Hello and welcome back to Mortgage Advisor on FIRE.
Update
The last couple of weeks have been one of those strange combinations of refreshing outdoorsy living and then absolute domestic warfare. One minute we were cruising through the sunshine on long bike rides feeling like we had our lives together, and the next we were in a lot of pain at midnight trying to vacuum behind furniture that probably hasn’t moved since the Bronze Age.
Anyway, let’s start with the good stuff.
On April 26th, Oana and I completed our longest ride so far, clocking in at over 46km. For seasoned cyclists that probably sounds fairly modest, but for us it felt enormous. The route took us through Rotherham, Boston Park, Waverley, Treeton, and eventually back home, and by the end of it we were absolutely spent in the best possible way. We did some insane hill climbing on our bikes, and just a few months ago we would have found this impossible. There’s a proper sense of achievement when you reach the top of a steep hill, or at least there is once your breathing returns to normal and the black spots in your vision go away.
There’s something addictive about gradually pushing your distance further. Rides that once felt impossible slowly become normal, and then before you know it you’re casually discussing whether another few kilometres can be squeezed into the route. Sheffield and the surrounding areas are great for cycling too. You can go from urban industrial scenery to open green spaces in just a few minutes. There’s all sorts of hidden routes and paths through old industrial areas which then bring you into areas of greenery and wildlife. There’s also the Peak District right on our doorstep.
A couple of days after the big ride we slowed things down a bit and spent time with my Dad for his birthday. We called at his house first to drop off his present, a canvas print of The Scream, before heading out for a long canal walk in the sunshine.
There wasn’t a detailed plan as such. We had a nice walk out to Meadowhall and stopped for lunch before heading back. Walking along the canal is so peaceful and relaxing, and at this time of the year it’s just green everywhere, and after what felt like an endless grey winter it finally feels like spring has properly arrived.
We’ve also done a few more group bike rides recently and met some genuinely cool people along the way. One of the nicest things about cycling is how quickly it creates conversation. You can start a ride knowing nobody and end it discussing routes, bikes, cafés, injuries, weather forecasts, and whether that hill “was actually that bad” with complete strangers.
One particularly good discovery was Kilnfolk Coffee, which one of the ride leaders took us all to. Oana and I knew right away we would return there. They make their own pottery and actually serve the drinks and food in it, which gives the whole place a really distinctive feel. I don’t care what anyone says but the mug you are drinking from is just as important as the quality of the coffee. There’s something satisfying about drinking coffee from a mug that clearly wasn’t mass-produced in a faceless factory somewhere. Independent coffee shops just have more personality, and places like that make areas feel alive.
Then came the deep clean.
Dear God. Some cleans leave you tired. Some leave you with PTSD.
Over two days, Oana and I embarked on what can only be described as a full-scale archaeological excavation of the apartment. The main issue is that we have an absurd amount of Lego, ornaments, books, models, and assorted decorative chaos. Cleaning normally involves dusting around things. This time, every single item had to come off shelves individually so both the item itself and the surface beneath it could be cleaned properly.
Which sounds manageable in theory.
In practice, it became a 24-hour endurance event spread across two days of more than twelve hours each. Shelves emptied. Units dragged away from walls. Bookcases moved. Dust discovered in places that defy physics. Entire ecosystems probably collapsed behind some furniture.
At one point I genuinely think we entered a state of shared cleaning delirium where time lost all meaning. Darkness took me, and I strayed out of thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead, and everyday was as long as the life age of the Earth.
Yes I went full Gandalf there. Yes I might be exaggerating a little.
Once you get deep enough into a task like that, stopping almost feels worse than continuing. You become committed to the suffering. By the end, the apartment looked fantastic, but psychologically I’m not sure either of us will ever fully recover. Some wounds cut too deep. I believe we were changed by the experience.
Such is life.
Protest Votes, Empty Slogans, and the Myth of “Taking Back Control”
One thing that’s genuinely baffled me following the local elections is how many people seem convinced that electing Reform councillors is somehow going to fundamentally reshape Britain.
I keep asking a very simple question:
What specifically are Reform councillors going to do at local council level that will materially improve people’s lives?
And so far, I’ve never had a proper answer.
Because when you strip away the slogans, most of the talking points aren’t actually about local government at all. “Stop the boats.” “Take back our country.” “Britain is full.” These are national political issues tied to Parliament, border policy, asylum systems, international law, and central government funding.
Your local councillor is mostly dealing with things like bins, planning applications, road maintenance, libraries, social care, local budgets, and whether the pothole outside Greggs finally gets filled in before the DFS sale finally ends.
That disconnect fascinates me.
There’s this growing tendency in politics for people to vote emotionally rather than practically. Local elections become a giant venting mechanism for broader anger about the economy, housing, immigration, or cultural change. But anger alone isn’t a governing strategy.
