What is something thats absolutely everywhere in britain that most people just don't notice?

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Choice-Demand-3884@reddit

Litter.

It's so normalised that it's barely noticed.

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I live in the Welsh Valleys where parts are quite rural and there are wild horses, lots of sheep and cows. Beautiful. Until you see the horses navigating around masses of fly tipping. It was actually the biggest shock when I moved here.

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Captaincadet@reddit

I genuinely do wonder how much this is linked to public recycling centres restricting trade use and then limit recycling centres to a few visits a year

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Emergency_Wealth7778@reddit

My plasterer did tell me that you have to have a special licence to carry stuff in your van and he'd been pulled over a couple times and had to prove it. I don't think general recycling centres have restricted use though, at least the ones by me. I see so much national pride here until I see how they treat their land

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Captaincadet@reddit

The ones in my area are very strict and we see a lot of dumped rubbish

I have family in another part of the country where they are a lot more lax (and cheaper) and there is significantly less dumped rubbish

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Emergency_Wealth7778@reddit

Imagine if the council put two and two together! 🤯

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Ok_Analyst_5640@reddit

The problem is they've often sold the landfills and recycling centres to companies such as biffa, Suez and ansa. Those private companies then want to pick and choose what they take, they really don't want stuff they can't recycle for an additional profit. Although recycling centres are paid out of council tax they bring in charges for stuff like aggregate and rubble because even though it's recycled into MOT they don't want to deal with it because they're not making anything on it.

It is pathetic how we've sold off everything that should be council owned. It does lead to all the fly tipping. I'm convinced if they just did an "amnesty" sort of thing twice a year, a free-for-all to get rid of your stuff it would get rid of a lot of the problem

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Chopsticks_Charlie@reddit

Other than a rando few scum bags that can't cope with bin day, I am thankful that around my area is generally pretty clean.

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Choice-Demand-3884@reddit

Getting on a ferry in pristine Hoek Van Holland and arriving in Harwich and driving back to Cumbria along litter-strewn A-roads is pretty depressing. I live in the Lake District and I carry a bin bag to bring trash off the fells. Very rare I don't find anything. Most popular camp sites will have a trail of rubbish leading back to them. How someone can stuff a Greggs wrapper and an empty plastic bottle into a wall and walk away is absolutely baffling.

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hideyourarms@reddit

Part of me hopes that a lot of the rubbish in the Lakes is a volume of visitors issue. I’ve never intentionally littered but I have to assume that I’ve accidentally dropped a tissue or a wrapper from my pocket and not noticed, multiply those accidents by 18 million people a year visiting a small area and you get quite a bit of litter.

And then you see a McDonald’s bag on a B-road at least 40 minutes drive from the nearest McDonald’s and realise some people are just idiots.

I was in the US recently and it surprised me that whilst you see litter (and a lot of it) in the cities their National Parks are absolutely immaculate. Sitting just off a trail I saw another hiker reach down and pick up a speck of paper no bigger than a stamp, I think we could learn a bit from their park system.

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Beautiful-Anybody127@reddit

Didn't Elon Musk recently get rid of most of the Park Workers? Probably going to go down hill.

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ACharredCell@reddit

Yes! I also used to litter-pick on the fells when I lived in the Lakes and I cannot comprehend it -- surely anyone motivated to go and walk up a mountain (except maybe the more obvious ones e.g. Scafell Pike which people will do just to tick the "highest mountain in England" box and then show off about it afterwards) must have some level of appreciation of the area, and surely littering spoils it? Can they not see this?? I'm not sure I've explained very well but I found it so baffling. It was particularly bad during the first Covid lockdown when (presumably due to most accommodation being closed) we started to get a bunch of people wild-camping and just leaving everything behind -- not just litter but the whole tent and so on. Really sad. It's perhaps a little more understandable in, say, a deprived inner-city area which is already heavily littered -- I can almost somewhat understand in that case why someone might have no pride in their surroundings and feel like adding a few extra bits doesn't matter. But somewhere like the Lakes?? :(

The poster below makes a good point about accidental littering (I'm sure I must also have done that now and again despite my best efforts) but I don't think that can account for the scale of the problem.

