Out Of Sara's Mind

We've (wife+I) watched a couple episodes of Out Of Her Mind, a new drama starring Sara Pascoe. I ended writing quite a lot talking about it elsewhere and thought it was enough to turn into a blog post.

Sara is a comic I have enjoyed watching, even seen live as audience for a UK TV Play show with her and Katherine Ryan (who I'm also a fan of).

I won't spoil specifics of the plot but I will talk about it's narrative style and the character traits easily visible from those two episodes of specific characters.

The show is very loose with its fourth wall breaking - Sara flips between character and show-aware monologuing "self", sometimes quite freely and without notice. This is both refreshing and a bit disconcerting. Then there's this other space which seems like a mix - like a physical representation of an inner headspace maybe, a canvas to play out thoughts and flashbacks for context, but with a design ethic that's (I guess) supposed to be indicative of her mental health/situation.

This out-of-world space (and yet also used to move things along sometimes) is also used to insert odd bits of real education (you know how Channel 4's Naked Attraction slips in these little facts, sometimes with drawings?). In-show things and character and processing happens there. Overall, the show focusses mostly on family relationships so far - one old event for her and the family reactions and her trauma from it (after many years) is what her story is based on. There's ongoing verbal abuse from at least one person portrayed though the show has barely named it as such yet.

We chose this instead of getting further into Adult Material, which was a bit intense for a just-before bedtime watch and was more graphic about the abuse it deals with (in the adult entertainment industry, specifically porn at least for starters).

We'll be watching more of it (Sara).

Brexit Blues

The UK EU referendum on 23 June 2016 has been a very divisive campaign and result.  The result was: 52% Leave versus 48% Remain (actually 1.9% each way). Pretty close!

I tried to clear up some claims made by the campaigns in a previous post on this nearer to the referendum, but whatever the reasons were (much single-issue immigrant campaigning by the tabloid media ie. Rupert Murdoch's group), we surprised many and got the Brexit vote.

Part 1 of this post talks about the campaign and some immediate-post-result comments.

Part 2 for the future of Britain, worries and predictions incorporating my wife's views (who's fairly well qualified with 1st-hand experience in political turmoil/change in Europe and what it does to the economy)

Part 1

With a 72% turnout (high for the UK, but it didn't suffer a General Election's problem of being split by MP constituency so every vote made the same difference), that means if only 634751 more people had voted Remain (assuming the same number of rejected papers) the result would have gone the other way by 1 vote. Surely that would have meant several recounts and an uncertain decision ripe for debate (incredibly unlikely, conspiracy theories would be all over the place) but it shows how close the result was, and hence I don't really consider it a true Brexit vote, but it is the one (under the agreed process) we'll be treating it as. How do you (or rather the MPs) act on such a poor mandate with conviction, knowing that you're alienating as many as you're pleasing, and half the voting electorate, along any steps you take down one side's path. One newspaper after the result claimed that around 2 million people might now have changed their mind - having voted without understanding what it meant, or as a protest vote only (and perhaps convinced they wouldn't win). This would more than easily make the difference if true.

Voting choices (in aggregation, ie. on average) were split by distance from London (or perhaps our other biggest cities too - nearer London voters more chose Remain), age (older chose Leave), and country (Scotland overwhelmingly voted Remain, Wales to Leave, Northern Ireland to Remain).

This petition to "follow EU rules" (ironically ones the original referendum voted to get away from) and redo it, has received almost 3.5million signings as I write this. But to act on this would create several issues and destroy political process - which would reduce trust in our system and cause its own drop in our economy.

1. At what point do you stop redoing the referendum if the 2nd one also doesn't return the wanted result?
2. If we can do it a second time for this one, shouldn't we always do it twice (or best of three for an always-clear decision); once you do this for all votes, the voting process takes at least three times longer, and people are left uncertain and unable to plan or act in between. There are also many smaller questions like, what about people who are able to vote in one or two but not all of the votes? If we get used to 3 votes, it ends up becoming the new normal (1 vote as is today) and people stop caring about the individual ones - they're caring now about this one because its the one expected to take effect. So the outcry doesn't happen until after the final vote anyway.
3. You also need to keep the records safe between each one, in order for it to be useful in the way this EU referendum   One of the benefits of the current system is that its pretty quick and simple to manage.

No, I think the best way to move on is to accept the vote (though other countries have rerun referendums before [pic via twitter]), and a better way to resolve this is to call for a new General Election after the fraudulent and irresponsible behaviour in claims and "facts" given. The tabloid media has a lot to be responsible for it too. They're partly only trying to sell more papers by stirring up stronger emotions and of course Rupert Murdoch has his political game with Cameron and the Tories. Fear campaigns are par for the course in many national and smaller elections anywhere and maybe the Americans have us beat most of the time, but I'd call it a close one here.

The problem for our next PM is that only just over half voted to Leave. Whichever path anyone takes, they'll piss off, give-or-take a few million, 17 million people, and arguably this decision is considerably more important than any general election in recent memory - it will affect the country for decades, not just 4 or 5 years like a general election (and several afterwards). Whatever happens I'll guarantee there will be demonstrations and I hope they can be peaceful (but I'm kinda expecting some conflict).

Now some of those Leave voters, seeing what the result really means and how unlikely they are to get everything they wanted, have been trying to change their mind or sharing shame at their choice now they understand it better (whether its the "£350 million per week" (lies again!) put into the NHS instead, complete control over immigration, or no (or at least no new) restrictive EU laws in areas they care about - perhaps the easiest one to keep to).

Too late folks!

I hope this can be a lesson to the electorate - do some proper research and use multiple sources from different sides of the argument, ones refuting each other's arguments. If one side says a claim from the other is a "fear tactic" or uses some other emotional or non-factual rebuttal having been given time for their spin doctors and researchers to come up with one (and can't say its a lie), there's a fair chance they can't pull it down with facts because the claim was right (but if its easy to check go do so, and careful to read the overall result from the article/paper, not just that one quote). Though being right doesn't always mean its relevant and useful. One other way for them to mislead is to use a different statistic about the same topic that seems to support their case instead, or pull out a single anecdote of one case that goes against it - be very very aware of individual case anecdotes, they mostly mean almost nothing other than the claim is possible for one person, because its only a single instance amongst probably thousands or millions, but a lot of people will take it as an example good for anyone in the same circumstance so it works well for politicians.

If they come back after some time faced with the "fact", with another related but differently phrased fact with different numbers for the same thing (I think I've seen that used pretty commonly), that means the issue is not simple and a good chance any campaigner could probably find a statistic to show whatever they wanted in the data if they had expert political analysts. Look for lots of different claims pulled out of the data by all sides and by allegedly independent groups (or, what kind of claims they're NOT able to say about the data) to get a slightly better idea, or ignore it.

So if you're a voter (from either side) who only ever read one newspaper/magazine about it (or only those with the same views) and/or the posts on social media supporting your own existing views, hang your head in shame and vow to do better next time we have a say - though doing that in life for any kind of notable decision is a fantastic habit to get into and will improve your promotion prospects at work, success with your relationships and in-the-pub arguments no end. Don't worry, its ok, I'm not turning into a self-help blog...

Part 2

The results day saw stocks drop, banks in particular (Barclays lost 20% of its value), the pound (£) devalued from 1.43 US$ (though it hit 1.49ish temporarily when Remain was expected to win on the day) to 1.36$ or so before the weekend.

My (internationally savvy American) wife and I foresore this risk and luckily stocked up on US $ for our regular payments abroad (for bills and such she still has to look after over there while living here) during the brief exchange-rate high before the result, but a majority of less well informed voters would not have done so and I feel for them when saving hard towards their next holiday abroad. Why did I just quote against US$ not €? I'll get to that.

The overreaction has settled back a bit but we're still significantly poorer in the world than we used to be, but also more competitive for some cases. Having got ourselves into this situation, what's likely to happen? 

The Vote Leave campaign made many promises about what it would do following Brexit, to woo voters and claim how much better their services or economy could be after #Brexit, using the (WRONG ANYWAY!) £350 million/week cost (or so) we currently pay to the EU for membership. [See my previous article for just how badly wrong that is]

Since once we exit (assuming it goes ahead), they don't even have that money to give to anything else, even the promises that fit inside that "spare" budget are moot and undeliverable. Alongside all the Remain voters annoyed, sad (and often scared) that they didn't get their way. With General Elections we generally get over that initial frustration pretty quickly, but a Brexit has such far-reaching, long term and immediate consequences that this one won't just lie down and die. They're scary and unknown and somewhat unknowable yet.

What do I mean? Well as I mentioned, my wife is an international women of considerable experience and as well as a political science degree and many years of business development, PR and marketing experience, she has worked in both Poland (Warsaw) and Moscow at times of great political change during the 20^th century. A country's prosperity relies on trade. Trade relies on trust (this is why corruption is so damaging to country economies [see (i)]). Trust (for long-term investment which you can think of as a longer term trade for this purpose) needs, above all, stability. Countries going through unstable times don't have that, and because EU exit is new and only Greenland has ever done anything like it before (exiting EEC not EU), its a big unknown. My wife saw (and was involved with at the highest levels) the outside interest in investing in projects as Poland considered joining the EU, but it was all talk and no action until they signed on the dotted line (to the EU), and then after that the money started trickling in and as it proved stable, it became a stream. Poland's economy grew and what was a country stuck in post-communist poverty became the modern pleasant and relatively safe place to trade that it is today. Moscow saw the reverse of this in the 1990s, as political turmoil caused investment to dwindle and pull out, the risks just weren't worth it for outside investors despite potentially high gains and the spout dried up. You may remember if you're old enough, the shots of society falling to pieces due to this in the news around the next few years - huge queues round the corner for pitiful food stocks in the stores etc. Granted, we're not Russia and we've had EU/EEC stability and investment for many years, and this extreme drop in wellbeing is unlikely, but its a vision of the direction we could be headed if the world doesn't like the look.

