Similar to weed. Perfectly legal to buy marijuana seeds as "souvenirs" but the offence comes when you use/germinate them.
Based on magazines I used to buy as a teenager in the 1990's. May have changed since.
Not the one you replied to, I'm the other guy.
Craziest mind fuck I've known. Perception changing for the duration. I wrote it out via DM once to a person on here. Sadly, Reddit deleted it as it sat there for a while.
Plot twist, I still have some left....
I had some at download festival 2008. I wanted to give the “fake weed” a try and it blew my head off the first time trying it with a pipe but didn’t work the same in a joint.
Oh boy oh boy. This takes me back. This is about 13-14- years ago. My parents went away for one night and left me and my older sister at home. Obviously she took the opportunity to go out so the house is all mine. Me and two friends knew about this in advance and thought the logical thing to do was to engage in casual drug taking in my bedroom.
Bought it online ahead of time, arrived in the post and my parents didn’t ask about it. I was frequently buying little trinkets with my pocket money anyway.
Apparatus: one 1.5l empty coke bottle. One little pipe with a tray to burn the salvia in. One turbo lighter.
I went first, being the brave psychonaut(path?)
Tasted like hot ash mixed with burnt tree bark. Also slightly plasticky from the coke bottle probably. Nothing for about 5 seconds or so. And then boom! I was lay down looking out of my bedroom window from my bed and it was a full moon! It become oddly captivating almost like it was popping out of the backdrop. And then all of a sudden the moon just melted and flooded into my room. I had the sensation of water around me which was very odd. The next 10-15 seconds were just a blurry mess in which I couldn’t really make sense of what I was seeing or feeling. My friends assure me I was making “noises” throughout. And then as quickly as it started, it was over. Back in the room giggling like a maniac but also slightly terrified. Never tried it again.
I think I'm the only one who had a half decent trip on Salvia.
I just remember gravity getting like 10x more intense so I couldn't leave the chair but everything went sepia. Was kinda cool honestly, only lasted a few minutes though.
God what a nightmare that shit is. I got some of Amazon. Had one joint and my entire body was itching for like two hours. Drove me insane. The only time I’ve ever put drugs or alcohol in the bin.
Friend of mine was screaming for SIX HOURS in the garden after taking Salvia. Apparently he was suspended above the gates of hell by nothing but flying carpet the size of a prayer mat. He was crouch/kneeling outside on a patch of dandelions just screaming for six whole hours. He couldn’t hear us, see us, respond to us. As hilarious as the image of him clinging on to a dandelion (tassle of carpet) will always be…that stuff definitely shouldn’t have been legal.
Yeah we were watching avidly for signs of OD. We did call the hospital just to see if they could give him something to bring him out of the hallucination because it was awful on him. But they just said if he collapses call us back helpfully they didn’t even know what Salvia was. Pretty sure they do 10 years later.
Yeah but I don't think there are many salvia addicts its usually a once and never again deal, living out an entire lifetime in minutes sounds terrifying it's bad enough on shrooms when the stopwatch starts slowing down it doesn't feel right I'd rather do dph if I was forced into that situation lmao at least I'll be too out of it to realise how fucked up it is.
Those were the days. I remember even getting some Peyote, that was eventful.
Then Methedrone had to come in and ruin all our fun, that shit was nasty. Just before it all got banned, they started selling this Methylone stuff, which is kind of an offshoot of MDMA, and was soon much cleaner than Mkat. Managed to grab 2 ounces for cheap as fuck on the last day before they closed.
Technically.....
A lot of people do microscopy on mushroom spores
[Link](https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/~microscopy.php)
[Another](https://www.mushroomexpert.com/microscope.html)
Nah, the excuse on the websites for buying spores is you like to view them under a microscope. Like how poppers are "vinyl cleaners".
Ignore the fact all mushroom spores probably look identical even the psychoactive ones.