With regard to lockdown littering in particular, I seem to recall some senior member of staff at the Peak District national park making a very generous point along the lines of: Covid has prompted many people to visit rural areas in the UK (e.g. due to impossibility of going overseas/indoor entertainment options in the UK) who might have no prior experience of them; "national parks" are confusingly named for someone who has spent their life in a city and understands "park" to signify a fenced-off green place with litter bins and toilets and so forth; some people might therefore come to these places with unrealistic expectations and lack of understanding of appropriate behaviour in them; therefore the real problem is access to the countryside and socioeconomic/cultural barriers to this.

It's a thought-provoking point and I have some sympathy with it in relation to access to the outdoors -- I realise that I am privileged in having spent a lot of time in the Lakes and similar places since I was a kid. Unfortunately, this did not make me any less judgemental about finding litter/abandoned campsites all over the place...

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Oh-reality-come-back@reddit

Same. Our local council has been pretty good at keeping our streets clean, I’m always street cleaners out and about . We’re very lucky

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BigMikeOfDeath@reddit

Something I found baffling the first time I visited London in particular was the lack of public bins - but it makes sense in the context of it was what the IRA used to deliver bombs a lot of the time.

It feels like enough time has passed that you could start installing them again.

I've had conversations with Brits visiting Perth, where I live, that we had a ridiculous amount of bins (and we still have a lot of litter, sadly people can be dicks everywhere) but it does help.

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Bigfootsbooots@reddit

I've travelled a lot, to countries from all across the economic spectrum.

As far as well-off nations go, the UK is (anecdotally, by me) dead last in terms of littering. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. It is disgusting and it makes me so ashamed.

Even in most poorer countries I've visited, there is nothing like this. The only places where I routinely see excessive litter are those where there isn't really the infrastructure for dealing with it.

We are a developed country. There are bins that are emptied frequently. A big van will come to your house once a week and take your rubbish away for you. I can see absolutely no reason for us to have the litter problem we do, besides "people have no pride in their environment here" and it's really damn sad.

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Ok-Customer-5770@reddit

Dead last? Really? Have you never been to a third world country?

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Bigfootsbooots@reddit

That's not really a term I'd choose to use but, yes, I've been to many.

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Ok-Customer-5770@reddit

Well you must know that as soon as you step out of western europe/USA/commonwealth countries British people stayed and Japan, litter is a phenomenal issue. You can occasionally be taken in by a few tourist areas but move out of that and its utter filth almost everywhere.

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Aggressive_Chuck@reddit

A big lorry will come to your house once a week and take your rubbish away for you.

Every three weeks now.

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Strong_Access_8179@reddit

I've also travelled to a lot of countries and I'd largely agree with you.

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FriendofFlounder@reddit

I've lived all over America and some states/cities are much much worse than here. A guy named Andy Wang is famous just for cleaning up Oakland. A big difference is visibility. Touristy areas in other places are better about keeping things clean. Unless you actually live in a city in the US, you might not see the mass dumping, littering, and encampments because they're not in prime spots. Whereas here, its on every major high street.

https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/1qe564d/10_powerful_humans_cleared_8000_pounds_of_illegal/

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Expensive_Eye_22@reddit

I disagree Literally amazed how clean it is, especially compared to 20+ years ago

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evelynsmee@reddit

To be fair this is relative. The UK is litter free compared to some places I've been, and a shit hole compared to others.

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boxofrabbits@reddit

I've lived here for six years and it takes leaving the country back to Australia and coming back to rejoice just how absolutely filthy Britain is. It's embarassing when people visit.

We make an effort to go to bimonthly litter picks, but it's really just a drop in the ocean.

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JustLetItAllBurn@reddit

We do need a full-on Keep Britain Tidy campaign again. I remember having it drilled into me as a kid.

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InternetPerson00@reddit

we tried something similar in Palestine. We had each school send pupils out to pick up litter from a certain area around the school. Every school did this and a lot of litter was picked up. But it got dirty quickly again. It was heartbreaking. For a small amount of time most of the "country" was so nice and clean.

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Ok-Customer-5770@reddit

Some cultures do not value keeping things clean.

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miggleb@reddit

Like ours for example

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EchoesofIllyria@reddit

Probably because a lot of the litterers are adults, not children

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drivelhead@reddit

It also doesn't help that your neighbours keep trying to make things messy.

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Dapper-Lab-9285@reddit

Didn't work out that good then and now it's getting worse. People just don't give a fuck anymore, I've seen people drop rubbish after literally walking around a bin.