Voting Remain was the stable choice, and the choice that guaranteed trade could continue as easily as it has been since we joined the single market at its establishment in 1992 (and since the EEC in 1974).
This reliance on international business for the bigger corporations (and many smaller ones too) is what causes the Euro to suffer in value too, though obviously not as much as the directly-affected pound-sterling currency. Hence why I didn't quote the Euro-£ rate earlier as it has also dropped.

Exporters do well with a devalued home-currency (as long as they don't buy the raw materials from outside the UK), but we import more than we export from the EU, and the larger EU members rely on us to buy their products. If it costs more relative to other sources we'll buy less from them, and they'll have a smaller market to export to easily with us outside the EU, hence smaller customer base and less turnover and profit. Hence their market is affected. Just like a telephone, the network effect is in play here - you wouldn't buy a phone if there was noone else on the network to call with it.

The symptoms of instability due to the unknown direction will be relatively temporary but its enough to scare investors and as with any relationship, broken trust takes a long time to recover and its never quite the same again (ever trusted a partner who cheated on you quite the same again? I thought not). Our divorce of the EU will have long-lasting and damaging effects, probably a decade or more before we're back to where we were before [my wife's estimate based on experience]. The agreements we'll be allowed to make with other non-EU countries after Brexit will have to try and make up for that, but they'll also take a few years to be worked out and have a noticable affect, and noone knows how beneficial they will be or who will be ready to sign up. The USA would prioritise their in-progress work with the EU on that (TTIP) over us, one article I read recently suggested Germany could become the new "special relationship" with the USA. No one country in the EU will be allowed to make any outside deals with us by themselves (by EU law - same ones restricting us now, so that everyone in the EU gets the same deal with non-EU countries, which is supposed to make it fair).

Contracts have already been cancelled because of Brexit; businesses that can, will start choosing to go somewhere more stable - HSBC will be moving staff out of the UK as just the first big change announced but I guarantee there'll be many many more over the next few years if we go ahead with Brexit [UPDATE: JP Morgan for one], and some even if we don't. The damage has been done. Once those choices are made, a lot of those business opportunities are lost forever. I believe this applies to everyone - not just the EU members who would trade with us, but commonwealth countries, UK-internal companies and worldwide (for fear they won't have the same customer market they had before). We no longer live in an independent world; with globalisation and the internet in particular, every country depends on global trade and there are many huge multinational companies with branches in all the big countries that together have a notable impact on their country's finances and wealth and any issue like this will affect many of them. We've seen evidence as all the big stock exchanges around the world took a tumble on the Brexit news, as far away as Japan many many thousands of miles away and they're nowhere near one of our biggest trading partners. If you want to get off the globalisation and international-trade train, you'll just be left behind - North Korea would be the extreme example of that, but there aren't any other countries with inward-facing views only that can argue against that by being economic powerhouses. I strongly doubt we'll get free trade agreements with the EU without free movement of people, and others' opinions seems to confirm that.

The issue of immigration that Murdoch's media turned into a 1-issue campaign near the end has been so abused but I hope you knew that our net-positive immigration of EU and commonwealth citizens/subjects is a sizable contributor to our country's wealth. No (developed) country is isolated anymore and cannot survive as a (metaphorical) island. Putting controls on immigration and restricting it costs money to administer and loses government income in taxes, reduces diversity and ability to pool the best people in UK-based companies. Less income means a smaller government budget and usually among the first items to be cut are benefits. House prices will also suffer as people avoid buying at such a risky time, and inflation/interest-rate and other factors mean mortgages increase. There will be people stuck with negative equity eventually. So after Brexit we will have a nervous economy, companies pulling out, more people (than already) struggling to get by and falling out of the system, placing a strain on the NHS or even dieing, and the EU membership fee (£160million/week not previously spent in the UK) will most likely go into as much as possible of the following work:

• Civil service negotiation for trade deals or agreeing the post-Brexit EU trade situation and what status EU nationals here/UK citizens abroad have, if they need to return/apply for visas. The 2-year notice period for EU exit might not be enough for this (estimates vary from 5 to 10 years), and in order to make the most of leaving the EU we'll want to start other trade agreements ready to be signed as soon as we leave the EU (if its even legal to start so early).
• Boosting the economy via incentives and tax breaks and such-like in high-Return-on-Investment sectors to do their best at reducing the resulting recession. We won't have the saved EU membership fee until the notice period is up and we leave, and its only ~0.6% of our budget, so that won't help any really - even taking away the money the EU spends here anyway on science, farming and regional aid from its previous destinations wouldn't help that much and might hurt more than it helps by cancelling EU-funded projects that were previously improving our prosperity.
• Pulling the EU laws we don't want anymore out of our justice system (detangling and such, making sure the rest still read sensibly and no interdependencies end up with loopholes for criminals to take advantage of) - there are thousands of them.
• Sorting out the Gibralta situation, plus the RoI/N.Ireland border status going forward (border crossing needed of some sort)

Immigrants don't cost the NHS or welfare budget anywhere near enough to worry about, compared to the net gain for our economy they provide, and the issue of them taking up valuable housing shouldn't be blamed on the immigrants, but on the government and councils' failed attempts to build suitable housing for those who need it. That problem is separate and exists with or without EU immigration. We still have immigration. If you stopped EU immigration you'd still need to fix the housing problem. I bet even if we stopped all immigration (eg. including commonwealth, and other unrelated countries), without kicking people out immediately we'd still have a housing problem for a good few years. If you kick them out, the businesses who employ them (so particularly affecting healthcare, construction & manual/skilled labour) will really hate that - as would you when an unskilled old-style Brit turns up a day late, fails to fix your plumbing, takes a long tea-break and still charges you £100 (companies would be desparate for skilled workers to replace them so anyone would do). That kind of xenophobic discrimination would be rioting-in-the-streets level ugliness all over the land...

Regarding the affordable housing - all the while they're allowing old council housing to be torn down for whatever developers want to build, with badly negotiated affordable housing ratios [Guardian analysis articles 1 and 2]. As usual, rather than own up and try to fix it, politicians blame someone else who doesn't have the power to fight back at an equal level, in order to get any kind of boost and unite the public against a "common enemy" who is nothing of the sort.

If you're looking for some hope and I've dashed your expectations for a redo after reading this post, this Independent (newspaper) article may have some in a different way - ignore its click-bait like title and read on. It doesn't back up its claims well though. It did help me write the list of tasks for the new government to panic about above.

Thats what I've been considering so far... (please excuse any errors, do point them out via comments if you see one)

Footnotes:

(i) When there's corruption, maybe a few will get extra rich, usually the ones with more power and the ability to keep the corruption hidden and/or acceptable among themselves, but the majority suffer as external investors outside the broken system avoid the risk of their money disappearing with no reward and go elsewhere

Quadcopter

I'm flying! Well, I'm a pilot, but not onboard. Radio controlled (R/C) Quadcopters have intrigued me for a while and I've played a bit with other peoples' - a couple of DJI Phantoms outside, and a small toy twin-rotor helicopter inside a work office (doesn't really count). So recently I did some research and picked a mini-quad sized "drone" (preferring not to call them that now after my reading) at the toy end of the budget scale, but a level up from the cheapest available. Better to learn and crash on a cheaper smaller one that can't do so much damage (to my pocket, my stuff, or myself - or anyone else). After a few evenings watching reviews around the price point I'm considering (and of course lusting after posher and more specialist ones sometimes!), I felt I'd picked up enough about the current market and what to expect for your money that I could make a good choice.

So, folks, this (pic below), is the Pioneer UFO, model JXD 510G (one of the best prices at GearBest as linked to, look for deals). Having had it long enough now to crash it quite a few times, flying it indoors and outdoors and starting to get a little used to flying it (still a long way to go before I'm an expert), I thought I'd write a review of it as I think its a great choice for what I wanted. There were no financial incentives to write it when I did, so its an honest review, I bought it at the full price (as it was in May on a sale) with my own money (from my last birthday).

I think the 510G looks pretty cool, and it has a slightly different look to its previous version model, the 509G, being a little more aggressive and futuristic, alien like. But the main frame around the central body is still pretty much the same design and size and it seems designed for structural strength with all those crosspieces, and the legs are curved (towards you in this product photo) and somewhat flexible. What do you think?

The camera is pointing at us in this view just below that pointy fang-like snout. It is very black apart from the bright green detailing lines along the top outside edge of the body and logo on the "canopy" (as it would be if it were a plane).

