Best game for kids (by far IMHO) is Top Trumps. Every game a maths lesson and they have no idea. Obviously Monopoly is the best game but capitalism is a bit keen for a 3 year old. Teaches them how to hold and deck and deal too. Critical when playing proper card games later on. I assume you’ve all played Wizard?
Maybe to the parenting thread? We seem to have gone from UK politics to rainy days in Wales playing cards.
It was an absolute blessing for me as a kid when we got a car with a radio in it. On a related matter I once got a SW radio for Christmas one year. I was fascinated for hours at night tuning into overseas broadcasts.
Dad never slapped me or raised a hand…but boy could he tell me off…lecturing me for what seemed hours…on the pros n cons of why he was telling me off…me just looking and thinking…hurry up…
Remember heading down to Cornwall as a youngster, in my parents old Ford Anglia. The car used to burn up and use more oil, than it did petrol. So much so, it dried out the back of your throat and so we had to have the windows rolled down to get rid of the fumes… If, and when we got rowdy in the back of the car, my dad told us many years later on, he used to get us to wind the windows up for a couple of minutes. Apparently that’s all the time it took for the fumes to knock us out cold… then he would wind the windows down again and drive on in peaceful bliss… Was too young to remember the finer details of this, but with my dad, you could never exactly know when he was telling us the truth, or pulling our leg :0)
Some people say everything is political. I think y’all might be taking that too far.
I’m that older one. Music, books, sports.
I spent my paper money to buy a Walkman in the 80s. Loved music had lots of cassette tapes and my own cassette player in my room. Couldn’t play music for shit though. Just had a crack at guitar again, got frustrated and sold it
My son has a full bookshelf in his room, had already finished entire series of books that we have found for him
LEGO
My grandson was on holiday with us…in Ayia Napa…one morning we went down to the sunloungers and he had placed a copy of Diary of a Wimpy kid on the sun loungers for us to read…
I caught one of these off the Hoyle Bank in the Dee estuary. Not to far along the coast from Rhyl. About 4’ long. I pooed my pants as I reeled it in and saw it on the end of my line. I’d only caught mackerel up till then. 
Mildly giving your kids carbon monoxide poisoning. Now that’s parenting 
You don’t have to call it paper money. I’m sure the younger lads know we didn’t always use cards to pay for stuff. 
Something…something…politics…
Cards? You dinosaur.
It’s phones and watches now.
yeah, here’s a tip, don’t try to pay the m6 toll with a phone………
No choice in my world.
There’s always a choice.
Huge waste of money on a project more dangerous than tap dancing in a mine field. The hard shoulder is critical to motorway safety. Bloody idiots 
If they use the hard shoulder then they are effectively downgrading the road to a large dual carriageway. You should expect to have similar safety levels.
I don’t think this is safety related, though. If it was, they would abandon the schemes that they have started on the M56. It looks like a simple cost cutting exercise with no other plan in place.
Motorways are scary places, even on the hard shoulder.
Without saying anymore on whether Smart motorways are a good idea or otherwise, if you continually fail to maintain your infrastructure you very quickly get into deep doo da. Personally I have a real problem with how councils are funded and managed. It’s a very broken part of the UK set up. It gets a little easier at national level where large projects are funded as one offs but the maintenance side is managed as a budget. That has major issues as do councils.
I’d also add that the construction industry is a cornerstone of the economy. Economy down, construction down big style.
As someone who works in the highways department of councils I couldn’t agree more.
Yeah, I used to work on the other side and saw the issues at close hand.
I’m now working on the Client side but not in highways and there are similar issues there too.
Procurement in public services is very very broken for starters.
