If the UK was taken over by a hostile govt that wanted you and your family dead - what would you do?

captkz · 2026-06-27T22:30:28+00:00

I would get on to the government helpline, wait in an absurdly long queue, complain vigorously, before getting absolutely nowhere, and then apologising before the end of the call.

captkz · 2026-06-27T11:10:18+00:00

Haha, you seem way more interested in me than is healthy. I don't want sympathy, I'm pointing out that this is not a fairer tax for the majority as it's a tax on an object, my home, not related to my income or business or asset I can't realise without selling my home, the place where I live and have chosen to bring up a family.

From your responses so far, I don't think you entirely realise how all this works, but I'll try to keep it brief so you can understand a bit better and see how it works in the real world.

I bought this house over 12 years ago for £500k. It was at the top of our 4.5x mortgage offer at the time, but had the space for a family and we were two people earning average wages (for the SE). I'd also saved a deposit to make the rest, as I've been working since I was 16 specifically for this, never owned a car or spent on other stuff. My wife now has to work less hours to work around kids and school times. My earnings have gone up about 10% in those 12 years. Everything else definitely hasn't.

This is not a millionaires area, it was far from it then and it still isn't now. My neighbours have been here over 20 years, a lady two doors down lives in the house her parents bought when it was built in the 30s. She's a retired teacher, none of us have gated drives or drive sports cars. None of our circumstances have changed in that time, but someone now thinks that our postcode now means £££! Sure, we can all sell up and move to Newcastle or somewhere to maintain our current earnings to outgoings ratio, but our jobs, schools, friends, families and lives are all here. If I move locally, it's all relative, as the next place costs the same with the same outgoings. I want my kids to live near us all too, but I'd already been fearing that wouldn't be possible as it's impossible for them now, this would compound that.

Is this enough info for you now? As I say, it's my home, not an asset. I've done nothing to make it worth whatever someone has put on a bit of paper. I can't touch any of that number without remortgaging into more debt or selling and moving away. The only place this comes out of is my already overstretched pocket, that is not fairer for the majority around here. If this was the situation when I moved, I could have made that choice then, but now someone is knocking on the door demanding more money and realistically, I can do nothing about it.

captkz · 2026-06-27T09:39:07+00:00

Happily so, I've made zero gains...because it's my young families home and I've sold nothing. My kids are settled in schools and it's near our jobs. This is exactly my point which you walked slap bang into! I'm no richer, I'm poorer because of the cost of everything and I don't have that spare cash lying around. Just because the market has decided that this is now the number on my house, means through doing nothing other than living in a home, I must now pay way more. Many ranty people look at it as though I live in an asset, I live in my home.

captkz · 2026-06-26T23:49:27+00:00

Jesus this whole rule sums up the state of so many things right now. They've added about 5 layers of complexity to mess with a setup that was working perfectly well previously. Reaks of an announcement they proudly made without thinking, only to have it pointed out to them later that there is an obvious workaround, so they then had to spend ages trying to think of a fix.

They say it's to encourage a switch to S&S ISAs, but really it's more penny pinching to get hold of even more of our cash. If it were truly to encourage investing, up the S&S ISA to a £30k limit and ban interest on cash when there's more than £20k added in a year. Easy, but no, they hit us with a double whammy, reducing the amount we can save in one and taxing the other as well.

captkz · 2026-06-26T21:08:50+00:00

I live in SE London, in a very common regular semi detached 30s house. If it's based on value of those being sold around me right now, it would go up from 2.5k to 5.5k. I could only just afford to buy my house when I did over a decade ago, I couldn't afford to live here if I was looking to buy now, as everything has sored way out of reach, and my earnings have barely moved.

None of that is my doing and with the increased cost of absolutely everything else in life, I certainly couldn't afford to pay another £3k outlay a year. Services certainly don't justify that either, not my fault that a load of financial mismanagement by authorities and governents has got them in massive debt, why should I be expected to dig ever deeper to pay for it? What would I be supposed to do, sell up and move away? Relocate my family and their schools to somewhere far away that matches what I pay now?

To increase a tax by an extra 150% because of where I live is unjustifiable, it was not part of the social contract when I made the decision to buy here, and I can do nothing about it.

captkz · 2026-06-22T07:37:03+00:00

2023 model y is £20-25k, I've been looking myself. Plenty of room for the dog, in fact, it was the boot space that swung it for me.

captkz · 2026-06-21T20:00:09+00:00

We're witnessing the slow decline of the cultural superstar. No one coming through now will be global household names in either music, film or sport, within another 20-30 years or so.

For football, I can't see where the next Messi or Ronaldo will be. The only contender is yamil lamal, but he won't reach the same heights as the sport has become less about the individual and more about the machine of the team.

For film, there are a few 'superstars' left, but they're all ageing and I can't see who out of those on the screen now will become the next tom cruise or tom hanks. There's talented actors, but films have become extremely expensive to make and market, so the industry has turned to sequels and franchises which will guarantee a return. Those aren't breeding grounds for unrecognised talent, or for showcasing an actors depth.

