That’s interesting to know, thanks! Most coffee shops where I live would probably never get busy enough to use a spare shot. Perhaps they change out to a single shot portafilter, but I’ve never noticed.

Follow-up question - each portafilter is two shots right? So if you end up adding an third shot to a coffee, what do you do with the leftover fourth one?

(Or do you have a smaller, single shot portafilter?)

Storygraph is quite a good alternative from my experience

There is definitely an element of that from the article and I agree it’s ridiculous. Some authors and their followers attack those who give poor reviews (because they can’t accept criticism, instead arguing that a ‘professional’ review would give them a much better score) and on the other side you have people reviewing books that aren’t even out. In many cases it’s no longer a place to find genuine reviews, but an unmoderated wild west with crap at both extremes (a bit like Twitter in that respect). It’s a shame because there are plenty of people leaving great reviews, but it’s becoming much harder to find them.

What sort of things would you try to gain knowledge in?

I hadn’t heard of that before - looks like they have some clubs in the UK so I’ll investigate. Thanks!

What do you mean by active listening exactly?

Thanks for the insight - I hadn’t considered that announcing the silence in that way could be useful, but I see what you mean.

Yes I think you’re right - sometimes I’ll feel like I need to fill a silence, and end up spewing out nonsense. Then I’ll feel embarrassed and struggle with the rest of the conversation. It’s quite hard to un-learn that feeling of silence being uncomfortable, but it would definitely give time to help me think.

I think I’m quite good at asking questions, but when it comes back the other way my mind often goes blank. It could be that I don’t perform well under pressure, so maybe I need more practice with that. Speaking slowly is a good suggestion - I find myself speaking way too fast when I want to get a point out.

I’ve had a quick look into that, and yes that does provide some good pointers for general questions to get a conversation going. What should I do if I’m the one being asked those questions and I’m floundering though?

Thanks for the heads up :) The same brand does a conditioner that is silicone free, so I’ll try that out

I ended up getting a Safari fountain pen and wow! It’s so smooth. Way better than any I’ve used in the past. I’ve been writing stuff for the hell of it just to try it out. I’m so used to pressing down with some force whilst using a ballpoint (especially the first time you use it each day) so this makes a nice change.

Thinking back to when we were made to use them at school, we were told that the nib would wear down to fit our writing style… which I think was nonsense. Pretty sure I used to use more pressure than was necessary back then, to try and get the pen to ‘mould’ faster. If I’d been taught to use them correctly maybe I’d have enjoyed it more back then.

Thanks for this! Do you reckon a product like this (Sukin Natural Balance Shampoo) would be ok? It claims to be sulfate and paraben free

I’m not sure what you mean by this question, but while I’m here can anyone recommend a shampoo/conditioner brand that won’t dry out my hair? I have quite thick hair for context.

I think that’s the bug they put in Neo in the first Matrix film

Whoa, some amazing paint jobs! The detail is insane

Yeah, they changed too much unnecessarily whilst keeping the rest of the game identical. The addition of first person shooting really broke it in some ways because the original game wasn’t designed that way. I think they’d need to redesign it from the ground up to make the more modern mechanics work properly. Something like RE2 Remake.

This would make for a really cool novel/tv series!

Thanks for the info. I didn’t realise fountain pens worked using capillary action. When I was younger we had to use fountain pens in school for a few years and I remember them being slightly frustrating. But nowadays I don’t need to write nearly as much/whilst under pressure, so I could see a fountain pen being quite nice. Plus, I’m pretty sure the ones I used were cheap and scratchy; if the brand you mentioned is good quality I might give one a go.