I've been subscribed to the Guardian for a while and I think that's a bit harsh - yes they offer the cooking app (which I looked at and I don't use) but apart from that the contact from them has been perfectly reasonable?
I think the rest of the comms was triggered by me just signing up. But I would deem that negative, I didn't sign up because I wanted to personalise or deepen my interaction, just to send some cash their way.
For example: On the guardian website when I created my account it defaulted me to on for sending me communications my post, phone and SMS about their products and services and for marketing research. I find that unacceptable.
They offer an "Unsubscribe from all email" button but this is only available in their online settings, if you click on an unwanted email and unsubscribe there, the above settings remain on.
And it was just an example. It's just every time I sign up for something it's not just that, I also have to unsubscribe for a bunch of mailing lists and surveys I never asked for. And go through all the privacy settings and turn off all the crap where they use my information. Sometimes even periodically like on LinkedIn where they keep adding new settings that default to on.
To be fair I did find their subscription process a bit confusing - I think I actually managed to subscribe twice at one point. But since I got that all sorted out I think it's been fine - I mostly use the mobile app (no notifications) and the main website via a desktop browser. I checked my gmail account and I get an email from them on average every 2 or 3 days which is fine as they often do alert me to stuff I am particularly interested in.
The A9 is actually pretty scary in parts because it alternates between dual carriageway and single carriageway and people have been known to get that wrong and thing they are on a dual carriageway when it is a single carriageway...
I've done that and I've driven on the A9 hundreds if not thousands of times.
What's worse is that the inbuilt mapping in a lot of new cars think bits of it are 70mph dual carriageway when it's still single carriageway, and vice-versa.
Same - driven up and down there countless times, but I still sometimes get alarmed on some of the dual carriageway parts where you can't see the other carriageway and I have a momentary panic of "This is a dual carriageway, isn't it?".
There was a big canal bank collapse in December, and you can see in news photos the drained bits of the canal around the hole. The boats sitting on the canal bed are barely lower than they are normally when floating. Looks like 4 feet deep.
"people who have no idea how hard life is already for a kid who is disabled"
I have two disabled siblings out of the four kids my parents had - I didn't really appreciate what that meant for my parents until I had kids - I can only guess at the stress they must have gone through.
So yes, having kids sucks sometimes, but its also the most important thing that most of us do. And yes, as a dog-owning empty nester, I can confirm its not the same, not even close.
Brutalist architecture certainly has an emotional impact for me - mostly horror.
On a happy note, the incredibly ugly Argyle House in Edinburgh is going to be demolished soon - how anyone thought it was a good idea to build such a thing in that location is a mystery (its evil twin in the form of New St Andrews House having been demolished years ago).
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