All of you who have done the same job for decades, how? I'm not complaining, there's something comforting in the day to day, but 15 years in I just... don't want to anymore. No partner no children, so that pressure is off, but I need to feed, heat and house myself. Thus, job is not optional. There's stuff I want to do, there's stuff in the neighbourhood that could be cleaner and better. I'm just an urchin, I don't need much, can I just do good and be fed?

I agreed to do a remote training course courtesy of the Job Centre. That course was cancelled, because not enough people wanted to do it, so I agreed to do another course. However, only this morning have I realised this is in person, meaning I have to schlep to another town to learn a load of bullshit in a room full of people. Fucking people! Christ, what a nightmare.

>>464345
>can I just do good and be fed?
They're going to kill you. They're coming to your home and they're murdering you.

>>464346
Sad news, I'll find you. One of us dies, no one cares.

> in a room full of people. Fucking people! Christ, what a nightmare.

You'll find that most jobs entail being in a room with people eight to ten hours every day.

>>464345
Do you mean the same job or the same job with the same company?

I tend to change employers every 6 or 7 years, but over the past 13 years I've changed roles about 7 or 8 times.

It's always satisfying to be able to write "paid" on your bills and invoices and file them. Just a relief to put something behind you. I was fretting about £360 I had to pay for something, but now that that money is transferred, I can just forget about it. The worst thing is when you know you've got something like that coming, and then dreading the day it'll be in the post. Every day that it doesn't arrive feels like reprieve, but you know you can't escape your obligation to eventually fork over the money.

I've thought about getting a rubber stamp that says "PAID" with the date.

>>464349
I know, but I did something like this years ago and it was me and one other bloke who wouldn't stop talking about his anxiety. Also jobs tend to pay a bit more than the £300 a month I currently get (I'm £90-something down because I needed a hardship payment, ha-ha).

>>464352

I got to visit a one-week seminar on public relations once, because the job centre was trying to steer me in that direction. The person holding the seminar spent most of those four and a half days telling us how great her PR agency was that she was the owner of. Can't say it wasn't insightful, but it did nothing to convince me that it was the right field for me.

>>464357
I think I'd respect PR more if they rebranded themselves as "turd polishers".

I don't like the OP picture of this new weekday thread. Time for a three-month-long weekend AHAHAHAHAHA

>>464367
You had plenty of opportunity to make your own weekday thread but you didn't. Let that be a lesson to you.

>>464359

One memorable take-home from the seminar for me was how to concoct ready-made news articles (faux would really be the better word) and how to get lazy news outlets to publish them unquestioningly. Which I found a bit unethical, at least if you bank on newspapers not having the staff and resources these days to impartially fact check what you give them before they put it out.

Me and my new housemate need to get into relationships. I worry I've become a bit of a boyfriend for her, listening to her life stuff and cheering her up over tea, watching television together, handling the bloke shit and she's sending me very gay texts when she's at work for listening to her and asking what I'm doing in the evening. She's also starting to invite herself to my work events and is following up on it even when it involves taking a trip. We're not each others type at all and she seems like a complete fucking nightmare to be in a relationship with but the rampant eye-fucking I'm doing from having a woman in my flat and spending all this time together is getting a bit much.

And it doesn't help that when I put this into an LLM it feeds me:

>You're right, it's generally considered more ideal to find a romantic partner who aligns with your preferences and "type." This often leads to greater compatibility and a stronger foundation for a long-term relationship. However, life doesn't always follow a predictable path, and sometimes unexpected connections can blossom into something meaningful.

>While it's important to be mindful of the potential challenges of dating someone you live with and who isn't your typical type, it's also important to be open to the possibility that this could be an exception to the rule.

Help lads, I just wanted someone to split the bills with and maybe go for a beer on the odd bank holiday but this is tipping more towards some boring bloke pushing a shopping trolly in B&Q on a Saturday afternoon.

>>464358
The neckbeard hides the double chin innit. And generally your hair grows thicker on your neck to your cheeks so unless you shave everyday you're going to be rocking something of the look.

>>464345
One day at a time. I've been in the same role for 4 years now and I hate it but I constantly get distracted in the process of moving up/sideways. It's a real problem I guess.

>>464370
>sometimes unexpected connections can blossom into something meaningful.
I think I read this in a fortune cookie once. I imagine it's about as insightful.

>>464370

For all intents and purposes, you already are in a relationship, just without the sex. If you're not okay with it you need to somehow knock it on the head, because she definitely sounds comfortable letting you fulfil the role of boyfriend in functional terms. That said:

>I just wanted someone to split the bills with and maybe go for a beer on the odd bank holiday

This is all I want from a relationship. I probably have become boring over the years but frankly after enough passionate but ultimately heartbreaking failed relationships with lasses I found compelling, I'm starting to feel like the type of dull but mutually beneficial cohabitation you're describing is actually the ideal.

>>464371
Exactly. I should be supportive as a friend, she seems like she needs it and has said she's lonely a few times but I should at the same time manage distance, any physical contact and otherwise any signals I send to avoid things getting incestuous.

>>464372
>I'm starting to feel like the type of dull but mutually beneficial cohabitation you're describing is actually the ideal

Sounds like rose-tinted glasses to me, emotional labour gets old when you're not really getting anything out of it. Going through the motions isn't enough and the vast majority of unhappy relationships seem to show it.

My sleep pattern has been normal, I had plenty of exercise today, ate well, no caffeine past lunch, bed's comfy and clean (as am I). I read for an hour before lights out instead of using any devices, didn't drink excessive liquids too late, I don't feel manic or wired, why the fuck can't I sleep?

>>464346
If you don't want to physically be around people for a living then IKEA are recruiting people to work in their virtual Roblox store.

https://thecoworker.co.uk/

>>464377
>Ten lucky candidates will be selected
I'd actually be interested in trying something like that, though I'd assume social skill would be a major factor. You'd pretty much be paid to roleplay.

>>464378
>You'd pretty much be paid to roleplay.

With kids or paedos pretending to be kids.

Anyone going to Glastonbury? My ex asked me to come *after* we broke up last year, so I'm really looking forward to 5 days of having an amazing time with her and regretting my decision.

>>464379
I've already said I'm interested, you don't have to sell it to me.
Incidentally that's the usual reason I attribute to those pedo hunter types - they just like pretending to be kids flirting with adults online.

In other news, my MusicMagipie order (of childrens films, no less) has come smelling of soap or perfume so strong it's giving me a headache.

A few thoughts today.

Are furries becoming more popular/accepted in society? I've been seeing them a lot more recently.

And why do we not seem to really utilise our islands that much? Surely they could be doing something cool. Most of them just have a shitty lighthouse and that's it. It's quite easy to forget we're on a small island sometimes. I don't think we have any particular affinity to the sea. We don't eat seafood, we don't really have anything culturally going on.

>>464383
>Are furries becoming more popular/accepted in society? I've been seeing them a lot more recently.

It probably says more about the company you keep.

>>464383

>Are furries becoming more popular/accepted in society? I've been seeing them a lot more recently.