It is fantastic value (for the current state of the market in mid-2016), as a mini quadcopter with 5.8GHz FPV (First Person View, where you get to see what a pilot on the 'copter would see) via a cheap camera/transmitter and provided receiver/screen, automatic altitude hold if no throttle input - using an internal barometer, and all the usual standards of basically any cheap quadcopter with a camera out there at the moment.

"usual standards" means that can do flips in any direction with a simple button+stick-input combination, comes with headless mode (that sometimes works), different speed modes for beginner/advanced (or just coping with a bit of wind), "1 key return" (which is totally unreliable), has trim adjustments on the transmitter, buttons for taking photos/recording video (all recorded to a micro-SD card on the 'copter), and LEDs that blink when the battery is low.

Batteries. Ah, yes.. The scourge of R/C model fliers everywhere. Current battery technology places a limit on how long you can fly and this 'copter comes with a single 650mAh battery that will give you maybe 5 minutes of flight or so. If you want longer, then you should buy more - gearbest have a pack of 5 @ 850mAh batteries and a charger (using the Losi type awkward white flat connectors, but it comes with converters to the nicer long-thin JST type I just leave permanently attached to the charger) that fit (and specified to in the product title) with just enough space left to pack the connector plug in to the space left for the battery, for a good price. I'd strongly recommend you pick this up (or equivalent guaranteed to fit) if this drone takes your fancy - or even 950mAh if you can match the right size for it. In fact for any drone, if you can switch batteries without taking it to bits with tools, then buy some extras at the same time as you buy the drone, most definitely for toy grade ones. Not being able to switch batteries is annoying as it takes a while to recharge them and flight time per battery is never good enough on the standard batteries usually supplied. Unless they're big enough to do 15 minutes or half an hour or so (about the most you get in one go on any R/C copter), you'll always wish you had more power to fly it with at the end of a flight.

The FPV screen included for the 510G (obviously not for the wifi version) is pretty basic but behaves nicely - ie. when signal reception is struggling it gradually fills with static before dropping out, with no sudden blackout, and it seems to almost match the range of the 'copter controlling signal too. The screen has a pop-up sunscreen guard box around it that folds away nicely, and is supplied with a screw-in linear-type aerial (so you could change it for the clover-leaf type suitable for 5.8GHz if you wanted) but is unfortunately locked to one frequency so you can't use it to watch someone else's FPV video on a different frequency. The video transmitter is also linear and is a flexible wire popping out of one of the camera module's cooling holes (with a rubber protector on the end), not a screw fitting.

Altitude hold feature is the new hotness feature to have on cheap drones this year, having filtered down from the expensive GPS drones which have full position-hold. This means it keeps the height the same if you're not touching the throttle input, and also means the throttle stick (the left one for mode 2 which this is locked to I believe) springs back to the middle position to allow both up and down movement from the central no-input default position. This means the craft is much more easy to keep stable than pure throttle-input control as you only (in theory) need to adjust for any wind in a horizontal/yawing direction to keep it at the same position and you won't accidentally get too low or too high. It does work very well, and is much easier than keeping a steady throttle yourself (where if you let go or knock it you could drop or shoot off up into the sky without an idea what position you left it in before). It has a barometer to enable this - thats the same way the expensive ones (eg. DJI Phantom) do it. If the atmospheric pressure changes while you're flying this can affect it so I've seen it drop and hold a new height but this doesn't happen very 

The one-button flips in any direction (standard on everything nowadays) cause quite a drop afterwards of maybe 3 foot/1 metre, as it does for other non-acrobatic flyers, but it does raise up a bit as it starts the flip so its a bit more centered around the previous position. Some other models with this wide a flip space don't end up the same height they were before, but with the altitude hold it does do a good job of remembering the original height and returning to it after the flip as long as you allow it to - though it can take a couple of seconds. It will refuse to flip if the batteries are low or if its so windy that its struggling to keep itself level in that direction (I think, unless that was low battery situation too). Camera drones aren't intended to be as acrobatic as racers and while flips are impressive to the general public, anyone who's flown a drone recently will be aware its a single-button manoeuvre so it isn't as impressive as it used to be if you're trying to show off your pilot skills.

The included camera isn't very high quality, I think it quotes 2Megapixels, but its enough to do FPV with and relatively lag-free (Wifi FPV modes will always lag more than analog FPV which this is, due to 1: compression into a digital video stream, 2: sending the feed as TCP/IP packets rather than raw image information, 3: decompression the other end and only then displaying the image).

The 510G (and 509G older version before it - why didn't they work to fix that among the other improvements) suffers from "Jello" as the Americans call it, which means a wobbling camera that could make you feel ill after watching the view for a long time. The jello effect is a bit like watching heat haze, with horizontal bands on the video that aren't aligned with the rest and that move through the image. This problem can luckily be fixed using some foam between the camera "ball" and the model's body, and optionally moving the camera backwards a bit too. One way to try this is to not use the original slot and hold the camera unit onto the body with rubber bands instead (link to 4m7s into this video shows the best-solution fix from any youtube video I've seen so far): https://youtu.be/YPEaWezm7Sw?t=4m7s
However I have been happy with just a bit of sturdy foam placed around the neck (just behind the camera swivel) of the camera unit, the jello is not 100% gone but its very much improved and good enough for my use (when I'm flying LoS a lot of the time). Or of course by removing the camera for a flight which would give you longer flight time and more responsive and faster control of the craft due to less weight. In bigger spaces I've always kept the camera on just in case I lose where I am, though I still fly LoS (Line of Sight) with perhaps the odd glance at the screen to check its rotated the way I think it is if its further away - thats a good way of pointing exactly in a direction as you can see whats in the middle point of the screen and where you're thus headed.

I was wondering how similar this mini-quad 5.8GHz FPV version is to the Wifi FPV version, as it has 2 sockets on the base of the body - one for FPV and one for WiFi, and they're the same socket type. Does it even include the wifi technology just unused for this version? Well I tried switching the plug over, and it doesn't seem to. At least, I can't see a wifi access point created once its calibrated its gyros on power-up. I can't control it from the provided transmitter I think, but it doesn't break anything to try that - if I switch the plug back again it carries on working just fine as it was before. I'm happy with the 5.8GHz FPV, as WiFi FPV is always more laggy and usually delayed enough to make it harder to control in FPV mode only (especially if flying in close proximity to any obstacles), besides taking over your smartphone while using it and drawing its battery and stopping you doing anything else online meanwhile).

One quality I was very impressed by both in reviews and since I've had it, is how indestructible this quad is. The legs are pretty flexible and can take some hard landings. I have broken one of mine after a fall from ~20ft (estimate) onto hard ground landed awkwardly but they'll put up with a lot of abuse and I think once glued back and strengthened a bit (bit of wire glued into the structure on the inside of the leg across the break, and filled in sections with superglue-cement), mine are now good again. The propeller blades are quite flexible and obviously intended for beginners as you can smack them into walls and other hard things repeatedly without breaking them. In fact I don't know why I bothered ordering another set of propellers - something recommended to new R/C model fliers across the board by experienced folk, but I've been "trying hard" to break them both inside and out, and not managed anything more than scuff marks so far over a few weeks. It comes with one spare set already anyway. The prop-guards are cheap flimsy affairs however and after several crashes will tend to get a bit bent. After a while of this they'll bend so much they will start getting in the way of the propellers (rotors). You can bend them back a bit but I didn't fancy their chances of long-term survival so I just took them off and let the propellers take the damage for now. Maybe I can find some alternate stronger ones from another similar model, or get my own design 3d-printed or something? Some people on a couple of reviews I watched complained that they fall off easily but I think those people just pushed them on and didn't screw them in - there's one tiny screw in the smaller of the holes on each guard that screws into the body once they're clicked in place (ignore the 2 slightly larger holes). Careful to put them on the right way round, the propellers and prop-guards are marked A/B to match letters printed on the frame next to the motors.

As a beginner pilot, the drone will get knocked around as you bump into things (be careful and don't make those things be other people - fly clear of people, keep eyes open for people entering into your flight area or near it - spinning propellors can cause injuries and even just falling drones could cause harm or shock that could knock someone over, if something unexpected happens you don't know where bits will fly off to). Hence why this 510G is a great beginner's learner FPV model. If it takes a small knock you can recover and fly away if you have a little skill. Bigger knocks (especially ones that cause it to topple/block a blade from spinning by getting caught on something) will automatically cause it to go into safe mode, cutting the propellers and turning it all off, hence when it will fall to the ground and you'll need to reset the transmitter and drone by going through the full off/on sequence. You'll lose any video you've been recording and the FPV will stop too. This is somewhat annoying if you didn't see where it fell as you can't use the FPV video screen to see what the camera can see and help you find it, instead you have to try and remember what the last view was before the crash or make sure you saw it fall using LoS. But I understand why they go into this "safe" mode, to avoid damage to other things or people that would likely be worse than any little damage to the drone or risk from the battery short-circuiting, or losing the drone (which isn't even that expensive to replace). You'll also get annoyed if it was a particularly long and good flight video sequence - so I suggest stopping and starting the video after each segment regularly enough to still keep enough recent flight footage. A double-tap on the "Video" button will do that (if you don't tap too fast) and you won't miss much, particularly if you're not flying fast when you do it.

