u/Fine_Cress_649

Still just about counts as a spoiler I think

Here's what I think caused Richard E Grant's disastrous "I'm a traitor" gaffe.

He was in "after party" mode.

His brain was in that mode of "well, I've done my acting tonight and that's over with so now I can just relax with a drink with the other thesps"

Presumably for most of his acting career there have always been this division between when you're acting, when you're "on stage", you're performing you keep up the facade for the punters, etc, and then the other times when you're relaxing with your fellow cast and crew after the performance is over, often with a drink in a nice bar or (probably) castle. At that point you - literally - drop the act and chat about how the play or whatever is going.

He just forgot in that moment that this game doesn't work like that.

I just had a random memory of being at uni 20 odd years ago and one of the other student brought up Atticus Finch in a seminar about an unrelated topic. The lecturer - who was well over 50 - looked visibly confused and I confidently explained to them that Atticus Finch was the school janitor from a children's book called Harry Potter.

Why do people like Elon Musk, or Peter Thiel or Larry Ellison not just retire and spend the rest of their lives chilling and enjoying their money or spend time with their friends and families? Why do they keep trying to accumulate more?

We're hoping to move house in the next year or so - as far as I'm concerned as soon as possible. I'm not *that* bothered about the price we get for our flat and would even sell for a bit less than we bought it for 5 years ago if it meant a quick sale. On the other hand my partner is insistent that we do a load of work to it to maximise the price. Our neighbours sold up last year and although their flat was in a better state than ours it sold in a week.

Ours could definitely do with a bit of work here and there - e.g. there are some unpainted skirting boards, some walls where there is only a mist coat on bare plaster. The only majorish thing that needs doing is that the roof needs about £1k spending on it. All of it could probably be done in about 2 months if we put our mind to it. However my partner is talking about putting in a new kitchen, changing the layout in the bathroom, getting new windows and a new patio, all sorts, because she's read online that we'd get more money when we sell.

Wwyd? Have you done a lot of work and sold or just sold in middling condition?

"angle" here meaning the angle made by line a joining the cueball and the target ball and line b from the target to the pockeylt.

Intuitively you would think that it's easiest if they line up i.e. the angle is 180 degrees (π radians). However I feel in real life like that is harder and maybe an angle of around 150 degrees is easiest?

We've recently travelled from Scotland to Italy and back on an interrail pass. By far the most unpleasant experience was the check in and waiting room at St Pancras. The need to queue up for check in/passport control obviously i understand but there seemed to be four or five people whose job was to shout at people in the queue for standing too close to the shop windows (?) and then the majority of the time queuing was actually just the walk down the zigzaggy cordoned off space (iykwim)

But then once you're through the checkin the waiting room is just horrendous. There were easily twice as many people, if not more, than should sensibly be in there at any one time, in this windowless and airless underground bunker. Then when the platform was announced the queueing was pretty chaotic, especially as another train left 4 minutes after hours so there were two queues going through different sets of doors if that makes sense.

Compared to (say) Gare Du Nord or literally any other station we went to (we didn't go to Euston) it was just awful

Bit of an odd one. I'm a GP and regularly sign people off sick. However I realised the other day I have absolutely no idea what happens after I do that. Like, how do companies and employers deal with people who are off sick? Especially if they're off for a long time.

The vast, vast majority are completely appropriate, e.g. for broken bones, cancer, acute illnesses, after operations, etc. That said, a small minority of people ask for them for really spurious reasons - e.g. someone once asked me to sign them off for a month for ear wax.

The thing is I rarely refuse to do so (I did refuse the ear wax one) because it's just too much hassle to argue with a patient, potentially have to answer a complaint etc. for no tangible benefit for me or the NHS. But then, I'm also not that bothered about people taking the piss with their employers. Like, if someone works for Macdonald's and can manage to get 2 months of sick pay then good for them as far as I'm concerned.

But I feel like these people are going to get into trouble with their employers and might somehow be under the impression that a sick note from me is going to protect them from getting sacked when it's not.

So I'm wondering how companies generally deal with these things. Do they put any stock in what I write? Would someone at the company look at a sick note saying "ear wax" and just be like "this person is getting sacked asap" or do they just go through some sort of return to work process? Are these employees actually protected by the sick line? Basically does what I do with these sick notes matter?

Just reflecting on a case I had last week where a patient came in and announced "I have a chest infection and I need antibiotics" and then when I started asking questions about their symptoms they got narky with me. Turned out the actually had chest pain and were breathless and ended up having a PE but I feel like I could've easily missed it if I'd just taken the easy way out and given them a script for amoxicillin and sent them on their way. As it happened I still gave them some antibiotics because they were convinced I was wrong but agreed to go in for a CTPA.

I had another one the other day who sat down and announced they wanted a pelvic ultrasound and then got huffy when I asked them why. They had secondary amenorrhoea and when I suggested that we would normally recommend checking some bloods for that they looked at me like I had three heads.

Like, I don't mind ICE and all that but I feel that ultimately if I miss something because they think they've got X and I've just go along with it, but they actually have Y - particularly if Y is more serious than X - then I'm going to look a bit silly/get sued

Cristiano Ronaldo - incredibly talented, incredibly successful, incredibly hard working, but despite all that he has always been second best to Messi. And because of this - and the fact that it seems to make him miserable - he has always struck me as quite a tragic figure.