I think they are, but it's a generational thing. The zoomers are a lot more accepting of people being gay or bi or trans or whatever and they generally don't as commonly see those things as valid reasons to bully someone. Being a furry has ended up as more of a legitimate subculture to them, like being a skater punk or emo kid was for us. The younger ones I have spoken with seem to have very little understanding of how fiercely hated furries were just a few years back, and they only encounter occasional negativity.

I'm a lot less closeted about being one than I was ten years ago, but I still don't exactly draw attention to it, because I imagine most people above the age of 30 who were ever online enough to know what furries are still primarily associate them with "yiff in hell" and Black Templar memes and all that.

Why were all the D-Day anniversary commemorations today when everybody knows D-Day was the 6th of June?

>>464386

Although the allied forces made landfall at dawn on June 6, it will have taken them some time on the day before to move into position.

Imagine being a German soldier in a bunker turret on the Normandy shoreline and seeing an absolute armada of enemy ships moving in through your binoculars as far as the eye could see. If there was ever a time to completely shit your pants, that was probably it.

I saw the way the weather is going and spent £80 on fans. I won't be caught out by summer again.

>>464381
Why'd you say yeah?

>>464383
We're not a small island and the farming in the lowlands is amazing for cattle. We're all about beef and liberty.

>I don't think we have any particular affinity to the sea

Royal Navy, trade and cosmopolitanism.

>>464387
Fantastic to honour a great bunch of lads like that. They're the ones who invented punching Nazis after all.

I'm starting to notice a divide between ability and knowledge among my peers lately and I'm not sure what to think about it. You've got the dudes who circlejerk talking about how things should be, but their practice is lacking sometimes entirely. Then you've got the dudes who just do the stuff, sometimes well sometimes not so, but they rarely talk about it.

So I'm starting to wonder if these leading content creators in niche and growing hobbies are actually just good bullshitters, regurgitating the best advice they've found online and presenting it as a personality.
I seem to be in this category in that I'm keen to learn how something is done, share theories and ideas about it, but when it comes to the actual doing it's completely foreign.

The map is not the territory, menu not the food etc.

I've prepared cottage pie for tea and it's currently sat in the fridge until I put it in the oven in around an hour or so. Should I grate cheese to put on top of the mash or would that be a step too far?

>>464391

Do it. What's wrong with you.

>>464392
The only time I've had cheesy mash was when I had it for school dinner once and it was lovely. I'm worried it won't live up to that high.

>>464393

There are some things in life you just have to accept you'll never feel the same joy about again. But cheesy mash on a cottage/shepherds pie is always better than plain.

Installed a new brake caliper today and flushed and bled the brake system.

Feeling chuffed with myself.

>>464395

I hoovered up.

I just tried to call the United Utilities 24-hour automated payment line so I could pay my water bill, and I got a recorded message saying I couldn't because the office is currently closed. I was so confused I hung up and rang back immediately, but I got the nonsensical message again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmQzeipJVXI

Hmm.

There's a bag of dogshit on my front path. My video doorbell didn't detect anyone dropping it. How did it get there? Did someone lob it twenty-odd yards from the street? Did a crow drop it?

Gave my oven a good clean and scrub with oven cleaner and now my pizza tastes of the stuff. But I'm sure it won't kill me.

Please talk me out of buying a nearly 3 grand macbook pro. I have no use for it, I just like shiny new tech things and the new macs are lovely. I always kid myself with "oh but I'll take up video editing, I'll become a programmer" or some bollocks but never do.

>>464401

If you can afford to just piss away three grand on overpriced shite, then you deserve it.

Talking to a Polish programmer. She lives in Warsaw, makes £70k. I've been to Warsaw, it's a cheap city. If she was in the UK she'd likely be making less or the same, and paying about a million times more for everything. I have similar experience here and I can't even get a job.

The standard of living on £70k in Warsaw must be through the roof. Lads, it's over, the tables have turned. Britain is finished. We'll all be scrabbling for cleaning jobs in Poland soon.

I'm not joking here, I think we're fucked. The standard of living in this country is shit. Pay is shit. Services are declining. I don't know what I'll do really, I can't see a positive future. I should've gone into finance as a young man.

>>464401
You don't need a macbook pro to code. I got a macbook pro and I don't regret it, but if I were you I'd just get an apple refurb m1 macbook air, they're about a grand. The macbook pro has fans, more power, and a nicer display. The apple silicone machines are very nice, you won't regret buying one whichever way you go.

Either way you'll want to go to notebookcheck.net for autistic German reviews.

>>464403
>The standard of living in this country is shit.
The pond at my local park has been dyed a deep cyan for the spring summer tourists. Witnessing that alongside a generally rundown environment, then a brand new travel interchange just up the road hs brought to the forefront of my mind that something just isn't right within my county at the moment, presumably the entire country. I don't know what it is, and thoughts that it's conservative government or brexit seem like they're missing the point of a greater issue.

Never more than now have I felt that people are living well beyond their means at the cost of everything and everyone else. My rent has gone up every year for the past 3, and while my place isn't bad it is a bedsit. I can't help but think my rent is paying for my landlords to continue a comparitively lavish lifestyle, while I've tightened my belt. I don't know that this is actually the case, but it's certainly easy to imagine and extend it to the type of people in local and national government, what with expenses and all that bollocks - it was only a few years ago I overheard a couple of civil servants discussing how to carpet a section of their house with public funds, using a rule that it must serve a working home office.

>>464403

I mean, it's been going that way a long while. You heard about all those digital nomad lot getting high paying Western jobs then fucking off to some SEA cplace to live for nothing and sip cocktails on the beach while they zoom call remotely managed the SQL database algorithm or whatever the fuck they do.

But the bit your missing is it doesn't pan out that way for everyone. The people behind the tills at Polski Sklep (which I suppose they just call Sklep) are getting fuck all. The builders and plumbers and electricians are still milking whatever they can get of their jobs over here. It's an economy of even higher inequality, despite the lower cost of living; with America backing them and supporting the wonders of the Free Market they will only continue to widen the gap and end up in the same position as us. That will be "progress".

We're all in the same shite sinking dinghy and it's called neoliberalism.

>>464403
>>464405
We all think we deserve better, but there isn't enough "better" to go around. So we all resent each other now. Society has become a giant crab bucket. And the only political parties that acknowledge this are the ones who say that the problem with the modern crab bucket is that there are too many eskimo crabs.

>>464407

>but there isn't enough "better" to go around

Except there is, there's fucking loads of it, actually. We've just been scraping the same proportion of it thinner and thinner over an increasing population for 40 years because the people who have it don't want to share.

I had a pack of Wotsits and there was an absolutely miniscule amount of residue left on my fingers. Broken Britain.

So my week ended with trying to claim Delay Repay after a bit of a disaster on Thursday night. Except that I couldn't find the train I was on anywhere on any of the usual publicly-available sources of data, and when I put in the journey details on the claim site it gave me an arrival time about 20 minutes after departure.

So I guess I might have to wait a couple of days to get my £2.20.

Alright, who wants to make the new weekend thread? Someone else should have a turn.

>>464411

Well this is your fault.

I vote for the belgian bun one, fits the theme.