Unless they start fining people who litter it will never stop but there is no one to fine people who litter. We can't even control people with restricted dogs how will we control littering. P

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zagblorg@reddit

With the rise of facial recognition and the surveillance state in this country, I'm sure they can get Palantir to automate littering fines!

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GraphicDesignMonkey@reddit

Councils seem to be taking more and more litter bins away. Is it to save money?

My town has removed lots bins in the last few years, now I have to walk really far to find one, when they used to be everywhere. And the dog poo bins are rarer than rocking-horse shit.

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PB_and_aids@reddit

My county has a great campaign - “Don’t be a toaster, keep Suffolk clean!”

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PixieXV@reddit

Ours is don't be a tosser

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lacb1@reddit

I do love how in the US they had stuff like the somewhat agressive "don't mess with Texas!" and we went with something your nan would have said when asked why she brushes the pavement outside her house clear of crab apples.

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anabsentfriend@reddit

It depends on where you are. There's no litter at all in my town. There are volunteers that do litter picking on the beach and roads.

I live on the south coast and I know that after sunny weekends, they collect a lot. I don't understand why people just leave their crap on the beach.

So I guess there is litter (before the volunteers get at it), but it's definitely not normalised here.

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NoOneExpectsDaCheese@reddit

I genuinely think those on benefits and who are able, should have to do some sort of community work such as picking up rubbish etc. It would massively improve the country, and also make some use of the money spent.

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EchoesofIllyria@reddit

The money spent is already being made use of by allowing those people to live

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Ok_Cow_3431@reddit

Youre not wrong, but the UK is no where near as bad as some places including other European countries.

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cracksonic@reddit

Lived in India for a couple of years. When I moved back to London, my jaw dropped at how clean it was.

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SomethingMoreToSay@reddit

I was on holiday in India last month, and I witnessed a little episode that I think speaks volumes.

We were in the old city area of Agra, and there was a cow in the street. Well, there were cows everywhere, but this specific cow was getting a meal. An elderly gentleman in a suit had a plastic carrier bag, from which he produced a couple of potatoes, and he put them on the ground for the cow to eat. Then he upended the bag and tipped out a few handfuls of corn or chick peas or something, also for the cow. He'd obviously brought it along specifically to feed the cow (or perhaps not that cow, but a cow), and he'll have earned some karma for that.

And having fed the cow, he screwed up the plastic carrier bag and threw it in the street as he walked away.

That just summed up India for me. The country has been making huge strides over the last 10-20 years, but they have a gigantic problem with rubbish.

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simonecart@reddit

I lived in Dubai for a decade and it's cultural. I saw an Indian family of about 10 turn up at lake about 30kms outside Dubai. They had blankets, cans of pop, plastic plates/cutlery/jugs/cups and food all packaged in plastic bags. They sat down, ate and after an hour got up to leave. They left everything, including the blanket, strewn by the side of the lake. We were leaving at the same time and I confronted them in the car park. Just looked at me like I was mad. My sister-in-law is married to an Indian and they are the same. Just dispose of everything on the floor where they are.

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reggieko13@reddit

I wonder what a graph would look like with immigration on what axis and litter on another.dont think only cause (lots mentioned above) but when we talk about cultures mixing its got to be a factor

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PiesPiesAndPies@reddit

Not anywhere near to where I live. Perhaps it's a regional thing?

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drivelhead@reddit

I don't say this lightly, but some people just really are selfish cunts.

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World_wanderer12@reddit

Came back from 3 weeks on Japan last year and I was so shocked at how dirty the UK is when I landed. You're right, we sadly get used to it.

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_lippykid@reddit

I see kids chucking disposable vapes, wrappers and boxes on the floor all the time. Even when there’s a bin literally 4ft away

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adamtrousers@reddit

On the ground *

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Proper_Instruction67@reddit

This!!! Our street is so bad I can't even take my dog out the back door because the whole street is covered in rubish :(

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Disastrous-Place-846@reddit

I live in north yorkshire, generally quite tidy, work in west yorkshire, its pure filth. every a road/slip road is ankle deep in plastic...

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PootMcGroot@reddit

Songbirds singing in urban areas.

I've had many, many people from different countries - France, Germany, the US, Canada - remark how absolutely alive the UK is for background bird song in urban and semi-urban areas compared to their homes.