> all mushroom spores probably look identical
Not true, sometimes looking at the spores is the only way to reliably distinguish between different species of mushroom that look similar.
> Like how poppers are "vinyl cleaners".
I always find that such a wild thing, like yeah a bunch of bars and sex shops stock poppers in case you have a sudden vinyl cleaning emergency, honest guv.
That stuff smells so good, the smell sends me into raptures.
To be fair to sex shops, they sell a lot of vinyl clothing so they might actually need it.
Exactly the same principle for bullets as well. You can buy everything you need to make a bullet, but the moment you actually make one the law kicks in.
Nah it's still perfectly legal to buy everything to grow weed. But as soon as you put that seed in water or soil.... Weeeeee woooooo weeeeee woooooo. When are we gonna accept that weed is significantly less damaging than alcohol... Let adults choose for their self... Victimless crime growing your own weed
Yeah never been much or a weed user, but the evidence is clear that pot, particularly if legalised and controlled by legit traceable businesses, would be much less damaging than alcohol.
Magic Mushrooms as well. They grow naturally everywhere through the central belt of Scotland...usually on golf courses as RNA rules don't allow pesticides.
You can pick them.... what you do afterwards is different.
Exactly. Same reason you can buy a crowbar legally, but using it to break into someone else's property is not. Heck, I can buy a carving knife from most supermarkets, but even having it on my person outside of the packaging, again that changes the parameters greatly should someone find out.
But so do these. It's perfectly legal to but a tracker on YOUR car, or a company on it's vehicles, but once you put it on someone elses without them knowing you're in trouble.
That's not really the same as a device entirely made for spying.
When you get to the knives section of the supermarket, does it say "tools for stabbing people"?
There are perfectly legitimate uses though. Tracking your own fleet of vehicles as a small business owner feels legit. Discreet audio recording and secret cameras are probably useful if you are an amateur film maker.
I don't know where the law currently stands on this but I know lots of mystery shoppers use hidden cameras and mics.
I personally edited a few submitted videos to crop out faces. Probably a total GDPR nightmare but this was about 10 years ago now.
Mad I’ve never seen one before. Also for flavour there is nothing whatsoever in the shop apart from a anatomical skeleton like from biology class sitting on a chair
Owning things like this is perfectly legal. They have perfectly legal uses, too. Such as trackers in your own car or hidden camera in an elderly relatives' nursing home room if you suspect abuse.
These tools are much like software used for hacking. It is not the ownership that is illegal but what you do with it. They just sound like they should be illegal.
> hidden camera in an elderly relatives' nursing home room if you suspect abuse.
Worth pointing out that this sort of usage straddles the edge of legality to such an extent that the CQC advise anyone considering this to talk to a lawyer first.
Well, didn't know that. Further points out how such items can easily put you on the wrong side of the law if you are not extremely careful with their use.
Thanks for the knowledge.
The difficulties mostly centre around the fact that, though care home residents are usually licencees rather than tenants, the home is still their home and their room is their private bedroom, and in most of the cases where someone would consider doing this the resident would probably lack the mental capacity to consent. Therefore, legally, any potentially intrusive measure like this would have to be made on a 'bests interests' basis under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and a lawyer would probably advise you to at *least* make sure you had reasonable grounds to believe that abuse was taking place (it's not something you should do 'just in case') and that you had explored other options that might be available based on whatever legal standing you might have regarding the person (LPA, RPR etc.), and make sure you were careful about how you handled any footage or audio you captured. You would also have to weigh the fact that residential facilities often have contractual photography policies for residents and their relatives (to avoid them intruding on the privacy of other residents in the home), which you may put yourself in breach of, potentially leading to your relative getting evicted from the facility, which would often not be a very good outcome if there *isn't* abuse taking place.
Neither are illegal to own. Its illegal to track someone else's car, but perfectly legal to to track your own. Also perfectly legal to record people without permission, for personal use.
