Are our phones listening to us all the time?

it'd be the only thing that listens to me !

Mine is always listening. That's part of the design and key to how I often use it. We have a couple of Home Hubs too and they'll often react to certain unplanned wordstreams too.

You can tell your phone to listen to you. But they don’t other wise.

People have done experiments on this. For example playing a recording of people talking about cats to a phone for 3 days and seeing if your more likely to get cat related adverts. I think they also did something about battery drain

No.

HTH

Was this using Android Auto/Apple Car Play?
I think in the setting when plugged into the car, you can specify if you want it to be listening all the time so you don't have to touch the mic button to communicate with the phone.

I was using Google maps week before last for the final few miles of a journey to an appointment in Liverpool, a school in Cornwall was mentioned on the news and the phone very unhelpfully re routed to there!

New phone that I didn't have fully set up and I don't normally use Google maps but it was definitely "listening" on that occasion.

...what annoys me about this is that my wife is deeply suspicious of google smart speakers, banished on the grounds they're listening (I know they're only listening for their 'on' phrase, not any other words/noises), but is not equally suspicious of her phone. Or our sonos. I have no way, stratagem or courage for communicating to her there's not a right lot of difference

I've had the same happen as the OP & certain discussions in our house are held behind closed doors with no phones in the room 🤔

I’ve had the same happen as the OP & certain discussions in our house are held behind closed doors with no phones in the room 🤔

...which would make life inconvenient, hence my not having much interest in surfacing the issue.

And I've no idea why I keep getting all these anti-farting pill ads.

Ssssh; you never know who or what is listening...

I will just say ‘Vintage Escorts’ 😶

I will just say ‘Vintage Escorts’

The Wayne Rooney Defence?

IANAL

Whilst on holiday one of the group started asking me about Bromptom bikes and what I knew about them, so we spent a good half an hour or so talking about Bromptoms etc. The following day and further I was hit with adverts and posts about Bromptom bikes (no internet searching was carried out, only verbal conversation).

This type of event has happened a few times over the past..............coincidence??

I’ve had the same happen as the OP & certain discussions in our house are held behind closed doors with no phones in the room 🤔

Best you have those conversations though, otherwise when Bonnie gets home you're getting a divorce.

@Mounty_73 if your friend had been looking at Bromptons online then FB would serve you those ads due to your connection.

@Mounty_73 if your friend had been looking at Bromptons online then FB would serve you those ads due to your connection.

She has never been on Faceache, she popped into her local bike shop to have a look at the bikes.

Whilst on holiday one of the group started asking me about Bromptom bikes and what I knew about them, so we spent a good half an hour or so talking about Bromptoms etc.

often the ads and promoted posts you receive on social media reflect the interests of the people people you're connected to as much as your own search history. So if you had links to members of that group online then the Brompton conversation could be linked to their Internet history rather than yours

No.

HTH

This.

(I know they’re only listening for their ‘on’ phrase, not any other words/noises)

And this.

if your friend had been looking at Bromptons online then FB would serve you those ads due to your connection.

often the ads and promoted posts you receive on social media reflect the interests of the people people you’re connected to as much as your own search history. So if you had links to members of that group online then the Brompton conversation could be linked to their Internet history rather than yours

These too.

And you all missed the most obvious one: Coincidences happen. Have you never read a book and someone in the room says the exact word or phrase you've just read? Been talking about something, then it's come up on the radio? A couple of months back I was listening to music at home, got in the car and the track continued playing; it took me a moment to realise, I'd been listening to Spotify at home and the car was playing DAB. Now, how many times does it not happen? This is the "alien life is highly likely because Numbers" argument.

In any case...

I'm sure I read an article about this and the answer was basically no they're not listening to you but often the algorithms dictating what you see are so accurate that it often feels like they are.

It sounds like the maps things is maybe a specific setting for making routing easier that you need to turn off rather than a passive listening thing?

I get subliminal brainwaves to "Buy more Cheese",I think it's my phone sending me messages on a special wavelength or Mrs FH whispering in my ear while I sleep.
She likes cheese a lot more than me.

I'm pretty sure they do. Often discussed something, in the office or home, and shortly after 'adverts' for similar items are either on your phone feeds or pop up on web adverts.

...

In any case,

Very clever people in cybersecurity spheres analyse these devices with rabid enthusiasm. Even a junior network engineer should be able to drop WireShark and listen to what's going on over their own Wi-Fi network, this isn't difficult. The incentive to bust Amazon / Google / Apple for spying would be high. If they were listening in, they'd have been caught by now.