And it's been shown to be true. The main theories are than bird feeding in gardens has been a widespread cultural thing for many, many centauries in the UK, more so than elsewhere; that the "hedgerow-ification" of farming has provided ideal habits for millennia (although that's dying now); and that our particular mix of songbird species are especially noisy and adapted to this higher-food environment.

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20182244@reddit

I was going to say pigeons and their f*****g cooing … but this answer was nicer

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PootMcGroot@reddit

Our overwhelming number of pigeons is a whole other thing.... 😄

One of my favourite bird theories is that in the UK, robins are famous for being notoriously friendly, and following gardeners around as they work. They don't do that in France, they act like any other bird.

Exactly the same species... but they've never been hunted by humans in the UK.

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bannanawaffle13@reddit

I always stick up for pigeons we domesticated them, there ancestors fought in ww1 with us, and was the animal to receive the most amount of Dickens medals aka the animal victoria cross. There only now a pest because they are that good at survival they thrive in a environment that is not their own, there bred from rock doves a cliff dwelling species, hence the poor nests. We now hang bird nets up and let them them suffer horrible deaths of dehydration and starvation, and let snotty nosed kids kick them, it's horrific, just take a moment and appreciate there body, how graceful they fly, the irradescent sheen of their feathers.

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bramleyapple1@reddit

Imagine if they were a rare and endangered species, everyone would be saying beautiful they look and how intelligent they are.

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HatOfFlavour@reddit

Doves are just hue swapped pigeons.

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MeanWafer904@reddit

We have a lot of pigeon racers around our way. We think one must have lost or tossed a bird out which got randy with a local dove. Because we have this half breed thing out our back.

It's also chunky. Like if the pigeon world had WWE this one is pigeon equivalent to Triple H on the juice chunky.

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Ok_Analyst_5640@reddit

Pigeon fanciers generally don't want pigeons back that are too slow or get lost. If you do give it back to them there's a good chance they'll just cull it anyway. The whole sport is a competition for the fastest to get home.

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Puzzledandhangry@reddit

We need pics of The Rock Bird!

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PootMcGroot@reddit

My niece was scared of moths, until I called them "Cinderella butterflies" (ie one is before the Fairy Godmother comes along to make a magic dress, one after)... and now she likes them more than her love of butterflies...

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HatOfFlavour@reddit

That just means you made a future goth.

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Bam-Skater@reddit

Their real name is Rock Doves. They used to live on coastal cliff faces and moved into cities because the tall buildings mimicked the cliff faces

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HatOfFlavour@reddit

Yeah but we all know deep down that doves are white and are associated with weddings and some Kung Fu films

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Danmoz81@reddit

That's the usual response to urban Parakeets

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youllbetheprince@reddit

The homing pigeons that sometimes land on my balcony are undeniably gorgeous, though I assume they were bred that way.

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bannanawaffle13@reddit

I don't know, there are plenty of beautiful endangered species that aren't even noticed because there not up for adoption or on the front page of a wildlife conservation charity, I like your trust in humanity though.

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Aggressive_Chuck@reddit

We now hang bird nets up and let them them suffer horrible deaths of dehydration and starvation,

Are you expecting people to let them get into buildings and shit on everything?

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bannanawaffle13@reddit

No, but they have a responsibility to free those birds from the nets when they get caught and install them correctly so birds have a much lower chance of getting snagged. Also, the use of falcons is a great preventive measure used on cathedrals and other historic buildings, the answer isn't just let them slowly die in terror and agony.

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Glittering_Vast938@reddit

Yeah they are really pretty when you look at them. This one was a frequent visitor a couple of years ago.

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kiwifruit86@reddit

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 I regularly admire how beautifully coloured pigeons are, especially when the light hits them. That blue, green and purple sheen is so pretty!

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sluttracter@reddit

I love pigeons. Really don't get the hatred for them. Magpies are cool as well.

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Clear-Security-Risk@reddit

Our garden has a pair, nicknamed (by the then young kids) as Treetrunk and Terrorina. We quite like them, and they'll let me get a few metres away without worry.

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NobleKorhedron@reddit

Dickin, not Dickens, old bean! 😉🤣

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bannanawaffle13@reddit

Thankyou! My spelling is atrocious, apologies.

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NobleKorhedron@reddit

Ah, your heart was in the right place...

