gary1979666

I've seen people talk about picking up cheap tickets to poor selling events before - where would you normally find these? Or is it just Slam Dunk selling them off?

I didn't get a ticket this year either and have been a consistent attendee over the years. Just didn't feel worth it. Looking at the clash finder, my day would be : Snuff - As December Falls - Mad Caddies - Skints - H2O - Pennywise - Goldfinger - Interrupters (with maybe finding time for AAR or FFAF) Which is a decent day for me, but I've seen a lot of them over the last few years, so really doesn't justify the increase. Hoping they have a bad year attendee-wise and learn their lesson.

Watched the first episode the other night with my other half and your summary was very true to life - she decided very quickly that it would be one that I'd be watching on my own!

Watched the first one last night and quite enjoyed it. Really liked the film when it came out. My other half hadn't heard of it before - I think it might break her.

Any idea when the day splits will get announced? Hoping for Spunge and Punk Rock Factory on the same day, on a weekend - then I'm a dead cert for a day ticket.

I tend to agree - don't think any of them are bad - they're just not as good as they were. Though not sure if that's just because there were so many of them. I quite enjoyed Eternals and Thor 4, but both were panned. Saying that, you know when a good one comes along - No Way Home was amazing. Even the Flash was a good superhero romp.

Went on Saturday with my lad. It was ok - plenty of flaws but filled in the time well enough. Does make you wonder if the Spiderverse type movies will continue beyond Venom. Kraven due out later in the year I think, but not sure I can be bothered with it. The MCU side is feeling very lacking too - Marvels was average, Antman 3 the same, GOTG was decent. TV wise enjoyed Loki, but Secret Invasion was bad and Echo feels unneeded.

I saw them the year they did the secret set at Slam Dunk. Went in sceptical, but they went down a storm. I know SD is more pop punk friendly than DL, but it's hardly hostile. I reckon they'll be a triumph at Download as well - a lot of pop punk singalong anthems to close the day. There's no pretentiousness about Busted, they went out and had a good time - the crowd will feed off that.

I sneaked that onto our family Xmas playlist - it came on in the car with the kids over the weekend....the Mrs was not impressed! How I laughed!

2 episodes in and enjoying it. That was one of my favourite Reacher books too, so high expectations.

I've never been a big Hugh Grant fan (all the crappy romcoms, etc), but the last couple of things I've seen him in, he's done a decent job and poked a bit of fun at himself. He stole the show for me in Paddington 2.

Just got to the end of Billions - it's had it's patchy moments throughout, but think they got the finale spot on.

It's a bit underwhelming- I'd normally drift to the Interrupters stage....and it's full of bands I like, but they had the Ints & Pennywise there last year, Goldfinger & the Skints have played a lot too. It's decent, but there's no WOW about it. Esp if the price is going up. Feels like a big downgrade on the last few years.

I had a piss up against that tree when I was 10....then announced as such when I saw it in Prince of Thieves at the cinema! Quite why Costner rode through Northumberland when heading to Notts, is another matter!

That's one way around it and I'm sure a few might, but most of them wouldn't risk it - it'd be a big old expense which would flag to any auditor or could get picked up at a VAT inspection.

I know, but if they charge £100 now and then have to apply 20% VAT, but want to keep the end price at £100, then the base price would be ~£83, so that ~£83 + 20% = £100. So a ~17% drop in revenue. I guess my private education bought me an ability to do percentages. It's maths, init?😉

I can't imagine many private schools would be able to afford a 17% cut in their income and swallow the VAT. In reality, it'll be a combination of the two. I would have thought their motivations are largely to do with making the numbers work to keep the school going, rather than to make a political statement (I'm not saying that some won't, esp the bigger names like Eton, Harrow, etc, but generally not.)

There's a bit of a nuance that you're missing though - VAT isn't the choice of the business - they have to add on the 20% to the customer and pass that back to HMRC. What the business / school has control of is where the base charge is set. I would imagine that the school will keep fees the same and blame the increase entirely on the government. If they see numbers dwindle, then they may choose to revise fees. But lower fees and or lower numbers mean lower VAT take for the govt. I get your point on whether there should or shouldn't be the opt out - there should be a standard level of education for all. But that isn't available class to class, let alone school to school. But that's a different debate for now. I'm just thinking about the impact of adding 20% to the fees.

It's an odd one for me; as it's the parents who will be paying more. The schools themselves will get the same money per pupil; they just have to pay the extra 20% of fees to the govt. I'd imagine that there are a lot of the parents out there who can only just afford the fees. My folks struggled to send me to private school 30 years ago, when the fees were much, much less (and in the North East). Now, I can't afford the fees for my son, not even close. So it's those at the bottom end of private school, who'll no longer be able to afford it (average cost is £17k/yr - so will increase to over £20k. Those kids will end up coming back into the state sector for education, while the super rich grab the extra grand a term out of their spare change. Not sure it's that much of a vote winner; those who support it, will likely already vote labour.

Thought I may have ended up a bit to the right of the y axis, but must be nicer than I gave myself credit for!

At least it wasn't bad faith actors!

It's definitely not fun for a lot of people out there, but there's also an element of it being their own fault. Yes, we've had a period of ultra low interest rates, but there's no guarantee that it would stay like that - when getting a mortgage, you need to make sure it's still affordable if there's a decent shift in the rates, rather than borrowing up to the hilt. It's hard, but there's some personal responsibility out that needs to be taken. It's easy to say here, given Iast year I locked in for 10 years at 2.3%, but even with that, I made sure we we're crazy with what we borrowed and compromised on what we bought, so there was some wiggle room.

That would be a clash though. Can't see either of them in any other stage.

She would get one hell of a welcome too, I bet. Though would be gutted if she clashed with Rancid, as suggested earlier. I guess the question is whether she is too big.

Saw Barbie yesterday and it was actually a lot better than I thought it would be.