin. They also said my blood pressure and cholesterol were the high end of normal so because of the diabetes diagnosis I've got drugs for those as well.

But this is literally all within the last few weeks, so they still have time to add something about food.

Hopefully everything stabilises out nicely for you, and I, and a new stasis level comes around soon.

I think people might be getting hung up on the specifics of this case rather than the general principle.

If a court finds you "not guilty" - then you are "not guilty"

That might include all the actually guilty people who there wasn't enough evidence to "prove" they were guilty - but it also includes all the people who were found not guilty - because they actually didn't do it.

The actually innocent people can still spend their life savings on the court procedures to get them out of prison - and they're still 93% likely to not get any of that money back.

[Chyna]

Will Trump turn it back on because it will make him more popular or will he leave it off because he hates Chyna?

Trump was the person who first banned Tik Tok

When he was President he passed an Executive Order to ban it

That order was overturned on account of the fact that this isn't what Presidential Executive Orders do and the President doesn't have the power to just ban something he doesn't like.

But since then both Trump and his business partners have received significant "investment" from China so now he's looking forward to overturning this ban.

So he will look to overturn the ban but it's not much to do with popularity 💰💰💰💰

If you Google and add -AI at the end then it won't give you the AI summary

The reason to do so is that the AI summary often displays things that are just wrong, and even more frequently misleading

For example the other day I Googled a roundabout near me. The AI summary had the name of the roundabout and it's location with a Google maps link and a picture.

Except the Google maps link was not a link to this roundabout - it was a map link to a completely different roundabout around 700 miles away

And that's a fairly benign example of the AI having a distinct lack of I

...
There is such pleasure/drama/beauty (Insert your own noun) in nature for those who make the effort to observe it.
...

The double glazing keeps any outside sound out of our house normally, but when it gets warmer like now we keep the window open a bit and tend to fall asleep to the sound of sheep and wake up to the dawn chorus and the sound of cows

It is not relaxing - but it is ... cool

How is Science Wife BTW? Still Sciency?

Click to see full-size image.

She is in her second year now teaching at a new school and they're trying to persuade her to go for a Head of Year job. But she thinks she's too young for a management job so she's resisting so far

...
There is such pleasure/drama/beauty (Insert your own noun) in nature for those who make the effort to observe it.
...

The double glazing keeps any outside sound out of our house normally, but when it gets warmer like now we keep the window open a bit and tend to fall asleep to the sound of sheep and wake up to the dawn chorus and the sound of cows

It is not relaxing - but it is ... cool

...
Did a proper half marathon on Sunday. Brutal hill between mile 2 and 3. The steep downhill was hard on the quads and feet.
Sore feet from mile 8 slowed me up. In my traing runs my last 3 miles are always the quickest.  Finished in 2hr 21 mins

I've done one half marathon in the past - full of hills, but I was saving myself for a heroic sprint finish along the flat final stretch by the seafront

And just as I got there - there was a hailstorm

It only knocked a minute or so from my time, but shielding my head with my hands from golf ball sized hail was quite different from the image I was planning to project at that point

A professional photographer would be pleased with that second shot Kev, you should have it framed and put it on your wall.

Thank you Tom, phones today are unreal. Funny you should say, put it on my wall. My dining room is full of photos of our travels and it needs updating. I'll try to remember to take a photo and send it to you. Or even better pop over. Kettle's always on.

I quite like this company if you want to go one extra to just framing them https://www.snapfish.co.uk/canvas-prints (they have other options as well)

I think only one of the photo's that I've taken and had them made up into a canvas print could actually pass as a truly professional picture but if you catch the right offers they do it's not too expensive

I have a much smaller amount of greenery to deal with - but I've decided on more of a re-wilding project

Means the local predators have more cover to hide behind though

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

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Also, someone needs to explain to me why people are leaving one safe country to risk their lives to get to another safe country.

...

Some of it is because they don't feel safe there

France has many times the number of asylum applications and takes in many more refugees than Britain -this coupled with the fact that many more refugees speak English compared to French might be why many feel the risk is worth getting away from the oftentimes hostile environment in France

About half of refugees also say they already have family in the UK, so there's a pull reason as well as a push reason

And that's just those that have a choice

If you pay a people smuggler on the edge of Europe to get you to safety, you might get told to get in a truck at one end and then told to get get out of the truck and onto a boat at the other end. It's the people smugglers who decide the routes

Apart from the half having family in the UK I don't have figures to show what proportion those apply to - but those seem to be the biggest factors

... Plenty of people do marathons where they walk 5 mins, run 5 mins
...

I did a half marathon more or less like this a few years ago and I agree it works pretty well

It was very hilly so I adapted it a bit on occasion to run downhill stretches and walk uphill one's but the 5 mins and 5 mins was what I was basing the idea on at least

That insurance will cover their costs - if you lose, they're guaranteed to at least break even.

If they break even in every case they lose and make a profit for every case they win then they're not going to do too badly.

FWIW I have seen some articles that suggest that you are more likely to get a higher payout through the ambulance chasers so it 'should' make it worthwhile

I know what it's for.

I just think there is close to zero chance of my losing this case and that the insurance is a needless expense for me.

The aim was to point out that the reason for the insurance is primarily for their benefit - not yours

And as described, they would probably fold like you suggest - but it's not a 'no lose' case

The general principle of why they would lose is that they have a duty of care to their customers - the wet floor signs should be the normal mitigation for that

But personal injury claims have successfully been defended in the past where the defence has successfully argued that the plaintiff also has a duty of care to themselves - there has to be another factor for them to latch on to for this kind of thing to work though, like you were running, or carrying masses of parcels

But, to reiterate, this does seem clear cut and by the far the highest likelihood is that they'll just settle

I thought the biggest problem with this sort of insurance were no win no fee lawyers refusing to take the case if you didn't pay for the insurance - but I haven't completely kept up and it's entirely possible that they're not allowed to make it a criteria for doing the case anymore