After all these knocks you'll start to get scuff marks on the edges and top surface of the propellers, but it will carry on flying without any noticable loss of control. Long thin things like hair, grass and threads will love to get wrapped round prop-shafts and tie themselves into knots; remove these as soon as you notice them to keep everything running nicely and avoid having to replace the motors or cogs soon. It looks like new motors will be available easily enough if you don't mind a wait for delivery, but for drive cogs you'll need to do your own research and DIY to replace them, and I definitely don't see any individual body parts available as spares. I saw someone replace a similar model's ones with a brass cog, not sure if thats a great idea (would strip the teeth from the other plastic one connected to the motor more easily and slightly unbalance that corner).

Some reviews say it doesn't have a huge range from the transmitter, though most others say over 100m (100m/300ft is about the best any toy-grade bought-ready-to-fly mini/nano quadcopters manage at present in standard form). To be honest I doubt I'll need to worry on the range, in London suburbs there are quite limited sized spaces to fly it in anyway that are far enough away from houses and groups of people. So its flying at home inside or in the few parks that could fit a circle larger than 300m diameter to play inside that ring (the UK rules say minimum 150m away from roads/houses and obviously avoiding a large area around our airports).

After one session out on a local common, I lost it for a while when it came down amongst brambles and nettles and trees, so when I found it (before it started getting dark luckily, though after it rained a bit) I decided I'd do more to make it easy to find next time. It is very black, and therefore can be hard to spot on a dark day in dark areas of nature and greenery. It was fine afterwards by the way and flew like nothing had happened (as I said, almost indestructible!). So I made a few cosmetic modifications and one minor hardware addition:

1. Use sticky-backed aluminium foil to make it much more reflective - combined with Christmas shiny holographic-type sticky tape in other areas.
2. Use fluorescant sticky-backed paper tabs with tape over the top to keep it secure and more waterproof, to further help make it brighter and more visible. The top of the model already has an almost fluorescant-green line down it so I went with this and I think it still looks ok (note: I am not a designer!) I followed a pattern to help me id which way round it is when further away too. I considered buying LED strips to attach round it as an acquaintance who flies a Phantom locally has, but not planned to take this idea that far yet.
3. Attach a proximity-detection device (with sticky-pad + rubber band as fallback, or maybe long-term switch for a twist-tie or string that won't degrade). I'm using a Lapa (v1) because I had a spare one to use, is small and light and it works with my phone which I'll usually be carrying anyway. There are tens of similar-function equivalent devices that use either Bluetooth or other radio to help you find your stuff by attaching some tiny battery-powered device to it and giving you a remote/receiver that you carry and that tells you when you're near and can usually (depending on the model) make the device beep and/or flash to narrow down where it could be. via hotter/colder directions (no direction info, none of them I've come across have GPS). This way if I lose sight of it and it crashes, if I at least have a vague idea where it is (within bluetooth range, ~60m in clear air which is plenty enough in open areas) I can use that to help locate it and it won't turn off when the thing crashes so I'll still have a way of interacting with it to find the thing. I just hope it can cope with a few Gs of crash-landing from some height, and doesn't separate before it comes to rest. I doubt the added weight will be a problem, it weighs probably less than 20 grams.

After all this, it now looks a lot brighter and more colourful...

Brexit or Bremain?

UPDATE: See also my follow-up post with thoughts after a few days of the results being known and some of the immediate financial risks being noticed (will be linked to once ready)

On 23 June 2016, the UK electorate will visit the polls (or some ratio of them will bother to) to decide whether we should remain in the EU.

There are big campaigns - Vote Leave ("Vote Leave Ltd"), Leave.EU, Remain, Britain Stronger in Europe ("In Campaign Ltd"), aiming to capture those floating voters or convert a few.

There are several main arguments and lots of lies or out-of-context/missing-half arguments being used by both sides to try and persuade the floating voters. I'd like to cover a few and fill in some holes in those claims using information from various sources - media and politicians or leaders on the opposite side to some arguments, lobbying bodies and a few independent groups.

Cost to the UK of EU membership?

• Certainly much less than the £350 million a week as I've seen quoted. Even if it was, thats a bit over 2% of the total UK public spending budget. Not a huge cost.
• Less our £74m rebate (taken off before payment, like a shopping voucher) - negotiated by Mrs. Thatcher (hated though she may be by many, be thankful for this!).
• Less £88m spent back here directly on farmers and regional aid.
• Less £27m spent directly here for research in universities and companies.

Total cost (unless I'm not aware of further sums): £160million per week (rounded to 2 significant figures as per other figures).

[via a BBC article: The Institute for Fiscal Studies calculated during the campaign that of the £360 million the UK sent to the EU weekly in 2014, the net contribution was just £109 million.]

Its impossible to avoid spending all of this if we still wish to trade and move people between UK and EU easily, and we get a good package deal for all those benefits - countries not in the EU that still want to be part of the "single market" pay much more per benefit than we do, and they still have to abide by many EU laws in order to do so. There's no simple way to cut off all our EU spending, we'd leave ourselves very isolated if we did and be heading into the European backwaters economically and technologically.

If taking more control over the money we currently pay to EU, do you think the government would pay as much of it to farmers or for research? It would almost certainly change which projects received more money, and I suspect (just a guess based on experience of our government) it would shift more to the commercial side - which would hurt our universities.

Source: BBC News referendum article

We've said it before and we'll say it again - the UK does not send £350m a week to Brussels - the rebate is deducted before the money is sent, which takes the contribution down to £276m a week.
That figure includes £88m a week spent in the UK on things like regional aid and support for farmers. The government could decide after a Brexit that it should take that money away from farmers and give it instead to the NHS, but it might be an unpopular decision in rural areas.
Then there's another £27m a week that goes to support things like research projects in UK universities and companies.

Worried about control of our(UK) own borders? We have the ability to turn away people missing a valid id, and to refuse entry from non-EU nationals. You might be thinking of the "EU border free zone — the Schengen area". We're not part of this. Being part of the EU means EU citizens with valid id have the right to free movement and work throughout the EU. This allows us to holiday and work abroad as well as foreign EU nationals to holiday and work here without visas (though further rules apply for longer-term stays, this is the basics). Giving up this could mean negotiating individual deals for all sorts of situations. That might leave us better or worse off, but you can't deny it would take time - likely several years, and until then the default status would apply and we'd be treated just like any other non-EU country by EU members [editor's, ie. me, expectation].

The United States is not keen on pursuing a separate free trade deal with Britain if it leaves the European Union, the US trade representative, Michael Froman, said – the first public comments from a senior US official on the matter. This could mean we end up with the same rules that eg. China, Brazil or India has to cope with when trading with the US. Cars, fuel and chocolate could be hit by their 2.5% import duty imposed on these other countries due to this change [source http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/29/us-warns-britain-it-could-face-trade-barriers-if-it-leaves-eu ]

Government's leaflet claims and fact-checked rebuttals where appropriate (via 38-degrees):

Leaflet: "The UK is not part of the EU's border-free zone"

Source of the following snippets of article (from ft.com under the title "Three pieces of Brexit Bullshit") - parts cut to keep to the core of the issue from my view:

Three million jobs depend on the EU

[....snipped...]

The claim is that “up to 3.2 million jobs” were directly linked to exports of goods and services to other EU countries. That number passes a quick reality check: it’s about 10 per cent of UK jobs, and UK exports to the EU are about 10 per cent of the UK economy.

But even if “up to” 3.2 million jobs depend on trade with the EU, that does not mean they depend on membership of the EU. Nobody proposes — or expects — that trade with the EU will just stop. Three million jobs might well be destroyed if continental Europe was to sink beneath the waves like Atlantis, but that is not what the referendum is about.

£8.3 billion is £160 million a week. This is a huge number by personal standards, but in context, tiny - its only ~1% of the UK's public spending budget. The EU also spends money directly in the UK, for instance, in research grants, so the true cost of money that doesn't come back here directly is smaller. Those countries that pay for access to the single market without being in the EU pay much more for it. This money gives us many benefits though, and even if we only care about a few of those they'd be harder and more expensive to negotiate on individually, and some might not be available to us without further concessions.

Leaving would give us control over the money spent by the EU in the UK, but not guarantee that it would be spent on other things - that would be down to the government. I'm betting more of that money would end up elsewhere and not necessarily in a way that benefits all of us eventually (as research can do).

From fact-check of Michael Gove's Leave camp statements (performed for 38 degrees by independent fact checks who fact-checked both sides of the argument, in detail here):

“The EU has failed to secure trade deals with the huge economies of India, China and America. Outside the EU we can cut those deals”

"failed" for India and America only means failed so far, as negotiations are in place. However, the US side of this refers to "TTIP" of which many many people strongly disagree the clauses and power it gives to corporations over the government and its ability to set laws that help the people rather than companies, its also somewhat secret (until much was exposed in a leak recently). India talks for a similar agreement began in 2007 but nothing further is happening at present.

The UK cannot independently make agreements with other (non-EU) countries, we have to use the EU to do that and follow the group agreements; however, the EU is the biggest party there and is likely to come away with the more powerful side of the agreement if any were made. The UK may not end up with as favourable agreement individually (though it might be faster and easier to negotiate with us as a smaller group than the EU).

