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

I must admit I was not aware of this, I will be going back in September and would have just gone on my Aussie passport.
Will have to find out how to apply for one now, as I haven't had one for over 15yrs.
As you say it sounds very much like a revenue raising excercise.

Entry 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!

As others have said, it really does depend on the paint types and their reactions with one another. Some acrylic paints really react badly with chemical solvent based ones, and the paint will blister, discolor, etc. So you really just need to do your research, learn from others mistakes, so you don't make them, and then do some test. Get yourself some material similar to what you are priming, like plasticard, paint it with your chosen acrylic and then spray your chosen solvent based varnish.

If you go on YouTube you will find loads of such vids. So just do your homework.   

At 65% there's still quite a way to go

Latest update: over halfway to the target number of expressions of interest!
https://tinyurl.com/5x8twbhy

My initial thought was The Shadows @Newportnobby .
Now, if you like a bit of foot tapping honkey tonk guitar and keyboard you might enjoy this :


Just bear with the first couple of minutes of this clip.

The Shadows in bell jars
The audience (such as it is) looks suitably impressed............................not