It is possible that you've accidentally said something they've misheard as a wake phrase. I get this sometimes, I'll be in mid-conversation and Alexa will start chunnering on about the invention of the tea bag or the migration patterns of gazelles or something. I only expect this to get worse as I'm about to start working with someone called Alex.

It may also possible to configure always-on listening, often wrapped up in some euphemism like improving voice recognition accuracy. What corporations actually do with that data vs. what they say they will, be that intentionally or accidentally, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader.

Consider though, if they were listening in secret, then giving the game away by using that information to reroute your maps when you hadn't asked it to would be a really stupid thing to do.

Often discussed something, in the office or home, and shortly after ‘adverts’ for similar items are either on your phone feeds or pop up on web adverts.

It shouldn't be a shock that you're getting adverts for things that you're interested in talking about.

Try it. Do it in isolation. Come up with something random like kayaks and spend the evening talking about it. Don't google them, don't go near a computer. Obviously this won't work if you're a kayaker, and don't use kayak because I've said it three times now and there's a potential algorithmical link back to you.

Consider though, if they were listening in secret, then giving the game away by using that information to reroute your maps when you hadn’t asked it to would be a really stupid thing to do.

Well you say that but think about it this way:

It sounds really dumb if it routed him to NI and gave the game away, but what if the sequence of events wasn't the way it sounds and HTS busted them first and it then immediately rerouted him into the sea? The events are close enough together that he thinks it routed him first but really...
That or chat gpt has realised that a yet to happen seemingly random occurrence in HTS' life is an existential threat to AI.
I mean, the reasons Google maps might want to kill him are endless.

The big worry is when the phones rise up and take over the World. They'll know all our secrets and we'll not stand a chance!
It's gonna happen. Mark my words.

was browsing Facebook while eating breakfast at the cattle market once. An old chap I hadn't seen for years stops in passing and we exchange pleasantries. He tells me he went to Hereford Races for his 80th as a treat. He moves on, I go back to browsing, and Wham, the very next advert on Facebook is for Hereford Race course. I have never had one previously and nbot had one since. Horse Racing is probably the last thing on the planet I would ever be interested in.

Coincidence?

The big worry is when the phones rise up and take over the World.

Like with the Daleks, I reckon stairs will save us...

The big worry is when the phones rise up and take over the World. They’ll know all our secrets and we’ll not stand a chance!
It’s gonna happen. Mark my words.

Like with the Daleks, I reckon stairs will save us…

Nah, it's already happened, it's like a cross between invasion of the body snatchers and the shuffling zombies of 50s B movies.

Easy to deal with though, just put a sign that says "free wifi" in the middle of a deep pit.

Today they are trying to make you drive to Ireland, tomorrow they'll be jumping through your window and putting a cap in yo ass.

I don't trust memory foam mattresses.

I'm not so sure. Guy at work was explaining to another one about a film a younger employee used to love when he was a kid, Balto a cartoon about a husky. 20 minutes later the guy had details of the film come up on his Facebook feed. For me that's far too random to be a coincidence.

I only expect this to get worse as I’m about to start working with someone called Alex.

a large chunk of my working week is dealing with google integration. I usually unplug the google home that's in my office.

. Guy at work was explaining to another one about a film a younger employee used to love when he was a kid, Balto a cartoon about a husky. 20 minutes later the guy had details of the film come up on his Facebook feed. For me that’s far too random to be a coincidence.

That's probably because the other guy had searched for it ten minutes ago.

Cougar is like some kind of coincidence conspiracy theorist on this subject 😀

Yup exactly too much of a coincidence but it’s not because you were talking about an obscure film.

So as a person who has worked on phone design and also CPU design for phones.

Yes they are always listening, but not in the way you think, as Cougar says above one of the low power AI cores is listening for the attention/wake phrase. If it gets that it then wakes up a compute core, generates the magic numbers, sends that to the internet to decode and makes an attempt at answering what it thinks your question is. The raw voice data never leaves your phone.

If they were listening to everything you said all the time you would get about 10 minutes of battery life. The whole phone design is based around the compute cores spending most of their time asleep!

The coincidences above are almost all certainly based on location tracking. Facebook etc spend a lot of time tracking where you physically are, and if someone "near" you searches for something in a way they intercept they assume that you are possibly having a discussion and then change their advert weighting!