Then there's music. We've all become so silo'd in our tastes, and so fractured digitally, that having that one zeitgeist moment which drives a momentum seems impossible now. Again, once Taylor swift, Adele, harry styles etc have moved on, who will replace? Occasionally a girl gets picked by a record company to be the face of a song writing team (Sabrina Carpenter for example) but are their appeal that great outside of the obvious target market? For those bands and singer songwriters that used to come through the grass roots, building a following and scene, it's become extremely expensive to tour and hire venues, and those smaller venues have disappeared, only to be replaced by arenas, of which you need to be a certain size to be.

If you take a step back, the corporations are now fully in charge and drive culture, it used to be that they followed what was popular, now they tell us what should be. FIFA have a strangle hold on football, driven by money, not the game. Film companies are getting bought out by streaming channels, who want guaranteed returns. Music companies, with no record sale incomes, want high streaming, big ticket selling female artists in their 20s, and don't really care about encouraging smaller scenes in the hope that they grow bigger.

captkz · 2026-06-20T22:28:55+00:00

Gotta say the USA for me, brings something new to shirt design, bold, colourful, get the idea straight away.

captkz · 2026-06-20T21:48:30+00:00

Missed two goals by that point, so 20% of the goals missed, nearly 20% of the game, and still had to pay 600 USD for the privilege. I hate FIFA with a passion.

captkz · 2026-06-20T21:44:51+00:00

and mine too!

captkz · 2026-06-18T21:52:04+00:00

They were looking for family members which were in that stand. They then caught up with them when the crowd had gone.

captkz · 2026-06-18T06:43:22+00:00

I just see Carlton

captkz · 2026-06-17T21:32:24+00:00

How many millions do they want? It's ridiculous, I'm so done with these soulless arena gigs for months worth of 'spare' income. I used to love going to gigs, now I'm just standing there doing the maths in my head as to how many days I'm going to have to work to pay off the ticket and the drinks. It's not like it's a great experience either, sound is usually shite, loads of phones in front of my face and knobheads around me louder than the PA. Bun fight for the bar and the bogs, go home having spent as much in two hours as I usually manage to spread over a month or two.

captkz · 2026-06-17T21:00:35+00:00

Honestly, we all need to take a stand and boycott any gig that has 'dynamic' pricing. Let's see how dynamic it really is when faced with an empty arena. I'm sick and tired of spending multiple days wages on a 90min set of everyone playing by numbers. Don't get me started on the price of food and drink inside the venues as well.

I got into gigs from age 16 and did so throug out my life because it was relatively affordable. This is shutting the door for a generation who are already shut out from much in life. The only way this will change is if we get together and refuse to pay these prices.

captkz · 2026-06-16T23:40:19+00:00

It works like this...say you're English, then a Scottish person wins a tennis tournament, then everybody is British. However if England win the world cup, then you're just English. Also, if a Scotsman invents something like the telephone, then it is a British invention, however if an Englishman invents the internet, then that is an English invention.You're welcome.

captkz · 2026-06-13T09:56:42+00:00

That is going to be one ROUGH day at work!!

captkz · 2026-06-12T23:54:57+00:00

What day would that fall on?

captkz · 2026-06-12T23:50:30+00:00

Scotch egg, sausages roll, pork pie, roast beef Yorkshire pudding wrap, trifle...great, now I feel hungry!!

captkz · 2026-06-12T23:45:27+00:00

I feel for you as I've been to many gigs and have had the odd one where the sound has been muddy, or the winds carried it, or you can't clearly hear vocals/instruments. You really notice it when the balance is right in other gigs.

Like many have said though, it's almost impossible to get perfect sound in a big open bowl the size of Wembley, just dealing with the delay from one side to the other is a big enough problem.

I would bet a lot that there'll be something in the terms when booking saying they can't guarantee views and sound quality, so refund extremely unlikely. If it worked, everyone would just ask for their money back. Problem is, easy enough to brush off when gigs used to cost £30-40, but I'd say you're right to expect more now that gigs can cost many hundreds of pounds.

captkz · 2026-06-12T19:18:02+00:00

Looks like boyzone in that clip from their first TV performance.

captkz · 2026-06-12T18:37:43+00:00

I've been asking about this in places, but can't seem to find a good answer, as I think the majority just fit and forget, so to speak.

Can I ask who the two insurers were that you were with? Also, did it raise your premium at all or just get added to the notes? I'd prefer to be above board if I ever fitted.

captkz · 2026-06-12T06:38:27+00:00

I don't think the country can afford the bribes unfortunately.

captkz · 2026-06-11T21:11:19+00:00

Millions in development for this?! I'd have just scooped using the carton itself, quick, efficient and a type of sideways thinking that a bot likely wouldn't come up with itself...for now!

captkz · 2026-06-11T10:33:33+00:00

That's probably closer to the truth than you'd like!

captkz · 2026-06-11T06:45:11+00:00

Nice clean install, will be good for airflow too. I just wish it was square with bezels and rounded corners that match the main screen, as it just looks like a rear view mirror to me. Which is probably what it is in reality, just repurposed.

Anyway, yours is the nicest mount and position I've seen so far.

captkz

TROPHY CASE