>>464414
Threads died for this, reeeeee

A woman in front of me in the queue at NatWest this morning was asking pretty specific questions about AML reporting of cash withdrawals. She wanted to know the bank's reporting duties if she withdrew £10K in cash. Apparently what they told her then deterred her, and she left without withdrawing any money at all. The bank employee asked her "Is this for a car or something like it?", but she said no and that she'd rather not tell him while other people were around.

What kind of shady business are people up to these days.

>>464470
Most likely some form of scam. My MIL has just been scammed for the second time, this one was happily giving all her bank details from someone pretending to be from Barclays. A lot of the things they told her simply wouldn't have added up if she stopped to think for a second but she's easily flustered.

>>464470

It sounds like money muling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_mule

Is it just me, or has the level of detail into the reporting of Dr Moselys death been a bit disrespectful. It feels distinctly early 2000s.

I don't think I want to be in the office more, but I'm enjoying working from home a lot less than I used to. I think that's because I changed companies last year and at my previous place, where I was over lockdown, it wasn't uncommon to talk to several people during the day via Teams whereas here I'll generally spend thirty minutes to an hour on the phone with my ADHD and autistic colleague and that's it, which isn't the same. My favourite working day of the week is now the one day everyone from my team is in the office.

I like Lidl's new bonus where you win free fruit and I think it's making a real difference to give people free pineapple/mango or avocado that they might not otherwise ever have at home. I especially like that they didn't do like some fruit smoothie company and have people win apples every time because they're cheap.

That said, there's only so much pineapple and avocado I want to eat and Lidl had variable fruit quality - I don't even want to win the oranges/plums coupon.

>>464475
Sounds more like you need to get some mates in a chat going. Is there a social channel?

Personally I like working from home because I do fuck-all most days which gets very boring when you're in the office. That and the extra kip and money saved.

>>464477
>Sounds more like you need to get some mates in a chat going. Is there a social channel?

There's nothing like that. They don't even use Teams because they're very behind the times, plus it's a much smaller team. There's only two other people in my department, with one of them the aforementioned woman with autism.

Gigantic moth on the way to work.

>>464483
Don't matter how big he is mate, moths don't have jobs.
He's probably off down the bookies to have a flutter.

>>464475
In my last job I preferred office work to home work. I worked in a call centre and we'd get lots of different queries from customers that an individual just can't solve. It's nice to be able to put them on hold and walk a few metres to get help from someone and get it sorted in a few minutes. Compared to working from home, putting the customer on hold, putting a message in the Teams support group chat (which is full of banter and off topic stuff) and hoping for a speedy reply but sometimes having the customer on hold for half an hour.

The extra hour and a bit of sleep and savings on bus fare didn't compensate for a more stressful but also even more depressing experience.

Hypothetical but with how anti woke and anti censorship the Tories are, could I get away with tweeting racial slurs at Sunak and Badenoch or would I face consequences? If they pursued me they'd be hypocrites.

>>464487

It's the police that'll pursue you, not the government.

>>464487
I think Reform would distance themselves from your candidacy. If the press picked it up

>>464487
They are hypocrites. I think about this all the time. They even spoke out about that party donor who said Diane Abbott made him hate black people, even though he clearly didn’t. Their whole careers are predicated on being able to have it both ways. Also, you can tweet what you like to Kemi Badenoch; she can’t read.

The new grass I sowed two weeks ago is growing very patchy. I tried to rake the seeds into the soil so they wouldn't clump together, like the instructions suggested, but it somehow didn't work and I guess I'll have to buy more seeds to fill in the patches.

>>464492
The vegetable beds I removed the sod from earlier in the year have a nice evening growth of grass coming up across them, we can swap if you like.

Been having pains so today I had to have a prostate examination. Was over quickly but not very nice. Prostate swollen and inflamed, need to take piss samples and maybe go on antibiotics.

When he said there's two ways of getting my prostate examined I was foolishly hoping that one of them did not involve a finger up the arse. Unfortunately the two ways were to stand up and bend over the examination bed for a finger up the arse, or lay on my side on the examination bed for a finger up the arse.

>>464494
I think I'd rather bend over.

>>464494
Yeah, well which did you opt for?
Reminds me of the story of that gay bloke who 'edged' himself for a week prior to a turning himself in as a drugs mule. Save to say he wasn't carrying anything and thoroughlys enjoyed the examining officers probing.

People have become far too comfortable with bringing their dogs into businesses/restaurants etc. I don't want to eat next to your stinking fucking Labrador. People will moan about the working class and their XL bullys but I don't see them forcing their way into eating establishments with them at least.

>>464495
Me too. Weird, that. I wonder why?

>>464498

That way you're at least taking it like a man, not some delicate snowflake who's so scared they have to have it done hugging a pillow and sucking their thumb.

Perosnally I'm quite fond of prostate stimulation anyway, so it's really no big deal. I mean it's 2024 for crying out loud, what kind of poofter hasn't tried it up the arse?

>>464496
Bending over. More straight forward. The laying down one I would have had to raise on leg towards my chest so I would have been almost been in a foetal position staring at the wall which would be grim. I actually thought the prostate was much deeper into the rectum than it is in reality, I was expecting him to go knuckle deep and prod around for a minute. Just a slight bit of entry, bit of a prod, then done in 10 seconds.

I really don't like my anus being stimulated so it was long 10 seconds, I really cannot see the appeal of the physical element of pegging (I like the idea of the domination and emotional/psychological element, just not a six inch dildo being rammed up my bum).

I've just got off the phone with my parents. They've let me know they're going to be painting the brickwork outside their house that ubiquitous shade of grey. I am judging them.

>>464501

I've noticed drab grey for houses is incredibly common in Scotland when I was up there recently. I have to assume it's to do with the locally available materials to make bricks out of, but it looks depressing as fuck.

The last time I got my prostate checked it was by a reasonably attractive female GP. I got an erection and I was a little bit disappointed when she pulled out.

Why is it so cold? This country is just relentlessly depressing.

>>464507
June innit.

I ask you in advancec to forgive the dm posting.

How bad is crime in London really? Do you have to be careful about using your phone in public so it doesn't get grabbed? Is it true that kids just walk around with balaclavas on as a matter of course now?

>>464509
You absolutely cannot walk about with your phone in hand in many areas of London. My girlfriend worked in a cafe near Angel and of the 10 or so girls working there, 8 of them had their phones snatched from hand.

>>464507
I don't like to weather post, but I honestly can't stand it lately. It feels freezing until there's a break in the cloud, then it's 25 degrees, and you have to carry a raincoat or an umbrella in case all Hell breaks loose.

It's the 10 year anniversary of GamerGate in August. I lost my virginity to a genderqueer fisherperson that same month. After sex we discussed video games and GG. They said that playing Candy Crush made them more of a gamer than someone who played Skyrim, because Candy Crush was a puzzle game and the first video games like Pac Man were puzzle games, so I guess they were arguing Candy Crush is more pure a game than Skyrim. At the time I thought they were retarded so just smiled and nodded, but then when I think back, maybe they're right. I dislike both games, so I have no horse in the race. Could their argument have defeated GG in its tracks?

>>464512
GamerGate was a bunch of people who like moaning doing loads of moaning. You could have given them the moon on a stick and the GamerGaters still would have whinged up a storm, because they're cretins, The suggestion it was about some greater ideal is an absurdity.