And if someone is standing for office, I think it’s reasonable to ask:
Are they actually qualified to run a council?
Do they understand local government finance?
Do they know how social care funding works?
Can they navigate planning law?
Do they understand transport policy?
Or are they simply good at repeating slogans people already agree with?
Because shouting “Britain needs saving” is not the same thing as being able to manage a council budget.
What also strikes me is the strange nostalgia underpinning so much of this rhetoric. Many of the same people talking about the “good old days” also celebrate Britain’s role in standing against fascism and authoritarian nationalism during the Second World War. Yet at the same time, there’s increasing hostility towards outsiders, constant suspicion of immigrants, and a narrative that Britain is somehow being “taken away” from “real” British people.
The irony is difficult to ignore.
And before someone inevitably says “you can discuss immigration without being racist”, yes, obviously you can. Immigration policy is a legitimate topic for debate. Housing pressures, infrastructure strain, wage stagnation, and public service demand are all real issues worthy of discussion.
But too often the conversation stops being about policy and starts becoming about identity, resentment, and finding someone else to blame for problems that are actually far more complicated.
That’s the part I find depressing.
Because fixing Britain, or any country for that matter, is hard. Often, the things that need fixing, like the NHS, social housing, care for the elderly, and so on, will take at least a decade of focused effort.
It involves long-term investment, infrastructure, education, housing reform, economic growth, functioning public services, and politicians willing to tell voters uncomfortable truths.
It’s much easier to just shout slogans.
Murder Trial Tonight IV – Death of a Landlord
On Friday evening we went to our second Murder Trial Tonight event. It was busier than the first one we attended, Murder Trial Tonight III – The Doorstep Case. We were a bit put out when we were told we couldn’t bring our water bottles in, but in fairness it was our mistake. The audience was generally well behaved apart from some idiot behind us who kept talking. At least three times people told him to STFU. I think he was drunk or something and the staff really should have sorted it.
It’s a difficult one when someone is being disruptive because you don’t want to be even more disruptive trying to resolve the issue. It’s rare in my experience for someone to be disruptive and, when confronted about it, for the situation not to escalate.
Overall it was a good time but unlike our previous attempt we got the wrong verdict. I’m not going to spoil it in case anyone reading here is going to a showing somewhere else in the country. But yeah, Oana and I called it wrong.
Sheffield Wednesday
It’s finally happened. The Chansiri era is over; an era which saw the reputation of the club dragged as low as its ever been. Finally, the club is out of administration and under new ownership with Arise Capital Partners LLC taking control on May 2nd. It was a full party atmosphere at Hillsborough despite the club already being relegated. 33,750 turned out in the largest attendance in the Championship all season. Everything seemed to come together as we got our first win at home all season on the last day.
Next season we will compete in League One. We’ve seen a fair bit of League One since relegation from the Premier League. Hopefully, this will be our last relegation for a long, long time.
The Greatest Science Fiction Shows
I’ve noticed a few posts recently listing sci-fi shows and movies with titles like “best ever” and “greatest of all time”. I thought I’d enter the chat and list my top ten sci-fi shows of all time, starting at number ten and working my way to the best one of all over the next ten weeks.
Note: for a show to qualify, it has to have finished.
So far, I’ve covered:
10 – The Outer Limits
9 – The X-Files
8 – Space: Above and Beyond
7 – Quantum Leap
6 – Battlestar Galactica (2004)
5 – Dark
4 – Babylon 5
3 – Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 – 1994)
It’s difficult to overstate just how important Star Trek: The Next Generation was, not just for science fiction, but for television as a whole. For many people, TNG is Star Trek. It took the optimistic vision of Gene Roddenberry’s original series and expanded it into something richer, more philosophical, and far more emotionally sophisticated.
But looking back now, it’s easy to forget just how rocky the beginning actually was. The early seasons of The Next Generation are, to put it kindly, inconsistent.
The show had the enormous burden of following the original Star Trek, and early on it often felt unsure of what it wanted to be. The writing could be awkward, the tone uneven, and some episodes were genuinely dreadful. Characters were underdeveloped, dialogue could feel stiff, and Roddenberry’s insistence that humanity had largely evolved beyond interpersonal conflict sometimes made interactions feel strangely sterile.
Season One was poor with arguably one of the worst episodes of television ever made; Code of Honor, with Jonathan Frakes (Commander Riker) referring to it as a “racist piece of shit.”
The phrase “growing the beard” actually comes from The Next Generation. Much like Happy Days had “jumping the shark,” TNG developed its own phrase to describe a show suddenly finding its identity and dramatically improving in quality. The term refers to Commander Riker growing a beard in season two, around the same time the series itself started to mature.
