Sue

However I don't understand how I could check if the SSD is detected without being able to see anything on the screen? Or how I could run any diagnostic tools without being able to see anything on the screen?

Thanks Vladi, I will look into this.

Sorry, I don't understand? Whenever I take items to the shop I say I want gift aid added. The first time you do it, you get a card with a number on, but also they put your name, address and email address, plus the gift aid number, onto their computer records. So if you don't have the card or number with you, they can track the number from that. If you mean the notification of the amount for tax purposes, apparently you can opt how to be notified, which also goes onto that record, and which to the best of my knowledge I was never asked, hence the recent problem.

My phone doesn't show a URL for the forum at all!

OK, I have been extremely stupid. This is a long and sorry saga, so unless you are into schadenfreude, or know about laptops and might actually be able to help, you probably need to stop reading here. I got a new laptop last May, with a 2 year guarantee from John Lewis (that was my first mistake, but the laptop met all my requirements at a very good price). I hate OneDrive, and I had been using Carbonite for backing up files. When I got the new laptop, the files from my old laptop which had been backed up on Carbonite were downloaded onto it. For tedious reasons originally related to problems with my old laptop, files and folders were duplicated all over the place. Sorting this out wasn't top of my priorities. In an attempt to at least keep new files, and files edited since I bought the laptop, in one place and completely separate from all the old duplicated files, I saved them all into folders on the SSD. However, I didn't restart the Carbonite backup, because my intention was to sort out all the duplicate files first. About a fortnight ago, I bought an external hard drive. My intention was to copy everything on the new laptop onto it before I started deleting any of the duplicate files. I hadn't done that yet because I had to finish doing my accounts and then do my online tax return. So the copying was next on my To Do list. The inevitable happened. Out of the blue, my laptop went into complete meltdown. I was editing a spreadsheet and went into settings to turn the brightness up. I checked the brightness was ok on the spreadsheet, came out of settings, and suddenly everything went black. I did all the obvious things, then googled other possible fixes, including specific to my laptop model, but nothing worked. On starting the laptop, the Lenovo logo came up, the little white circle turned round, the red light for face recognition flashed, then zilch. But clearly it wasn't a problem with the physical screen, as it displayed the logo. It wouldn't start in safe mode either. I thought I might either have accidentally changed some setting, or else it might be connected with a recent update I couldn't try some of the tests suggested, eg removing RAM, because anything involving physically unscrewing my laptop would invalidate the guarantee I am a member of Which Tech, so I contacted them. Obviously their hands were rather tied as they couldn't connect remotely to the laptop as there was no display. They said I couldn't have clicked on some other setting by mistake, as the display section only related to the display. They said they thought it was probably an issue with either the operating system or the mother board, or a component of them. They said it should be possible to identify the fault without losing my data. Given the involvement of John Lewis, I said I thought this was unlikely, as they had once told me to do an unnecessary factory reset on my old laptop and told me this wouldn't lose my data, which I had queried at the time, and had to pay me compensation. So at this point I phoned John Lewis, to be told a repair would take "up to 28 working days" and no they wouldn't supply a replacement laptop during that time. I decided to take the laptop to John Lewis rather than have it collected, so their tech people could look at it first. So then the JL tech person said I must have clicked on Bitlocker by mistake and locked myself out out of the laptop. I thought this was highly unlikely. Anyway, pursuing this line of thought did not help, and she was still unable to get into it by putting in the Bitlocker code. So then we had the data saving conversation. She said the company the laptop would go to was approved by Lenovo. She said they would do a factory reset first regardless. I said could they not try to identify the fault first. She said no. I said could I not request that they did. She said no. She said I could pay £150 for data retrieval, which could be done first. She said it would require removing the hard drive. She said if anybody else did this it would invalidate the guarantee. So. I have brought the laptop home to think things over. But I'm not willing to pay £150, because the important files I can reconstruct by other means, and I have hard copies of most of them, it's just a time consuming pain. I have contacted Carbonite to see if they have any way of backing up the non backed up data even though I can't get into the laptop. If you have managed to reach the end of this post, congratulations 🤣 and do you have any bright ideas? I have typed all this on my mobile. It has taken a very very long time 🤣

There was a very long thread following that first post I screenshotted (?) above. I have just re-read the thread. If anybody knows how I can link to it on this thread, please let me know. It's very interesting (but also pretty appalling).

Voluntary organisations are probably not making use of the boards any more because of the state they are in. To the best of my knowledge a small number of people had keys originally, but I have no idea who has them now. I imagine it is going to take a fair amount of time to get all this properly up and running again, and then properly maintained.

You can always check when they registered on the forum, if you are suspicious. But I recommended Aria, and it certainly wasn't my only post on here, and it was a genuine recommendation. ETA: And he didn't ask me to make it, to the best of my recollection. But even if he had, many local tradespeople ask people to post on here if they are happy with the work that has been done.

I am not a patient at this practice, but surely it is more sensible to have an initial phone discussion, as often the GP wouldn't need to see someone face to face unless they actually needed to physically examine them? This then leaves the available face to face appointments for patients who need them. And if during the phone call the GP felt you needed examining, then arrangements could be made for a face to face. If you feel your ailment is such that you will definitely need to be physically examined, can you not explain that to the receptionist?

