Very nice but just a shame about those vocals from Steve Winwood.

Quote from: Coyote on January 15, 2026, 01:16:26 PM

Quote from: EtchedPixels on January 15, 2026, 12:48:03 PMAt least your cat doesn't try and pounce the trains.

She does, I was prepared to stop her if I thought she was getting into attack mode.

Going by her whiskers movement she was making silent mouthings at it so I don't think attack mode was far away

Quote from: EtchedPixels on January 15, 2026, 12:48:03 PMAt least your cat doesn't try and pounce the trains.

She does, I was prepared to stop her if I thought she was getting into attack mode.

Clapton and Winwood live at Madison Square Gardens

At least your cat doesn't try and pounce the trains.

We have two cats, Susie is somewhat larger than her sister and does enjoy sitting on my lap at the desk when I am trying to do delicate tasks.

He won't be single for long if he takes Molly with him down the pub! 

Not precisely my pet, but I thought a couple of puppy pictures might cheer people up in the middle of a dreary winter.

Stepson #2, who is a single man, has been muttering darkly about getting a dog for quite a while. He's recently spent an eye-watering sum of money on a new electric car and decided he now wants a dog to put in it but has been dithering between a puppy or a rehome. One of his mates has recently acquired a pup so he started looking on the pets4homes website and found a golden retriever pup for sale about 5 miles away. We went and had a look and she is enchanting:





We were a bit worried about why she hadn't sold. Turns out she was the last of a litter of 10 and a young couple were going to take her but decided to split up instead. Anyway, Will is going to pick her up on Saturday. He normally works from home but we will be looking after her once a week when he goes up to London so on Sunday we will be introducing her to our two dogs. I will report back...

Cheer,

Chris

PS. Forgot to mention. She's called Molly.

I was also talking to a friend of mine recently about visa's and he has Canadian citizenship. On his last visit to Canada, he couldn't get the ETA equivalent for Canada and had to get a full Canadian passport. His wife on the other hand could travel on her NZ passport with an ETA.
Will follow this and see what happens.

Quote from: JulianO on January 15, 2026, 04:43:43 AMEntry to the UK for Dual Nationals:

Apologies if anyone has raised this issue before.

Are those of you living outside of the UK who have dual citizenship (UK and something else,) aware that from February 25th you have to have a UK passport to enter the UK?

An ETA will no longer be acceptable, despite some of us having paid for one last year which was meant to last for 2 years.

Since I haven't had a valid UK passport since 2003, I will now have to go through the rigmarole of applying for one from scratch, at vast expense and hassle.

Meanwhile my wife, who was not born in the UK and is not a UK citizen, can travel to the UK with an ETA which costs 16 pounds.

Is it a revenue gathering exercise? But I can't believe they make much money out of passports.

I have been struggling ever since I found out about this in November to think of what problem they are trying to solve by making this rule.

And I wasn't even born on the mainland of the UK, but in Guernsey!

This is one of the topics which has recently been much discussed by members of the British Overseas Voters Forum (FYI before anyone thinks this is bringing politics to this place- it is not, the BOVF in not aligned with any party but campaigns for a better deal on behalf of all Brits living overseas). Well worth getting involved with them - either to participate or just simply lurk and listen to the discussions about what is happening...

Colin