In any other era he would have been the greatest footballer, but instead he was always just one step behind Messi. Because of this he has always seemed just a bit hollow despite all of his achievements. He has also just had quite an undignified end to his international career, bringing down his own beloved Portugal team's performance at this world cup by insisting on being the main figure despite the fact he is clearly not up to that standard any more.

Is there a literary character that parallels this? The best I can think of is Salieri in Amadeus

I have injured my right shoulder (grade 2 acj disruption). I'm seeing a physio and doing my exercises on both arms of course.

I need some more ideas for lower body and core exercises I can do which don't use my shoulder whatsoever whilst it recovers. E.g. hanging leg raises, deadlifts, L-sits, dragon flag, abs roller, plank are all completely out of the question. Even hollow body holds are dicey because I'm not supposed to put my arms over my head even unweighted.

Pistol squats, sprints, single leg bodyweight deadlifts, lying leg raises and bodyweight calf raises are fine but are about all I've thought of at the moment. I have access to a gym but have tended to just stick to bodyweight where possible, but I'd be happy enough to use some other equipment just while I recover.

TIA

I've been doing calisthenics for about 2 years - came from rock climbing so have progressed fairly quickly. Last year I decided to lose some weight and dropped about 8kg over 4 months, mainly via intermittent fasting. What really surprised me was that I felt like my calisthenics plateaued or even regressed during that time. I would have thought that I'd maintain or even improve as I'd reduce the resistance.

Since the start of the year I've just eaten as usual and put back on about 5kg. But actually I think I've progressed at the same time - e.g. I tested my 1RM pullup this week and it's now 40kg whereas it was 30kg late last year, my max pull-ups have gone from 12 to 16 - even though I'm now pulling more weight - I've progressed from pike pushups to wall assisted HSPUs etc.

Thing is, I feel just a bit gross. I hate having the extra weight on and I want to lose it again, but simultaneously want to keep progressing with calisthenics.

Does anyone have any advice for a sensible strategy to try to do both simultaneously? I would prefer something with low cognitive load - I CBA weighing my food or that sort of thing - although admittedly I may need to do that.

I've been doing calisthenics consistently for about a year. I've been researching specific calisthenics classes in my area and there is only one which is 2 hours away so I wouldn't be able to go regularly - Max once a month I think.

I've made really good progress on my own I think - e.g when I started I could do maybe 3 pull-ups and now I'm up to 13, I can do 3x5 L-sit pull-ups, 4 finger pull-ups, ring dips, advanced tuck front lever, couple of muscle ups, crow pose etc

What I want from seeing a trainer is some form checks, sense check and maybe for them to teach me stuff that I don't realise I don't know, or point out things I don't realise I'm doing wrong.

Has anyone else done this? Was it worthwhile?

I see a lot of people online saying that despite eating in x calorie deficit for y months they simply can't lose weight. They usually blame this on some kind of vague metabolic problem and conclude that it is physically impossible for them to lose weight without some sort of medical intervention.

To me, just from a thermodynamic standpoint, this makes no sense. We only get energy and mass from eating and drinking, therefore if you put less in then your mass will shrink. The most likely reason that they're still struggling is either wrong about the calories in/calories out or they just naturally have a slow metabolism that means they need less calories than online calculators suggest they do or (less likely) they're lying to themselves and/or others.

But is there any physiological basis for this idea that some people cannot lose weight? Not that it's slow, or harder than for others or being in a calorie deficit feels subjectively worse to them, but they plain cannot? Or is there any kind definite way of refusing this besides "it defies common sense"?

There seems to be constant drama in my 10 year olds class, with kids just being assholes to each other. Everyone trying to bully everyone else, constant jostling about who's cool and who's not, excluding each other from games or at lunchtime, trying to tear each other down and belittle one another, some physical bullying, constant name-calling and swearing and calling each other grasses. I know two kids had some massive drama when one scratched the others face during a play date, and another pair were egged on to have a fist fight in the playground after school to settle some score or other.

They used to all be nice to each other until maybe a year ago. Our friend's eldest had the same problem when he hit 10 - all the kids just turned.

The girls don't seem to be half as bad and I thought they were supposed to be worse at this age.

First our situation - we live in Scotland. I am a partner in a GP practice. I joined the partnership earlier this year, prior to that I was self-employed as a locum doctor. Total profit for the practice is around 800k of which my share is around 175k. After tax and pension this equates to about 72k take home of which I receive 4k/month and then any remainder as a lump sum at the end of the year. My partner (not married, long term cohabitation) has a part-time job which pays 5k/year. One child, no plans for another.

We currently live in a flat we bought for 189k 5 years ago, probably worth about 200k now. 75k left on the mortgage. We have about 20k in easily accessible savings

I would like to buy a house to move into whilst we renovate and then sell the flat. I think that would take under a year and not much money - less than 10k as it is mostly just things like painting - but obviously these things sometimes grow legs. The main reason for this is a) it would be quicker and simpler and b) the flat is a bit of a mess at the moment - nothing major just usual "we've been living here 5 years with busy lives and young child" stuff.

Is this just something I should go to a mortgage broker about and explain and see how much we can borrow? Are there any major stumbling blocks and/or hidden costs with my plan?