(Thread IKs:
OwlFancier)
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Nenonen posted:
'Everything about the period'...except the food, clothes and fuel rationing, the lack of 'exotic' fruits and out-of-season veg, the National Service, the tuberculosis, the rampant air pollution, the primitive health/dental care, the 33% Purchase Tax on luxury goods, the 50% income tax rate on anyone with an income to afford an Austin Cambridge, not having shops open on a Sunday and the boozers shutting at half ten...etc. etc. I bet. E: The article seems to mostly focus on his vintage car, and more power to him for that. As someone who owns one car that's 63 years old and one that's 35 years old I absolutely get the fun in having an old car. But I don't dress like Anthony Eden or fill my house with 1988-era merch as a result. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Dec 9, 2023 |
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Dec 9, 2023 00:25
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Brendan Rodgers posted:I never heard of this I'm watching a youtube video about it and wow. The thing about slip coaches was that even the ever-inventive Victorians never came up with a way of having the reverse - a coach that could be picked up without the train stopping. So the workings were always 'unbalanced' and tended to favour out-of-London travellers - you could board an express train in London and be dropped at your provincial destination by a slip coach, but on the return journey you usually had to take a slower, local train to the next large station to pick up the London-bound express.
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Dec 9, 2023 00:33
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Ms Adequate posted:I find it amusing that the people who most love to bang on about the Victorians and Romans and suchlike are also the ones who seem most ignorant (wilfully or not) that to Get poo poo Done you need things like experts and big public works projects and to have at least some amount of the people you hire for stuff not be grifters. The recent WTYP podcast episode about the sinking of the SS Princess Alice touched on this; the Victorians understood that civic and national infrastructure was important and serious stuff. Municipal waterworks weren't built to look like Ottoman palaces on the outside and Pugin's intensest fever dream on the inside for no reason - it was because, and to visibly demonstrate, that providing clean water and carrying away people's poo poo was a vital, serious business that was a basic part of modern civilisation. The same reason why in some countries their public health officers have military-style dress uniforms. The Victorians (and Romans, and a lot of people in between) were at least very aware of what happened if you didn't take stuff like municipal sanitation seriously and stuff like sewer systems, gasworks, hospitals, libraries, public baths etc. were visible signs of progress, modernity and improvement. Now we seem to have a sort of neoliberal myopia where people don't take this poo poo (pun sorta intended) seriously because it's always just been there and happened and we haven't had a cholera outbreak in 160 years, so you can get your dividend and just pump a bit of treated sewage into the river because have you seen how big the Thames Estuary is? And if your idea of public utilities administration is just organising private sector partnerships then building a new set of sewers and treatment plants is really difficult.
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Dec 14, 2023 10:39
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Guavanaut posted:I was thinking along these lines when I absolutely agree, and had similar thoughts to that tweet. It's also another case of the "get capitalists to describe communism and they'll describe how communists describe capitalism" effect - we're always told that socialist systems inevitably end up squashing all individuality, adornment, artistry etc. in the name of ruthless functional bare-minimalism standardisation, and then the white-statue-profile-pic types start posting pictures of ranks of Eastern Bloc Khrushchevkas and the Park Hill Estate. And then Sunderland's new train station is, in design and 'finish' terms, something that the Victorians wouldn't even consider appropriate for a bandstand in a provincial town, serving only to keep the rain off plots of private enterprise and hardly differing in design or appearance from an industrial warehouse anywhere in the country. My city recently built and opened a university campus, after at least a decade of proposals and planning and even longer of a general recognition that Peterborough was badly served by being a city of its size, location and aspiration by having no higher education institution. In a previous era the project to build a university would be a major civic project - the cue for architects to unleash their wildest fantasies in Jacobean or neo-Gothic if we were in the 1890s or some bold vision of a modernist future if we were in the 1960s. What we got was a steel-frame prefab box with a mix of fake brick and primary-coloured cladding and smoked glass windows with anthracite-coloured frames. It says absolutely nothing (or at least, nothing deliberate or positive) about the place or the people that built it, represents no vision or higher purpose, has not the slightest pretence of inspiring those working in it to think higher, loftier, broader thoughts and is almost indistinguishable from the Premier Inn that went up down the road at the same time.
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Dec 14, 2023 11:50
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crispix posted:yeah stop all this politics and put their heads togever and come up wiv a solution, common sense isn't it!!!!!!!!!! The last time to date I have ever watched Question Time was in early 2016 and it was, inevitably, mostly about the EU Referendum. There was someone in the audience who got the mic and yelled at the panel to "stop playing politics, stop arguing with each other and just tell us the way to vote!!" and got a good smattering of applause for doing so.