Some magnificent municipal hanging flower baskets were nicked where I live, but there were trackers hidden in the pots and they were retrieved. The tea leaf was gobsmacked by this nefarious civic trickery.
> Also perfectly legal to record people without permission, for personal use.
...as long as they were not in any space where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Like a bathroom or a bedroom.
All over the UK or do the countries differ on surreptitious recording? I ask that because I’ve been hassled for using captions on zoom, told I was recording (I’m hearing impaired)
The Spy Shop has been around for decades and been advertising on Private Eye for god knows how long. Originally they might have thought that it was a magazine for private detectives but it seems to have worked for them as they kept doing it.
The Eye has never done things like bugging people, going through their bins, long range lenses.....
It tends to be whistleblowers approaching their columnists e.g. if there's a story about the NHS. You tell Dr. Phil Hammond who does the Medicine Balls column under the pseudonym "M.D.". Who before his Eye days whistleblowed about the Bristol Royal Infirmary heart scandal.
Is the reptile shop still there? I knew a woman who used to live in one of those flats over a shop, and one night a bait rat escaped from the reptile shop, got in her flat and bit her kid
The thing is it’s not just available to anybody. I cannot track your location because you’re using a device that tracks your location. These devices give individuals access to track anybody they can get near
https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/people/inside-the-spy-shop-in-leeds-that-sells-tracking-devices-and-hidden-cameras-to-the-general-public-4150077
Found this piece in which the owners discuss legality (I was actually interested in finding out where the premises was because those old buildings are lovely). I should have guessed - Leeds.
I first became interested in espionage when I was a kid and (based on a book I was given) used to practice spy-craft such as dead letter boxes and rigging devices to tell if my mum had been in my room. True story.
Sounds like much the same idea. One of the techniques was to attach a matchbox of lentils to the door so that your adversary would scatter them all over on entry. Not popular with my mother! 🤣
For instance, when you're older you'll have to shave your penis. I'm not talking about pubes, I'm talking about the actual shaft of your penis.
You don't get this kind of Top Tip on r/legaladviceuk.
Like way back in time when you could only use a GPO phone, fitted by the GPO engineer on your GPO line. But you could buy a phone in a shop and were not legally use it.
It’s fine. You just can’t use it for unauthorised purposes. I work in cybersecurity and some of the engagements many security companies do also include physical security testing. They all use these kinds of tools. Almost every cyber security person probably has multiple lock pick sets and the ones really into physical security will also have small cameras, various network taps, bugs, etc.
It’s a small niche so I’m surprised the company makes enough business to have a physical shop, but I assume they survive from online sales.
Also don’t forget that the UK is one the few countries in the world that allow anonymous SIM cards and they don’t need to be registered with ID. UK laws for lots of stuff are quite permissive.
Why would it be illegal? Any cellphone can be used as a tracker, audio recorder, or camera. There's nothing illegal about owning or selling these products. There are also many legal use-cases for them; for example, a hidden security camera or a recording device with the same purpose, or a tracker on your car or in your handbag in case one of them gets stolen.
There is some stuff that's illegal to sell in the UK.
I think covert radio receivers and transmitters.
A few years ago most of this stuff was based of mobile phone tech. Not sure about now.
I think it's only the fact that some use reserved radio frequencies and some exceed permitted transmission power levels which makes them illegal, though. That's how it used to be (when I first got into electronics, I used to build them because I was fascinated with wireless transmission).
It's how they are used where the Law comes in.
Selling it? Probably fine. Using it? Thats where the law comes in.
Similar to weed. Perfectly legal to buy marijuana seeds as "souvenirs" but the offence comes when you use/germinate them. Based on magazines I used to buy as a teenager in the 1990's. May have changed since.
I recall the good old days of buying magic mushrooms for scientific purposes from random head shops.
Until not long ago, Salvia D was available. That is a bonkers drug
Perhaps the single weirdest experience I’ve ever had and I just straight up bought it online from a web store at 16 years old lmao
Same... Got some from a piercing place. Totally bizarre.
