Wandering Off Topic

[Ms Para glider]

How old am I then?

I assumed you were about 13. Learn something new every day.   

[sadie]

I have under-used and unused overblankets and underblankets still in their original boxes, but you can't snuggle up to them as you can with a bottle... How sad is that !!!

RetsyM/Myster, maybe pass them on to the Ukrainians coming over here?  I bet they would love them.

Little ones have been dying from cold in Afghanistan too.


Me, I had two long hot water bottles (about 3 feet and slim)   They were lovely Christmas pressies with knitted overcoats
but too long for the basin space under the taps.       Someone at Oxfam will have enjoyed them.   

[sadie]

After the war sweets came off ration and ice creams ... Yoohoo

The queue stretched for ... must have been a hundred yards ... I am exagerating! 
I just joined it again and again eating my icecream, until the shop ran out   They had long white icecream blocks which they kept cutting from and slapping the icecream between wafers.

Nothing fancy .... but soooo yummie.

[G-Unit]

I assumed you were about 13. Learn something new every day.   

Fooled you there then.

[Vertigo Swirl]

I love that sketch though. I can't take the pish mind, I've had it a lot easier than some folks here. Not happy that I've had to cut the russian caviar from me cornflakes like but we all have to make sacrifices.

https://youtu.be/ue7wM0QC5LE

Coincidentally, in today’s Times:

Back to the days when net curtains froze stiff
Carol Midgley
Friday April 01 2022, 9.00pm, The Times
The only light relief amid the wretched gloom of the fuel bills crisis has been people trying to outdo each other in the “our house was colder than yours when I was a nipper” stakes. Competitive misery is so British. I heard a chap boast, Four Yorkshiremen-style, that pre-central heating, the glass of water by his bed would freeze in winter. Ten points. Someone tried to raise him net curtains welded to the window with ice. Six points.

I like remembering pre-radiator days (we didn’t get central heating until I was ten) because it proves that, now a massive heating wuss, once I must have been quite resilient. I’d like some of that back. When you were cold, your dad’s big coat would be laid atop your eiderdown. My mum told us to “blow the hairdryer in your bedroom” as we weren’t allowed the smelly paraffin heater upstairs lest it set the bed alight.

Dashing out of the unheated bathroom wrapped in a towel to shiver in front of the living room gas fire, feet against the bars until they burnt, is an indelible memory. My grandmother put newspaper down our jumpers on arctic days and plastic bags inside my wellies. For her generation, who’d scoff at Hive and my husband’s battery-heated socks, even a hot water bottle was a preposterous luxury. They warmed house bricks in the oven. Grimly, some people soon won’t even be able to afford to switch the oven on.

[G-Unit]

I think the younger ones need to know that they can survive without foreign holidays, foods from all over the world, central heating and constant hot water. Such things have always been a privilege, not a right. On the plus side everyone's carbon footprint will be reduced.

[Vertigo Swirl]

I think the younger ones need to know that they can survive without foreign holidays, foods from all over the world, central heating and constant hot water. Such things have always been a privilege, not a right. On the plus side everyone's carbon footprint will be reduced.

This is not about “privileged” younger people, it’s about people across the age spectrum having to make fundamental, existential choices about how best to spend their dwindling bank balances - whether to choose heating or eating.  Expect an increase in the numbers of old people freezing to death, abuse and violence increasing within families as the stress of day to day living grows, increased, stress, suffering and misery all round for those of us already unable to take foreign holidays and run a car.

[G-Unit]

This is not about “privileged” younger people, it’s about people across the age spectrum having to make fundamental, existential choices about how best to spend their dwindling bank balances - whether to choose heating or eating.  Expect an increase in the numbers of old people freezing to death, abuse and violence increasing within families as the stress of day to day living grows, increased, stress, suffering and misery all round for those of us already unable to take foreign holidays and run a car.

As I said, we have been leading privileged lives. If that's going to change all we can do is adjust to the new reality and change our lives accordingly. I see no point in allowing ourselves to get stressed by things we can't change. We live on a beautiful planet and if life becomes a bit harder we should rise to the challenge and take satisfaction from finding ways to deal with it.

[Wonderfulspam]

There's a simple solution to avoiding child hunger & poverty in this country, & for every country in the world really.
Don't shit out kids if you can't afford them.
For some reason, millions, billions of people fail to comprehend this.

[Wonderfulspam]

I think the younger ones need to know that they can survive without foreign holidays, foods from all over the world, central heating and constant hot water. Such things have always been a privilege, not a right. On the plus side everyone's carbon footprint will be reduced.