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Dec 17, 2023 17:06
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And also, we can protect ships: HMS Diamond: British warship shoots down suspected attack drone in Red Sea That was a couple of days ago, and the destroyed drone was aimed at merchant ships. What tossers like Madeley don't/won't appreciate is that we're not actually in a state of war with any nations or forces in the Gulf and we really don't want to be, so you can't just go turning a Vulcan cannon on anything that moves, or even anything that comes near. It's not WW2 where you have the entire Atlantic to roam around in and can just ring down Full Ahead and drop a pattern of depth charges on anything that might be a Jerry U-Boat. But the Navy was declared Woke when they helped rescue migrants in the Channel so I'm not entirely surprised. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 13:54 on Dec 19, 2023 |
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Dec 19, 2023 13:51
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Ms Adequate posted:Absolutely. His ilk think of themselves as shining a light on the powerful, cutting down those in charge with a rapier wit. But ultimately they're comfortable with things just as they are and they're never saying anything really daring. Court jester is the perfect term, they'll mock individuals or policies or even parties, but they're never going to call for any sort of solutions. And when someone comes along with a mind to actually make a few improvements, well, we saw how Corbyn was treated. He thinks we can plant HOW many trees?! 140 years ago W.S. Gilbert wrote an entire opera, which was hugely popular with the middle and political classes, where the premise is "the entire British political establishment is silly and indolent...but the real comedy is found in the people who want to change it. Aren't they the truly silly ones! Hawhawhaw!" 'Private Eye' is the direct lineal descendant of "Punch' and 'Fun' which defined that sort of middle class safe satire. It means that Hislop and his ilk can't (or won't, whichever it is) differentiate a figure like Corbyn because their entire humour/analysis is rootrf in the notion that 'they're all as bad as each other' and that they exist to document and chortle at the inherent absurdity and hypocrisy of British politics. Never asking why it's so absurd and hypocritical and getting the knives out for anyone who actually asks those questions. It's all cart before the horse stuff. All politicians are incompetent, grifting, contemptible liars that I, the respectable, educated, worldly, sensible, middle class professional can see right through and laugh at, and I'm clever enough to 'know' that the system can never change and I just have to sit on the sidelines, watching HIGNFY and Question Time and reading Private Eye and feeling enlightened and superior. Therefore, when a different sort of politician comes along with ideas like "not letting the NHS collapse", "making local buses affordable", "plant trees to reverse Britain's denaturing" and "getting rich people to pay a similar level of tax as they did in the 1980s in order to pay for a functional and prosperous society" it has to be comical, impractical, dishonest nonsense because that's all politicians say. If it's not the case, then they're not all the same, they're not all as bad as each other, the system can be changed and we'll look rather silly, uncurious and blinkered. And that can't be the case. So Jeremy Corbyn must be an extra special devious liar who we must put special effort into putting in his place. Hoover chat: When I bought this place I acquired a Henry which, as others have said, is a good cleaner but is heavy, awkward thing to lug around. So we have a cordless Hoover, erm, hoover for the weekly suck-up which does fine although the roller brush does get easily clagged with pet/fiancee hair. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Dec 24, 2023 |
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Dec 24, 2023 12:50
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Merry Christmas to you all. Have a good day - whatever that is to you.
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Dec 25, 2023 13:33
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josh04 posted:gently caress me I also had to sit through thirty minutes of it before I put headphones in and read a book. An absolute opening barrage of "poo poo you might have read in the Express at any time in the last thirty years". Greta Thunberg, Gary Linekar, university degrees in Taylor Swift, smol boats, antifa. I saw a clip of his stand up recently - dunno if it was a preview of the new one or from the one before - and he was doing some tedious does-both-sides-of-a-conversation thing about God creating mankind, and at one point he mugged the 'get this, this is going to be outrageous' face into the camera and said "And how many genders are you going to make...just the two, eh?" and then did the Brent smirk as the audience cheered. It didn't laugh. It cheered. There's a point where these sort of 'comedy' shows become more like political rallies and the audience is there to hear the naughty words and see the person on the stage say things that Everyone is Thinking that will make The Wokes Upset. It's such a shame to see Gervais fall to this level, although he's been sinking that way for years. He's become everything he mocked in the early 2000s and seems completely unaware that he has essentially become Andy Millman.
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Dec 26, 2023 22:02
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Wachter posted:I wonder what he means by stability as contrasted with "left" financial stability. Maybe someone from Serco comes round your house with a spirit level The "stability" of a vigorously enforced heteronormative nuclear family with strong traditional gender roles. As opposed to the "stability" of dependable and accessible public services, good housing provision with strong tenancy rights, free education at all levels, good job security, a functional welfare system, communities not dependant on the whims and interests of a handful of large multinationals and so on.