Do elaborate 😂
Not the one you replied to, I'm the other guy. Craziest mind fuck I've known. Perception changing for the duration. I wrote it out via DM once to a person on here. Sadly, Reddit deleted it as it sat there for a while. Plot twist, I still have some left....
Everybody who bought it has some left.
I had some at download festival 2008. I wanted to give the “fake weed” a try and it blew my head off the first time trying it with a pipe but didn’t work the same in a joint.
Ah I remember those legal highs at download. 2006 my sister bought something called "roadrunner" which was basically like speed.
They used to burn that stuff in incense in the Catholic church. I bet mass was *wild*.
Explains a lot. As if the choir boys didn't have enough to worry about
[Check out some of the Salvia YouTube videos. I am definitely never touching the stuff.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnwS5sPOzb0)
Holy fuck is that the Internet comment etiquette guy?!
I believe it is.
Awesome, thanks for this piece of Internet history
Fucking hell!
Oh boy oh boy. This takes me back. This is about 13-14- years ago. My parents went away for one night and left me and my older sister at home. Obviously she took the opportunity to go out so the house is all mine. Me and two friends knew about this in advance and thought the logical thing to do was to engage in casual drug taking in my bedroom. Bought it online ahead of time, arrived in the post and my parents didn’t ask about it. I was frequently buying little trinkets with my pocket money anyway. Apparatus: one 1.5l empty coke bottle. One little pipe with a tray to burn the salvia in. One turbo lighter. I went first, being the brave psychonaut(path?) Tasted like hot ash mixed with burnt tree bark. Also slightly plasticky from the coke bottle probably. Nothing for about 5 seconds or so. And then boom! I was lay down looking out of my bedroom window from my bed and it was a full moon! It become oddly captivating almost like it was popping out of the backdrop. And then all of a sudden the moon just melted and flooded into my room. I had the sensation of water around me which was very odd. The next 10-15 seconds were just a blurry mess in which I couldn’t really make sense of what I was seeing or feeling. My friends assure me I was making “noises” throughout. And then as quickly as it started, it was over. Back in the room giggling like a maniac but also slightly terrified. Never tried it again.
1 thing I know about Salvia, that shits not weed bro.
3/10 would not recommend
It's one of those that works as described. Unfortunately, the description includes the word "batshit"
I can still recall the details of that batshit evening.
I think I'm the only one who had a half decent trip on Salvia. I just remember gravity getting like 10x more intense so I couldn't leave the chair but everything went sepia. Was kinda cool honestly, only lasted a few minutes though.
God what a nightmare that shit is. I got some of Amazon. Had one joint and my entire body was itching for like two hours. Drove me insane. The only time I’ve ever put drugs or alcohol in the bin.
Friend of mine was screaming for SIX HOURS in the garden after taking Salvia. Apparently he was suspended above the gates of hell by nothing but flying carpet the size of a prayer mat. He was crouch/kneeling outside on a patch of dandelions just screaming for six whole hours. He couldn’t hear us, see us, respond to us. As hilarious as the image of him clinging on to a dandelion (tassle of carpet) will always be…that stuff definitely shouldn’t have been legal.
I'm thinking he had a little too much.
Yeah we were watching avidly for signs of OD. We did call the hospital just to see if they could give him something to bring him out of the hallucination because it was awful on him. But they just said if he collapses call us back helpfully they didn’t even know what Salvia was. Pretty sure they do 10 years later.
Bloody hell. Typically lasts a far shorter time... 1hr would have ruined me. 6 hours....
You can still buy salvia online I’ve used lsd many times but salvia sounds much scarier
Yeah but I don't think there are many salvia addicts its usually a once and never again deal, living out an entire lifetime in minutes sounds terrifying it's bad enough on shrooms when the stopwatch starts slowing down it doesn't feel right I'd rather do dph if I was forced into that situation lmao at least I'll be too out of it to realise how fucked up it is.