If we want to have easy trade with the EU and non-EU "single market" countries after splitting, we'd have to arrange that ourselves, and pay for the privilege; this would take years to set up and would be likely to cost considerably more than that part of the benefit we currently pay the £8.3billion for would. We'd still have to accept many EU laws in order to be part of the single market, so we can't get away with having no red tape in order to trade easily with the rest of the EC trading area - if one major point of leaving the EU is to have more freedom over our own laws, this somewhat cancels that out. The financial loss due to NOT being in the single market area would be significant, I doubt anyone in big international businesses wants that (lobbying would be strong and I don't think the government would hold up against it).

Leaving the single market would be the only way to fully control immigration though, as "free movement of people" applies to any countries in the European Economic Area.

Other surveys and industry (or representive groups) opinions

ADS (UK trade association representing Aerospace, Defence, Security and Space sectors) - 70% want to stay, 10% to leave, 20% don't care/don't know

Government and National Institutions, MPs...

George Osborne - Remain campaign
David Cameron - to stay

Bernie Ecclestone (old head of FIA, F1 racing) - Leave (thinks immigrants never contributed anything to economy, but also insanely thinks Putin should run EU and UK - what a way to push people the opposite direction Bernie!)

Treasury - produced a dim Brexit forecast of reducing economy by 6% (based on net migration reaching near three million between now and 2030) [source]

John Redwood (tory) - Vote Leave campaign

Boris Johnson - Vote Leave
Michael Gove - Vote Leave
Iain Duncan Smith - Vote Leave
Jeremy Corbyn - to stay

David Miliband (ex-Labour if you'd forgotten) - to stay

IMF (~= global bank) - "Britain leaving the EU could cause 'severe regional and global damage', the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned." (though Vote Leave says the IMF are consistently wrong)

For a much more inclusive list of notable people or groups and their opinion (Stephen is open to suggested updates, if you're voting LEAVE please do as there are a lot less of them listed there), via Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10153877268048640&set=p.10153877268048640&type=3&theater

[note: edited 11 May to correct Gove's direction; clarifying some easily misinterpretable long clauses; adding details from Gove's April Radio 4 speech
          edited 19 June to add Stephen Hill's list of people and groups and their choices
]

BBC page with claims and facts from both sides: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36027205

Its been many years since I last changed the page design here and especially since Blogger grew some new templates and new features for templates which required overwriting the old one/various bits of upgrade work (am guessing), I just went with a new design. Hope you like it (constructive comments welcome). It also ought to (their demo hints at, anyway) work better on mobile. I'm most worried about the width reformatting appropriately or not for your screen, do comment on how good it is - I've saved the old look in case.

Sofa/Bed - The Hunt for Red (or purple) September

Friends. Relatives. Tall friends and relatives (over 6'/182cm). Last minute layovers and too-expensive hotels. Small flats and no spare bedrooms (yet). What to do? Sofa bed!

We've both (wife and I) owned and experienced various furniture from the cheaper end of the sofa bed market, both to sit/sleep on ourselves and to provide for guests. They are a handy way to provide a bed of some sort to guests of all types if they visit to stay the night (or week) for whatever reason. But our current "click-clack" style (we've had 2 of these) only seems to last two or three years as our main sofa with daily use, and the latest one has now snapped in the middle so it sags - same way the last one went. My wife sits on/slides off the edge regularly, but I don't think thats a good reason for it to quit on us.

Lets go over the basic sofa/bed conversion mechanism types available today (excluding the basic futon, much simpler and different search to what we did). Btw, in case its not clear, when I write "seat cushion" or just "sofa cushion" I mean the one your butt goes on, "back cushion" should speak for itself - whether its a separate cushion or a hard surface.

First, a brief mention that Wikipedia has a (improved since this article was first written) page on sofa bed designs.

"Click-clack" (aka. Modern Nordic?)

(see video demonstration of mechanism conversion action at youtube)

• Cheaper, lighter than other mechanisms to move as most versions don't have a big sofa frame too (mechanism usually also easy to access and can be unbolted for easier transport/installation, though cumbersome/likes folding and unfolding by itself when holding at awkward angles to get round corners and up/down stairs - hint: use bungees and chord/parcel tape to secure beforehand!)
• Design usually provides space underneath for vacuuming/some storage if desparate, or inside the sofa if it has a frame - no separate mattress to use up the space!
• Simple mechanism (may need 2 people to convert if you're not big enough to need the 6' bed length or aren't used to moving/lifting beds and furniture)
• Cushion compromise - single part performs both mattress+seat/back duties
• Comfort limited. Allows for support (usually sprung wooden slats) under full length of mattress, so no frame struts poking you in the back/hip. Arm/no-arm options.
• No need to store back/seat cushions when in bed form
• As bed, part of each side overhangs the frame - can cause balance issues

The eventually-fatal problem with this design, at least for the wide 3-seater version we've owned (to give a long enough bed), seems to be that the cushion(also mattress) frame is not supported in the middle, and being wide enough for a 6'-er (183cm) to sleep on means there's just too much strain over too wide a gap for the thickness of aluminium its made with. All the ones we've seen in shops/on gumtree and ebay/other online in research, or owned, appear to use the exact same design of mechanism and mattress frame with either a bare frame or full sofa MDF frame around it. I don't think we missed finding any better ones (but do comment/write me if you know of any, for article completeness - spam will be ignored).

The cushion/mattress is a big compromise as its one part trying to be two things with different needs. It needs to be both flat enough and firm enough for a mattress but also soft enough each side to be the back and seat of the sofa - which also wants a fold down the middle to sit nicely on the frame. A fold there of course ruins the nice flat and supportive-everywhere mattress, especially if you want to sleep in the middle as a single or for an unevenly-sized couple. But no-split cushions don't want to lie nicely on the frame as a sofa.

It also suffers from balance issues - either for a single sleeper who strays too far to one side (beyond the centre of gravity of the legs and lying beyond the frame's sides) or if one partner is much heavier or likes sleeping near the edge; it can tip the sofa diagonally onto one side. Best you can do is wedge it up against a wall on one side, and/or pack under the overhangs (eg. using any spare arm cushions) to minimise that, but obviously thats a bodge solution and unreliable. Good enough value for money if you don't have much of a budget though, or it'll only be occasional use (in either form).

If you only need it short-term (couple of years or so in daily sofa use/occasional bed), this could be good value.

Lift-over seat and Fold-down back

Hmm I can't think of a better way to describe this one.. A video will do it better. Its a bit like this video shows (but not quite).

Hey, I just discovered while looking for a link for above, a Chaise version (or one of) that is yet another variation where the underside half of the sofa pulls out and comes up to lie alongside the existing sofa seat: see this animated diagram video, or in the real world this video [both youtube]

• Simple, easy and fast to convert
• Limited design/style/comfort options - only from Ikea (unless you know different? Do tell!)
• Must be handy enough to assemble yourself (or arrange someone else to) - does mean it comes apart for transport too of course
• Sofa cushions again performing double duty as bed "mattress" - though back of back-cushion

The only niché alternative design I've come across that I respect, and only available (AFAIK) from Ikea - the Friheten is a good example of this among a couple others they do, good value for money as is usual with Ikea. As long as you don't value your time putting it together too highly (instead of doing something else more useful), or can arrange someone else to for you :)

Trundle, or Extend and Fold

Here, part of the sofa under the cushions is on runners that slide out (not unfolding/rolling over), like a drawer on runners. The rest of the bed "trundles" out on them from inside the sofa, underneath the sofa cushion. These ought to be less work to convert, but on every one I've tried in any stores the runners are a bit stiff, and because they're so low, awkward to get to - usually means kneeling down to get enough leverage at the right angle to pull them out. See this John Lewis Siesta sofa bed for an example of this type. The bottom end should have stronger footings though as it comes from the front wall of the sofa (under the cushions). They look like this one by Tetrad when extended (thanks Sienna for your comment).

Once extended (equivalent of pulling out the drawer), it exposes another part of the mattress frame (which used to be underneath the seat cushions). The sofa seat cushions usually flip over to form the middle part of the mattress (I think) and the top part is whats left on the sofa seat area itself or the sofa back cushions fold down (as in the above Ikea Friheten option). That does mean more splits in the mattress but at least not every part of the "mattress" is trying to do two jobs, and if you're lucky you might even have a little bit of space in the sofa left for storage (don't expect that).

None of the styles we've seen for this type appealed to us, and the extending part limits the maximum length again so no 6' mattresses (that we found) so I haven't researched it more (hence no bullet points).

