u/Few_House_5201

I’m relatively new to running and wondered if people do this? I noticed it was available for 2027 Manchester marathon and at first thought it was a way to squeeze more money out of the runners but after thinking about it I decided I could get my late mum’s birthdate as my number so have paid the extra fiver to do this.

I think it’s probably a bit of a waste of money but I’m quite pleased she’ll be with me in a weird way when I do the run.

My friend and I both live and work in London. We were invited to attend a conference in Edinburgh where our companies were going to pay for our travel there and back. I chose to go by train - it takes longer but it's more relaxing - he chose to go by plane.

Everything went fine at the conference, we stayed at the same hotel so when we were about to go home I asked if I could share his taxi so that they could drop me at the train station and then take him to the airport to catch his flight. He agreed to this.

It turned out that getting in and out of Edinburgh to get to the train station took a lot more time than either of us expected. He ended up missing his flight and had to pay £165 for a replacement flight, which his work have refused to cover.

He has now come to me saying that he would like me to pay £82.50 to cover half of the replacement flight. His argument is that he only missed the flight because the taxi had to go to the train station and, had I not asked to share that taxi he'd have avoided the city centre traffic and caught his flight.

I'm saying it's not my fault or my problem because he agreed to drop me at the station and I paid half of that taxi fare. He could have said no and I'd have still caught my train and he'd have made his flight.

So, Am I the arsehole for refusing to pay him this money or is he being an arsehole in expecting me to pay for this?

I’ve been drinking Pepsi max and 7 up Zero for years and my wife is worried about the aspartame content so has asked me to look for alternatives.

I tried Dash water this week and it was truly awful. Completely bland and flavourless, may as well have just drank a glass of flat soda water.

Anyone know of anything worth trying? Looking for no sugar, no sweeteners really.

Thanks fellow Brits.

EDIT: thank you everyone for your comments. I really didn’t expect to get over 1,000 replies.

Wife and I have had a conversation tonight and I’ve shown her how safe aspartame is and we’ve agreed that I will still buy diet fizzy drinks but limit it to 3 crates a month and no more than 4 cans in any one day.

Might look at a soda stream too to make some fizzy squash.

I’ve tried to read every comment and really appreciate everyone who took time out of their day to offer advice.