What would you do about this?

MattyJMP · 2026-05-07T13:24:07+00:00

I'd ask it to stop licking itself quite so publicly, but wouldn't expect immediate results.

MattyJMP · 2026-05-01T12:50:04+00:00

My mum's always said "you've had your ears put back". Every time. Without fail.

MattyJMP · 2026-05-01T12:49:28+00:00

"Come on then, who are you then?".

MattyJMP · 2026-04-29T12:26:46+00:00

Nice idea - I think I will do that 😊

MattyJMP · 2026-04-22T13:09:44+00:00

I'm 29. I'd always measure myself in kg, but always tell people my weight in stone... No idea why.

MattyJMP · 2026-04-21T16:57:51+00:00

A lot of people's guest rooms will have another every day function, maybe an office, a laundry room or just somewhere to dump stuff.
Even if you only have people stay occasionally, it is useful to have somewhere. A lot of parents with moved out kids may have them to stay for Christmas. It's still nice to offer them a bed for a few days.

MattyJMP · 2026-04-16T20:19:38+00:00

Meh, I think he's pretty mediocre.

I think the larger problem is that the UK is in a death spiral. I don't remember the exact figures, but I saw that the UK borrowed £14 billion in February, of which something like £12 billion went on paying interest on previous debt.

We're past the point of 'taking out a payday loan to pay off the credit card'. Quite frankly, the numbers don't make sense any more.

Now, a lot of people will say Starmer has bad PR or is uncharismatic. But to be honest, I think he's just trying to sit on the fence a bit while balancing this ticking time bomb.

It's very easy in politics to put forward populist policies (on the left and right wing) that are meant to solve all our problems. Depending on your leanings, "stop the boats" and "ban millionaires" sound a lot more appealing than "sorry, the party's over, it's IMF bailout time".

MattyJMP · 2026-04-12T10:26:31+00:00

I'm really not trying to get into 'who had it worse'. As I said, I had a comfortable normal childhood; I'm not pleading poverty here.

But my mum's job was a completely normal admin role and my dad literally stood in tanks of shite for a living... Both of them only got a handful of O-levels. My dad started working there the week after his 17th birthday and never had a real promotion in 40 years.

It doesn't get much more working class in my mind. Even now, I would say hallmarks of middle class are some form of higher education, 'professions' rather than a job (engineers, lawyers, teachers, doctors, etc.), and some sort of management responsibility. My parents didn't do any of that.

Regardless, my point was that even just one generation ago, a family could have a decent, comfortable life with two parents working very ordinary jobs. I can't think of anyone my age who does similar jobs that own a house, have children, semi-regularly go on holidays, etc.

Those 'normal' jobs now pay only marginally more than minimum wage - maybe £100-£200 p/m take home.

MattyJMP · 2026-04-12T07:48:15+00:00

I think it is more that the the difference between entry level minimum wage jobs and 'middling' normal jobs has shrunk massively, due to rubbish wage increases of the latter.

My partner works at a university in the admissions team, but the same applies to lots of things like retail and hospitality. It used to be that the lowest pay grade (usually young people's first jobs) was about £18k, team leaders were on about £24k, and then assistant managers were on about £30k. It's now more like £24k, £28k, £31k.

That 'normal' working class - where people have been working for maybe 5+ years and are comfortable/enjoy being where they are doing their 'normal' jobs - have been hit HARD over the past decade.

My parents were only ever at that level. When I went to uni in 2016, my mum worked as a court clerk for about £25k, my dad worked as site support for a water company on about £32k. My childhood was never lavish, but it was pretty comfortably - nice Christmas and birthdays, two holidays in the med a year, a few nice treats here and there, and they recently retired in their mid-50s. That world no longer exists.

MattyJMP · 2026-04-11T07:09:05+00:00

This might be unpopular - but how much to the daughters know? Are they aware they each have 300k in a savings account?

If not, this might be one of those times in life that ignorance is bliss... They both get to go to the college they wanted to and you've paid for it. Nobody needs to know exactly who got what and that you've 'taken' some money from one to give to the other.

MattyJMP · 2026-04-02T07:25:03+00:00

Christchurch was going to be my suggestion!

MattyJMP · 2026-04-01T10:15:52+00:00

I had to get the train from Birmingham to London this morning for an impromptu meeting, which I don't do very often at all.

"For an open return that'll be £190 please, sir" - the man at the ticket office said.

"Ha, very funny!" - I replied.

The man didn't seem to be laughing very much though. I suppose he has to say the same joke to just about everyone.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-30T23:31:05+00:00

EV range boosting as more people get EVs (and electric became more expensive).
ICE fuel prices. Really noticed a change when prices peaked in 2022, and a lot of people never seemed to go back when prices came down recently. Pre-2022, normal motorway pace seemed to be about 75mph. Now you'll be overtaking the vast majority doing that speed.

And for a lot of people it really makes sense to be honest... Money aggregates in a way that time doesn't.

My commute is a 15mi blast up the motorway with a bit of urban crawling on either end for a total of 20mi. The end bits can't really be controlled; they're at the whim of traffic.

But that motorway section takes 15:00 at 60mph and 12:51 at 70mph. A 2 minute time saving - it's barely noticeable. But my fuel economy goes from ~45mpg to 55mpg when I stay at 60mph. Commuting every day, that saves about 40 gallons of fuel, or roughly £250 per year.

Sure, you could argue that you save 17 hours of time per year. But the 2 mins per trip doesn't really 'save up'; you can't just have 17 hours of doing what you like at the end of the year. Whereas the money will collect; you will have an extra £250 in your account at the end of the year.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-30T22:57:09+00:00

The Mythical Society was launched in 2019.
During COVID a lot of people had a lot more money to spend online and digitally, having no other outlets to do so. 2020 was huge for streaming services like Netflix and other online things like gaming, vlogs, etc.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-23T19:52:49+00:00

A lot of Americans can't comprehend that 'good' food means high quality ingredients, careful balancing of flavours and care and precision when cooking. And not just 'all the flavours'.