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Buttery_-_Balls@reddit

I have 4 that come to my garden. One is extremely tame, I can whistle and he'll come over for some seed. He's got a nest with his mate right outside my back door in a bush currently

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SMTRodent@reddit

They're lovely, but in my garden I can either feed fifteen varieties of songbird, or feral pigeons. I get one feral, then two, four, up to thirty driving everything else off.

So I chase off the poor pigeons.

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HatOfFlavour@reddit

At ours the smaller birds and some kind of crow/jackdaw are agile enough to eat directly from the bird feeder. The pigeons waddle about below eating the spilled detritus.

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SMTRodent@reddit

Our wood pigeons do that, and the blackbirds too, and the dunnocks pick up crumbs as well.

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lilcheese840@reddit

That’s how my nans garden used to be. Little robins (iirc) and other small birds feeding from the feeders and pigeons cleaning up the floor beneath them. A perfectly balanced ecosystem, no waste, everybody eats. There’d be squirrels out there and everything, used to love watching from the window.

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Intrepid_Ad7900@reddit

how graceful they fly,

If only they could stick the landing.

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imalizzard@reddit

When people disparage pigeons in my company, I just start referring to them as Doves. Because they are Doves. It's amazing that Doves aren't flying rats, but pigeons are. Change a single word and people suddenly love them.

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James188@reddit

That iridescent sheen is decorating my lounge window at the moment after one twatted into it because THEY’RE SO THICK 😂

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bannanawaffle13@reddit

You don't judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, I imagine aliens would call us thick for walking into their invisible force fields, birds struggle to see glass, do you have a inbuilt magnetic direction finding system allowing you to be driven hours away from home and flying straight back to your home?

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Mr_Oblong@reddit

I’ve heard this before and have definitely come round to pigeons in the last few years, even if they are doing a fair amount of rutting right outside our window at the moment :)

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Ok_Analyst_5640@reddit

We also eliminated wild boars until they recently made a comeback, an animal they'd follow in nature. So they just turned to the next best thing - gardeners. Wild boars never went extinct in France.

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sputnikmonolith@reddit

It's also because they think we're pigs.

"Famously dubbed the "gardener's friend", robins will happily shadow us as we dig in our gardens, darting in to snatch up worms and larvae exposed by the turning soil. But this behaviour wasn't learned from watching humans in neat little flower beds.

In the wild, robins follow wild boar, feeding on the insects uncovered as the animals root through the ground. So, when we're crouched over our borders, trowel in hand, scratching around in the earth, we must bear an uncanny resemblance to their original foraging partners: pigs."

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BrownBoyCoy@reddit

I read this in the voice of Bricktop from Snatch

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Neddykins82@reddit

Went back and reread it with this information. 100% recommend

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valkyer@reddit

Just done the same. Life feels different now

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sputnikmonolith@reddit

Never trust a man with a pig farm.

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weaselbass@reddit

Go frew bone like butta

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psyper76@reddit

yes I do look like a wild boar when I'm digging in my garden. Thankyou for pointing that out.

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MerlinTrismegistus@reddit

I love this and will now dub my garden Robin friend, Marshal Jean Lannes.

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Gildor12@reddit

Notorious is a bad thing, it means famous for being bad. Jimmy Savile was a notorious sex offender - for example

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Neddykins82@reddit

Fuck sake mate! Spoilers!!!

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sausagemouse@reddit

Nothing more arrogant when a bird just walks out of the way instead of flying when you get close to it

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MrBlackledge@reddit

I love that robins are in fact not a friendly species and are incredible territorial. Their beautiful little bird song is them telling everyone around them to fuck off.

But it’s so weird that they are friendly towards humans and only humans.

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UnSpanishInquisition@reddit

They most certainly have been hunted! Robin was a Roman delicacy and considering Blackbird pie we weren't above it later either.

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CarpetGripperRod@reddit

Have you been to modern Rome? They are still mad for all kinds of animal intestinal offal goodness. Stomach lining, brains, eyeballs, testicles...

I'm not super squeamish about heart and lung and liver (hello, haggis!), but wow! The dishes they turn out make me want to become veggie.

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Juuudes@reddit

Before industrialised farming people would be paid to kill birds during crop season. I've seen lists from the 1600s of villagers' names and the number of crop-eating birds they'd killed and been paid for.

