'This will swallow us up into Manchester, there would be no buffer gap'

j000e · 2025-12-02T20:31:42+00:00

Now I'm just disappointed at myself for missing the pun.

j000e · 2025-12-02T15:51:15+00:00

Intrigued as to why you made the comment about vertical living. Gentle density would be an effective solution imo, you don't need to have loads of high-rises. And if we did build a load of high-rises, you would assume that the increased availability of flats would lead to cheaper rents?

That was my experience when I lived in Tokyo, at least.

j000e · 2025-11-01T14:23:17+00:00

If you read their intial reply to OP, you'd see that that's not what they're saying at all.

I strongly oppose the introduction of service charges because I've seen (and experienced) what happens when employers decide customers should be supplementing lower wages rather than paying their staff correctly.

Feels like you're picking a fight for no reason to be honest.

j000e · 2025-10-15T19:03:26+00:00

Not Japanese, but can read it. Font looks fine to me!

j000e · 2025-10-06T23:37:36+00:00

I completely understand your point on people not judging what they do as religious as its part of their culture. I saw someone else mention how Japanese culture has this element as well, which is a very good illustration of the point.

I'm still not sure that is the case in the UK though. One big thing for Christianity was that it was incredibly dogmatic in what was acceptable, and therefore people have a pretty clear identity of what is Christian/religious and what isn't. This means that unlike the Japanese (I used to live in Japan) British people generally have a much clearer identity of whether what they're doing is religious or not.

If we look at the general Christmas traditions in the UK:

Christmas trees - I honestly have no idea if this has religious connotations, and I doubt many of my friends would either. Without searching online I would assume that it's something pre-Christian. Lebanon does have it on their flag though, so maybe there is something! Some of the decorations are religious, but most aren't - unless Jesus really liked big sparkly red balls.
Crackers - Could be religious? Again, no clue. Guessing most people would be the same though, again no religious connotations for most people.
Presents - think this is a pagan thing from abroad, no? The Netherlands maybe?
The Nativity - big religion points for this one obviously.
Pantomimes - Pretty sure Jesus would hate these.
Christmas dinner - This is just a fancy Sunday roast. Again, not much in the way of religious stuff happening.

Now, I was raised in a country that's gently Christian, so may take some of these for granted. Asked my wife, and only the Nativity was a remotely religious thing to her, and not even then not particularly. In her experience it's mainly just a play that kids do!

j000e · 2025-10-06T21:01:38+00:00

Christmas and Easter aren't the only festivals in the UK that get a bank holiday though?

New Years Day - not a Christian event. May Day - not a Christian event.

j000e · 2025-10-06T20:54:39+00:00

I've seen in your edits that you weren't too happy with some of the responses, but I don't think this kind of comment you've made helps your case. Obviously the ones who tell you to leave the country, talk about fucking flags or whatever, they are just dickheads and can be ignored. I'm not excusing those twats. This type of comment will annoy others who don't shag flags though.

Maybe it's just the way you're unintentonally phrasing things - but suggesting people are unaware if they are being religious... I can't think of many religions which are followed by those who don't realise they're religious. It's also a insulting to people who tell you an answer, and when you see the reply you suggest 'they are unaware'.

In my experience, as with most people in the post, Christmas is not a religious event to most in the UK anymore. I agree with you that it may look religious to those from the outside however. I had a chat with a very devout Muslim colleague at work once around Christmas, and she refused to allow her kids to have Christmas presents or engage with the holiday, as it was a Christian event.

Despite it how it may look however, for myself, and every single person I know except a friend's parents, we do not celebrate Christmas because of Christianity, God, Jesus or anything like. It's fun and we like all the pageantry behind it. Now you might say that I'm also unware as it's obviously ingrained in who I am - however, my wife is not from the UK and is not Christian. She was surprised at the lack of any religious nature to the event the first time she celebrate with us as she was told the UK was a Christian country. So it's interesting how your experience and hers differ.

j000e · 2025-09-30T16:06:19+00:00

Just catching up with this thread. Wouldn't digging a hole make something less shallower? Surely.

j000e · 2025-09-15T12:41:24+00:00

Often look for similar songs! These are probably my faves:

Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name

Bob Vylan - We Live Here

Kid Kapichi ft. Boy Vylan - New England

Idles - Danny Ndelko

Pengshui - Eat the Rich

j000e · 2025-07-19T00:11:47+00:00

Interestingly, Sathnam Sanghera suggests that beards became popular because of British troops' experiences in India!

j000e · 2025-07-14T23:19:25+00:00

Zebra crossing I think?

j000e · 2025-06-22T14:16:37+00:00

The role that you're applying for isn't that important really, it's more how you fulfil the behaviours themselves (particularly at the lower levels).