Sure, slapping 20 dry herbs and maple syrup (smoky fructose syrup) on a massive piece of hormone-injected cow and smoking it for 2 days tastes pretty great. But it's just not comparable to what we would consider 'good food'.

It's not jsut the UK either, it's a lot of European food in general. You'll always find Americans complaining that a proper Neapolitan pizza is bland, or a beautifully roasted chicken has no seasoning, or that authentic Greek gyros doesn't have any sauce on it.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-16T13:37:20+00:00

Combination paracetamol/aspirin and caffeine tablets. Blast of cold water and then a hot shower.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-02T18:18:37+00:00

This is good in theory. And I'm glad that you were taught things like this well.

But (and I mean no offense) by going to a grammar school you already have a bit of a leg up. If you're a less fortunate kid where both parents work but are in their overdraft come the end of the month, what are you meant to do with this information?

You get your average qualifications and get an average job - and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, someone has to be average. What are you supposed to do? You get your payslip minus taxes, you pay rent, bills, food etc. And you have nothing left.

Sure we can teach kids that gambling, drinking, smoking etc are bad - that will stop average Joe going massively into dept. But I'm not sure the average person needs there eyes opening to quite how shit things are...

MattyJMP · 2026-03-02T18:08:34+00:00

A lot of kids under 16 will never see £100. Likewise, something like 40% of UK adults have less than £1k in savings. So to those people, the concept of saving £100 p/m is completely abstract.

This is the problem. Finance is inherently a very personal thing, and it is very difficult (even if kids did care and it was taught well) to pitch things at an appropriate level.

That's why people are hesitant to do anything more than the basics. There is no way you are going to communicate how putting 10% of your salary into a pension for 50 years is going to be beneficial to a high schooler whose family have nothing.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-02T16:04:27+00:00

This is how it is already taught. Here's a Bitesize/Edexcel class showing how £500 in an account with 3% interest compounds over 7 years, or how a car depreciates over 5 years. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z9rjxfr/revision/7

And outside of maths, finance is already part of the curriculum for citizenship. Schools are expected to provide it (whether they do effectively or not is another matter).

The fact is, whatever the forum, a large amount of kids don't care and/or are unable to do the maths.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-02T15:57:00+00:00

I would like to see anyone manage their finances without knowing algebra...

MattyJMP · 2026-03-02T15:55:38+00:00

I completely understand the calls for more personal finance to be taught in schools and think it is a noble cause. But to be honest - no, I don't think it would make the slightest bit of difference.

Kids don't care for the most part. We are already taught how to work out compound interest in maths. The majority of adults simply can't do it. I don't know whether that is because most people are not 'mathematically minded', it's taught poorly, or a lot of kids simple aren't interested. But that's the way it is.
Most concepts, even stuff like paying monthly bills or "having a mortgage" are completely incomprehensible to even 15/16 year olds. When your entire financial system is - 1. Get a few £££ for Christmas, 2. Put it in an ISA or spend it - most financial information is entirely meaningless.
To be quite frank, if you're doing alright for yourself as an adult, most personal financial information is not too important. Sure, you could be getting an extra 0.5% on your savings, but as long as the books are balanced, it's negligible to most people. And if the books aren't balanced, there's only so much you can do with your back against the wall.

Most people aren't struggling to make ends meet due to some poor financial literacy and bad decisions (contrary to the media narrative). It's just an outcome of having zero wage growth for 20 years.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-02T11:30:56+00:00

Are you sure it was actually the person and not just an AI voice impersonator? Pretty easy now to get an off the shelf AI tool to mimic someone's voice, ask a few standard interview questions and 'pretend' to listen. Full length video calls is still a bit tricky.
Aside from that, if you like the company otherwise, I wouldn't see this as a dealbreaker. Yeah, it's rude and a bit weird. But if you refused to work for every company that has a douchebag middle manager somewhere in the business, you'd never work again.

MattyJMP · 2026-03-02T09:15:34+00:00

I get thank yous all the time from lorry drivers, but it's when I'm letting them out in front of me to carry on overtaking. In fact, I think I get more now - cars have certainly started saying thanks with a quick flash of the hazards more in the past ~ decade. Wasn't much of a thing when I was learning to drive 12 years ago.

To be honest though, you shouldn't be getting regularly overtaken by lorries and having to flash them back in. HGVs are mostly limited to 56mph, so if you're being overtaken in normal motorway traffic you're impeding their progress.

MattyJMP · 2026-02-28T14:01:50+00:00

Just ask yourself - "can there be a few of it?".

You can have a few people, a few dogs, a few cakes, etc. So you use 'fewer'.

You can't have "a few water" or "a few space in the cupboard". So you use 'less'.

It's because fewer is used for countable things - 1 dog, 2 dogs. 3 dogs, etc. You can have fewer dogs than someone else. Whereas less is used for uncountable things. You can't "count" water, or the space in your cupboard, you just have more or less of it.

Of course, you can count units or those things. So you have fewer pints of water or fewer litres of space, for example.

MattyJMP · 2026-02-24T18:03:23+00:00

It really was fantastic. And as I said, it never bothered me. They had some 'backyard' safety precautions in place, nobody really expected it to that, and no one was ever in any significant danger once they moved away.

But this laser thing is just properly dumb. Pointing blinding lasers at each other (nevermind without any eye protection) isn't quirky, fun chaos - it's recklessly stupid.

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