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Dec 29, 2023 10:55
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Runcible Cat posted:Yeah, mum stays home and looks after the kids and the house while dad works a job that pays enough to support them. If they're not doing that it's because they're lazy and crap and why should the government support them in that? Work harder! Bootstraps, people! It also means that capitalism can enjoy all the instability that it thrives on - innovation, disruption, automation, interchangeable human labour, population movement and so on - while throwing all the responsibility to deal with the negative sides onto the family unit. It's not society's job to provide stability, and it's certainly not the government's. That's the role (indeed, in this view, the purpose) of the Family. So what if Dad's lost his job with immediate effect because he was too ill to go in one day? Buck up and Be Stable For The Kids.
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Dec 29, 2023 11:26
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:The Conservative Club in a town near me dropped the "Conservative" bit, it was popular as a general meeting place not just tories, but anyway, it's now closing down. The one in my city had a long internal dispute about rebranding itself (to counter the fact that its membership was dying off virtually week by week). Like a microcosm for modern UK Conservatism about a third of the membership were saying "however much cheap drink, good food, film nights and free parking we offer no one under 50 wants to join a Conservative Club and have a cosy evening in The Margaret Thatcher Suite with pictures of Reagan and Churchill on the walls" and the other 2/3rds were incredibly worried that changing the name and decor would attract the wrong sort of youths and they'd rather the club withered and died rather than make any attempt at relevance or appealing to people who aren't old, white, male small businesses owners. So it's still called the Conservative Club and the building still has blue fences and window frames. There was a phase when all their social media posts and notice board flyers said something like 'the Conservative Club, which is not part of the Conservative Party...' but that seems to have stopped now. Although the main lounge is now the Grantham Room and the sign outside says (punctuation rendered as on the sign): "Probably" the "best" members' Club in [city]!
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Jan 7, 2024 23:02
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Guavanaut posted:Gender criticals: Our side has facts and science and logic. For the first time in months I actually made the effort to find that tweet on nitter because I sensed the replies would be good. And they were - genuinely hilarious. Loads of Gender Critics piling on with loads of other examples of 'binary' things that are actually gradients (like 'the atmosphere' v. 'space') or saying how colours doesn't really exist and are often a social construct based on perception and language and so this is a terrible analogy. 
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Jan 17, 2024 12:17
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feedmegin posted:Think I'd need an actual cite on that one. AFAIK no one knows for sure why he put it that way. From when I did class-civ at A Level (so god(s) know how correct it was then or how correct it is now) the theory was that the ancient Greeks wrote/described what we expect to be colour more as what we would call 'brightness', 'heat' or general characteristics. The sea is wine-dark not because it is red but because, like wine, the deep Mediterranean is a clear liquid that is none the less dark and hard to see through. The sky is not 'bronze' because it's literally metallic brown but because it's bright, hot and shiny.
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Jan 17, 2024 15:09
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:It's quite alarming. Sometimes I'll start having a normal conversation about the state of the UK today with neighbours but we'll get to the long waits for ambulances, queuing in ambulances outside A&E waiting to be triaged, difficulties in getting doc appointments, affordable housing etc and then instead of making the leap to "this is the result of 14 years of tory govt" it's "all them immigrants innit...." This is, broadly, my experience of political chats (more usually 'chats which suddenly turn political out of nowhere') with, for want of a better term, the general public. Nearly everyone seems very attuned to the material problems - wages are too low, costs are too high, services are poo poo, everything's run in the interests of big business and profit, thd rich (by whatever definition) are too rich and the political system just doesn't work for ordinary people. But when it comes to assigning responsibility or suggested solutions, hooooo boy. It seems basically anything is on the table, except ideas to the left of David Miliband. Apart from the chunk of people who think we absolutely should nationalise stuff, tax the rich, invest in services, build infrastructure and redistribute national wealth...but somehow think Boris Johnson or Richard Tice are the ones who will do any of this. The part that gets really tiring/depressing is how socially acceptable it is for people to just mouth off tabloid-style racist/xenophobic/classist/nationalist/ablist/whatever in casual or public situations, but if you counter that with even the most mild statements in the opposite direction that's rude and 'making it all political'. Our cultural norms foster some really lovely stuff. WhatEvil posted:I mean they're not wrong about this. Uber and other service industries absolutely do take advantage of immigrants who are willing to accept lower pay... but that's not the immigrants' fault. Yeah. They must be out there. Isn't 2017 the high water mark for Labour votes in England? Corbs got more votes that year than Blair did in 1997. It's a sign of how utterly out of kilter the discourse is from what people actually want. Polling suggests that even a clear majority of Conservative voters want higher taxes on the rich, public ownership of utilities and transport, reversal of privatisation of the NHS and so on. And socdem/demsoc policies always poll really well in general then crater when actually suggested in the discourse. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 18, 2024 19:43