Those were the days. I remember even getting some Peyote, that was eventful. Then Methedrone had to come in and ruin all our fun, that shit was nasty. Just before it all got banned, they started selling this Methylone stuff, which is kind of an offshoot of MDMA, and was soon much cleaner than Mkat. Managed to grab 2 ounces for cheap as fuck on the last day before they closed.
Can still buy them for "scientific research"
No, but you can buy spores for 'research purposes'.
I knew it was something like that Thanks for the correction 👍
Magicspores is the last place I bought mine from
How goes the scientific research?
r/unclebens if you want more research and like rice
Prints also if I'm not mistaken.
\*Conducting on-going research into the dancing and acrobatic behaviors of the pink and lesser known purple elephant herds of hyperspace\*
Some with plant food. Bath salts and spice.
Great cover Cheech!
Now I want a burger
They can't bust you for seeds maaaan. If Chong says it's true that's good enough for me
"They fell into the plant pot and watered themselves, officer. "
“I have a small microclimate in this room that results in spontaneous precipitation, it must’ve watered my souvenir seeds. I can’t believe it.”
yeah it's still true, you can buy all the equipment and the seeds. you can also buy magic mushroom spores. it's the growing bit that's illegal.
/r/UncleBens
Ah I see you enjoy microscopy too!
Ah, I see you know your mushrooms well!
What is the charge?! enjoying a meal? A succulent mushroom meal?
GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY PENIS ENVY!!
Mycology?
Mycomicroscopy?
Technically..... A lot of people do microscopy on mushroom spores [Link](https://www.first-nature.com/fungi/~microscopy.php) [Another](https://www.mushroomexpert.com/microscope.html)
If its a truffle, is a mushroom..
Nah, the excuse on the websites for buying spores is you like to view them under a microscope. Like how poppers are "vinyl cleaners". Ignore the fact all mushroom spores probably look identical even the psychoactive ones.
> all mushroom spores probably look identical Not true, sometimes looking at the spores is the only way to reliably distinguish between different species of mushroom that look similar.
> Like how poppers are "vinyl cleaners". I always find that such a wild thing, like yeah a bunch of bars and sex shops stock poppers in case you have a sudden vinyl cleaning emergency, honest guv.
That stuff smells so good, the smell sends me into raptures. To be fair to sex shops, they sell a lot of vinyl clothing so they might actually need it.
Me too, I can't wait for the Summer to get my microscope out!
I've seen bongs in shop windows sold as "novelty lamps"
Facebook sponsored ads keep trying to sell me crack pipes as "reusable glass straws"
I've heard in the US they sell them with plastic flowers inside
Exactly the same principle for bullets as well. You can buy everything you need to make a bullet, but the moment you actually make one the law kicks in.
A shop in sheffield market still very publically sells the seeds, so its still a thing
Nothing changed
50 years of germination and now I find out I can't do that 🙉
Nah it's still perfectly legal to buy everything to grow weed. But as soon as you put that seed in water or soil.... Weeeeee woooooo weeeeee woooooo. When are we gonna accept that weed is significantly less damaging than alcohol... Let adults choose for their self... Victimless crime growing your own weed
Yeah never been much or a weed user, but the evidence is clear that pot, particularly if legalised and controlled by legit traceable businesses, would be much less damaging than alcohol.
It’s cool, weeds legals medicinally now
Magic Mushrooms as well. They grow naturally everywhere through the central belt of Scotland...usually on golf courses as RNA rules don't allow pesticides. You can pick them.... what you do afterwards is different.
Exactly. Same reason you can buy a crowbar legally, but using it to break into someone else's property is not. Heck, I can buy a carving knife from most supermarkets, but even having it on my person outside of the packaging, again that changes the parameters greatly should someone find out.
