Captain Willard

We are joint top of the league, still in Europe and have already won a trophy and still people are posting shit like this.

Cannot comprehend anyone calling the players bottlers. A draw at Old Trafford isn’t a bad result. Long way to go and arsenal still have to play Tottenham.

I’m going to lurk on the WhatsApp group for a while before committing to anything. My experience of groups of middle aged blokes getting together is that there is going to be a lot of conversations about houses prices, cars, power tools and routes to the venue. Not much fun.

Within seconds of me joining, actual seconds, the last person I had a proper fight with messaged me 40 years later to say no hard feelings so that was a result of sorts.

Hello I’ve joined a school reunion WhatsApp group after 40 years. Should be interesting - one of my class mates went to prison for murder in his teens whilst another is now the chairman of a premier league football club.

Also known as RAWK

Yes it’s a lovely place and April a good time to come. Not too hot and much cheaper. Our villa is 1/3rd of the peak summer price.

Little village called Plaza. Very nice but tiny roads, scraped the hire car on a rock.

Does anyone have a stream link - I’m in Crete

To put this in context the Uk population grew by 5 million in the same period. So 5 million additional people were provided some form of housing in the Uk and maybe 1,500 ended up on the streets. Not quite the catastrophic outcome being suggested.

Yes I clearly said rough sleepers as the comparison but who needs facts when you have opinions.

https://www.feantsa.org/download/germany-20174561023180755814062.pdf The German rough sleepers number was 52,000 in 2016 The Uk estimate is about 4,000 in 2023 so not directly comparable but does show they historically have had much higher numbers. https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england-autumn-2023/rough-sleeping-snapshot-in-england-autumn-2023#:~:text=In 2023%2C there were 3%2C189,one person was under 18.

On holiday in Crete and an F16 flys over the villa about 3 x a day. Brilliant to see.

Interestingly Germany has a far bigger homeless population than the Uk, maybe as much as 10 x the number of rough sleepers.

There’s a big policy difference between making help available and forcing people into living conventional wage slave materialistic lifestyles. I’m obviously in favour of the former but some posters on here are talking about compulsion. People shouldn’t be forced into minimum wage jobs, flats etc. Not the most radical position really.

There’s a big policy difference between making help available and forcing people into living conventional wage slave materialistic lifestyles. I’m obviously in favour of the former but some posters on here are talking about compulsion. People shouldn’t be forced into minimum wage jobs, flats etc. Not the most radical position really.

I’m not saying that. I’m saying it’s wrong to think everyone living in a tent is desperate for the alternative of a minimum wage 35 hour week job in a Amazon warehouse, a council flat in Speke and a a DSF sofa on 5 years credit. We view this people as a ‘problem’ to be ‘solved’ through the prism of our conventional materialistic lifestyle. Maybe, just maybe the bloke in a tent outside Asda with no dead-end job to spend his life doing, no debts and no obligations is happier than you realise.

I think a A lot of people are opting out of conventional lifestyles of a partner, job, mortgage etc and thinking fuck it I’ll live in a tent and get off my nuts all day instead. Look at the rise in tent cities in places like LA, San Francisco etc occupied in part by a lot of opioid addicts. The ‘ problem’ is that we only look at these people through the prism of conventional life styles and try to shoehorn them back into a life of sobriety, working minimum wage, paying the rent on a flat etc A lot of well meaning posts on here are about how to rehouse these people, which is code for get them back into the conventional box. Maybe we should just leave them alone.

I think part of the problem is that this lifestyle is seen as a problem whereas for some it’s a choice. Not a choice to be homeless but a choice not to take a minimum wage job, live in a shit town, stress about money and waste your life buying consumer crap on crefdit. . A lot of people have opted out and prefer living on the margins of society free from work, debts, stress etc. My father sold our family home (hence leaving me homeless) and lived in a camper van in a lay by for the last few years of his life. He didn’t want to be “encouraged to turn his life around” he wanted to get pissed every day by lunchtime.

The thing about being homeless is that it teaches you there is no safety net to life apart from money. You fall off the high wire and only your money will catch you, not family, friends or the state. Those people you see in tents in the shopping centre , they’ve only there becuase they didn’t have your money. If you fall off you hit the ground, hard.

I was briefly homeless in my 20s. 30 years later I still worry about it happening again. It scars you for life.

New dawn fades by Joy Division “a loaded gun won’t set you free “

Online gay civil war is a great band name.

Surely Herculean should be capitalised ? That’s my sole contribution to this thread, a grammar related point.

We could do a poll on out of 10 how many middle class domestic kitchen things people own. Toast rack, Breadmaker, Le Cruesset pans, napkin rings, sour dough culture in the fridge, slate chopping boards, Japanese knives, garlic press, kitchen island, Aga. We’ve only got 3 of these.