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Bobby Deluxe posted:You've also got to bear in mind that having this kind of mindset also involves disbelieving things like britain only having two steel manufacturing capabilities as woke nonsense - everybody knows British Steel is the best in the world (because that was approximately correct enough in the 1960s, which is the last time these fuckers had to learn a new fact). Very well put. See also: "Jerumy Croblyns hates Britain because he wants to make it better [therefore implying that it isn't a utopian sceptred isle right now]". E: \/ \/ \/ There is definitely an element of that. I find it crops up a lot in the anti-15-minute-city stuff - an insistent pride in grinding, spirit-crushing, exhaust-wreathed commutes in expensive, tedious cars on overcrowded, potholed, badly-designed, under-capacity roads as "ordinary people just Getting On With It and going to work Without Making A Fuss". While cycling, walking, footpaths, tree-lined streets, mixed-density housing etc. is for idle, out-of-touch, wealthy layabouts who Don't Get It. E2: This sort of poo poo https://twitter.com/TottenhamConse1/status/1621066006457372674 \/ \/ \/ BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 22:41 on Jan 18, 2024 |
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Jan 18, 2024 22:29
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The strangest part is right at the end of that article: "He will add: “They got themselves so tangled up in culture wars of their own making, that instead of working with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution – an organisation the late queen was patron of for 70 years – to find real solutions to stop the small boats, their rhetoric has helped demonise them." Aside from the Smol Boats stuff and the invocation of Her Maj Gawd Bless Her...what real solutions to stop the small boats could the RNLI have? The RNLI literally has one purpose - Saving Lives At Sea. They're not a coast guard or a marine traffic agency. They have no power or ability to stop anything or anyone on the sea going anywhere or doing anything. They exist only to save the lives of people in distress at sea, regardless of who those people are or how they got into that situation. What on earth does Starmer think the RNLI could do to Stop The Boats if the government worked with them?
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Jan 22, 2024 11:18
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NotJustANumber99 posted:I mean if you read the article and had any interest other than yelling about how everyone else is in an idiot, you would probably see he was saying there was a better way for a government to deal with a vital and historically well loved service like the rnli rather than picking fights with it over rescuing migrants and their use of funding. And in so doing that the rnli could play a part in ending the "small boats crisis" rather than claiming they are exacerbating it. I did read the article. I quoted from it. I stand by my interpretation that it's, at least, very strange for Starmer to think that the RNLI has some organisational solution to the Small Boats up its oilskin sleeve if only the government was willing to listen to them. As Guavanaut said, the only possible solution the RNLI could have, given its resources, remit, abilities and legal status (remember it's a civilian charity, not even an emergency service), is monitoring safe crossing routes. Which certainly is a solution but I would bet money on it not being one Starmer is remotely interested in implementing or publicly voicing. So what else does Starmer think a Labour government and the RNLI could work towards? It makes no sense. It would be like suggesting the Royal British Legion could sort out the war in Ukraine if only the government would work with them. The RNLI absolutely should not be made a target or scapegoat for just saving people from drowning (same as when the RN got called in and then had some of its people spat on because the good people of Kent were upset that the navy was also just fulfilling its obligations to rescue people rather than turning the machine guns on them). But Starmer didn't say that. He said the RNLI could help with solutions and I an at a loss as to what those are that would fulfill the political need to Stop The Boats. It's either empty posturing, stringing together words and phrases into the perfecr triangulated statement (Work Together/The Queen/Real Solutions/RNLI/Stop The Boats/Get On With It) or he has a solution in mind that's stupid - probably involving installing ChatGPT on lifeboats.
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Jan 22, 2024 13:12
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Jakabite posted:Other aspects though, I find it a bit Luddite to just say ‘no it isn’t useful.’ It objectively is and a few high profile cases of it loving up and tanking a law firm or something don’t negate that. It’s now being actively used in hundreds of industries to write copy, solve scheduling, route mapping, all sorts. Hell, I hate to admit it but some of the AI tools to fix out of focus video are really impressive. I think people who want to see AI as a general concept wiped out are going to need better arguments than ‘actually it’s not useful and it uses a lot of energy’, because even to a skeptic like myself it doesn’t really hold any water. Interesting use of the word 'Luddite' there, since the Luddites were skilled (often self-employed) workers who resented being replaced by lower-skilled workers producing materially inferior cloth on machinery installed in factories owned by capitalists. AI (to use the inaccurate but common term) seems like another example of almost every technical advance made in the past 400 years. In itself it is a fairly neutral development that could be used to allow us to produce more work in the same time or the same work in less time. Or take over a load of unfulfilling, tedious or difficult drudge admin work. But in the system we actually live and work in, surely it's only going to be used to automate existing human labour, skill and creativity and/or to squeeze more productivity out of the same/fewer humans?
