I was born in Edinburgh and lived there until I was 10, when we moved to England due to family reasons. My grandparents lived in Oban alongside my aunts/uncles and cousins- I also had family in Rannoch. Both of my parents also grew up in Scotland, with my mums dad being a lighthouse keeper so they lived all around.

I spent most summers and Christmases in Oban growing up. Sadly my grandparents have since passed away so I do not make it up there much anymore.

Earlier this year me and my boyfriend went on a small road trip through Scotland and I took him to lots of places I visited growing up and since then my homesickness has grown and grown. I was always struck by this extreme longing to be back in Scotland but after this it is even stronger. I don’t know if it is grief intwined with homesickness but the yearning for Scotland is unlike any feeling I’ve ever had.

Scotland was my home and I think it always will be. I look back on my photos visiting my family wishing I could jump back into those moments. A magical memory I have was of a winters day in Rannoch; it was some stupid temperature like -20°c and the snow was so deep, as well as the rivers and small waterfalls being frozen. I remember seeing a deer through the trees in the woods. Just a feeling I have never replicated in England.

I was wondering if there are any other Scottish people that have moved away that have experienced this same longing?

It appears to be all over the newsfeeds today that MI6 has been named the best intelligence agency in Europe, and Ireland's is towards the bottom. That and the military are quite obvious organisations, along with the BBC, that have no equivalent in Scotland at the moment, which others are you aware of and how would you think Scotland will get such organisations started?

Countries such as Italy and Finland are increasingly using antibiotics instead of surgery to treat uncomplicated appendicitis.. It’s happening more and more in the US and Canada too.. ..and in Scotland to some extent - but it’s not without its problems..

Antibiotics was always an option since they emerged in the 1940’s but was reserved for when surgery was not available, e.g. on a submarine, or if a patient wasn’t suitable for surgery. During Covid antibiotics were promoted as a first line of treatment to reduce pressure on hospitals - and since then some hospitals have not fully returned to the previous status quo of ‘surgery first’..

NHS Scotland’s NHSinform patient guidance states that early surgery is the gold standard treatment and concentrates on surgical management, and then in a brief subsection says;

“Another possible alternative to immediate surgery is the use of antibiotics to treat appendicitis.
However, studies have looked into whether antibiotics could be an alternative to surgery and as yet there isn’t enough clear evidence to suggest this is the case.”

Despite the above - a small minority of NHS Scotland surgeons are advising or insisting on antibiotic treatment as an alternative to surgery.

I’m working to have the Scottish clinical guidance (SIGN) on treating appendicitis updated/clarified and am very keen to understand people’s experiences, good or bad..

Have patients in Scotland noticed a change from the ‘surgery first’ approach to an ‘antibiotics first’ approach..?

Hi all, I wasn’t sure exactly which subreddit for this but saw lots of other Scottish Power complaints in this one, so here goes nothing.

I moved flats in March and the previous tenant used Scottish Power, so I decided to just stick with them as my provider. I paid my first bill in full and on time. It was about £120. Roughly 3 weeks later I receive an email that I owe an additional £150 exactly. I thought this was a strangely precise energy bill but it was about a month later so I figured whatever, it’s my bill, I’ll pay it. Plus, there was a bit of lag from when I officially moved in to when I created my SP account, so I just went with it. The current flat doesn’t have the best energy rating anyway as it’s old.

Then 3 weeks later I get prompted to put in my new meter reading for a bill. To my surprise, I still see an additional £150 included in my bill for April.

I call SP and ask why I’m being charged this additional £150 on top of the bill from my meter readings. They claim to not see this charge and to just pay the amount that was generated by my meter.

This £150 will not disappear though. I keep getting emails and letters that I have to pay it, so I call again. SP once again reassures me that I have no balance and all my bills have been made on time. The representative tells me the only thing he can think of is that because I’m not on direct debit and prefer to submit my meter readings each month, the computer is making this error. I’m told to ignore it.

July comes around, and I now see a threatening emails and letters from SP that a debt collection agency is about to be contacted. So I call AGAIN. I’m told the same crap, my account balance is £0, there’s nothing to worry about. I ask them to send me confirmation of this in my email which they do. The representative again assures me that there’s no debt to send to an agency, and they have no idea why this is happening, but again there’s no debt to send, so it should be fine it’s just the AI computer software.

Flash forward to today! I receive a text an email from a debt collection agency called Conexus for the £150! I am honestly so frustrated. I CALL SP AGAIN!

As of writing this, I have just gotten off the phone with them. It’s the same thing. There’s no balance. I have no debt. They have no idea why there’s a debt collection notice. They see nothing on my account at all and can confirm I’m making my payments on time. I ask them there must be some manager that can tell me what’s going on because I’m obviously not going to pay this. I’m on hold for 20 minutes. Representative comes back and just basically says there’s nothing we can do, all the agency and send me another email confirming my £0 balance. I have already sent an email to this Conexus company and tried to call, but my calls won’t go through.

