• 4 Posts
  • 82 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 21st, 2023

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  • I really feel for the students now with the high fees. They’re paying so much more money to get a degree than older generations. They need to because any half decent graduate job needs a degree with at least a 2.1, so they feel like they don’t have a choice but know they are paying for the certificate rather than an education really.

    It doesn’t excuse shitty behaviour and entitlement but I don’t think it’s fair to just blame them. The social contract is broken, they are still kids trying to figure out the world, they are used to being spoon fed exam questions at school, they are worried about climate change, the old people in power suck, they were really messed up by covid and the future looks pretty bleak.

    By the way, that graduate job pays less than it did for older generations, in some cases a lot less as companies have taken advantage of the apprenticeship scheme by getting rid of higher paying grad jobs to the unliveable pay they get. By the way, in my profession, all the apprentices seem to have degrees as the competition is so high. They also come with a worse pension, worse benefits and worse pathway to promotions. That job will barely cover increasing rents if you’re lucky enough, let alone allow you to build up a deposit for unaffordable housing.

    At my highly rated course at a red brick uni, I’d say about a quarter of my lecturers were actually good teachers, about half were sort of OK and another quarter really sucked. You can tell they were there for the research and resented teaching. I paid £3k a year for the privilege of that so was slightly annoyed. If I was paying £9k or whatever it is, I’d be pretty pissed off.

    The university system is broken with all the research targets, funding issues, low pay, etc.

    All of this adds together to make it a shitty time for everyone! Now I’ve depressed myself for the day…


  • My belief is this all comes down to austerity. We have poorer people, a much poorer health service (physical and mental health), less benefits, less money for teachers, less money for social workers, less money for police, less job opportunities, less pay, higher rent, higher costs etc across the board but especially worse in poorer areas. This is a society on the verge of collapse and we’re seeing signs of it everywhere.

    Happy families and happy kids want to engage with other people, learn things and be part of a community. What makes them happy - enough money for shelter, food and basic necessities without worry of where the money for rent is going to come from or having to use a food bank. I’ve been there and when you are struggling it’s hard to care for the wider society / community. Thankfully I didn’t have kids eating up that stress which they will easily pick up on.


  • This is really interesting, thanks for sharing.

    I knew about the girl who died and her mother’s campaign but didn’t realise how central it was to Khan’s push for this. I also didn’t know his personal problems with asthma and pollution, or his additional security needs.

    I’ve seen a lot of these campaigners around. They rolled through Epsom Town centre a few weeks ago and funnily enough, their vans completely blocked the crossing I was trying to use with my 4 year old on a very busy street making it very unsafe.

    They’ve caused lots of annoyance with their constant horns, driving up local traffic unnecessarily and megaphones. I hear more hate for Just Stop Oil but can frankly say, they’ve never caused me personally any problems at all so funny isn’t it…





  • This is brilliant timing. I read this sitting at the gate for a short hall flight. There was still a lot of time before the flight and they announced “can Anna something please come to the desk”, and about 40 people (I counted as had so much time still) stood up and rushed to queue up and then had to stand up for another 30 minutes until it actually started boarding…

    It was a cheap airline so overhead space can be difficult but I really don’t get the people who rush to sit down in the tight horrible seats (designated seating btw) waiting for everyone else to sit.

    We arrived and then the picture happened of course…