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Jan 27, 2024 13:58
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Bevan's stated three principles of the NHS were that it be; comprehensive (that it meets all the medical needs of everyone), free at point of delivery and (as a confluence of the first two) that delivery was based on need, not ability to pay. Unfortunately it's quite possible to meet those (especially the 'free at point of delivery' one) while also turning over the unstated principles that it be a single-payer system funded and provided through general taxation. Especially if you're a devious weasel in hock to private healthcare interests like Wes Streeting.
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Feb 3, 2024 11:48
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Sorry about your mother, Aipsh. condolences  Failed Imagineer posted:Yeah I guess, but it also has to be at least part cultural. Like, if you started telling people in Ireland that they'd have to wait 6 weeks for burials I'm pretty sure it would be treated about as well as telling them that the bodies were just going to be dumped in the street. Idk, just a strange difference, but the UK is a much more crowded place. Remember when the gravediggers in one council went on strike for ten days in January 1979 and 150 burials were delayed by up to a week? And this was stirred into such a scandal that the entire socio-economic system of the country was irrecovably altered? Now a two week wait between the death of a relative and the funeral/burial is the norm. Same with the infamous The Bins!
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Feb 6, 2024 16:08
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It's amazing watching the Right Wing Reality Distortion Field kick in in real time: Harry is taking less compensation than he could probably wring out of those found to have acted unlawfully against him and others...which shows that he must actually know that he's in the wrong. It's like the [can't remember it exact] 'Jeremy Corbyn asks Cameron to answer on family ties to Panama Papers scandal - should Corbyn resign for this?' headline. (Although that's a good example of Betteridge's Law).
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Feb 9, 2024 16:38
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Every time I see a graph like this I get sad/angry at that tantalising little glimpse on on-trend growth in 2009/2010, caused by Gordon 'Spent All The Pounds' Brown and his 'There's No Money Left' Last Labour Government. New Labour were poo poo in a lot of ways, late-era NuLab especially, but Brown had a basically good response to the Great Recession - certainly better than Cameron and The Big Society. smellmycheese posted:Lololololol Nice to see the Conservatives being more honest in their response - "we would have sold the naming rights to the private sector! Wouldn't you like to get to Crystal Palace on the Citigroup Line In Associaton With JD Sports?"
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Feb 15, 2024 14:47
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Tesseraction posted:Literally all the Tories would need to do was nothing and they could have taken credit for saving the economy by stealing Brown's work. But instead they had to loving piledrive the economy into the ground out of hubris and greed. There was a chap from the Resolution Foundation on the radio a bit earlier, discussing the recession news. He talked about the long-term factors that have weighed down the UK economy for nearly two decades and he was asked 'what the government - any government - should do to solve them. His reply was all the usual stuff that anyone with half a brain would say: the UK needs to up its public investment by 50% just to reach the OECD average, let alone any extra to make good the shortfall, UK businesses are worse than nearly all our peers for investing in the long term and profit/dividends need to be spent on modernisation, productivity, skills and higher wages. Huge geographic inequality in terms of economic activity. Higher benefits/welfare payments to reduce 'social debt' of poverty, illness etc., a higher tax burden focussing particularly on wealth etc. etc. etc. All I could think of was that however sensible and obvious this may be, any politician actually proposing any of this stuff would get absolutely monstered as a dangerous communist loon.
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Feb 15, 2024 15:43
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Failed Imagineer posted:IIRC the trains never really ran on time under Mussolini, and although it was initially a point of fascist rhetoric it transformed over time into a bitter ironic joke, especially by the time of WW2 when the Italian rail network collapsed. Correct. It was one of the populist things that the fascist government promised when it came to power - Bringing Order to the chaotic Italian railway system and making the trains Work For Ordinary People to Strengthen The Nation blahblahblah. But it never really happened. The Italian Railways generally improved slightly over the 1920s as they were rebuilt after WW1, and the fascists made a few key big, eye-catching investments in new or modernised lines, stations and rolling stock. These tended to be lines that were predominantly used by foreign business visitors and tourists, like the ones between Milan and Venice and Milan and Rome. These routes generally had better, faster, more modern rolling stock and better timekeeping. Trains that connected with international services at borders, docks and airports were given accelerated and prioritised schedules so they did run on time, and very fast. But usually at the expense of standards services being delayed or re-routed. But it meant that loads of tourists went home to confirm how Mussolini had made the Italian trains run on time and what a marvellous example of strong national leadership and modernist vision it represented.