Congratualations on having sex though.

>>464513
But in a way ethics in journalism is important. As is not harassing women. If Rishi Sunak slept with Beth Rigby and Laura Kuenessburg then they wrote glowing articles about him, how is that different from Zoe Quinn having sex with Kotaku men and getting a glowing article about Depression Quest?

But then harassing women for existing in gaming is wrong and a decade of anti-woke harassment campaigns has made the world worse. They both have their pros and cons.

>>464513

Gamergate was an internet retard slapfight that started on Tw*tter and should have fucking stayed there. It should have been irrelevant, but a handful of grifters needed it to be a much bigger deal than it was. No-one came out of it looking good.

>>464514
There was a lot of harrassment flying around from both sides when gamergate was happening.

The takeaway from the whole thing for me was realising how absurdly one sided the media coverage of events can be.

Gamergate was the gaming press closing ranks to protect its own and attempting to smear essentially it's entire audience to save face.

I think it was a lot more culturally significant than anyone would like to admit, because while the whole thing was pretty embarrassing, once the real idpol grifters got involved, they really forced the Kulturkampf onto a lot of people who would otherwise have been contently ignorant about any of it. The grifters made an enemy out of a group that they really needn't have provoked.

Of course you have predictable tossers who still look at the whole thing as some e-drama where one side was smelly chronic masturbators and the other side was lovely innocent women, so it's obvious who was right and wrong without knowing anything about it. But I think in time the gamers will be vindicated- What's most telling is how you kind of saw most outlets just drop the whole thing and memory hole it, when they realised how rapidly they were losing their audience to Youtubers and Twitch streamers.

It was like an attempted coup, that failed, and now everyone just pretends never happened.

I see Gamergate as more like Brexit. Gaming journalism was corrupt and exploitative, and the people were ready to rise up and fight back. Just like how we were all angry about austerity, and how it wasn’t working. Then, some people came along and inserted themselves at the head of this populist movement, and steered it in completely the wrong direction. Don’t blame bankers and politicians for your shitty lives; the real problem is too many Polish roofers. Don’t blame incestuous lobbying and bribery for the laughable state of videogame journalism; your real enemy is women’s rights for some reason. And people, unfortunately, listened, and ruined what could have been a noble attempt to improve everyone’s lives.

>>464519

>Don’t blame incestuous lobbying and bribery for the laughable state of videogame journalism; your real enemy is women’s rights for some reason.

Except it was really more the other way around, from the other side. Gamers aren't correctly accusing us of corruption and insider dealing, instead gamers are all just horrible sexists trying to prevent women's rights for some reason.

It was easy to tie the Gamergate lot together with a stereotype of the average /r9k/ poster, because no shit, there were plenty of neckbeards in amongst them. But it was never about that until they made it about that, because it was easier to do that than defend the shit they had been caught doing.

Is GamerGate 2.0 (The Sweet Baby Inc saga) less justifiable than the original GG? Protecting journalistic integrity is one thing, but attacking companies and people merely for putting blacks and women in games is beyond the pale.

I don't know what GamerGate is, but everyone I've seen talking about it is an obvious oxygen thief.

I, for one, have never had a strong opinion on gamer gate. It seems like the type of thing knobheads care about.

>>464521

It's just another Reichstag Fire, pay it no mind.

>>464522
>>464523

Very enlightened of you lads. I tip my fedora to you both.

The only notable thing about GamerGate was that it showed Steve Bannon how to easily weaponise angry young men, and it's basically been downhill from there.

>>464527
>Steve Bannon

Nobody ever gave a fuck who he was. And I mean "nobody" in the american sense of the word. Which you shall have with yourself.

>>464509
Are you in London this weekend too? Do you want to be my plus one to a wedding? "I don't know this guy, but I've probably calling him a fucking idiot and told him to top himself at least once".

>>464528
Stop chatting bollocks. Just because you say something doesn't make it true.

You ever find yourself in a situation where you're strongly sexually to a woman but you're not too sure as to why? Where they just aren't your usual type but looking at their form just repeatedly hits some button in your mind?

I matched with such a woman and she didn't reply to my opening message but she was on my mind when I was half-asleep a couple days later. Horny thoughts. So I followed up by joking that she must be the strong silent type and after a few chats I'm taking her out on a date. So long as neither of us fucks up I hope she has a good deal of stamina.

>>464509
Not bad at all, just don't be a gormless idiot. Especially if you're only going around Central or what-have-you.

>Is it true that kids just walk around with balaclavas on as a matter of course now?

No. Although maybe with the weather how it is at the minute.

>>464530
>Stop chatting bollocks. Just because you say something doesn't make it true.

Fuck off Steve, no-one cares about you anymore.

It's strange how we call milk chocolate chocolate and chocolate dark chocolate. We should be calling milk chocolate milk chocolate and chocolate chocolate.

>>464533
Dark chocolate’s real name is plain chocolate. They seem to have changed it because customers are too thick to know what plain chocolate is. That reminds me; I need to personally skin alive every single employee of every single food company that mentions “Madagascan vanilla”. If you are from Madagascar, you are Malagasy, but who cares about being right when you can talk down to people and refuse to educate them in the name of profit?

I live with my girlfriend but she's here on a working holiday visa which is classed as a tourist visa. Am I eligible for a single person discount? On one hand she does have access to council services like bin collection, but then she doesn't get to vote in the council elections and presumably has other council services restricted for her.

>>464536
On my council tax that is.

I spent ten minutes this morning looking for a tube of toothpaste that I was dead certain I'd bought and brought home yesterday.

Just found it in the fridge, next to all the yoghurts I bought.

I'm starting to become worried about myself.

>>464536
Also I want to have a little moan about how she's now expected to earn nearly £39k to get a visa sponsorship job. Great move, that will stop the dinghies I'm sure.

>>464536

Nah I think you are still gonna have to pay it m8. She lives there. she's an occupant, it's a "single occupancy discount", I don't think the technical status of her visa has much to do with whether or not she counts as an occupant.

>>464540

Have you tried being from a eskimo family? Tell everyone she's your cousin and the whole extended family will chip in for your marriage visa.

>>464536

No. There's a specific list of adults who are disregarded for council tax - students, people with severe mental impairments, live-in carers and Ukrainian refugees.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/council-tax-discounts/

>>464540
>she's now expected to earn nearly £39k to get a visa sponsorship job.
The purpose of this is to drive up wages for British workers. M-maybe one of us could be your girlfriend?

Certain eyebrow hairs are growing at an alarming rate. Some of them I don't notice, then they stick out a bit and I examine them, and they're so long that if I stretch them down, they go below my eye itself. Longest one was about two inches. They're going a bit Michael Heseltine.

Mum texting me "have a restful day" when I'm unemployed feels like a dig.

>>464586
I've got a couple of these myself that I have to pluck occasionally. Hopefully we can both go Breznev in old age.

>>464587
It's too early in the week for this but women seem especially cunty when it comes to men and jobs. I think it's one of those lingering actual maritime issuess.