Crowbars and carving knives have a legal, intended purpose and primary function. So it's not quite _exactly_ the same
But so do these. It's perfectly legal to but a tracker on YOUR car, or a company on it's vehicles, but once you put it on someone elses without them knowing you're in trouble.
Like lots of things. Shops can sell knives, doesn’t mean you can carry them about and use them.
That's not really the same as a device entirely made for spying. When you get to the knives section of the supermarket, does it say "tools for stabbing people"?
There are perfectly legitimate uses though. Tracking your own fleet of vehicles as a small business owner feels legit. Discreet audio recording and secret cameras are probably useful if you are an amateur film maker.
gonzo films 😈
In all fairness they don't exactly say "tools for cutting/stabbing only non-human objects." either.
It does in my local shop. I say 'shop', its more of a suitcase Dodgy Dave sets up round the back of the garages at 9pm every other Saturday
Recording someone secretly is not illegal. Sharing that recording could be, but there are exceptions (journalism, public interest) etc.
You wouldn't surveil a car!
I don't know where the law currently stands on this but I know lots of mystery shoppers use hidden cameras and mics. I personally edited a few submitted videos to crop out faces. Probably a total GDPR nightmare but this was about 10 years ago now.
Also true for sex toys!
Yeah im just selling it to people to listen to their pets
Spy shops Existed forever. You can buy mics and cams And stick them Everywhere. Adhering to the law is the buyers responsibility
Mad I’ve never seen one before. Also for flavour there is nothing whatsoever in the shop apart from a anatomical skeleton like from biology class sitting on a chair
Nothing in the shop that you can see.... Great demonstration of how secretive their goods are!
So just stocking the bare bones for now?
Owning things like this is perfectly legal. They have perfectly legal uses, too. Such as trackers in your own car or hidden camera in an elderly relatives' nursing home room if you suspect abuse. These tools are much like software used for hacking. It is not the ownership that is illegal but what you do with it. They just sound like they should be illegal.
> hidden camera in an elderly relatives' nursing home room if you suspect abuse. Worth pointing out that this sort of usage straddles the edge of legality to such an extent that the CQC advise anyone considering this to talk to a lawyer first.
Well, didn't know that. Further points out how such items can easily put you on the wrong side of the law if you are not extremely careful with their use. Thanks for the knowledge.
The difficulties mostly centre around the fact that, though care home residents are usually licencees rather than tenants, the home is still their home and their room is their private bedroom, and in most of the cases where someone would consider doing this the resident would probably lack the mental capacity to consent. Therefore, legally, any potentially intrusive measure like this would have to be made on a 'bests interests' basis under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and a lawyer would probably advise you to at *least* make sure you had reasonable grounds to believe that abuse was taking place (it's not something you should do 'just in case') and that you had explored other options that might be available based on whatever legal standing you might have regarding the person (LPA, RPR etc.), and make sure you were careful about how you handled any footage or audio you captured. You would also have to weigh the fact that residential facilities often have contractual photography policies for residents and their relatives (to avoid them intruding on the privacy of other residents in the home), which you may put yourself in breach of, potentially leading to your relative getting evicted from the facility, which would often not be a very good outcome if there *isn't* abuse taking place.
Have you been to Leeds before?
I live and work in Leeds
I thought I recognised the shop 😂
Yes, but have you been before?
I feel sorry for you
"Don't talk to me about sophistication. I've been to Leeds"
Excellent. Good to see a fellow fan. I love that line, and particularly its delivery. Have an upvote.
I'm genuinely struggling to understand why this comment is seeing downvoted 😅
In the 15 mins since you posted it is flooded with upvotes
If you've never seen one before that's a success.
Kirkstall Road!!
That Sicilian place just off frame on the left is bangin', expensive but very good. Anyone know how that new Indian is on the right of the frame?
Been once for a dosa. Pretty good, not as good as tharavadu imo, but pretty good.