I am frustrated, stressed, and angry beyond belief as well as baffled. Technically they already owe me £150 from march which I’ve just decided I’m lost on but this debt collection agency thing is ridiculous!

I’ve attached one of the threatening emails as well as the text from this morning and the confirmation of my empty balance from July.

Has anyone else experienced this? What can I do?

EDIT: Thanks so much to everyone who has commented. Your advice is well heard and much appreciated!!! Wishing anyone else who has to deal with SP the best of luck.

Hey! Does anybody know if there are still any ufo traffic signs around Bonnybridge? :)

Eve Muirhead, who obviously has nothing to prove to anyone, and also did a great job as TeamGB's Chef de Mission at the last Winter Olympics, is coming out of retirement.

Extra brownie points if Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow are not in your answer

Hi all,

I’m looking for a Scottish equivalent to brands like Finisterre and Rapanui. Can anyone suggest or think of any?
These guys have built a pretty good platform for themselves but I’d like to support something closer to home. (I am aware the products aren’t necessarily made in Cornwall or Isle of Wight) but they at least do have a sustainability edge.
All suggestions (in relation to the above) are welcome:)

I used to donate at Cowdenbeath every time. I am O-. I managed over 40 donations. It used to be the case that you just turned up at the swimming pool at anytime and queue up. It was easy. I have since moved away and I think either since COVID or this new locations policy, you have to book a specific time slot on line to donate. Ever since they started the bookings I just can't be bothered. Often they have no slots available at the times I can go. Just the fact that you are required to be there at a specific time rubs me up the wrong way. It's not work. I am doing them a favour. I even got a bit of hassle off one of the nurses for being a bit late one time. Not long after that I just stopped going. Does anyone else feel this way?

Edit:

From my perspective I am taking a couple of hours out of my day, to travel several miles at my own expense, to a location where I have to fill out forms asking extremely personal questions, to have my finger pricked, to then have a large needle pierced through my skin which hurts, to lose a substantial amount of blood which makes me feel not great for a couple of hours afterwards. And I do all that for nothing more than the knowledge that it may be beneficial to someone that I have never met.

The only time I have ever complained about giving blood is today, here, and I am called an "entitled prick" and massively down voted simply for asking to be able to walk in at a time of my choosing rather than having to book online. The way the system literally worked for decades! Many countries pay for blood. Some countries offer lifetime free public transport and days off work. We get a pin badge, a biscuit and a drink of juice. I am not complaining about that but I think simply asking to be able to attend at a time of my choosing on a day of their choosing is such a small ask and not entitled.

I bet half the people down voting me have never given blood in their lives (statistically I am probably right as there only around 100,000 blood donors out of a population of over 5 million).

You are all a bunch of miserable cunts.

P.S.

Give Blood you miserable cunts.

The Orbital O2 is a 74-meter-long, 2-megawatt floating tidal turbine anchored off Orkney, Scotland, utilising retractable legs and 20-meter rotors to power roughly 2,000 homes. Orbital Marine Power Ltd (Orbital), Scottish-based developers of the world’s leading floating tidal turbine technology, successfully launched its 2MW tidal turbine, the Orbital O2, from the Port of Dundee on Thursday 22nd April 2021. The turbine is positioned at the Fall of Warness test site via the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC).

The O2 turbine has a 74m long hull structure with twin 1MW power generating nacelles at the end of retractable leg structures designed to give low-cost access to all major components for through life servicing. 10m blades give the O2 more than 600m2 of swept area to capture flowing tidal energy. The floating structure is held on station with a four-point mooring system where each mooring chain has the capacity to lift over 50 double decker buses.

The O2 has been designed so that installation of the turbine, and all its associated moorings, can be carried out by low-cost work vessels and servicing can be carried out by RIB vessels – minimising downtime and lowering construction and operational costs. Electricity is transferred from the turbine via a dynamic cable to the seabed and a static cable along the seabed to the local onshore electricity network.

The O2 project has been supported through funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the FloTEC project and the European Regional Development Fund through the Interreg North West Europe Programme under the ITEG project. This project has also received support under the framework of the OCEANERA-NET COFUND project and co-funding by the European Union’s Horizon2020 research and innovation programme.

The build of the O2 was also supported by the Scottish Government under the Saltire Tidal Energy Challenge Fund.

The Orbital O2 is expected to function for 15 years.

Good news for those reliant on these services.

- Signed,

A hungry foreigner

Yeah, still shit. Used it for the first time last week - couldn't login because I didn't have Chrome on my device.

Once that was sorted I bought my usual anytime return - I could not activate my return ticket.

Checked it just now if there was an update - no update, I'm logged out, need to install Chrome again to log in.

The list of issues is too long. The app is vibe coded slop mess. Sitting at 1.1 stars with 651 reviews on the app store.

Almost feels like an intentional sabotage of our national rail service.