Ikea do at least one of these, also seen them elsewhere.
Here's a variation on that theme - still pulls out part of it at this youtube video

2-fold - Lift and Unfold (bog-standard)

If you're already looking at sofa beds I'm sure you know this type. Conversion to a bed involves pulling all (yes, all 4, 6 or more) cushions off and finding somewhere to store them overnight - which may be a bit heavy or awkward. Then you usually peel back a loose material protector sheet for the frame, grab the metal tube nearest the front end at the top, and lift upwards. It pivots up and towards you a bit, standing proud of the sofa frame. Next, take hold of the lifted-out frame's back top metal tube (ooh cold metal, lovely!), which consists of the bottom two thirds of the mattress folded in half, and lift and unfold it towards you. This unfolds the mattress fully as you go and turns that half of the frame upside down as it extends towards you out beyond the sofa frame. As you do this, the leg (U-shaped metal strut) that goes under this part starts folding down - careful not to get hit by this or to bring it down onto your feet as you unfold. Not the simplest way, but its become by far the most common style, and the cheapest (maybe the easiest to mass produce?). The main points of this design are:

• Most common design, hundreds of style choices and minor mechanism/padding variations
• Price options from a few hundred to well over £1000 depending on style, quality, material
• Separate mattress, hidden as a sofa (mechanism limits thickness & length)
• Sofa seat cushion support becomes bed lower mattress support (inverted) - usually webbing (multiple quality options available between brands, from cheap'n'nasty plasticy stuff upwards)
• Top half of mattress frame either metal struts/sprung wooden slats (better?), but mid-way strut usually designed (almost intentionally, it would seem) to dig into your hip bone through the thin-mattress types in bed form
• High backs/arms mean head of bed cocoons you somewhat - hard to roll straight out of when getting up. Low/no-arm and back (eg. scatter back) options may be available as alternatives if you're ready to accept those - making that choice usually means a much reduced range in most shops though
• Comfort - as a sofa, the full range from bad to pretty nice depending how much effort they put in/the price paid and what you're getting for that. As a bed - mostly, they leave a lot to be desired. Usually sitting on it will allow you to feel the frame underneath, and even lying on it and spreading your weight out you'll feel the middle strut of the mattress support (where the webbing part of it that also shares duty as sofa cushion support starts) against your body, probably digging into your hip bone.
• Folding the mattress away without a mechanism that allows for it means it'll be compact against the frame when stowed, but when opened out as a bed (ie. when you care about it), there will be a gap at the end(s). So the mattress is at risk of sliding up and down, and hanging your feet over the end will run into the metal frame before you find the floor. In the worst case there's also a sizable gap (quite a few inches, probably a bit under 1', it varies) between the sides of the mattress frame and the arms of the sofa too that you might worry about falling down/losing your hands or arms into while sleeping if you move around much.

This type is really the "bog standard" of sofa bed mechanism that you all surely know if you've ever slept over somewhere with a sofabed, or maybe even own one yourself. Because there's so many of them, and its easy for manufacturer's to add a sofa bed to a range just by adding one of the standard mechanisms in, there are probably hundreds of choices here from a couple of hundred quid upwards (even beating the click-clack prices maybe). Even high end custom-sofa manufacturers like MultiYork use this type. Maybe they don't know any different or not enough people need them to be day-to-day sofabeds/have the specialist requirements that force people like us to do some seriously extensive research [and blog writing :) ]. The UK isn't exactly known for our sofa beds... Yet... [but keep reading/skip to the end].

Rollover

In our (and many others) view, the most superior mechanism of the heavyweights. An Italian design used by several manufacturers there (or minor variations on the mattress-surrounding frame and feet of and how cushions are attached to the frame).

The big idea is, you leave the cushions on (score +1 each for speed and convenience), which are attached to the frame (not permanently), use a fabric hook hidden away between the back cushions (or reach behind them) and just pull. It starts rolling towards you, off the sofa frame and continues; you'll need to change grip hand over hand to a strut on the frame once I think as the back cushions of the sofa come over the top and underneath the frame that rolls out, and thats it. Done. How simple and awesome is that?! Not clear enough? See this example video on youtube.

The whole back cushion and seat cushion frame ensemble is hinged and as you pull, it folds up and rolls over the seat cushions which roll forward and fold up on themselves and end up underneath and behind the legs holding up the extended end of the bed frame. Totally out of the way. You should see it in action to understand it properly - try this other video. Putting the bed away to a sofa again is the opposite action - lift up the far end of the sofa bed by its frame and just walk towards the sofa, lifting and rotating it back and it'll just fold up into a sofa again. It takes a little effort to lift but no more than the bog-standard unfold mechanism from above, you don't need to lift it far and you're only lifting to the lower hinge, not the whole mattress frame. I'd say less effort needed, and is again much faster and less pain, no stopping one action and finding and grabbing a different part to start on a different action.

• More expensive than lift-and-unfold - generally only on £1000 upwards sofa beds.
• Can allow for storage behind the seat cushions (depending on mattress size - less likely on extra long mattresses, not seen any on 200cm/6'6" mattresses yet actually)
• No gap needed between mattress and frame when bed opens out, due to better design of the mechanism and upper/lower parts of the mattress frame shifting as they convert. Hence no risk of the mattress sliding around and you bumping your feet into the metal frame if you hang them off the edge - depending on how high the mattress/frame support is
• Seems to allow for thicker mattresses? certainly only ones of the heavier mechanisms to allow for 195cm+ (6'4"+) mattress lengths
• Fast, easy to convert!
• No storage required for cushions
• Stronger design than either click-clack or lift-and-unfold actions, generally means longer expected lifetime and longer warranties, and suitable for daily conversion and use as bed; and with good design (more likely as this style more expensive anyway and will appeal to those with higher demands and budget), also makes for a comfortable sofa you can't tell is a sofa-bed.

Our search

With all the click-clack's problems, and a failed sofa, we decided it was time to up the budget for ours' replacement and buy something to last, and something we could really enjoy sitting on, avoid sleep-over guests feeling 2nd-rate in our home without moving house (London's expensive).

Having tall friends/relatives (brother-in-law is 6'3", many of my friends are 6'-ish) really made the research quite lengthy but also narrowed it down pretty quickly once we'd found a match. Generally you don't want feet and head to be up against the edges of the mattress so for a 6'3" person to sleep, they probably want at least 6'6" mattress at minimum without banging their feet on the metal frame at each end; I figured 5cm/2" either end minimum to avoid the seam and allow a pillow-shoulder gap. For that, a 6'6" mattress might be a bit tight but its the largest mattress we've discovered without going properly custom and crazy-expensive.

We were further limited by the decision that a corner sofa wouldn't work in our lounge due to its shape and size - all the possible corners the extra bit of sofa would extend over, would block off important space (door, bay window space too valuable to cut into, or alcove) . There are quite a few corner sofa options that use the extra width of the corner piece to fill in the rest of the shape (from an 'L' shape to a full rectangle) and gain quite a nice sized bed. The Ikea corner-sofas/sofa+chaise-longue type are interesting examples (the plain Friheten comes in this style too for instance), or via Furnish House (from a quick google - though their Birmingham 'H&S Centre' looks like its someone's house in a residential area).

TLDR Summary of below: if you want a comfortable bed for tall people, comfortable sofa, great experience all the way through your selection process, and have a good budget, go to Furl or ask about other Italian-made brands sold in specialist stores. Based on our research I'd recommend you avoid Natuzzi unless you're a masochist needing a nasty experience (based on vast majority of all reviews anywhere I could find for them since around 2005 or before - the awesome reviews for them are all before then, production was moved to China from Italy around that time I read). If your budget doesn't quite stretch that far, and you're near enough Canterbury, go look at Lenley's ones of the same style (on sale as I write this too, April 2016). There's a much wider choice of corner sofas (including options at Furl) you'll have to find/do other research on.

The vast majority of shops only sell the basic bog-standard mechanism mentioned above that only copes with up to 180cm mattresses (5'11" at a stretch) and maybe 8cm thick if you're lucky (most are ~5cm). This is too thin for a comfortable night and the sleeper will be feeling the metal struts and frame underneath the mattress - often placed right under your hip. They also won't come to pieces for transport (all that metal in the mechanism and the extra mattress that normal sofa's don't have adds lots of weight to get into/out of your flat when moving, especially if not going to the ground floor - much harder than a regular sofa to shift). Think not just for initial delivery to you, but whether you'll be moving soon and have help to move it, or even just for cleaning underneath/behind or inside it every now and then, depending where it goes/how dusty it will get. This type will be either/both an uncomfortable sofa, and/or a not very comfortable bed (don't want to feel the metal struts in the frame with hip bones when trying to sleep, please!), and also more awkward to convert between sofa/bed (ugh.. taking all the cushions off and finding somewhere to put them overnight is the least of it).

So we did a lot of research as our needs seemed to stretch beyond the capabilities of most of the sofa beds we came across... That's why I'm writing this article because I thought it would help anyone else also looking for one as there are several smaller players in the market who deserve some more attention and whom you might wish you'd visited if you never looked far (and had a budget for).

Generally I discovered that bed shops won't have any sofa beds, it's the furniture and sofa specialists you want to look at. The company/shop name links below aim to get you right to their sofa bed section if they sell other items too. Here's the list of places we checked out and a brief summary, both high street/out-of-town shopping centre locations and non-high-street. Sorted roughly by preference, our top choices first (don't pay too much attention who's above who further down the list).