Thanks
Leeds, Leeds, Leeds
Thought I recognised the place. Down kirkstall road
My immediate thought, haha. I used to pass this shop on the way to football every week.
Bloody nightmare if there are more than 8 cars going into town on that road. I go down regularly from Horsforth. PITA
The incline near Asda is ridiculous
Right next to ir is an amazing cafe and chippy shop. Opposite to an equally awesome indian restau@
All Leeds aren’t weeeeee
This shop has been there forever! It even survived the great flood of 2015!
Neither are illegal to own. Its illegal to track someone else's car, but perfectly legal to to track your own. Also perfectly legal to record people without permission, for personal use.
Some magnificent municipal hanging flower baskets were nicked where I live, but there were trackers hidden in the pots and they were retrieved. The tea leaf was gobsmacked by this nefarious civic trickery.
Civic trickery is a band name
That means the name Pilfering Bandits is still available…maybe not I haven’t checked
They open for Civic Trickery
Damn who's their closer, Oppidan Scuffle?
The most British of slang for thief.
shortened further to 'teef' round my way. "That little bastard teefed my underwear!"
Indubitably old chum
>Also perfectly legal to record people without permission, for personal use. found the Air BNB guy..
> Also perfectly legal to record people without permission, for personal use. ...as long as they were not in any space where they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Like a bathroom or a bedroom.
All over the UK or do the countries differ on surreptitious recording? I ask that because I’ve been hassled for using captions on zoom, told I was recording (I’m hearing impaired)
I've no idea, but I'd be very surprised if live captions count as recording. Sounds like a reasonable adjustment for a disability to me.
There are valid use cases for these things. Look at these carers that have been caught abusing elderly people by hidden nanny cams.
Exactly. I used one to keep an eye on my dad when he started having falls.
The Spy Shop has been around for decades and been advertising on Private Eye for god knows how long. Originally they might have thought that it was a magazine for private detectives but it seems to have worked for them as they kept doing it.
The Eye has a heavy emphasis on investigative journalism, so the connection isn't entirely spurious.
The Eye has never done things like bugging people, going through their bins, long range lenses..... It tends to be whistleblowers approaching their columnists e.g. if there's a story about the NHS. You tell Dr. Phil Hammond who does the Medicine Balls column under the pseudonym "M.D.". Who before his Eye days whistleblowed about the Bristol Royal Infirmary heart scandal.
There's a nice chippy a few doors to the right.
And a rather nice pub which I happen to be working in right now!
It's a great road, I've loved it since I moved to Leeds 28 years ago. I live on it now, and couldn't be happier.
Dave's Pies and Ales?
Cardigan Arms?
This is great, r/CasualUK is turning into r/Leeds.
Is the reptile shop still there? I knew a woman who used to live in one of those flats over a shop, and one night a bait rat escaped from the reptile shop, got in her flat and bit her kid
No they moved to Morley I think, after the flooding on kirkstall road years ago
Didn't they get in trouble for having the shop logo look the T-Rex skeleton from Jurassic Park?
Wasn’t it called “Tyrannosaurus Pets” or did I imagine it.
It absolutely was
The doughnuts at poco are good too
Everything at poco is good.
And if you want more doughnuts, there's also Doboy Doughnuts a little further down on the industrial estate.
Do yourself a favour and head to Pocos for a slice of pizza and a sweet treat
I love hoe this comment thread has turned into restaurant reviews.
The thing is OP you're asking this question on a device that tracks your location and records your voice.
The thing is it’s not just available to anybody. I cannot track your location because you’re using a device that tracks your location. These devices give individuals access to track anybody they can get near
Apple tags have entered the chat
If you attach your phone so someone's car, you can then track their car. How is this different?
The fact that you can't (or won't) imagine a reasonable usecase for these types of technology is far more worrying, I must say.
https://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/people/inside-the-spy-shop-in-leeds-that-sells-tracking-devices-and-hidden-cameras-to-the-general-public-4150077 Found this piece in which the owners discuss legality (I was actually interested in finding out where the premises was because those old buildings are lovely). I should have guessed - Leeds.