Woman at the wedding I attended recommended calling women "cunt" while having sex. It's nice she thought I'd be able to apply this advice to my own life, but I thought if any of you lads like high-stakes life choices maybe you could try it.

>>464588
>It's too early in the week for this but women seem especially cunty when it comes to men and jobs. I think it's one of those lingering actual maritime issuess.
Firstly, I was making a joke out of an innocuous text. Secondly, don't call my mother "cunty" (unlesss you're her gay friend).

>>464589
>I thought if any of you lads like high-stakes life choices maybe you could try it.
>don't call my mother "cunty"
Make up your mind mate.

I had some 90% dark chocolate an hour before bed and couldn't get to sleep for ages. After a few decades of living on this planet I'm only now finding out that chocolate has caffeine in it.

>>464590
Yeah, that was an all time rake-step on my part. Well played.

>>464591
I was probably in my early 20s when I found out. Caffeine doesn’t affect me at all, and I thought it was some cool superpower, but I eat enough chocolate that I’m probably just the Oliver Reed of caffeine.

>>464593

The older I get, the more I can't sleep at night if I am having coffe past about 6 or 7 pm. That has definitely changed since I was a younglad.

>>464589

One of my exes preferred to refer to her vagina as her cunt, as opposed to either pussy or fanny that I'd assume are the most common. I've never known anyone else prefer it. I rather liked it, it sounds nice and vulgar, instead of too childish or too American.

Besides that I am overwhelmingly more likely to use the word cunt to refer to a bloke than a bird. It just doesn't sound right using it to refer to a lass. I object to pearl clutching over the word in general, because in my dialect it is more or less just a placeholder word for any bloke you don't know the name of, and you are just impressing your sensitivities upon me if you take issue with that.

>>464595


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZpxaiNV_sM

I always found "bitch wrinkle" kind of amusing.

Why does every other episode of Kitchen Nightmares have the following dialogue -

- "So your fish/seafood/meat is fresh?"

- "Yes, it's fresh!"

- "...but you buy it frozen?"

- "Yes, it's fresh frozen".

- "So it's not fresh, but frozen?"

- "It's fresh frozen..."

The clock in my car has been five minutes fast for months, so I've decided to fix it. It's somehow slightly distressing that it now shows the actual time, I quite liked knowing I had a five minute cushion if I was worried about running late.

>>464604
Back when I owned a car, I had similar. It was an analogue clock that had exactly one control, which was a button to hold down to make it go forwards. After the first time the clocks went back, which involved me holding it down to go around 11 hours, I held it down a little too long and it ended up a few minutes fast. I decided I wasn't going to go around again to fix it, and also that I was just going to leave it on GMT all year round.

>>464604
I always set my watch a bit fast to give myself that cushion. I am still constantly late for everything, so I think it’s less about the number of minutes and more the relief I feel when I look at my watch and then remind myself that no, that’s not actually the time.

>>464606

I've got a radio controlled wristwatch Citizen Promaster CB5000-50L. I now enjoy passive-aggressively annoying people by showing up for appointments literally just a few seconds after the actual time as per the atomic clock signal. Most people aren't ready for that kind of pin-point punctuality, but I always tell them, "what, it's 2pm. We said 2pm, and here I am. You can't fault a guy for being punctual". It doesn't always go over well. But oh well.

Who is the show Dance Moms on E4 for... besides competitive mums and paedos.

>>464608
Competitive paedos.

>>464609

Paedo mums.

>>464608
Compaeditive pets.

A friend just sent me a picture of his VW Passat hire car that he had for one day today. Weird flex, but ok.

One of you had a slight pop at me when I mentioned, a little while ago now, that I didn't want to do a Job Centre mandated course, partly on account of "the people" that would be there. Anyway, the bloke I'm currently sat next to on the course thinks the royal family are "holograms and deep fakes", and earnestly told me that it didn't matter that he was late yesterday because "that's The State's time, and I don't believe in the The State", an insanely amusing opinion to hold for a man actively receiving UC.

>>464613

It takes all kinds.

>>464613

It's 2024 m8. Everyone has gone completely fucking mental. My aunty Pamela likes baking, prosecco with the girlies and telling people about how Bill Gates put nanotechnology in the vaccines to enforce 15 minute cities.

>>464616
Defintely a big rise in stuff that is outright lunacy.
Generally, the Reform voting lot are the type to pump out utter nonsense.

I want to stand on my balcony and stare into space with a cigarette but I don't smoke. There are a lot of things smoking enables that you miss years after quitting. Other than doing a heroic amount of ket in South Africa - what are some things you do when you just need a minute to step outside with your thoughts?

My sense is that if Buddha existed in the present day he'd smoke. But he'd say he's too enlightened to be addicted.

>>464618

>what are some things you do when you just need a minute to step outside with your thoughts?

I quit smoking twelve years ago and haven't had a fag since.

What do you do? You just go outside and let your mind wander. Without a cigarette. It can be done and once you realise, you don't really miss the coffin nail in your hand anymore. Maybe pour yourself a cup of tea or coffee instead. So your hands will have at least something to do and you'll still be consuming a stimulant.

>>464617
Anyone not voting Reform now is either a smelly brown person from a smelly brown country or something with absolutely fuck all between the ears.
All absolutely no one very says about their ideas is "it can't be done! We NEEEED infinity subhumans because we just do!"
They won't get in this time. Next time they will.
I'm tempted to dust off my botnet script and get a few thousand machines so I can AstroTurf them for the next five years.

Oh fuck you predictive text you absolute shit.

>>464616
>>464617
There are a lot of people who simply aren't able or willing to figure out what's on the up-and-up and what's demented shite. I hope it doesn't get worse, but as Gen X become pensioners (IE, voters) I wonder how mental "mainstream" politics might become. Because it's Gen X who are young enough to be on the internet, but maybe too old to "get" the internet.

>>464620
Quiet, Brythonic sub-ape, Anglo-Saxons are speaking.

>>464622

The internet has certainly facilitated the spread of a load of mad bollocks, but I'm not sure it's the root cause. I think a lot of people are really struggling to make sense of an increasingly chaotic and uncertain world.

The anti-vax and covid-denying nutters are really obvious, but a mate of mine who drives an Ocado van says that there are loads of people still living like it's the first lockdown - they make him leave their shopping on the door and walk away, then they come out in a mask and rubber gloves clutching a packet of antibac wipes. The pandemic was incredibly stressful and it pushed a lot of people over the brink, whether that was the brink of germaphobia or agoraphobia or anti-government paranoia.

A lot of people turned off the news due to the pandemic or Ukraine or Gaza, because it was just distressing them too much. Some of them turned to the internet for alternative explanations that were easier for them to live with. Graham Linehan's descent into madness is a really useful illustration of how seemingly sane people can go down a rabbit hole of self-radicalisation, but there's nearly always an emotional trigger that sends people down that rabbit hole in the first place.

>>464623
What qualifies as an anti-vax nutter? I never got a jab, but not because I think Bill Gates was putting nanomachines in them. I'm in an extremely low-risk group for Covid. I already had Covid early on, which for me was Tuesday like a mild head cold. I didn't feel the need to take any drugs which were trialled and tested in a rush and whose manufacturers were effectively exempt from prosecution in the event of complications arising from them. For parts of my family this is enough to label me as a wacko, but I'm the only one with a STEM degree.