When sanctions were issued on Russia, one politician questioned how Russians will manage without essential western goods, like Nike trainers or Prada handbags.
They'll probably have to make do with affordable utilities & food instead.

[jassi]

Problem is that circumstances change, often without warning but you can't just discard children because you can't really afford them any more.

I find that much depends on what you expect out of life.
I genuinely grew up in a poor single parent household in the 50s, but we didn't live in a consumer-driven society, so not having much wasn't really a problem. Subsequent generations have come to expect more and more as the norm, so having to cut back on things they take for granted will no doubt be hard.

Won't be a major problem for me as I'm relatively well off and I don't participate in the consumer society, neither wanting nor needing most of what is on offer, I can see adjustment will be difficult for some.

[Wonderfulspam]

Problem is that circumstances change, often without warning but you can't just discard children because you can't really afford them any more.

I find that much depends on what you expect out of life.
I genuinely grew up in a poor single parent household in the 50s, but we didn't live in a consumer-driven society, so not having much wasn't really a problem. Subsequent generations have come to expect more and more as the norm, so having to cut back on things they take for granted will no doubt be hard.

Won't be a major problem for me as I'm relatively well off and I don't participate in the consumer society, neither wanting nor needing most of what is on offer, I can see adjustment will be difficult for some.

I'm not saying discard living children, although, obviously, if we minced all the excess children of the world into a pulp they'd provide ample food & fertiliser for years to come.

All I'm saying is, don't have things you can't afford.

The average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 in the UK is roughly £150,000 - £180,000. (according to child poverty action group).

Not cheap at all, I think there should be a requirement that you must have at least that much in the bank before you're allowed to have kids, & if you break the rules your child is taken & sold into prostitution & slavery, until they've earned enough to pay for themselves.

It sounds harsh, but if we really want to save the economy & the planet then we need realistic solutions.

Adding 10p a week to the rate of child benefit simply isn't going to cut it I'm afraid.

[Vertigo Swirl]

As I said, we have been leading privileged lives. If that's going to change all we can do is adjust to the new reality and change our lives accordingly. I see no point in allowing ourselves to get stressed by things we can't change. We live on a beautiful planet and if life becomes a bit harder we should rise to the challenge and take satisfaction from finding ways to deal with it.

If you can't see how losing control over the lifestyle you once enjoyed causes unavoidable stress to individuals and families I can't really help you understand the situation at all really.  I guess it's that ol' empathy thing again.  Oh well never mind. 

[Vertigo Swirl]

Problem is that circumstances change, often without warning but you can't just discard children because you can't really afford them any more.

I find that much depends on what you expect out of life.
I genuinely grew up in a poor single parent household in the 50s, but we didn't live in a consumer-driven society, so not having much wasn't really a problem. Subsequent generations have come to expect more and more as the norm, so having to cut back on things they take for granted will no doubt be hard.

Won't be a major problem for me as I'm relatively well off and I don't participate in the consumer society, neither wanting nor needing most of what is on offer, I can see adjustment will be difficult for some.

My parents are in their 80s.  They have health problems.  Owing to personal circumstances any wealth they accumulated while my dad worked has dwindled to nothing more than the equity in their modest 3 bed house and have been struggling for years, haven't had a foreign holiday for decades, drive a car that was 10 years old when they were given it 10 years ago (by me), rarely buy themselves new clothes, never eat out, never go to the cinema.  It is people like this who are now stressing out about the thermostat, how long to have the heating on for, whether or not they can afford to buy the food that my mum likes to cook for my dad.  They are older than you and G-Unit and they know all about the war, and rationing and deprivation but that doesn't make it any easier.  They are going to their deaths living through the hardest, most stressful times of their lives.   My poor old Dad - we went to a funeral the other day and his old suit was covered in mildew spots from being stored in a damp wardrobe for years.  It was heartbreaking but the lives they are living are commonplace the length and breadth of the country.   But yeah, they should just man up and get on with it, put on another jumper (which obviously they are already doing).

[barrier]

I'm not saying discard living children, although, obviously, if we minced all the excess children of the world into a pulp they'd provide ample food & fertiliser for years to come.

All I'm saying is, don't have things you can't afford.

The average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 in the UK is roughly £150,000 - £180,000. (according to child poverty action group).

Not cheap at all, I think there should be a requirement that you must have at least that much in the bank before you're allowed to have kids, & if you break the rules your child is taken & sold into prostitution & slavery, until they've earned enough to pay for themselves.

It sounds harsh, but if we really want to save the economy & the planet then we need realistic solutions.

Adding 10p a week to the rate of child benefit simply isn't going to cut it I'm afraid.

The Chinese rationed parents to one child, they are reaping a financial whirlwind now.