I’m assuming that the phone picked up the words Northern Ireland and added it to the route

It would have to have thought you said 'give me directions to Belfast' or whatever. No-one would program a tool to route you to somewhere you'd mentioned in passing. That would be absolute mayhem.

Horse Racing is probably the last thing on the planet I would ever be interested in.

If you were with a large group of people it is quite possible that someone else had just searched for it and it clocked that you were in the same location so gave you the advert.

Cougar is like some kind of coincidence conspiracy theorist on this subject 😀

Maybe that's what I want you to think...

The coincidences above are almost all certainly based on location tracking.

I completely forgot about GPS, that's a great shout.

Even if we assume they are not listening, the location tracking, friend relevant searches (probably in combination with location to see you were together at that time) is also deeply worrying, and why Meta keeps getting into trouble with data protection regulators.

That level of use of personal data is something we should all be concerned about and hold the companies to account, but we won't due to convenience.

Oh, absolutely.

"Is my device listening to me?" is the wrong question.

Facebook on my phone listens to me despite me limiting permissions to it.

Facebook on my phone listens to me despite me limiting permissions to it.

If you've any proof of that I'd suggest suing them, ideally in the US where they're based, as you'll have a very comfortable life off the back of that payout.

Whilst on holiday one of the group started asking me about Bromptom bikes and what I knew about them, so we spent a good half an hour or so talking about Bromptoms etc. The following day and further I was hit with adverts and posts about Bromptom bikes (no internet searching was carried out, only verbal conversation).

This type of event has happened a few times over the past…………..coincidence??

They don't NEED to listen if both of you were in the same location and one then went and did a search/post/whatever later. You don't even need to be sharing the location if your accelerometer is switched on and you are for example on the same tour bus (for example) but if one of you is sharing location then the other just shared it via accelerometer data or even consider a 3rd person on the same tour bus who's opted to share (or failed to find where to turn it off) or you both used or even detected the same Wifi.

You also presumably at some point in the past searched or posted or had an email etc. about Brompton bikes

As an example my kid once asked Siri to call grandma (not in his contacts as grandma) .. about 1001 ways it worked it out. Damned clever but ...

As a counter example the kid got a wart and I was discussing with his mother... came back to the computer in another room and got wart treatment ads. However when I did check someone (mother) at the same IP/Wifi who gets stuff delivered to the same address etc. HAD done a google or yahoo search.

I have had Facebook listening to me, almost certainly for sure. This was when I still occasionally used Facebook. I now never go on.

I was at work discussing an internal system with my colleague. Very obscure name. A few hours later I was getting ads for a shop which happens to have the same name, which sells stuff I have no interest in (and I don't think any of my colleagues or friends would have an interest in that shop either).

There is no other more likely or simple explanation than it was listening to me.

Ps I never use my personal devices for work. However the phone would have been with me when discussing with my colleague.

All the above.

However, if an entity ever wanted to surveil you, it absolutely could 'be listening' and you would not ever know it happened. Even if it's turned off. It's naive to think this isn't possible. There's a lot of information out there about surveillance capability and it's rather impressive. But it's mostly used against foreign actors

So how would it filter out all the garbage from "listening" to what you were watching on telly, for example. I sit there watching Ray Donovan with all the talk of robberies, killing, abuse, etc... I've never had an advert for a Glock appear. Not yet anyway.

This is great....an actual phone engineer type person explains that your phone isn't listening to you all the time, and what the phones actually do, but still people say "Facebook definitely listens"....somehow bypassing what the phone is actually doing 😂

So how would it filter out all the garbage from “listening” to what you were watching on telly

This is great….an actual phone engineer type person explains that your phone isn’t listening to you all the time, and what the phones actually do, but still people say “Facebook definitely listens”….somehow bypassing what the phone is actually doing 😂

Two levels.. FB have a Microphone switch in IoS that gives it permission. Whether it actually stops or not is open to debate as there are definitely rogue apps that bypass the OS permissions but mostly they rely on people not turning it off.
Do they, I doubt it because THEY DON'T NEED to... and they'd be royally shafted if they got caught.

However ...

I was at work discussing an internal system with my colleague. Very obscure name. A few hours later I was getting ads for a shop which happens to have the same name, which sells stuff I have no interest in (and I don’t think any of my colleagues or friends would have an interest in that shop either).

There is no other more likely or simple explanation than it was listening to me.