Give Labour a chance, they've only been in government for a short time, and they inherited a mess! As regards the notice boards, to the best of my recollection they were originally intended as community notice boards, and certainly not for advertising local businesses (who would decide which businesses should have the limited space on the boards, anyway?) East Dulwich may have become more gentrified since the boards were first introduced, but that surely doesn't mean they should now be completely taken over for the benefit of the "middle classes", to the exclusion of everybody else? As NewWave says, surely these people have other ways to find out about groups and events of interest to them, which the "non middle classes" may not have access to, and even if they did may not be able to afford them. Several people including myself have complained to councillors about the state of the noticeboards in the past. I think one of the issues is that they were originally maintained by local volunteers, who may have either moved out of the area or lost interest - or given up in despair when the boards were flypostered and/or vandalised. I completely agree that the boards should be used for information about not for profit organisations in the area, but if regular maintenance can't be provided and/or they continue to be vandalised, then I think it would be better if they were removed altogether.

I'm not sure how to link to it, but there is actually another thread on here solely about Arapina, also negative but for a different reason. A search on Arapina will bring it up, but here's a screenshot. This is why I have never been there.

It's sorted now. When I asked in the shop, I found that someone had taken it upon themselves to put against my name and card number that I didn't want contacting by either post or email! ?!?!?! Anyway, I spoke to the fundraising department at their head office, and found I had donated over £500 worth of goods in 2023-4, which was news to me (good news, obviously!) and therefore made quite a lot of gift aid money for them (and a tiny bit of tax deduction for me 😀) Anyone who hasn't received an email or letter from them re gift aid, and was expecting one, maybe check that the same thing hasn't happened to you!

Thanks all, I will investigate!

The Japanese place in North Cross Road also does sushi (or did last time we were there!) ETA: Just remembered its name is Monkatsu! I don't like sushi, but the rest of its food is good, so I expect the sushi is too! Edited again to say oops, I posted the previous edit before I had seen Rockets' post below!

Oh dear. Sadly I had a disappointing meal on Saturday night. I should have read Malumbu's review above before I ordered. I thought I'd have a dosa for a change. Our meal arrived very quickly. However the dosa was more like a thick and very soggy pancake. The filling was fine. The sambar (sp?) was fine. The chutneys were not what I was expecting, and had a consistency more like sauces. That might be my lack of knowledge of South Indian food, but I would have expected the coconut chutney to at least taste a bit like coconut. I left most of the actual dosa. My OH said his aubergine curry was delicious. I don't know whether the problem was that the dosa got soggy due to being wrapped in foil to be delivered, but tbh it didn't look like it had ever been a thin crispy dosa 😥 as I have always had in the past at South Indian restaurants.

There's Gather in Bellenden Road. And doesn't the Turkish (?) shop sell no packaging things? I'm sure it used to at one point. Maybe it stopped.

If nobody on here knows, I will ask at a DIY shop. I already googled, but most of the solutions aren't feasible for me, I don't think.

Perhaps you know more than I do then. ETA: I expect everyone who read your post has googled the case now. I did. I don't normally read the local papers. And if the details of the court case are in the public domain, and will be in the papers when the case actually comes to be heard, it is going to be rather hard to keep them "private", I would have thought. Obviously I have every sympathy for the family, regardless of the circumstances. You raise an interesting point, and I'd be interested to know what others (and admin's) views are on this.

I think admin has ways of finding out if someone is, or has been, posting under more than one forum name. I don't know if they are 100% reliable ways though!

What is HB Therapy?!

I saw that, but what most concerned me was that when she immediately reported it to the police, with a description of the driver and the car, plus the reg number, she said they did not show much interest. That of itself doesn't mean they then did nothing, but it's concerning. Particularly as, according to other posts on that thread, this man has been involved in a number of very aggressive driving incidents recently. And I think some of those had also been reported to the police.

Do they not triage in some way at the outset to assess the potential seriousness? I'm with The Gardens, and if ever there was something clearly needing immediate assessment I would get a phone appointment that day and then a face to face appointment if the GP thought it was urgent and necessary. I might be wrong, but it's my understanding that they keep some slots free for this each day, though I don't know what happens if they aren't used, or if they are "extra" slots. If it's not anything serious, I don't have a problem with waiting for a phone appointment, or for a face to face appointment if it's obviously something which needs to be physically looked at by the GP. And there's always 111 (?911?) if you can't wait, and googling or a pharmacist can't help, or A&E/999 if necessary. I know it's frustrating, but sadly the days when you just turned up at a surgery and would be seen that day, albeit after a long wait in a crowded waiting room, are long gone. ETA: That doesn't mean that I don't agree that there seems to be something very wrong at TJ.

Isn't it up to admin what is appropriate to discuss on here? Of course it's not akin to casually asking about an empty shop space. It is a terrible incident which is clearly of local interest, and the fact that people are sympathetic is clearly demonstrated by the response to Jellybeanz' kind gesture. Where have you seen anything suggesting anyone is treating it like a discussion on a true crime documentary? Why is it inappropriate to be asking about the court case?

Oh dear, sorry 😭 Always different opinions on a forum!

Is there any way of soundproofing a single glazed sash window? Would polythene sheeting work? If I replaced the window, I would have triple glazing, but it's a small room used as an office which I'm not in all that often, so I really don't want to go to that expense.