Currently having a shit in a Pizza Hut.

>>464624

I'm also unvaccinated, for broadly similar reasons. I wasn't concerned about the speed of development, I just did the maths and worked out that the risks and benefits are basically equal for someone with my risk profile so it just doesn't fucking matter. The government and the NHS erred on the side of telling everyone that it was absolutely vital to get vaccinated, which I suppose is fair enough because so many people are in denial about the shit state of their health.

The anti-vax nutters tend to believe that there's some sort of malevolent conspiracy and tend to believe that all vaccines are actively harmful. A few of them believe untrue things about covid vaccines specifically, but that seems to be quite rare.

There are definitely pro-vax nutters, they just seem less nuts because (by chance) they happen to be closer to the truth. I had a lot of frustrating conversations with people at the time, because they believed things about the vaccine that simply weren't true - namely that the vaccine would stop you from catching or spreading the virus. I think there was an element of wishful thinking and a desperation to just move on from the pandemic; it was easier to blame the unvaccinated than to have to reckon with the complexities of a society that was post-lockdown, but not really post-covid. Covid is pretty much just like flu now that there's a broad level of immunity, but flu still kills tens of thousands of people in a bad winter, we just prefer not to think about it.

Just practiced a full Windsor knot for a funeral this weekend.

Piss easy after a few tries. I wonder why I've spent most of my life not being able to figure it out.

Do you lads reckon a microwave and air fryer combo would be better than having them separately?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Daewoo-Microwave-Technology-Accessories-Included/dp/B0CNTR1VSJ/

>>464633

Only if you lack the counter space for separate units.

>>464633
Apart from a food processor/kitchen machine style kneading/chopping/blending/agitating/whatever those marvels can do things there's no "combined" appliance that works right in my experience. You can make do with them but it's usually easier to consider which one you can do without and go for the dedicated unit of the other. If you have a hob, then with a bit of planning and practice you can skip the microwave for anything apart from microwave meals, for example.

>>464629
Doesn't the full Windsor give you a giant knot and a really short tie? That has always been my rationalisation for not bothering to learn anything beyond the basic four-in-hand.

>>464624
>>464628
Unvaccinated people are much more likely to carry and spread the virus and will be infectious for a longer time. I always knew we had granny killers on here, I just needed to wait until you felt it was safe to come out of hiding!

>>464629
I find that my hands just refuse to do it having spent 6 years of my youth saying "one, two, under the loop, through the passage, and out goes you".

>>464635

My combination microwave is fantastic. Having an oven, grill and microwave in one box is fantastically convenient and it's much more economical to run than a full-size oven.

>>464637

>Doesn't the full Windsor give you a giant knot and a really short tie?

The knot's size largely depends on how wide your tie is around that section. If a tie tapers off enough towards the narrow end, then it doesn't look too bad and can really add style to an outfit.

The trick is to keep the narrow end very short as you are in the process of tying a Windsor. I've found that on a 6'1'' guy like me, starting the knot no more than about five or six inches from the tip of the narrow end works best to ensure that the broad end's tip still ends up reaching your belt.

Customs/Parcelforce have kidnapped my package and want more information about it.

I'm guessing they'll send a letter but anyone dealt with this before?

My gout is flaring up because I've been drinking a lot lately, so I've had to switch to diazepam as a substitute for alcohol. I'm allowed three a day but I took eight and I'm feeling really nice.

>A British teenager who is missing in Tenerife was on his first holiday with his friends, his mother has said. Debbie Duncan's 19-year-old son Jay Slater, from Oswaldtwistle in Lancashire, has not been seen or heard from for over 48 hours.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0335xe9770o

>Eight teenagers who chased another teen down and set upon him with machetes, an axe and a golf club have been handed community sentences. Tom Hilton, who was 17 at the time, suffered a head injury so serious his skull was exposed, and wounds to his shoulders and legs in the attack close to the Old Paper Mill in Hermitage Street, Rishton, in August 2021.

>Throughout a trial at Preston Crown Court, all eight laughed and joked in a way the judge said showed disrespect. "I make it very, very clear that all eight of you have behaved disgracefully, in relation to the violent disorder but also intimidation of witnesses, supply of class A drugs and street robbery. You should all eight be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves but I am not at all convinced you are."

>The sentences are as follows: Jay Slater, 18, of Fountains Way, Accrington - 18 month community order with 25 days rehabilitation activities and 150 hours unpaid work.

https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/eight-teens-who-split-boys-27456859

More is going to come out of the woodwork on this, mark my words.

>>464647

>Jay Slater, 18, of Fountains Way, Accrington

I know they've done bad things, and it's good that they're being held accountable, but I've always felt that divulging someone's full identity and their home address like that on the Internet is an invasion of privacy. I don't see why you should forfeit your right to privacy in its entirety after you've been convicted of a crime, or even just accused. What value is there to anybody in knowing a perpetrator's residential address. Besides knowing which house to throw rotten eggs and paint bombs at. Shouldn't it be enough to have their face plastered across newspapers and web sites.

>>464649
Sorry, you'd describe having to pick litter along the canal for hacking someone's scalp open with a machete as being held accountable?

>>464650

Bit of a light sentence, you're right.

But my main argument stands.

>>464650
Don't forget the drug dealing and intimidating witnesses.

>>464649
I do agree with you to some extent. Even if I were of the mindset that karma's a bitch, you get what's coming to you, it would put the rest of the household at risk and they may not have even been complicit in the crimes.

>>464653

That's kind of my actual point. What if your son (or your dad) is a carpet-bagger and lives with you, and you've really got nothing to do with it yourself.

But also, it's going to make it difficult for somebody to reintegrate into society after receiving or serving out their punishment if everybody knows where they live.

>>464654
I see this a lot with the carpet-bagger sting people. They're putting the carpet-bagger's full names and locations online, they're often filming the house they live in, so people who know the carpet-baggers know their family and harass them. The stingers give a feeble "don't contact their friends and family they're not carpet-baggers" but that's shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. People tainted by mere association with a wrong un.

>>464655

This is why a public sex offender registry like in the U.S. is so problematic, where in most states you can just go online and freely access anybody's full history of convictions for sexual misconduct next to their current street address, even if their crimes happened 25 years ago. It fosters both a general sense of public fear and unease and a false sense of security. The UK's system of a non-public register which has all the relevant authorities in the know but isn't accessible to your neighbours is far better in that respect, and the numbers show that the UK isn't a less safe country for children or other vulnerable people because of it.

This morning I said "you will own nothing and you will enjoy it" at work, which got me a funny look. I then realised that's one of the things that tinfoil hatters say. What other things can I subtly say to make people suspect I'm a loon?

>>464657
"Billions must die."
"Nothing ever happens."
"You will eat the bugs."

Basically anything associated with 4chan chudjak meme.

>>464657

Any quote from an anti-hero people like too much is generally a good bet.

"someday a real rain will come and wash the scum off the streets"

“None of you seem to understand. I’m not locked in here with you. You’re locked in here with me!”

"wubba lubba dub dub"

"We're the same, you and me. We're the same, don't you see?"