Explanation 1 .. FB was allowed to do so (you have to turn off microphone access)
Explanation 2 .. Whatever was on your phone or not your colleague presumably ALSO has a phone and there are 1001 ways to know that is your colleague from being on the same Wifi/Location/being on linkedin/FB
Explanation 3 .. It doesn't care if you are colleagues .. a device that has patterns similar to yours (location/time/other searches) did a search (or other action) for <weird product name> later/earlier .. doesn't need to be a phone, could be a computer doing the search from the same IP

Regardless of any of that your location can be tracked if the phone has battery and any type of signal.

So how would it filter out all the garbage from “listening” to what you were watching on telly, for example. I sit there watching Ray Donovan with all the talk of robberies, killing, abuse, etc… I’ve never had an advert for a Glock appear. Not yet anyway.

1) lots of ways ... like 1000 other people also watching Ray Donovan (whoever that is)
2) assuming they didn't filter .. does your profile look like someone can buy a glock and is it legal in your location. Why would "Glock" target you (pun intended) when they are paying for a service to "target" people likely to buy one of their products.

You might well get different ads if you frequented gun shops in Texas...

Ps I never use my personal devices for work. However the phone would have been with me when discussing with my colleague.

Your personal phone and work phone live together... its not rocket science to connect them even if you have zero interaction crossover for example if you drive to work with both in a car they both have the same sensor data (accelerometer etc.) BUT even if they didn't they don't need to it's just an ad. Or you once did a search from your phone at home.

I once did a load of work on ML differentiating between when something needs to be correct and verifiable and when close enough is good enough. It was actually text recognition (bad text) but same principal.

One of my explanatory slides was a ebay add for forks of the cutlery kind when I search for forks of the suspension kind.
It costs eBay nothing (*as close to) to make the mistake.

On the other hand if this is your medical records two homonyms or a small mistake could be fatal. [There is lots inbetween]

Advertising works on "close enough to charge for" not 100% verifiable.

1) lots of ways … like 1000 other people also watching Ray Donovan (whoever that is)
2) assuming they didn’t filter .. does your profile look like someone can buy a glock and is it legal in your location. Why would “Glock” target you (pun intended) when they are paying for a service to “target” people likely to buy one of their products.

You might well get different ads if you frequented gun shops in Texas…

Sounds like you've got it sussed.
LoLZ

Are they practicing active listening though? Really feeling what you’re saying and not just nodding in all the right places

Explanation 1 .. FB was allowed to do so (you have to turn off microphone access)

This is pretty likely.

So in summary...

You agree it can be listening all the time, unless you've been through all your settings / apps to verify you haven't accidentally consented to something.

I joined facebook but (seemingly), ticked off all sharing etc etc. I joined just to join other FB bike clubs. But outside if that i had zero interest.

Somehow FB put up a pic of me that i'd taken out on the bike in a forest, but i am 99% sure i didnt authorize it. So how did they get my pic.. The only place that picc was was on RB, and theres no way i would put a pic of myself on somewhere like FB.

In fact I'd deleted the one of RB, but interweb-there forever etc.

So how did they get my pic.

That's really not how this "listening" works 😆
They just show you ads, don't nick your photos

FB definitely does.

Son#1 asked me what the biggest mountain jn rhe solar system is.

it's Olympus mons on Mars. Next day I'm getting articles about Olympus mons on my Facebook feed

100% listening even if it says it isnt

Are they practicing active listening though? Really feeling what you’re saying and not just nodding in all the right places

I overheard an old bloke in a cafe once saying that "Alexa is the only woman in our house who's ever paid attention to anything I've said"

There is no other more likely or simple explanation than it was listening to me.

There's no explanation that you can think of. But just because you can't think of it doesn't mean it's not there.

FB definitely does.

It definitely doesn't.

Google or FB did link you to that question, but not because it was listening.

Listening to a live audio feed from everyone all the time would require a staggering amount of computing and network power, costing trillions, and it's entirely unnecessary because we already do loads of searches and it knows plenty about us through other means. The idea makes no sense technically or economically.

You can turn off mobile data and monitor your WiFi to see what data your phone is transmitting when you talk next to it. The answer is basically none. This has been tested. It sends periodic data when you move it around or interact, and when you use apps or they run in the background, but not enough for a constant audio stream.

There’s no explanation that you can think of. But just because you can’t think of it doesn’t mean it’s not there.

I said there is no other explanation which is simpler than FB listening, not that I couldn't think of any other explanations.