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Feb 15, 2024 17:03
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NotJustANumber99 posted:How much job seeking are you required to do on jobseekers allowance or whatever it is? More than an hour a day? On a computer. I literally signed up for JSA for the first time in my life yesterday (let's say that my 2024 plan of "quit the horrible under-paid over-worked job with no future to find a better one" has not yet come to full fruition) and my 'Claimant Commitment' meeting is tomorrow. So I can report back with exactly how poo poo the system is now.
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Feb 15, 2024 22:30
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Just Another Lurker posted:Best wishes to you. Thanks. While the continual process of putting yourself out there and getting 95% tumbleweed and 5% automated rejection messages is pretty dispiriting, as is the dawning realisation that I'm in the unfortunate situation of being over-qualified for general roles and under-experienced for specific ones, I'm not in any financial or physical risk if this drags on (I have never been the breadwinner in this household...) so I'm not at the mercy of The System as others are. Tesseraction posted:As always I document my two experiences Yeah, I've heard similar experiences. The phone call I got from the DWP this morning to confirm details seemed to lean very much towards the later of your experiences in tone. I have 20 years of virtually unbroken employment and an accent that makes everyone assume I'm a rich Tory twat in my favour so let's see...
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Feb 15, 2024 22:52
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JobCentre Trip Report The answer to NJAN99's question: NotJustANumber99 posted:How much job seeking are you required to do on jobseekers allowance or whatever it is? More than an hour a day? On a computer. In my case, as someone with no dependents, no health problems and no other calls on their time is 35 hours a week (which is the maximum - if any of those other factors were in play it is reduced accordingly), so that's seven hours a day Mon-Fri they expect you to be looking and applying for jobs. What constitutes evidence of this? The advisor who dealt with me was surprisingly vague - screenshots of my Indeed/Totaljobs/Findajob status pages were accepted, but she implied that simple typed lists of jobs applied for/interviews gone to would also do. My Claimant Commitment also includes things like "ask friends and family for jobs [the Tory method?]" and "search social media for suitable employment" so, unsurprisingly, a lot of this comes across as vaguely-defined and largely pointless busywork that can be used as an excuse for sanctions if they need/want to. I voluntarily left my last job in mid-October. Between my savings and my partner's income we agreed that I would take a three-month 'sabbatical' where I wouldn't pay my share of the bills and was not expected to look for or take jobs. February was my first month of being back on paying bills and actively hunting for jobs, hence why I'm going on JSA to keep my bank account topped up. A key thing to bear in mind with this is that the JobCentre's 'clock' starts from when you left work, not when you started claiming, so as far as they're concerned I am now in no position to be choosy about jobs and if I'm not looking for/accepting jobs putting carrots in bags in a factory on a nightshift then they could sanction me for that. Of course the JSA payments don't actually reach me for two weeks and back-date to when I started claiming, not when I stopped working...because that's fair. As to the 'vibes' - I went there dressed smart-casual (chinos, button+collar shirt under a smart woollen jumper), with my documents in my fancy leather messenger bag and turned up 10 minutes early. The person dealing with me was perfectly polite and professionally helpful (no outward or implied 'you're lazy scum who just needs to sharpen up and get to work') but they had a script of certain statements/messages they were clearly required deliver and the overall organisational tone was clearly "we just want you In Work and Off Benefits ASAP." An interesting contrast of posters on the wall behind too - half "come to us for help with SKILLS" and "How to NAIL your next INTERVIEW to get that GREAT JOB you've always WANTED" and half "Here's our definition of FRAUD - DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT. WE ARE WATCHING YOU" and "LATENESS MAY CAUSE SANCTIONS". The fact that there were multiple corporate security guards on each floor, roaming around in all-black uniforms was pretty telling as well. The thing that really hacks me off is that this is all for £80/week, which doesn't even cover my agreed half of our standard household bills (and we're two people in a two-bed terrace house with good insulation, all LED lights and the heating set low). If they were paying out an amount that was actually enough to live on, then I could sort of understand the hoop-jumping and all the attached strings and the dangling damoclean sword of sanctions. But for a pittance that isn't actually enough to cover basic outgoings? Just give people the money. sebzilla posted:What sort of work are you looking for BalloonFish? Simple question with a complicated answer. I've spent the past 12 years in print media/publishing, doing writing, editing and production, then a later switch to digital (writing and video). I sacked off the job because the money was lousy (only a few pence/hr above minimum wage), the hours were getting longer and less predictable, the need to travel and spend days away from home was going up, the stress was ever-increasing and the creativity and satisfaction was plummeting as the whole business turned into a low-effort content farm and there was zero chance of professional progression. I