"I'm an oil man, ladies and gentlemen. I have numerous concerns spread across this state. I have many wells flowing at many thousand barrels per day..."

you get the idea.

>>464659

Or, just assume a fetal position on the floor and keep muttering, "The voices are back!! The voices are back!!" everytime you hear somebody talk from a few desks away.

This is very definitely "one of those days".

I need to get up at 7am tomorrow to drive 150 miles to a funeral. Train schedules seemed a bit iffy with not much time to switch between connecting trains and I would have been there, at the station, just 20 minutes before the service at the chapel is supposed to start. Felt like a bit of a gamble. On the upside, it means I get to sleep an hour longer because otherwise I probaly would have had to get up at 5:45.

Not looking forward to next week. I was enjoying this mild weather.

>>464673
Maybe it's going to be more severe where you are, but I think I can handle high-teens to mid-twenties.

No double entendres, please, it's not the nineteen-seventies.

Let's say, you wanted to build a house. You are Johnny Noidea. Where do you start? I've done some work in the leccy area, I know there are chancers and grifters.

This week has been pretty good for my ego. I got quite a lot of compliments on a new shirt I wore to work and I've had a call today sounding me out for a job because I've been highly recommended for it by several former colleagues; I'm not going to take it because it's a £10k pay cut but it's nice to be in demand.

>>464676
You’d probably want to investigate planning permission first. If you buy some land and then can’t build on it, that’s the end of your adventure before you’ve even hired a digger. Once you have the land and permission to build on it, get an architect to design it (or design it yourself if you don’t mind having a house it will be illegal to sell on in future), then dig the foundations and make sure it has plumbing and electricity and all of those things.

>More than £16,000 has been raised in just six hours for the family of missing Tenerife teenager Jay Slater.

>The GoFundMe is the first to be endorsed by Jay’s mum Debbie and was organised by his friend Lucy Law - the last person to hear from the 19-year-old before he vanished on Monday morning. The campaign went live around 5am and has already raised over £16,000 with more than 1,500 people donating to the crowdfunder.

https://www.lep.co.uk/news/people/ps16k-raised-for-jay-slaters-family-as-friends-launch-official-gofundme-for-missing-tenerife-teenager-4673178

>The money will be used to pay for living costs while the family are searching for Jay, an apprentice bricklayer, on the island.

https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/24399536.gofundme-launched-amid-search-oswaldtwistles-jay-slater/

This is going to turn out to be a massive grift. It's gonna be Karen Matthews all over again, only this time they're taking inspiration from Michael Mosley instead of Madeleine McCann.

>>464686
Some people I work with were discussing this story. Apparently, that whole area is run by assorted mafias and it's quite easy to get into an argument with a stranger, and then find 50 gangsters tracking you down. One of my colleagues is going there in a couple of weeks, and he recently read about a Belgian couple, just before Jay Slater went missing, who also went missing. The man has not been found; the woman was found washed up on the beach with her head cut off.

Obviously I should find a source for this story, so here you go:
https://www.newsweek.com/tenerife-murder-laura-belgian-couple-missing-arrests-1915805
>Her body was dismembered, missing one hand and both legs. Her head was also covered by a plastic bag.
Bugger. This is why we demand sources.

>>464688
>Bugger. This is why we demand sources.

I don't blame you, with trips abroad costing more than an arm and a leg these days it's quite easy to lose your head.

>>464690

Normally it's the waves that claim lives in the Canaries.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1874661/british-tourists-canary-islands-death-drowning

The only crime you normally need to worry about there is pickpocketing in tourist areas. And extortionate fees for mediocre rides and attractions.

>>464691

That's what they want you to think.

>>464692

Big Canary claims another victim?

>>464688
I know people from Oswaldtwistle and he was a known scrote. His family are under the impression he's been taken, so the main theories are that he got caught trying to rob an apartment or it's to do with drug dealing.

>>464695
Those people are just as daft as his family then. He was bladdered and wandered off into treacherous terrain, at night, with no means of keeping warm, safe or finding his way. It's basically the synthesis of falling into a canal in Manchester after a night out and what happened to Michael Mosley. You don't have to be Ray Mears to see how this could lead to a swift end.

The new neighbour couple who just bought the house down the street look a bit shady. They've both got loads of tattoos and two Staffies. They seem like they'll probably grow weed in the basement.

The guy told me he works in "sales", but I'm not sure what he manages to sell, looking like that.

Bit stuffy.

>>464751

I think I'm coming down with something.

Do those covid swab tests still work on the new variants?

>>464750
Telesales is sales. That, or weed sales.

Out Of Order on Comedy Central is absolute shite, but at least Rosie Jones wears revealing tops in a couple of episodes. Christ, that woman has got magnificent milkers.

>>464750

Don't know if you are aware of this grandad but loads of people have tattoos nowadays, they became quite fashionable for a while. Having tattoos doesn't mean somebody is a gangster ex-inmate anymore, it's just as likely they are a completely average basic nobody who's never even smoked weed, let alone deals it.

Most people who look like stereotypical criminals these days are deliberately adopting the look because it's attractive to the opposite gender, and are usually absolute squares in reality.

>>464755
Yeah but there's tattoos and then there's tattoos.

>>464756

The most visible and garish tattoos are even more of an indication that the person is just a drone who got them all done for the social media likes, honestly.

Fat birds are terrible for it. We all have to know at least one fat lass who broke up with her boyfriend and then within six months they've had two full sleeves and most of their body and neck covered.

>>464755

Tattoos and menacing dogs or not, I still know when somebody looks shady. And they do.

>>464757

Do fat lasses get charged more because a tattoo needs to cover more skin?

>>464758

I did some mildly shady (Fly-posting - if police bother to stop and approach you they'll probably confiscate what you have on you and tell you to fuck off but usually not even bother with that) stuff at night with a very shady lass, she was fucking terrible at it. Every time a police car comes by switching to acting innocent in the most obviously guilty way possible. Trying to seem small, turning to walk the other way, avoiding looking at them, all that instinctive shit that probably worked well in the jungle but stands out in a city. As far as police training and experience goes that's exactly what draws their attention. I don't think shady people do enough research into how to not look shady.
It's like any sort of game, really. If your opponents are professionals and you only do it sometimes you can't just rely on your assumptions about how to play.

>>464760

I guess the only way not to arouse suspicion is to be indistinguishable from somebody who has nothing to worry about. You need to blend in and not act any different. That's what a lot of people can't do or get wrong. But it's probably hard not to give off a certain vibe, when you normally do. Like somebody who grew up in a rough part of town and is involved in petty crime and other shady stuff. They'll just have that air, and they'll think they can mask it, but they really can't.

A friend got stopped by police because they said they saw him turn his car around ahead of a roadside police checkpoint. They actually sent a backup unit after him to find out why he seemed to want to avoid them. But my mate was simply lost looking for an address in another city, and didn't even see the police or was aware that he was coming up to a checkpoint. He was able to clear up the situation pretty quickly, but they seemed very eager.

>>464761

I have had police follow and stop me on occasions I was doing nothing wrong, I was just stressed for unrelated reasons. I think my body language must have set off their mental alarms. You could see their faces fall when they realised my suitcase was just full of clothes.