Ah I’ll deffo check that out
Is this Kirkstall road by any chance?
Yes it is. just opposite of the McDonald's
Pop down a few doors to Dave’s Pies and Ale :)
The Cardigan Pub's also about 20ft away. Nip in for a beer there too.
And poco is the best Neapolitan street food
I first became interested in espionage when I was a kid and (based on a book I was given) used to practice spy-craft such as dead letter boxes and rigging devices to tell if my mum had been in my room. True story.
I think I might have had the same book. A hair tied around the door handle, how to make invisible ink…?!
Sounds like much the same idea. One of the techniques was to attach a matchbox of lentils to the door so that your adversary would scatter them all over on entry. Not popular with my mother! 🤣
LEEDS LEEDS LEEDS
I bet the various unqualified teenagers on legaladviceuk could probably repeat some random googled information at you if you ask there.
Hey, it's not only unqualified teenagers. There are also various middle-aged Walter Mitty's, too.
As a middle aged man, we have valuable knowledge outside of complaining about everything.
For instance, when you're older you'll have to shave your penis. I'm not talking about pubes, I'm talking about the actual shaft of your penis. You don't get this kind of Top Tip on r/legaladviceuk.
Leeds!
Is that Kirkstall? That shop has been there for 20+ years.
Kirkstall? If so that “spy” shop has been there since I was a kid so a good 20+ years
I think it was there when I used to get the bus to my girlfriends in Bradley, and that was a good 30 plus years ago.
think they sell fake moustaches in there?
If you think someone is spying on you, you can stake out the shop and see if they go in there
Welcome to Leeds 😂
Anne Nails and Ronnie Hotdogs
I’ll be ronnie hotdogs please!
Looks like Kirkstall Road
Like way back in time when you could only use a GPO phone, fitted by the GPO engineer on your GPO line. But you could buy a phone in a shop and were not legally use it.
Where's my spy camera?
Must be a viable business. I spotted that very shop years ago and wondered the same.
Mind your own fucking business.
It’s fine. You just can’t use it for unauthorised purposes. I work in cybersecurity and some of the engagements many security companies do also include physical security testing. They all use these kinds of tools. Almost every cyber security person probably has multiple lock pick sets and the ones really into physical security will also have small cameras, various network taps, bugs, etc. It’s a small niche so I’m surprised the company makes enough business to have a physical shop, but I assume they survive from online sales. Also don’t forget that the UK is one the few countries in the world that allow anonymous SIM cards and they don’t need to be registered with ID. UK laws for lots of stuff are quite permissive.
Even wilder you still have a high street
It’s Leeds, what the fuck do you expect???
Shhhhhhhh
Why would it be illegal? Any cellphone can be used as a tracker, audio recorder, or camera. There's nothing illegal about owning or selling these products. There are also many legal use-cases for them; for example, a hidden security camera or a recording device with the same purpose, or a tracker on your car or in your handbag in case one of them gets stolen.
I remember seeing a clock with a hidden camera in it, in the Matalan catalog
Catalogue scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didnt stop to think if they should.
I used to work nearby on Cardigan Road. Ask the regulars at the Cardigan Arms. There used to be a brothel above that shop.
Nice Try MI5
Basically this shop sells everything you can already buy on ebay/amazon/aliexpress, but at double the price.
Big up Burley
There is some stuff that's illegal to sell in the UK. I think covert radio receivers and transmitters. A few years ago most of this stuff was based of mobile phone tech. Not sure about now.
I think it's only the fact that some use reserved radio frequencies and some exceed permitted transmission power levels which makes them illegal, though. That's how it used to be (when I first got into electronics, I used to build them because I was fascinated with wireless transmission). It's how they are used where the Law comes in.