Furl - originally "The Storage Bed Company", from Nottingham (now in London too). Mattresses are 14cm thick reflex-foam or pocket-sprung (or cheaper plain springs), and 200cm long (6'6" - same size as Ikea mattresses so their 140x200 bedsheets fit the 140cm-double sofa bed). So they fit tall folk and that depth means you can't tell you're on a sofa bed, its as good as a regular bed to sleep on. The sofas are as comfortable as a nice sofa should be. One downside is that you can't take the covers off the cushions to clean them separately (though less relevant for eg. leather), or switch them round as there's a left/right cushion for the back and the seat. This is because the seats have extra padding/strength for the edges that rest on the mattress frame, so you don't feel it through the material. The cushions are attached to struts of the frame (not permanently - a fold of material forms a loop round the frame, zipped up, and a small velcro patch extra for the middle join of at least one set - on the Duette anyway). We discovered Furl via a mumsnet article (by Lily7050 in 2015) which also mentioned Willow & Hall. You can take them apart enough for transport without a tool (especially if you go for the removable arms which simply slide in, and either friction-lock or click in?), although there are two nuts for full break-down if needed. I think(?) different sofa beds in the range have different cushion fillings, ranging from pure foam to feather-wrapped foam which we've found to be pretty comfortable and a good mix of bounce (from the reflex foam core) and softness (from the feathers just under the covers) and with much less plumping needed compared to pure feathers (none if you get lazy). Their trials with pure feather didn't work so well as they weren't firm enough to stop you feeling the mattress frame underneath when set up as a sofa, and that was an absolute no-go (good to hear!) - same as any mattress too thin to protect you against the frame was avoided.

Their design aims to be usable as both your main bed and your main sofa, they specialise in only the best storage- and sofa-beds, with the sofa-beds using the rollover type mechanism from an Italian company (not Natuzzi) that allows 200cm mattresses in a variety of widths and several other unique or almost-unique options for the rest of the design elements. Some sofa beds have a headrest extra option (attaches separately). Their leather ranges are by Crest JMT (Cambridge and Old English in the showroom), and there are Warwick fabrics (we particularlowny liked Warwick Dolce Minerals which have a lovely velvety feel and sheen which varied in different lighting, for a level down in price from leather, also very durable). Providers were chosen to have a long availability for their materials, 15 years or more so replacement cushions or parts can be made the same if needed. But there is mention of ability to use or match a custom colour, for some furniture items anyway.

The website selection/costing process isn't quite bug-free on smaller screens (eg. tablets/phones) and I've forgotten twice how to go to the next step (#2) once I've chosen the basic sofa model/size to compare prices, but it works well enough to get a ballpark on what you might want. They only open their London showroom to visitors two days a week (Wed/Sat) and by appointment made on the website (you'll probably be browsing with other people there too from earlier appointments, you'll meet founder David who's very knowledgeable and happy to explain and provide general advice without pressure, over multiple visits as needed). This makes it a bit harder to organise than visiting any other places on this list, but David is always there for you and very helpful and genuine, honest and keen to make sure you make the right choice. The mattress mechanisms and mattresses come from the Italian company Lampolet, designing to their own patent.
While visiting we saw a prototype desk-bed combination being tested in the showroom - never come across that as a design idea before, and if you're in the market for some multi-functional well-designed high quality furniture with lots of customisable options (storage beds, sofa beds, coffee/dining-table all-in-ones, etc.) then I highly recommend a visit. I promise I'm not connected to them or being paid anything to write this, its just our opinion after spending way too much time researching the good, the bad and the ugly of the sofa bed world :)

Highly Sprung Sofas (yet to research; say they have a store on Tottenham Court Rd in London). They report 145x195cm mattresses via a Q&A on a YouTube promo video they posted so perhaps we should check them out more when we're in the area. Note, some pages link to kentsofas.co.uk and the website is missing proper content in several areas so doesn't look all that professional. Not explored further yet.

Lenleys (Canterbury, Kent) - 200cm mattresses on the Bianca model as rollover type, 190 on some others of same type, but no feather cushions listed as options anywhere, only 11cm thick mattresses. Their base level sofabed starts off cheaper than other Italian-rollover types, and I don't see a list of options anywhere near as flexible as say, furl.
If you'd like the rollover mechanism and tall mattress options, but don't have such a large budget and don't want feathers, then you can do that here - the online colour selection has quite a few more choices than many others in this list (though many of them only suck for that online, in store you get a proper choice - in truth thats where you should select the colour as your screen/their cameras might not render them correctly anyway, and you certainly can't tell the texture or quality too well from a picture).

Love Your Home - Felix, Emily, Frieda have the rollover type - they call "One Action Roll out Mechanism". Mattresses 145x195cm (double) or 160x195cm, the corner sofa beds they do go to 140x200 but thats outside our search parameters. Feather wrapped cushions (just as Furl). Prices for the rollovers start at £1400ish for the base  option and mostly look pretty modern rectangular shaped designs. Option of fixed or lose covers unlike most other rollover types here, pocket-sprung mattress for £97 extra. Seems like they'll try to match a special fabric request if you need. Claim only 5kg of lifting weight to close it up so can be closed simply with one hand - presuming this is around the same as for other rollover types here. The other sofa beds in their range seem like the plain bog standard type. 10 year guarantees, 6 week deliveries (free inside M25), designed and made by them. They point you at reviews on feefo (a new reviews site to me). No further research done for now.

Willow and Hall - Chiswick showroom. Looks like use the bog-standard mechanism (for all?), but nice thick 14cm mattresses and possibly slightly higher quality pocket-springs than Furls (missing technical details of Furl's ones as I write this)? Guessing not very long mattresses though (based on mechanism choice) - do correct me if wrong. Uses sprung wooden slats for the top part and webbing as the lower leg under-mattress support, might even be arranged better than the standard high-street version. Discovered via the same mumsnet article that linked to Furl, where it was said that their sofas were slightly comfier but the bed mechanism wasn't as solid as Furl's nor the beds as comfortable (both offer 14cm sprung mattress). They also have removable cushion covers. Claim 4-5 week delivery (a faster average than most here). Handmade in the UK (always nice to see that, if its good craftsmanship).

Dfs - material sofabed mattresses mostly too short for us, all (except 2 leather ones, Kalispera and Davenport) using the bog-standard mechanism, and seemed to have unusually large gaps on each side of the mattress between the mattress frame and the sofa arms. Of the 2 leather rollover types I mention, both of which have good thick and comfortable mattresses, one was maybe 180 long (I think? hard to remember) and the other, with rivets in the front of the arms giving it a very Western USA look, was ~190cm long mattress I think (maybe even 195) and in an "open" leather grain so not cold or shiny at all to the touch but did mean more effort to care for it. This was by far the best one we looked at for our needs there, they're pretty comfortable to sit on as sofas and comfortable enough sofa beds and every large-sized Dfs we've been to has these 2 in stock. The leather colour swatches have a fair range of choices, and if we hadn't found the Furl ones we'd quite possibly have been happy to quit looking after here. Lots of helpful staff obviously really keen for their commission who make sure you know their name and who keep coming back to check on you while giving you time to have a private chat about it (though mattress size had to be measured manually its not listed on the site/in their sales info as far as we could see). Not quite the same customer experience as some smaller independent specialist shops, but having never visited a Dfs before and only aware of the famously always-on-sale TV adverts, I was pleasantly surprised by our experience there!

Harveys Furniture - we looked, found some sofa beds with too-short mattresses in bog-standard mechanisms and maybe one leather Natuzzi built/designed one if I remember right.

John Lewis at Home - not as impressed as I expected to be by that big department store name.

House of Fraser - not visited yet. This website search result for their special custom-sofa site shows only 4 sofa beds (tell me if its missing any!), hence not considering them worth exploring.

Next Home - all mattresses pathetically thin and uncomfortable when tried in store, and they don't come apart for transport.

MultiYork - High end sofas built to last, 15yr frame warranties, feather cushions available, very much classic/traditional styles. Stores in England as far up as Harrogate, higher densities of them in the home counties (one on Tottenham Court Road in London but not that big); all furniture made in England. Originally from near Ipswich in Suffolk (manufactured there) so very handy if you're near there/Colchester.
The styles are so traditional that there's no rectangular arm-front option at all - the choice is scroll arms, or a curved variation of that, with various generally-narrower widths. If this is your style, and you're ok with the lower-budget-end mechanisms, but mostly want a really comfy and well-made sofa with a proven reputation that will last you decades if looked after, maybe this will suit you fine if you have a £ 4-digit budget. Nothing in a style that would suit us both and our flat though, hence crossed off the list. I personally have good long-term experience with their sofas (via family) - a 30 year old suite of them in a pet-owning household I know well is still going strong, having been re-covered and feather cushions switched for foam around 14 years ago (feathers lasted 15yrs before that just fine but were upsetting someone's allergies later in their life).

Seriously Sofas - from basic to Italian with feather cushions. They use the phrase "all the time use" for their rollover sofa beds - the Lario for instance, and many/most seem to have good thick mattresses. Detachable arms on the direct-from-Milan Italian items for full bed conversions/even less cocooning around the head end, and the "BedSofa" has a 17cm mattress and intended for proper daily mattress comfort without losing the sofa option. The Ash and the Zzziesta double sofa beds have 140 cm x 195 cm mattresses, they also have an interesting (but not for us) "Stresa" twin bed option with 200cm long and 14cm thick pocket-sprung mattress(es); multiple twin-bed sofa bed options in a sofa that opens in the middle to insert an included narrow table (or ottoman type thing) between. Then each half of the sofa opens up as a separate rollover type mechanism, with feather cushions for comfort. Not cheap at £3300 as I write, but I'm sure impressive and comfortable and suitable for visiting non-couples or kids I would imagine (if they're still young enough to be happy sleeping next to each other). There's a video at the site showing the conversion to bed.