By season three, The Next Generation had transformed into something remarkable.
The characters felt more natural. The writers understood their strengths. The stories became more ambitious, philosophical, and emotionally resonant. What had once felt like a shaky revival suddenly became one of the greatest science-fiction series ever made.
Q Who? and the Arrival of the Borg
One of the defining turning points came with “Q Who?”
Until that point, many of the threats in TNG still felt manageable within the familiar Star Trek framework. Then Q, the omnipotent trickster entity, forcibly hurls the Enterprise across the galaxy and introduces the crew to something entirely different:
The Borg.
The episode completely changes the tone of the series. The Borg are not interested in negotiation, ideology, or conquest in the traditional sense. They simply consume and assimilate. Individuality means nothing to them. Entire civilizations are stripped apart and absorbed into the Collective.
What makes the Borg terrifying is their inevitability. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be intimidated. And for perhaps the first time in TNG, the Enterprise encounters an enemy it cannot outthink or outfight.
It’s a moment that fundamentally alters the series, introducing vulnerability into a universe that had often felt relatively safe.
The Best of Both Worlds and the Modern Cliffhanger
If “Q Who?” introduced the Borg, then “The Best of Both Worlds” cemented them as one of the greatest villains in television history.
The two-part story sees Captain Picard captured and assimilated by the Borg, transformed into Locutus, the human voice of the Collective. Starfleet faces annihilation as the Borg cube advances towards Earth, effortlessly destroying fleets sent to stop it.
And then came one of the most famous cliffhangers ever broadcast. As the Enterprise races after the cube, it finally catches up and prepares to fire an experimental weapon which is hoped will be enough to destroy the Borg. On the viewscreen, the Enterprise crew are met with the image of Locutus.
Commander Riker gives the order knowing it could kill their Captain:
“Mr Worf… fire.”
Cut to black.
At the time, audiences had to wait months to discover what happened next. It’s difficult now, in the age of streaming and binge-watching, to fully appreciate the impact that moment had. While cliffhangers obviously existed before TNG, The Best of Both Worlds helped establish the modern prestige-TV style cliffhanger, one designed not simply as a gimmick, but as a genuine emotional and narrative gut punch.
The episode also fundamentally changed Picard. His assimilation leaves lasting psychological scars, proving that events in TNG could have permanent consequences rather than resetting neatly each week.
The Show at Its Best
What ultimately made The Next Generation exceptional was not action or spectacle, but its ability to explore ideas through character-driven storytelling.
The Measure of a Man
“The Measure of a Man” is perhaps the definitive TNG episode. The story centres on whether Data, an android officer, is legally considered property or a sentient being with rights.
At its core, the episode asks one of science fiction’s great questions:
What does it actually mean to be alive?
Rather than relying on technobabble or action, the episode unfolds largely as a courtroom drama, with Picard arguing that denying Data autonomy would reduce him to little more than a slave.
It’s thoughtful, philosophical, and deeply human, despite centring on a machine. The tension is raised further as Commander Riker is forced to argue the case against Data, with the threat that if he doesn’t perform his duties, Starfleet will rule against Data anyway.
Yesterday’s Enterprise
“Yesterday’s Enterprise” explores an alternate timeline where the Federation is locked in a brutal war with the Klingons. The arrival of the Enterprise-C from the past fractures reality itself. In the past, the old Enterrpise had been destroyed protecting a Klingon colony and that heroic sacrifice had convinced the Klingons that the Federation was honourable and that peace would be mutually beneficial. With that sacrifice no longer part of history, war erupted.
The episode stands out because it reveals how fragile the peaceful Federation actually is. Remove one pivotal historical event, and the optimistic future of Star Trek collapses into endless conflict.
It also gives Tasha Yar a much better send off. In season one, Yar was the original security officer on the ship, but the actress was not happy with the role and wanted out. So, Yar was written out of the show in a pointless death. With history having changed, this allowed the writers to bring Yar back and give the character the ending she deserved. Yar transfers to the Enterprise-C as it goes back in time to complete it’s suicidal mission to protect the Klingon colony.
Tapestry
“Tapestry” is essentially It’s a Wonderful Life filtered through science fiction.
After Picard dies, Q gives him the opportunity to revisit pivotal moments from his past and avoid mistakes that shaped his life, including the reckless bar fight that resulted in his artificial heart.
What Picard discovers, however, is that removing failure and risk from his life also removes the experiences that made him who he is.
It’s a brilliant meditation on regret, identity, and personal growth. In a great bit of writing, it also calls back to a previous episode where Picard mentions laughing when he sees the knife sticking out of his chest. He never knew why he did that. Fast forward to this episode, and Q gives him the chance to go back to that moment and get stabbed. Picard goes through with it, and seeing himself with the knife in his chest, he knows he’s going back to his proper life.