However all the other explanations I can think of (e.g. those proposed by @stevextc) are tenuous to say the least. Yes, my colleague and I would have typed the name of the internal system into work PC running windows and O365 suite. I don't have a work phone not sure about colleague. No work devices will run Facebook anyway. How does the data get from a locked down windows pc or iOS phone to my personal Facebook to sling me an ad? I really don't see it happening.

We would have said the system name multiple times over and over in the conversation, which could very easily have been picked out by language processing as a term of interest. Far, far more likely in my opinion.

Listening to a live audio feed from everyone all the time would require a staggering amount of computing and network power, costing trillions,

I agree except for the network bit. But why are you assuming this has to be done in Facebook's data centre? Why not do it locally in the device? There are a lot of phones out there and that is one hell of an amount of distributed computing capability.

Why not do it locally in the device?

That takes a lot of computing power and your phone would be warm all the time and the battery would last a couple of hours at most.

However all the other explanations I can think of (e.g. those proposed by @stevextc) are tenuous to say the least.

Tenuous how?

I really don’t see it happening.

You're being told how it works by people who know.

Are you the only two people who work there?

How does the data get from a locked down windows pc or iOS phone to my personal Facebook to sling me an ad?

You'd make a rubbish detective 😉

Several hundred people work in the same building. Relatively few on that particular system. True to say the number of people in the building increases the chances of someone searching online via their personal device but that's still pretty unlikely. I'm really not sure why anyone would.
It also doesn't explain the timing of the ad shortly after the conversation.

For a bit more context: It was an isolated conversation. I had not discussed that system for a long time. Lo and behold I get the ad an hour or so later. Never had such an ad beforehand.

Even if some random colleague had searched online, the ML worked out we were geolocated in the same building, it's extremely unlikely that the timing would have accidentally been that good.

You’re being told how it works by people who know.

Anyone work for Facebook? If not then I don't see how you KNOW.

For a bit more context: It was an isolated conversation. I had not discussed that system for a long time. Lo and behold I get the ad an hour or so later. Never had such an ad beforehand.

Facebook doesn't "listen" to voices. All that's happening is friends of friends, things on your network, things in Whatsapp.

Oh, and actual coincidences - remember them - and your brain trying to make sense of the madness of the world. Like how it tries to find faces in things, and makes you think you've seen a ghost when it's just something in the corner of your eye.

I mean, Facebook listening? How do printed newspapers do that? Because I've had that happen.

https://twitter.com/shedfire/status/1439547630472908800

For a bit more context: It was an isolated conversation. I had not discussed that system for a long time. Lo and behold I get the ad an hour or so later. Never had such an ad beforehand.

Even if some random colleague had searched online, the ML worked out we were geolocated in the same building, it’s extremely unlikely that the timing would have accidentally been that good.

Do it again, see if you can reproduce the effect.

Anyone work for Facebook? If not then I don’t see how you KNOW.

I explained how we know on the previous page.

Sounds like you’ve got it sussed.

Completely OT but I did once visit a gunshop almost in Texas (Pensacola)... very weird as I was visiting a wedding hire shop that shared a building. (Husband/wife businesses) Totally freaky as it wasn't even divided in two rather guns and stuff was mixed in with wedding stuff side by side.

Cougar
Oh, absolutely.
“Is my device listening to me?” is the wrong question.

and "are you aware of all the settings and permissions for all the apps on that phone?" isnt the answer 😀

Was it a shotgun wedding?

el_boufador

This is pretty likely.

It should be but do you read every TOS and every line ... Apps like FB are always granting themselves new permissions and changing defaults etc. and they "told you about it".. it was page 264 in the TOS 😉

True story .. google maps granted itself some tracking "whilst not using" ... (I must have overlooked) then I got a "How did you like your visit to <<military base>>". (Twice this weekend I was outside 4-5 times but that's not unusual). I'm often just outside the restricted MOD area (no public/access) by the guard house and never had this before but by "coincidence" I not only had my kid inside the base all weekend but Sat I was travelling with 2x serving friends. It's almost like something tipped a threshold of the likelihood of me being inside. I'm now getting ads for military stuff on FB... kid doesn't have a FB account... they could have been listening BUT they just didn't need to... I may have strengthened their algorithm by buying an entrenching tool the other week (trail building) and IO may have had other ads but just forgotten as it was google maps pinging me made me notice.