Other options available (may not be on all sofabeds) include different arm widths (though no storage-arms like Furl has - they have storage in the seat backs instead like many other rollover styles do), higher seat backs, softer seat cushions, your own choice of fabric/leather, and optional headrest.

Three last notable items:
1) The Cento-60, a Swedish-sofa style (I guess that means no arms, and a partial back?) has a bed surface beating all the others here - if your visitor(s) might be nearer 7' (7 foot tall) or 84" total, and that sofa style works for you, this might just be one of the very few out there to cope; its bed has a mattress size of 150x219cm.
2) Their version of the sofa bunk bed, the "double decker" (only other place than Bon Bon I've seen this listed in the UK, Mocof Duo from China seems almost the same but with headboard/footboard) for £2995 or £3995 depending on the version.
3) Hocker, a single bed sofa-bed at 95x210cm bed size and of an extend-and-fold type mechanism. This video demonstrates it.

Furniture Village - have one Natuzzi rollover design if I recall correctly, and one or two other regular bog-standard lift-and-unfold design sofa beds.

Oak Furnitureland - this section online has four.

Bensons for Beds - as expected, not really a sofa bed seller. Search (linked to) returned 3 of them.

ScS (Sofa carpet Specialist) - link is to sofa bed category, or try this search on their site instead. Not a huge number, no long mattresses (typically 180cm, don't think they even do 190?), all relatively thin too, and none of them come apart for transport. All of which scribbled it off our list pretty quickly. A shame such a poor showing for our needs - some of the material sofas were comfortable enough to work for us at their kind of prices (didn't get to compare any leather ones as no leather sofa beds in stock at the store we visited).

Sofology - newer shop specialising in sofas. Allegedly Natuzzi designing a new one for them in Italy around/for Easter 2016 which should mean the better rollover type, no further details. The Natuzzi reviews we've read now make us doubt how interested we'd be, unless this is back to the old Italian made quality. Some of them do come apart for transport (if I remember right), modern/classic designs

Bon Bon (in Chelsea Wharf, London) - sell some of the Natuzzi sofabeds and also multifunctional tables; tiny little "showroom" packed out - also saw a sofa bunk-bed while there (who knew such a thing existed!). Like Furl, had to make an appointment to see them (in fact, not all that far away from Furl but a world away in customer experience), and they have their own stuff too it seems but are all set on selling you their own version which doesn't seem to be as good and allegedly the customer service/sales experience doesn't match up to the money you're paying. They had to move other bits of furniture in the showroom around in order to open up some of the sofa beds they had (or the table to see that folding out in action), or for the sofabed they didn't, it was very tightly packed when open. Good choice of fabrics and leather colours in the showroom - Yarwood leathers (we looked at the Mustang range) and a good choice of fabrics. I think they quoted one of the longer lead times compared to anywhere else in this list though. Worth visiting to get an idea of what to compare things to and it first introduced us to the rollover mechanism, but we won't be rushing back to see them. At least one sofabed was comfortable enough and at about the right height seats for us as a sofa.

Natuzzi (manufacturer, available in various shops eg. World of Leather) - see comments through the rest of this post too.. No shops of their own except for one in Tottenham Court Road if I remember rightly, but they list several other shops selling their furniture around London (maybe elsewhere in the country too - I know of at least one other in Essex). Sounds like you want to avoid them unless you want one of their old highly recommended ones second hand (used) from early this century or before. Manufacturing was moved from Italy (where it got them fantastic loyalty and reviews) to China. Any of their sofabeds made in China majorly suffered in quality, to the point that several forum posts show pictures of and nightmare stories of leather falling to bits only a few months after delivery, or being delivered in a damaged condition, and production/delivery being a nightmare with terrible service and the company actively avoiding engaging about problems/denying its their fault.

Habitat - always personally considered them overpriced since the 80s, when they used to sell attractive and nicely styled stuff at reasonable prices. Then there was a major price hike (and many more since, I'm guessing) but the goods didn't get any better, and I think its only gone further into "we saw you coming" territory for the folk who think its cool to shop there. We still checked out the website again in case - appears (to us) as same-old same-old as other cheaper sofa shops but for a few hundred pounds more with no noticable extra worth paying for. Really, what happened to Habitat? I remember wondering round their London Regent St. shop a couple years ago during a clearance sale - the place looked messy upstairs, like not a great place to be as a shopper; I spotted an LED colour-changing glowing tiny sphere for £8, then a basic painted (maybe mirrored too, I forget) wardrobe with kinda trendy and nice design (but not by anyone famous) for well over £2000 on clearance.. Wtf!

Ikea - as mentioned above, their unique designs are intriguing and fit the bill bed-size wise. I so wanted to be happy and comfortable sitting on the Friheten as a sofa for its oh-so-cheap £375 cost for the non-chaise version (most online talk/video seems only to mention the chaise one which makes an even longer bed, but wouldn't fit in our lounge). The style is modern and clean lines and would work in our room. But I wasn't comfortable - it was just too firm, and as a mattress I'd also want to provide a mattress  topper/pad or it'd be a bit like sleeping on a raised section of carpeted floor. Ultimately we were just looking for better comfort than it could provide, without needing extra layers (which obviously makes the seat higher - it was ok as it was, more would be too high). The other Ikea variation on that type was "shlumpy", so the wife said (design/colour option-wise)...

Dunelm - we were not generally all that fond of their beds or customer shopping experience. But we looked anyway. The store layout and impression from our visits leaves one feeling a bit cheap sometimes, some parts feel a bit like an upgraded corner shop stacked high with cheaper no-brand goods I wouldn't risk buying alongside a few interesting and well-known products. We looked but didn't really see much of a sofa bed range. A more recent web search shows that yes, they have only two of them. Never saw any to look at in the two stores we explored either, a solid bet though that they're the bog-standard pull-out-and-fold ("2-fold") mechanism type we don't care for. Gave up..

Hatfield Furnishings (a local specialist furniture store while visiting relatives - just picked 'cos we visited). Seemed representative of most furniture specialists that still don't consider making a great sofabed so we didn't go any further with them). Not a sofabed specialist - though they also have folding beds (you remember ZipBeds?). You'll find they use the standard pull-out and unfold mechanism we've come to recognise all too quickly and almost know offhand won't provide a comfortable or long enough mattress for our wants.

LondonBedCompany.com - haven't checked much more into this, except that I don't think they can beat our attraction to Furl's products (though they might use decent mechanisms.. honestly, I've forgotten already, so much research..)

Momento Italia (made in Italy then shipped overseas - has YouTube videos, otherwise no way to try, awkward and limited website).

Shopping Notes

Although the websites here ought to be a bit useful, I'd never recommend buying something as personal as a sofa you'll be sitting on for years to come online only. Do go visit a store and sit on the model you're interested in (or one as much like it as possible), ideally in the same material - and ask about longevity, what parts are covered by what level of warranty, stain resistance and whether they offer stainguard type protection etc.. Take a swatch of the colours you like home if you can and compare/imagine a whole sofa of it in its destination room, with the lights on and off and at day/nighttime (that'll change how the colour looks). We even tried stabbing, damaging and wetting/oiling the swatches to see how they coped. Do some research into other customer feedback online and (even better if you can) their other customers/friends who bought from them. Remember surreptitious companies can pay people to write fake reviews for them on some sites, these usually sound too-good-to-be-true or are 100% positive and often in bad English (well-educated people have better jobs to do than poorly paid 1-line review writing), so look for balanced detailed reviews with both good and bad points and see if any issues consistently pop up, or if the bad ones are just a customer being stupid or unfair, and whether the good ones seem genuine with enough specifics of the order and all parts of the customer experience. Refund options are limited if a company custom makes an item to your order (and a bad company might be hell to get one from even if you're legally entitled to one for shoddy workmanship etc., especially if they're not a UK company), so be sure before you get out the credit card (or finance agreement or whatever). It can be a lot of moolah to risk on a bad purchase, and a lot of time to be without somewhere to sit if they have to take it away to fix it!

Most companies here also quote from upto 4, to upto 12 weeks for making and delivering your order, and I'm guessing a few orders end up even longer than that due to miscellaneous delays or mistakes or even occasional incompetency. Order in time!

Final Decision

Furl is currently our favourite by a fair margin. As long as your budget is comfortably into 4-digit territory (which it should be if you want luxurious comfort and good design that will last more than a few years). They have mattresses for tall people, well made mechanisms and you can select options that make them even easier to take apart for easy portability, castors that can be raised/lowered for moving around (eg. to clean under without damaging the feet/fabric as you push it around), a slightly taller back-cushion option (I like back support and I'm 6'), and a clever storage idea in the arms if you choose the frames its available on. The heavy mechanisms and mattress otherwise make sofa beds much harder to move or get up/down stairs than other sofas. My wife will attest to that and I've also had to shift a click-clack up a narrow flight of stairs and round a couple of corners with only a smaller lady friend to help.

So why the submarine-movie-inspired title? Well we need the sofa ideally before September for visiting family, and the initial colour choice was going to be a burgundy-red, perhaps moving into purple (trying to avoid it looking mahogany in low light though - the Mrs. doesn't like that). I enjoy movies lots...

Note - this article may see future updates until we've made an order (and then even further reviews after use of the chosen company's product)

Good luck with your sofa bed hunt!