I hate being owed money, probably a flaw in my character, but it just gnaws and niggles away at my brane and thus usually ends with acrimony.
So, if a friend asks for a loan, I say…
What would you rather have; the money or the friendship?
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As an absolute rule in life, the kind of person whose life is such a shitpit that they even consider asking friends for money is extremely unlikely to repay a loan.
Thus I take the attitude that I never ‘lend’ money, I gift it - i.e. I never part with it unless I can afford not to get it back, and can live with the emotional consequences.
So option 3: decide if you wish to remain friends - if yes, write-off the money, tell them you have written-off the money, tell them never, ever to mention the topic of money ever again on pain of instant, horrible death, and never even think of loaning this person money ever again no matter the (probably bullshit) story. If money is ever mentioned by them again, end the friendship and cut all contact.
There you go: precisely what you didn’t want, and at excessive length, HTHs 
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You’ve saved me from writing much the same.
I’d always gift the money to a friend. If someone borrows and borrows and never pays back then they’re not a friend I wish to have..
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A lot of sense being talked by many people.
On here.
I think some bans are in order 
To pick up on one comment
almost certainly bullshit. There’s some weird ratchet in my brain that when I hear two claims that can’t simultaneously be true I tend to just dismiss it rather than concluding “I am being lied to”. I ought to get some metaphorical 3-in-one on that.
Unusually I’m with Waxy - you’re never going to get the money back, but just make it entirely clear that no more advances will be made. Then the financial side is removed from the friendship, and it may then be able to regrow.
Major disruption across the Midlands and North West train service, due to an electrical failure at the communication centre.
Eggs in one basket comes to mind.
Generators didn’t switch-on / no-one noticed until they’d been out for some time…
System’s only as good as its monkeys…
Should be auto. And alarms ringing everywhere.
But probably not 
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Springs:
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While there’s some very nice, aesthetic individual specimens in that collection, its scientific importance is very oversold, and certainly in no way justifies the asking price. AmCym could never go near that kind of money, and the NHM is spending every penny it has moving all of its collections to a greenfield industrial park west of Reading where they can give them (and especially the few remaining scientific and curatorial staff…) a good hard ignoring… 
Unpleasant though Abu Dhabi’s regime is in many ways, I knew and worked with the people involved in setting-up and running the Museum, and they are the real deal, so the collection is going somewhere it’ll be appreciated and well-cared for, and will be fully available for scientific study by anyone wishing to do so.
The fact it went on display immediately is utterly unlike what would have happened if the Usual Suspects had bought it - it would have vanished into backrooms, waited 25 years to be accessioned, and then still likely never have gone on public display.
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It was impressive watching someone make something as chunky as that by hand, using improvised gear and learning the process on the job. I’m afraid the real reason they don’t make those any more though is not because it’s difficult but because there’s essentially no demand.
Imagine that you needed one of these and the only way to get it was by having someone machine the parts from stock material and then assemble it for you by hand. It’d take weeks and cost (I’m guessing) thousands. As it is it can be in the post to you tomorrow for less than a tenner plus VAT and P&P.
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We aren’t going to be under the shadow as we were in 1999. I bet many people, even down here, will hardly notice.
Or they’ll more likely be complaining that it was crap & that they don’t know what the fuss was about.
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It’s timed just before sunset so unless you can see close to the western horizon you might put the dimming down to, well, the sun setting.
My b-i-l lives on the east coast of Spain and where he is it’ll be more than 99% but the less-than-1% sliver that remains will mean they won’t be able to see the corona, apparently.
In 1999 we were in the path of the shadow & from the high point where we were watching you could see the full width of where it passed. Must’ve been 15-20 miles wide and outside that path it remained pretty much normal daylight.
Despite it being overcast it was still impressive to be plunged into darkness even if only for a few minutes. Streetlights coming on, birds stopped singing etc
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the one in 1999 was on my birthday so work arranged for a job right down in the south west and I managed to get a pretty good view of that eclipse in between the clouds.
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'99 was wonderful - I (and most the staff!) were on the roof of the NHM in London - the way the whole city grew dark, the temperature dropped noticeably, everything went quiet, the birds went to roost - you can see why something like that suddenly, inexplicably happening in the middle of the day was for thousands of years taken as a portent of doom!
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WTF?