>>464760
>>464761

Most people are shit actors, and by definition, you are only going to notice the shit ones. The people who are any good at it have passed you by completely. You could have been sat opposite the country's biggest coke dealer or unidentified killer on the train this morning, and you didn't even think twice about them.

>>464762

Sometimes you just fit the profile that day.

Like that time I was visiting a mate in the Netherlands. On the way back through Belgium and France, just a few kilometres past the Belgian border, I was stopped by Belgian police on the motorway who were looking for drugs. They told me I was the kind of person they were keeping an eye on, UK number plate, slightly older car, young lad travelling alone at night. They had dogs sniffing through my car but of course I wasn't smuggling drugs, and at the end of it, they apologised for the inconvenience but told me that that motorway was a known route for people from the UK smuggling cannabis and other illegal drugs.

In such a wank mood right now. Firstly, now the new fucking tutor on my course is also a conspiracy nut as well; crisis actors this, Soros funded protests that. Thick cunt's got the balls to ask me "you're not a fan of that Peta (sic) Thunberg are you?". Not really, mate, but we'll see how cocky you are when the Mersey Estuary's lapping at your ankles, you scouse twat. Then I schlep across town to join Labour for some canvassing. The whole thing takes half-an-hour and only one door opens, which means I stand there almost mute while shadowing an old geezer who couldn't persaude a starving dog to eat a slice of ham. I did find out that the reason I couldn't do any campaign stuff in my constituency is because everyone hates the local jeffe, and they're afraid that the regional manager will knock their heads together for not campaigning in more winnable seats. I gave my number to someone who said he'd hook me up to do something local, but I get the feeling he's either going to forget or just fuck me off.

Nothing properly awful has happened. Instead there's just one crap thing after another and only now do I realise, that yeah, I've had a shit day.

I've spent the past ~hour sorting out various bits of clutter around the house. Still got a fair bit left to do, but it's amazing the effect it has on my state of my mind. I might even mop the downstairs if I keep this up.

>>464766

Well that's what you get for leaving the house and doing things, isn't it. Serves you right.

Thought I'd leave the windows open to try and cool the house down. It now stinks inside thanks to a combination of farmers doing muck spreading and one of my neighbours deep frying something rancid.

>>464769
Who the hell is muck spreading this time of the year? I hear mowing, and the combine's out of the barn, but spreading?

>>464769

The neighbour's upstairs loo is right across from my bedroom window. At times when somebody in their house has had a shit and both our windows are open, I can smell it in my bedroom. Good times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CZAPDaD2wo

I can't decide if Matt Rose is actually funny or just another generic rudgwicksteamshow.co.uk reciter.

I'm struggling with the heat and mosquitoes. I'm keeping internal doors closed at night to limit the light from escaping, which I believe would attract mosquitoes. I can't open windows, even with lights off, for fear of mosquitos coming in on the hot air (which seems to have happened each time I've tried). I have no curtains to keep the sun out, and can't really put them on the main bathroom window it's coming through. I've been without glasses for over a year now so struggle to find them throughout my house - even when I had then it was difficult.

I need to put a fucking curtain or something to collect mould and repel the daytime sun from my bathroom. I don't particularly want to live in darkness but needs must.

My main room is currently a tollerable 23 degrees, noticably different from the outside, but it's gonna get worse over the course of summer.

>>464775
Wire traps around a wave lenght. Might be UV, but I don't want to stear you towards bad results. A mozzie net works, a bug light with an electric grid works. SEe what works for you.

>>464774
It moves so quickly that it's almost impossible to stop watching. It's entertaining enough, but I get the feeling I am poisoning my mind and I need to reject these videos for my own wellbeing. This must be what TikTok is like.

>>464776
Dude I didn't even think of putting a net up - just ordered one, thanks.

Which is better out of Heroes of Might & Magic III and IV? Do I need to play III before IV or are they standalone?

I've got three mosquito bites right under my chin. Three! Greedy bastards.

Some of you may find this interesting: www.bbctvlicence.com
It's a guy documenting every letter he gets from them, starting in 2007, along with speculation on how the content changes, how it's packaged, the ways it tries to be convincing and so on. Pretty much entirely pointless.

>>464784
Aside from the explanation of how farcical their fleet of detector vans is, what I find most interesting in there is how there's a common group of individuals the letters are supposedly sent by (Paul Stanfield, Sarah Armstrong, Michelle Tunstall, Val Smith and John Hales) but all their signatures regularly change. I would have just assumed any signature would be a convenient jpeg attached to the file by whoever happens to be updating the copy, but clearly they've made and scanned new ones to attach as standard practice over the years. Why?

>>464786

I can see how a project like that might start as a bit of a joke then end up being perpetuated after getting attention. It's not exactly high-effort. He could be a petty cunt too I don't know but it's still mildly interesting to look at.

>>464784

>This is my eighteenth year as someone who does not pay the BBC. I have saved £2,617 and, assuming 50p a letter, cost the BBC a further £93 in postage.

He sounds more like a small minded cunt than somebody who should be admired for fighting the system.

That said, you're technically not breaking the law by actually not watching any kind of content that falls under the TV licence. My nan never owned a TV her entire life, she was a bit weird that way. But she loved her radio and didn't mind paying for her radio licence until it was scrapped in the early 70s. In the years after that, she had several recurring visits from them to establish that she had no TV. But they eventually stopped bothering her.

They probably just assume that most households today have a TV and a computer and use them to watch content that falls under the TV licence. Which is a more than reasonable assumption 99 percent of the time.

>>464784
You can see the country's lack of investment in real time by looking through the years. The 2000s ones are all often colourful and have a variety of formats, which get changed up year-on-year, while the contemporary ones are pretty much all the same 3 dull letters year-on-year. They really used to commit to the illusion that something scary might happen or that you were advancing through a process. The wording was similarly insulting waffle about them knowing everything about you in a letter addressed to "the occupier", but at least they looked more credible than something you'd knock up in Microsoft Word for a lark after Google images showed you the world's shittest enforcement_visit_approved.jpg

>>464788
I sympathise with trying to cost the BBC money in postage. There's something insulting about the letters they send out, very carefully worded to intimidate someone who doesn't read carefully and see that before every horrible consequence is a qualifier that makes it meaningless. Then there's the people who'll pay even though they don't have to - they love sending these to student accommodation where dumb kids and people from outside the UK are well placed to panic and throw their money away. It's not the kind of chicanery a kindly public service broadcaster should be up to.

>>464789

>There's something insulting about the letters they send out, very carefully worded to intimidate someone who doesn't read carefully and see that before every horrible consequence is a qualifier that makes it meaningless.

I know where you're coming from. A friend's garden shed was in a dilapidated state and not conforming to regulations, so much so that the council threatened action if he wasn't going to do something about it. They wrote him that they had the power to order it demolished at his cost, and fine him some amount that they thought was adequate. The letter contained loads of threatening words, but after a phone call with somebody at the council whose head wasn't all the way up their arse, they agreed that he would make some relatively minor repairs and alterations to it. Somebody with a pen and clipboard then came by a month later for an inspection and he never heard from them again.