However all the other explanations I can think of (e.g. those proposed by @stevextc) are tenuous to say the least. Yes, my colleague and I would have typed the name of the internal system into work PC running windows and O365 suite. I don’t have a work phone not sure about colleague. No work devices will run Facebook anyway. How does the data get from a locked down windows pc or iOS phone to my personal Facebook to sling me an ad? I really don’t see it happening.

It's a series of correlations not a single step.. each one seemingly "innocent" each one building a profile that can be bought.

The first thing you have to realise is in order to serve you that ad it doesn't need to know 100% it's you or even that it's you.. just a profile of someone like you in some way.
I'm not trying to be condescending - think of my forks example in reverse. Someone was willing to pay for someone who searched/typed about forks. OR someone who is similar/lives with/works with someone who is interested in "forks".
Essentially there is a generic person and an individual and the only real difference is how much they want to pay with a huge grey area inbetween... BUT getting the 90% is easy combining a few relatively uncertain measures.

I remember this because it was amusing, you remember yours for other reasons...you/we've totally forgotten 80%+ of the other ads you were served. They are probably happy to pay for this non specific ad because 80%+? of people that search for forks are looking for cutlery. However say I wanted to advertise MTB forks I might want to advertise to the <20%... so I might want to limit it to people who are in FB groups for MTB, watch YT vids of MTB, have ordered a MTB parts off amazon/ebay or simply live at the same delivery/billing address as someone that did... or have been mentioned on FB/Insta/messenger/Whatsapp etc/ by people who look for MTB stuff.

All of that is without the people doing the ads even supplementing their legal data with data that would be illegal in the UK but they could get processed outside the UK.

Anyone work for Facebook? If not then I don’t see how you KNOW.

It's just very very unlikely because FB would be well and truly stuffed in many legal jurisdictions and they have lots of employees who may well be disgruntled with their employer. They certainly COULD.... but
a) they don't need to ^^^^ and
b) the consequences of getting caught are pretty high.
c) most people don't check their TOS/settings so its easier to just switch it on and "tell people" somewhere they won't read.
d) Surprisingly lots of people don't care... I sort of get that because what is the difference between reading your emails/text chats etc. or even social media to listening to speech? [

Completely OT but I did once visit a gunshop almost in Texas (Pensacola)… very weird as I was visiting a wedding hire shop that shared a building. (Husband/wife businesses)

Please please tell me it was called 'Shotgun Weddings'

Cougar

Was it a shotgun wedding?

LOL.. Bride wasn't capable of being pregnant.
. it was very weird and lots of unexpected things - including some positives I'd not expected .
The Best Man was VERY high ranking military I'd expected someone different based on expectations. Totally decent bloke didn't like having guns about (pretty anti gun) and absolutely didn't think a flag was appropriate at the wedding. (Which was one half a non US national)

Equally I booked into a holiday inn (or similar) that turned out to rent rooms by the hour...

maccruiskeen

Please please tell me it was called ‘Shotgun Weddings’

I think the shocking thing for me was simply that wouldn't have occurred to them or that anyone would find it weird.
Even other friends from NY/NJ were weirded out by it...

I think the shocking thing for me was simply that wouldn’t have occurred to them or that anyone would find it weird

I love shops that have weird mashups of stock. Used to walk past one  at the top of Leith walk - half the shop was TVs the other half was darts and dartboards. In Cessnock when I lived there the was a shop that sold a mixture of army surplus for survivalist nutters and haberdashery - a weird environment of musty smelling camouflage and nylon lace trimmings. When I lived near Nairn it seemed like every shop in the old town offered haircuts. Car and boat spares shop with a barbers chair in the middle, Second hand furniture and haircuts and hot rolls.

maccruiskeen

I love shops that have weird mashups of stock.

Fair point ... I stopped at the Service station at Glencoe to see if I could possibly get the right oil for the van (if not I'd chuck something close in)
I walked out with an absolute cornucopia .. stuff I'd have been to 15 specialist shops... hardware/outdoors stuff/random stuff

As I was about to leave I asked "you couldn't happen to have a inline fuel filter for a 2 stroke would you?" ... the teller went to look (they didn't in the end but thought they may)

I love shops that have weird mashups of stock. Used to walk past one at the top of Leith walk – half the shop was TVs the other half was darts and dartboards.

Darts crop up in odd locations. The local darts shop when I was younger was primarily a fishing tackle store.

Borlands Darts and television on Leith walk, I think it’s still there

Check for Pegasus 😉