So this person paid a third party and is now claiming it was an investment though your friend is treating it as a loan. If this is the whole truth there's no proof it was either.

So someone who keeps horses on the yard just handed her money, either as a loan or investment depending on viewpoint, and there is no written agreement. Does that sum it up?

Who did she take this loan from?

Even giffgaff require you to use the phone every six months to keep the sim live.

There is a worry that the new variant here is infecting children more easily too.

I don't think the pickers even look at dates. Drivers will wait, they have to wait much longer these days anyway because you have to unpack the food direct from crates rather than just lift out bagloads. I'm not prepared to pay for carrier bags so the driver has to wait while I empty every plastic crate of loose goods.

There's an awful lot of unnecessary spending gone on which wouldn't have happened if he'd done it sooner. The food waste alone is going to be horrendous, it's been bad enough in the pubs with people ordering food which just gets thrown away.

Is it too cynical of me to think Boris left this so late so people would all crowd to the shops and spend money getting ready for a family Christmas which was never going to happen?

I thought it was more than 50%. They're the ones who choose not to take the risk anyway - it isn't obligatory. Others will do as they please whether Boris allows it or not. That's how it was always going to be and it's now only about whether they are criminalized. I doubt there are many who intend to spend 5 days solid in the company of extended family, doubt there are many who could stomach that even under normal circumstances. A 5 day window should give everyone the chance for a short visit, a meal, exchange of gifts or whatever even if they're working some part of Christmas.

People do breed though and the vast majority of puppies produced are not pedigrees. Those who take the PETA line of being against animal ownership altogether are fighting a losing battle, it’s becoming more popular not less to have a pet.

The whole thing makes me feel utterly sick. I don't know what the beeb was thinking. I can live in hope that the 'documentary' will be a list of proper breeding practices including testing for inherited conditions but I'm not hopeful.

He does have a right old rant doesn't he. There are pubs all over the country working round the regulations best they can and he reckons it's impossible. It's difficult yes. It's financially risky yes. And yet they manage if they have the wherewithal to serve food. Are there wet only Weatherspoons? If so then they will suffer like all other wet only pubs but as a chain I'd have thought Weatherspoons was more likely than most to survive the storm.

Or one of the many other acceptable reasons. I'm having a great time doing a clearout as recycling centres are open this time round and travelling to one is on the list of OK journeys.

Christmas Day will still be Christmas Day whether we play charades with granny or not. The difference between it and other religious festivals is that Christmas is a nationally recognised holiday. It isn't religious for most people who 'celebrate' it one way or another, it's just more ingrained in the national psyche than others.

Considering this virus? The elephant in the room which nobody is mentioning - we are not burying children.

Oh there’s all that but much as we’re angry about that I don’t believe it’s what drives the every day behaviour of the public with regard to restrictions.

Governments are picking their experts to suit the chosen narrative. Most people have realised that now and are sick of it. There might have been more compliance if the U.K. had acted as one but the games of one-upmanship between the different leaders just made them all look incompetent.

Unless those friends and family have understood the risks and chosen to take them. How about if granny is fairly sure this would be her last Christmas anyway and would prefer to barter 6 months of a miserable, lockdown life against a final blowout with family? My guess is they're going to do it anyway no matter what govt attempts to decree.

That opinion certainly fits a required narrative. I have no idea how all these evil breeders go about it. No vet I know or have ever used would happily euthanise animals on a regular basis for a breeder without question and in the UK it isn't as if we can get hold of the necessary drugs to do it ourselves.

I agree 100% which is why I'm always so wary of telling people that they can rely on consumer law as if it were like for like. It's never that simple. A juvenile heart murmer is not unusual in young animals, often diagnosed at first vaccinations and resolved on its own a few weeks later. Admittedly a grade 5 is higher than I've known before but it is a completely subjective assessment. The buyer says they don't want to return the pup because they don't trust the breeder to deal with it appropriately and yet they were perfectly happy to buy a pup from them. They must have been happy enough with the environment and level of care. I've never known a breeder to destroy an animal they've taken back except on veterinary advice.

I understand the paper exercise but when these things get to court it's never that cut and dried. It depends very much on the judge on the day and the individual circumstances. I haven't seen many but I have seen a few, both from the point of the breeder and the wronged buyer. When it's an issue of a 'repair' it isn't easy to quantify (especially with something like a juvenile heart murmer) and an owner choosing to take on that responsibility when they don't need to doesn't automatically entitle them to unlimited medical expenses. A repair should put the item right - not possible in this case. If it were a defective fridge it would be highly unusual for a judge to consider it reasonable for the claimant to insist continuous maintenance (repair) far in excess of the cost of the item when a full refund was offered and there is no one off repair possible. Not saying it can't ever happen, just that I've never seen it.

This is the only option any responsible breeder would offer. Please note what BankFodder quite correctly pointed out You don't get to keep the goods and the money just because it's an animal if you choose to go down the consumer rights path - which you're perfectly entitled to do but it's a bit difficult to make a case if the 'retailer' has already reacted appropriately. If you have incurred extra expenses prior to the retailer offering a full refund then it would be completely reasonable for you to look to recover those. If you went ahead with specialist diagnosis/treatment after that offer from the breeder I'm not so sure that's recoverable. What's suspicious about that? Anyone can train to microchip animals, many breeders time their training course to when they have a litter ready to be microchipped. Do not rely on that as an 'and another thing' against the breeder.

I am sure you are very clever.

That ‘every vote is counted’ seems obvious to us but in Trump’s mind may seem unfair somehow. It’s him throwing the tantrums, not me. I’m just interested in why he may believe it’s fraudulent, his reasoning.

I guess it depends on the rules by state and if they’re relevant. They each set their own so your postal vote would be valid if postmarked Election Day in one whereas it might need to have been delivered by then in another. You wouldn’t want to risk a postal worker ‘missing’ the odd sack of mail left in a corner or under a bench. There are states where the postal ballot can’t make a difference so they’ve declared without them. Don’t suppose they’ll be bothering so much there no matter when they have to be in by.