u/SignificantCricket

Those who look at UK subreddits may be familiar with the neverending subject of what people in different areas of the UK call, for example, a bread bun (petit pain), and, less frequently, other regional vocab differences.

There are social media accounts giving maps of vocab that varies between areas of France, like Françaisdenosrégions, but what they don’t necessarily communicate is which of these terms the French see as most indicative of where someone is from, which ones they love talking about etc.

What would you say these are?

Aside from pains au chocolat. That’s been so visible it got boring.

In threads on undergrad applications elsewhere, I would usually favour the higher ranking uni, especially if the prospective student is international, or they are likely to end up in an unrelated field of work.

But I now find myself looking at a choice between two unis with dozens of places between them in rankings and very seriously considering the lower one. As there are more staff who share more of my interests, and they have been a lot friendlier to me, this seems good for networking, and just probably a nicer place to be.

Yet I can’t help thinking from the POV of anyone outside of specific subfields looking at my CV and thinking I can’t be much good if I previously attended good RGs but then a new uni for higher level stuff, or “that’s not a real research Masters” (the workload does look quite a bit less though it’s called the same number of credits).

I think about a few very clever people I know who did postgrad at lower ranked unis because they didn’t want to move again, and decades later (friends and I are nearing 50) they seem rather stuck in their academic careers, and people in some circles underestimate them.

If I do ever get to do a PhD it will be self funded, as will be able to afford it, and also means less pressure. So perhaps in that case prestige matters less?

Having looked at (and squashed) quite a few in shops, it seems like the cheaper ones still have that fairly rigid structure that is obviously synthetic, where you may as well be under a sheet of light cardboard.

What are the best ones that really drape and squash up like feathers do?

I have tried so many times over a number of years and numerous app updates, always on iPhone, and it has never, ever accepted safeplaces in the Other category. That bloody “Oops! Something has gone wrong, please try again” message always appears and it doesn’t register. And the selection of places in the pull down menu is narrower than those for most other delivery companies, so you are more likely to need “Other”.

There are more new postmen recently so this is becoming more important. (And I’m not leaving a note on the door because that will tell potential porch pirates exactly where to look.)

I have tried phoning to register one but they always say the only way is in the app.

Do Android users also have difficulty with this?

Any ways round it people have found?

Garage doors are one area of trades that I have never had to deal with before, at the age of nearly 50. Where are good places, which are not just sales spiel on garage door companies’ websites, where I can find out a bit more about types of doors and what needs they meet, and which can be overkill, and common pitfalls and tricks of the trade?

I guess I'm wanting the equivalent of, in the 90s or 2000s, reading a load of articles on Which or similar. I have this idea that these places are probably commonly rip-off merchants like double glazing companies can be, and you have to know your stuff to avoid the bad ones.

Features I would be looking for: more difficult to break into than the old ones that just have a small key that looks like a window key, not very heavy to lift, and is straightforward to operate without electricity (whether that's a backup feature, or it just isn't powered in the first place.)

I have a fairly old-fashioned system where I have dozens of washable dishcloths for the kitchen, and also a lot of flannels / washcloths for the bathroom, which are only used once before washing. As I live on my own, and I wait until there is enough for a decent sized load in the machine for any given setting, these end up, at best, hung around the sides of plastic laundry baskets waiting to be washed in a batch about once a week. (I know not to stuff a washing machine full, but I am not doing 1/3 of a drum. Also, electricity is more expensive in the UK than in some other countries.)

I would like to work out a system for these which takes up very little extra space and which can allow everything to dry while it is waiting to be washed, so it is not at risk of getting mouldy in hot weather, and is generally a bit more pleasant to deal with. Towels would also benefit from it, but they are not sopping wet and so don’t take as long to dry as the cloths. (I don’t use terry towels, so towels don’t take up as much room as standard terry ones.)

There must be a few other people who have similar systems with reusable cloths, and have worked out better organisation for laundry in small households. I don’t have masses of space for large airers, especially not in rooms with hard floors where drips don’t matter. (Extra space that can be found, where airers would not be in the way is largely in carpeted areas far from the washing machine. Besides, it would be odd and not very convenient, carting kitchen cloths up to a spare bedroom.) But I guess some kind of airer is needed?