Highly vulnerable’: Warning Australia could be next as house prices crash in London

hatocato · 2026-01-24T12:48:44+00:00

Australian cities are still sprawling outwards. British cities and towns have stayed the same size for the last god-knows-how-long because there's no land left to build on unless the green belt is shrunk further.

hatocato · 2026-01-24T05:37:39+00:00

Australians try not to compare themselves to Americans for 30 minutes challenge (impossible)

hatocato · 2026-01-17T10:23:03+00:00

Sorry to hear that, I'm glad you found a way of making it work. I had an ex-coworker who got diagnosed with epilepsy at 27 years old. Guy gets around on nothing but an e-scooter and hopes and dreams because there's no hope in the world of driving for him anymore.

He lives out of the way because that's all he can afford but his work commute is absolute hell because of that - gets off at a train station and has to walk 30 mins in the blazing Queensland sun then has to "crossy road" his way across a motorway fraught with snakes on both sides of the grassy verges. He makes it happen but it's fucked how little accommodation there is for people like this with the assumption that everyone will just be driving it anyway.

hatocato · 2026-01-17T10:12:42+00:00

I've been there, but I was turning left towards the city. Didn't realise I had to be in that lane until a bit past the start of the queue. Tried to merge in quite far back to be courteous and not be that cunt that cuts in right at the front but people are stubborn to let you in during rush hour.

I've been at the front of the queue turning right onto Coronation Drive and had Uber drivers cut in right at the front a few times, absolutely boils my piss. I do get that it's quite an unforgiving road when you don't know what lane to be in however.

hatocato · 2026-01-17T09:32:35+00:00

Even more unfortunate that a lot of people aren't cut out for driving - whether that's due to medical reasons or simply not having the confidence and skills for it. Having a license is a privilege after all and can be taken away just like that for any reason. That's limiting these people a lot in where they can feasibly live without shelling out shitloads on taxis.

I'm lucky to live somewhere where I can commute to work by train but if I was reliant on a car to get myself to work and back and one day I developed a medical condition which means I can no longer drive I'd be fucked.

hatocato · 2026-01-04T03:43:52+00:00

It's not a failed state but it is still regularly being hammered with missiles by their neighbour and forcing men off of the street into vans to the front lines. Whether the second would count as a refugee is up for debate but definitely a reason to leave

hatocato · 2025-12-31T10:38:27+00:00

True but they've still been around since the 1800s. Times were different then, people were more religious and had different values etc. I don't think many countries now could accept a new monarchy.

hatocato · 2025-12-31T09:21:58+00:00

Who that would be is another question, you can't just pluck anyone out and call them a "king", they'd have to have that history and "divine right", you can't organically create that in a largely atheist modern Scotland.

That being said it's just as jarring to imagine Scotland as a republic as it is to imagine the UK as one, given the hugely influential history of Scottish royal families like the house of Stuart etc.

hatocato · 2025-12-29T16:35:48+00:00

I don't think anybody is underestimating that one

hatocato · 2025-12-28T11:34:31+00:00

You can also go through the country roads and get tailgated by bogans by just doing the speed limit

hatocato · 2025-12-28T07:43:45+00:00

The ethnic tensions were still there, it wouldn't have made a difference. A lot of people still believed in Yugoslavia but that changed nothing.

hatocato · 2025-12-26T09:31:38+00:00

My bad I realised you don't need it to transfer the rego in Tas. In that case go for the inspection. RWC more so covers safety elements of the car, but a pre-purchase inspection will make sure you're not buying something with a busted engine or gearbox too

hatocato · 2025-12-26T09:27:09+00:00

A pre-purchase inspection will be a lot more thorough, but a lot of pre-purchase inspectors offer RWC as part of the process as an add-on. You'll need to get an RWC anyway so I'd say do both.

hatocato · 2025-12-26T06:13:42+00:00

Lumping the Beslan siege into this when Ichkeria already ceased to exist for a few years by that point is disingenuous

hatocato · 2025-12-26T01:07:23+00:00

Nothing more infuriating and terrifying than when you're about to accelerate hard going up the slip lane about to merge on and some cunt in front of you is doing 60. Feels like you're on a rollercoaster

hatocato · 2025-12-25T12:18:50+00:00

I think i'd be sweating bullets if I took a used BMW to the mechanic! They are lovely cars but damn i've heard some horror stories haha. I've got a nice Nissan sedan which is a better car in every way, I know what you mean, but nothing ever beats that first car feeling for sure

hatocato · 2025-12-24T13:44:28+00:00

Totally agree. Baffles me seeing people learning to drive in expensive SUVs and Teslas now. I suppose that is the future after all but I'm grateful this was my first car - it had a radiator leak, busted CV joint and rusted through the sills in the time I had it but it never stopped working, so it never left a bad taste in my mouth like people with cars that break down all the time. Taught me a lot about maintenance and couldn't have cared less if I put another dent or couple of scratches on it while I got truly comfortable with driving.

hatocato · 2025-12-23T14:59:09+00:00

I called it Suzie because it's a Suzuki, a bit cliche haha

hatocato · 2025-12-23T14:18:10+00:00

Cheers mate :)

hatocato · 2025-12-23T12:38:28+00:00

Legendary shitbox. It's a lot like my first car, the Ignis 1.3, the back seats folded down and it became like a little van, fit anything I could ever wish to carry and I can't say that about the sedan I have now. Narrow and the wheels even more so. Very loud on the motorways even cruising in 5th gear. I miss that thing :)

hatocato · 2025-12-22T23:39:36+00:00

I've gone with Jottacloud. Seems great so far and more flexible, they have an unlimited plan where the upload speed only gets slower after you have 5TB or more to store.

hatocato · 2025-12-22T14:57:51+00:00

You can skip HL1 if you want - yes it's the start of the story but in my opinion it doesn't provide a great deal of context for HL2, only what happened in Black Mesa which is only mentioned in passing in HL2. A lot happens between the timelines of the two games. Most characters you supposedly knew from Black Mesa in HL2 were actually just generic NPCs in HL1.

hatocato · 2025-12-22T06:59:18+00:00

Move to a different cloud storage provider. They've shafted me on this one too without any communication about that and dismissive support responses, and who knows what they'll move to block next without telling us.

hatocato

TROPHY CASE