would take a job in the same sort of line if the pay, conditions and prospects were good enough. I've also been going for social media/marketing jobs, but while my previous work did include aspects of that, it was never the primary role and so I lack demonstrable experience in managing/implementing strategy, which is what those jobs seem to require if you want to get in higher than 'proof-read SEO-optimised swill generated by an AI'...which is pretty much what I left. I'd be quite happy with an admin/management role of some sort (in any industry) with predictable hours and a chance of professional development/progression. My career has been a real smorgasbord that has left me with a lot of transferable skills but not the good chunks of experience or qualifications that employers want. I did Archaeology at uni (Russell group, as if that matters), then had a brief spell helping doing archaeology/heritage assessments for HS2, then a spell in the Navy, then a few years being a data wonk in the NHS, then off into this career in publishing where I went through the ranks at a newspaper (staff writer, features writer, deputy editor), then left that company and went freelance (writing and editing), then went back to that company as a production editor, with side-roles producing and presenting video and podcast, then content writing for digital then finally videography. I also had a very brief time as an events manager (three weeks in March 2020 before the pandemic killed that career just as it began!) which then led to spells doing the aforementioned carrot-packing factory work and delivery driving. So I'm left with little bits of skills (heritage, land surveying, admin, team management, production management, data crunching, IT, leadership, writing, editing, video, social media marketing etc.) and an odd array of qualifications picked up here and there over time but nothing long-term or provable that's enough to (seemingly) get me into any role that majors on any one of these things. Since I was a graduate working for minimum wage I was, and am, massively over-qualified for entry-level roles and not experienced enough for the more senior ones. It's frustrating because I'm demonstrably flexible, adaptable and a fast learner. I may not have experience of using [particular industry-specific database] but I'm pretty sure it would not take long for me to get to grips with. But not having that proven experience with that particular system is enough to get my CV chucked in the digital bin.
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Feb 16, 2024 14:25
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OwlFancier posted:When I was on JSA and couldn't drive, they also wanted basically full time hours spent Looking For Work. Which was complicated by the fact that I was qualified for gently caress all and had limited travel capability and there was gently caress all work actually available. The jobcenter's own stupid website listed the same half dozen jobs all week and half the stuff I could conceivably apply for was obviously a scam (travelling jewelery sales rep paid on commission!!). That reminds me of another thing - the Jobcentre person said that they consider "90 minutes travel time" as an acceptable radius for deciding whether you are deemed able to get to an offered job. Which seemed ridiculous because London is only 50 minutes away on a fast train, and a 90 minute car journey will take you to Nottingham or most of the way to Norwich. Then she clarified that it's 90 minutes via the Stagecoach city bus system, so in effect it's only an hour's drive and they basically don't expect you to seek jobs outside the city's postcode area. On an entirely different subject, I felt I had to share this wonderfully deranged response to the London Overground line naming (specifically The Suffragette Line) that I came across : quote:I suppose the good thing from a more conservative/centre right point of view is that it does re-open debate about whether giving women the vote was actually a good thing. I think it tends to be casually assumed that it was by many, but I'm not so sure. If it gave us the ever-growing reach of the state into private lives even as morality crumbles away, the fussy and judgemental environmentalism, the softening of justice for actual criminals, the oedipal nannying and the ballooning debt of the modern state. Whole great government departments devoted to nurturing and nagging. A society level manifestation of the neuroticism and over-emotional habits of the fairer sex with a heavy skew towards the unmarried and childless ones. Perhaps worst of all the existential crisis that is women no longer performing the basic biological function of reproduction. Ah yes, just sensible centre-right politics, where some railways being named and coloured on a map makes you ponder whether women should have been given the right to vote. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 14:59 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 14:54
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:I guess the thing to do is in your covering letter for the job put actual facts such as: It's so typical of, well, everything that all the adjustments and accommodations have to be on the employee's side (presumably on the basis that they chose the job so have to take everything that comes with it, 'as is') rather than the employer's. Especially for people like your niece. Bold bit - I would welcome some thread opinions on covering letters. I was always taught that they were an essential - sometimes the most vital part - of job applications, and always did one when applying for jobs in the past. My partner on the other hand was never taught/told to do one and has never included one with any job application. She has a much more lucrative and successful professional career than me, but she is an accountant where I suppose your CV really 'sells' you sufficiently as opposed to the more subjective creative/managerial type jobs where you have to sell yourself a bit more blatantly. All the job sites state that covering letters/supporting documents are 'optional' but I've been included them anyway because I feel they can't hurt. Jaeluni Asjil posted:Isn't that just Morris Dancing? Yeah, these seem to have popped up on the forums today. I think they let you hide/grey out the quote (for multi-quotes?). E: OwlFancier posted:I think that is a new forums feature (!!) which allows you to collapse or expand the quote box by clicking on it. Ah, I get it. So you can have the Daily Telegraph Paywall effect on my deranged conservative response to the London Overground, as your mind fogs over just as it begins blathering about reproductive functions. BalloonFish fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Feb 16, 2024 |