The Inner Light
Widely regarded as one of the greatest television episodes ever made, “The Inner Light” strips away almost everything associated with Star Trek.
Picard is struck by an alien probe and lives an entire lifetime in the span of minutes, experiencing decades as another man on a long-dead world.
He falls in love. Raises children. Grows old.
Then wakes up back on the Enterprise.
The episode is devastating because it’s fundamentally about memory, loss, and the fleeting nature of existence. Picard returns physically unchanged, but emotionally transformed by a life that, from everyone else’s perspective, never happened.
The final moment, where he quietly plays the flute he learned in that other life, is one of the most haunting endings in science fiction.
All Good Things…
The series finale, “All Good Things…”, is a rare achievement: an ending that genuinely lives up to the show it concludes.
Picard becomes unstuck in time, shifting between the past, present, and future while attempting to prevent a temporal catastrophe orchestrated, or perhaps merely observed, by Q.
The episode acts as both a celebration of the series and a reflection on everything it stood for: curiosity, growth, exploration, and humanity’s potential.
And then there’s the ending.
Picard finally joins the senior staff poker game, something he had always kept himself slightly apart from. As the cards are dealt, he remarks:
“I should have done this a long time ago.”
It’s a small moment, but a perfect one. After years of commanding the Enterprise, Picard finally allows himself to simply be part of the family.
At its best, The Next Generation wasn’t really about technology or aliens.
It was about ideas. It treated science fiction not as escapism, but as a way of exploring philosophy, ethics, and the human condition.
And while the first couple of seasons may have stumbled badly at times, the show eventually grew into something extraordinary.
Or, to put it another way: It grew the beard.
#AD – Do you want to help me earn a little cash for free? Of course you do!
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What I’m Doing
Listening:
Watching: Accused (Netflix).
Reading: Leviathan Wakes (Expanse Book 1) by James S. A. Corey
Financial Update
Assets
Premium Bonds: £250.00.
Stocks and Shares ISA: £143,085.99.
Fuck It Fund: £22.30.
Pensions: £120,174.13.
Residential Property Value: £242,113.00.
Total Assets: £505,645.42.
Debts
Residential Mortgage: £173,982.31.
Total Debts: £173,982.31.
Total Wealth: £331,663.11.
There’s a strange contradiction in how we treat money in Britain. We’re surrounded by it constantly; adverts for cars, holidays, kitchens, investment apps, luxury watches, property programmes, finance gurus, side hustles and “passive income” everywhere you look. Yet the moment ordinary people start openly discussing their own finances honestly, it suddenly becomes taboo. We’re expected to quietly struggle in private, quietly succeed in private, and never really say what’s going on behind the curtain.
One of the things I’ve tried to do with this blog is normalise those conversations. To talk openly about debt, pensions, savings, mortgages, financial anxiety, financial mistakes, and the slow, often unglamorous process of improving your situation over time. Because the reality is that most people are winging it. Most of us were never taught this stuff properly. And when nobody talks about money honestly, people assume everyone else has magically figured it out while they alone are failing.
But there’s an uncomfortable side to this openness too. The more transparent you are about your financial journey, the more people can track your progress in real time. If you spend years talking publicly about overpayments, investing, budgeting, building an ISA, or becoming financially secure, eventually some people stop seeing the lessons and start seeing the scoreboard. What began as “this is useful and relatable” can quietly become “must be nice.”
And that’s where things can get awkward. Because people are generally supportive of financial openness right up until visible improvement enters the picture. Struggle is relatable. Progress is harder for some people to process. Especially in a culture where money is emotionally loaded with ideas about class, fairness, success, luck, and self-worth. You can almost feel the point where some readers stop seeing you as “one of us” and start mentally placing you into another category entirely.
The irony is that the entire point of talking openly about money is to help demystify it. To show that financial stability usually isn’t one magical event or crypto jackpot or inheritance cheque. More often it’s years of boring consistency, small decisions repeated over and over, mistakes corrected slowly, and learning things the hard way. But once people only see the end result, they can miss the years of anxiety, spreadsheets, sacrifices, second-guessing, and delayed gratification that got you there.
I still think these conversations matter though. Probably more than ever. Because silence around money doesn’t protect people; it isolates them. It keeps people ashamed of debt, ignorant of pensions, scared of investing, and convinced everyone else is doing better than they are. Honest conversations about money can genuinely change lives. Even if, occasionally, they also make people uncomfortable.
DISCLAIMER
The views and opinions in this blog are my own, and do not represent the views or opinions of my former, current, or future employers, nor should they be considered advice.
If you want personalised financial advice, seek an appropriate professional. If you are in financial difficulty, seek advice via the resources below:
Biolink
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bio.link/davidscothern.