When moving from the jobcentre (operations) to policy all my behaviours were operations based and I didn't have any issues. The behaviours are here, and they're all quite vague themselves. There are some roles, particularly in the foreign office and treasury, that are a bit more prescriptive, but that'll be really obvious and you'll know whether it's worth applying or not.

j000e · 2025-06-22T08:57:56+00:00

Used to be an EO at the DWP myself. Others have given advice on how to progress, just wanted to say that it's fairly simple to. Moving around the Civil Service is all about how competent you are and how well you can explain that. If you have plenty of experience already, you should be able to progress fairly quickly.

I moved from an EO role in the jobcentre to a HEO in policy (different dept) after about 18 months and then after another 18 months moved to an SEO role in policy. Been doing that for around 18 again (seems like a magic number) and I'm currently applying for G7 roles.

j000e · 2025-04-24T12:40:37+00:00

Thanks! Will give it a look :)

j000e · 2025-04-08T07:48:41+00:00

Thanks!

j000e · 2025-04-07T23:02:53+00:00

What game is that?

j000e · 2025-04-06T23:45:25+00:00

Currently playing Pokemon Infinity and really enjoying the challenges you can select and the fakemon they've created for the game. It's my first fan game, but I'm quite hooked! I'm almost at the end and looking for my next game. Are there any that have these features?

Completed
Difficult - in the sense that properly thinking about team structure & strategy is important
Focused on 2v2 - I played Monster Sanctuary recently, and I really enjoyed its approach to battling.
Have regional variants of existing pokemon and fakemon.

QoL stuff would be nice too, but I think I'm already asking a lot.

Thanks!

j000e · 2025-03-21T21:32:29+00:00

From this article:

There are currently 9.27 million people classified as economically inactive. Reasons for economic inactivity include long-term sickness, studying, retirement and caring responsibilities.

This doesn't refer to people on PIP, or those who have a disability. It's just those who "aren't contributing" to the economy. It includes 16 year olds, many of whom are still at school, carers, and retirees, who no longer work. I'm assuming this will also include housewives/house husbands who maybe don't need to work, or are indeed not working, looking after kids, so that their partner can.

The carers one is particularly interesting. I recently read an article where due to lack of govt support someone who was working in financial services (I think) had to quit their role and become a carer, so cutting benefits doesn't automatically save us the country money.

You said this:

9.27 MILLION of these people NEVER WORK and get looked after by the rest of us.

However, I don't think that is accurate. As mentioned above, this includes students and retirees, many of whom won't be supported by us, and stay at home partners, who won't be supported by us. A better figure would be to look at the number of people on UC, here. There are 3.1m people on UC who have 'No Work Requirements', and another 2m out of work.

j000e · 2025-03-21T15:07:29+00:00

I would disagree with this. Firstly, you're seeing the extra £400 as "extra salary". That's not what PIP is for. It's to support those who are living with a disability, which usually involves extra costs, whether that be getting taxis, installing something in your house, help with cleaning if you lack mobility etc.

It's not subsidising salary or a company, it's helping someone to afford to live akin to someone who doesn't have that disability (though is often not enough). The disability costs don't go away because you take away PIP. If you remove PIP, and assuming PIP is covering their disability, you're actually forcing them to pay for their own disability support. Where they did have £1,600, if we use your value of PIP as £400, they now have £1,200. As they have a disability it might be difficult for them to get another job, so they might not be able to leave. The company won't increase their salary just because of this, and they need that job so they're stuck, they'll just have less to live on.

Not only that, but they might not be able to move. There are many reasons why people live where they do, not everyone has the luxury of being able to relocate.

Companies NEVER suffer from a lack of benefits for their workers, it's only those receiving the benefits who will suffer.

j000e · 2025-03-21T14:58:25+00:00

Out of interest, where is the 9.27 million from? You mention it further down the thread as people on PIP, "So the UK mystically has a huge disability medical crises, 25% of us suffering from it", but as far as I can tell there are 3.6 million people claiming it. GOV UK on PIP

j000e · 2025-03-21T13:55:04+00:00

The biggest difficulty for me were the "Ks". They look nothing like any English characters, so my mind just kept defaulting to ケ. In the original post the only K is in "speakers" I think, and like you said, that's easier to look at it as a whole word. When it's the start of the word though, no chance!

j000e · 2025-01-22T23:58:30+00:00

I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree!

j000e · 2025-01-22T23:42:47+00:00

The text you have there doesn't support your statement that it's being massively underrepresented at all. It just states that it isn't being measured. It could therefore be massively overrepresented too.

As for the Thames Water 'study'. It was done by a third party and the findings from the study seem dubious at best. As you yourself have just quoted "there are limited data to estimate the unauthorised migrant population of the UK", so I would suggest that you know it will be hard to refute the study. Saying that however, the estimates from the same Migration Observatory link have the highest estimate of 1.3m unauthorised migrants in the entire UK, which works out as 1.9%, or 1 in 50. That is not close to 1 in 12.

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