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Feb 16, 2024 15:19
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bessantj posted:I used to take twenty minutes to apply for 7 jobs on Indeed or somewhere then put that in my account on the universal website stating that it took an hour to apply for each one. Day done. Do that for five days and that was my 35 hours and I have the weekend off. One hour per job is not desperately unreasonable in itself - when I was getting started and having to re-draw my CV and write covering letters tailored for specific job types it probably did take around an hour per one. But now I'm into the swing of it I have a 'media' CV/covering letter, an 'admin' CV/covering letter, a 'management' CV/covering letter, a 'technical' CV/covering letter and so on and I just adapt each one for the specific company/role/job spec so it's much quicker. But the DWP don't need to know that...
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Feb 16, 2024 15:25
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:Police forces should send the bill to Charlie Boy. What an utter waste of public money. The crown change isn't a marketing thing or some idea cooked up by Charles himself. It's a typically (stupid) British semi-tradition that doesn't really exist but a few people really care about, that you have different heraldic crowns for Kings and Queens. And this ancient tradition started in...1952. The traditional heraldic symbol for 'the British Crown' was the flat-topped Tudor Crown. Queen Victoria had a new Imperial State Crown (with the arched top) made for her coronation and that was the one she wore for state/imperial occasions and which became the heraldic symbol of 'the crown' during her reign. Edward VII went back to the Tudor Crown, as did George, Edward and George after him. Liz 2 chose to adopt the Imperial State Crown as her heraldic symbol, because it was used by the last queen. Now it's become a thing among royalist/heraldry weirdos and so we're going back to a 'king's crown', although since the foreseeable future line of succession is all kings then if the changes are made they won't be redundant if Charles does shuffle off quickly. And yes, I was in the NHS when they slightly changed the shade of blue for the Trust logo and so we suddenly had piles and piles of stationery etc. that was officially unusable now...
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Feb 20, 2024 16:14
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Sadsack posted:The comedy option would be for William, once Charles has succumbed to turbo butt cancer, to change it back. But for some reason I can't picture Will having that sort of burning need to change things for change's sake. A bit of a tangent, but I've noticed in the year-or-so since Charles has been In Charge that the idea that he'll be the one to reform, modernise and slim-down the monarchy has completely vanished. You'd often hear stuff along the lines of "oh, Elizabeth is a product of the 1930s and carries the shock of the Abdication in her approach to the monarchy, and when she became queen we still had an empire and it was a very different world. You can't expect things to change under her. Charles will be the one to update the institution for the 21st century and make it more like the other European monarchies - less grand, fewer hangers-on and less gaudy ceremonial flim-flam." Now it's all "oh, he respects his Dear Ma-Ma too much to really change things and a lot of people feel that the monarchy is the only unchanging, traditional institution they've got to cling to in a chaotic and scary world, so we can't expect Charles to do much. Wait until William, the millenial prince, takes over and then we'll see the monarchy change..."
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Feb 20, 2024 16:31
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Bobstar posted:And alongside the well-known smugness of being Big Sensible Adults who Know How Things Really Work, this also has the "advantage" of placing you on the winning team most of the time. Reminds me of the coordinated outrage at the SNP during the one of the Scottish parliament elections where the Cons, Lab, LDs and much of the media expressed outrage at the strategy of trying to win votes by proposing making people's lives and experiences better. A real tone of accusing them of underhand tactics or bad gamesmanship - in fact I'm sure I remember an OpEd literally saying that it wasn't fair and tantamount to cheating at politics. Everyone knows that sensible, realistic, grownup politics is never about making things better, and certainly not for ordinary people who may actually vote for you. Donors and corporate friends with spare seats on their executive boards; now that's quite a different matter. I mean, the SNP are hardly paragons of virtue and ethics but it was a real drawing-back-the-veil moment.
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Feb 29, 2024 22:20
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