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Wrong_Adhesiveness87@reddit

I talk to the wee Robin who follows me around all polite and respectful, doesn't interrupt my flow. Pigeons who fly on learners permits and shit on everything are not the same.

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AnteaterSnouce@reddit

we don't waste our time making robin kebab skewers like those dafties, that's why. whole falcon with a mouse in its mouth over a spit will do us, up in leeds, like.

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Terrible_Tap_4385@reddit

Kes, yer bastard

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FrankieTheD@reddit

Yeah this, I just posted before seeing you'd already posted

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Mrslinkydragon@reddit

Coo coo coocoo coooooo

The love song of a wood pigeon :3

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Sad-Vanilla-8038@reddit

Alvin Stardust had a hit with something similar.

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youllbetheprince@reddit

And they always come in pairs because they mate for life!

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skawarrior@reddit

You literally set one off outside the moment I read this. I hate that pigeon, it swoops in and scares off any other birds like a fat fucking prick

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Objective_Load_4537@reddit

I don't have that problem anymore, you can borrow my gn if you like, I used to have them under my solar panels.

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Danwd40@reddit

Oh you're one of those guys that believe in pigeons

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Isgortio@reddit

As I was reading this, there was a pigeon sat outside cooing hahaha

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CarpetGripperRod@reddit

Our bedroom has an East-facing window, and we're rural, so wood pigeons are everywhere at 04:00-ish. Except for this morning... magpies seem to have taken over.

Watched two of them collide mid-air. Not sure if they were fucking or fighting, but they lost some altitude before going in their different directions.

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skankyfish@reddit

I love watching the fat wood pigeons foraging in my garden.

I hate listening to them coo at the arse crack of dawn \^_^

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Woshambo@reddit

I prefer that over the screaming seagulls. The magpies can be sassy too

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Ranger_1302@reddit

Both are beautiful.

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Reddit__user_@reddit

🤣👍🏻

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Whole_Routine_8941@reddit

Same. There's a nest right outside my effing window. They chirp away all day long.

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WhatYouLeaveBehind@reddit

You can say "Fuck" on Reddit. The mods won't tell your mum.

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FrankieTheD@reddit

Tbf in the UK we've had a very different attitude to birds for a long time, might be due to things like Europeans having more small bird dishes historically? But look at Robins in the UK they'll happily hop about near your feet where as on the mainland they're a lot less trusting

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parsuval@reddit

The Robin that patrols my garden absolutely loves when I’m digging or cutting the grass. I’ve started chucking him the odd juicy worm I spot.

He’s super brave as well. He comes within a foot of me and just patiently waits..

My grandfather used to say the Robin in his garden would sit on his shoulder. Definitely possible with a little encouragement through treats he’d probably have in his pocket. Could have just been a thing a grandfather says to a kid to make the world more magical but I choose to believe.

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Oozlum-Bird@reddit

When I had an allotment I had one that came and sat on my shoulder when I was digging. I didn’t do anything to encourage it, it just hopped down from the fruit cage and sat there waiting for a worm.

I just figured that living on an allotment site meant they were well accustomed to people digging by hand and understood we were friend shaped.

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Beautiful-Anybody127@reddit

are we still talking about badgers here?

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Pippin4242@reddit

My great aunt could call a blackbird down from the trees by whistling to it. I'd believe anything after that.

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FrankieTheD@reddit

Once saw a squirrell on a wall and on a whim started whistling at it like a dog and it came running was so surprised, but there's a few old people who feed them and they'll take food from their hands

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FragrantKnobCheese@reddit

Did she also carry a bag that she could remove impossibly large items from?

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parsuval@reddit

That’s absolutely amazing!

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UnSpanishInquisition@reddit

My Dad trains a Robin to eat out of his hand every few years. It only takes one try every week as we are Gardeners so its in one specific garden.

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Choice-Demand-3884@reddit

That's very interesting. When I lived in rural France there wasn't much birdsong, although we did have a lot of hares, badgers and foxes. Our garden here in Cumbria can be surprisingly loud with birds singing.

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PootMcGroot@reddit

One day I will see a live badger. 😄

I've only ever seen roadkill...

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Sycamore481@reddit

Leave out some mashed potato. I hear they like that…

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Any_Foundation_661@reddit

'roadkill'

A lot of the badgers you'll see on the road were killed by farmers then dumped on the road to destroy the evidence.

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ctesibius@reddit

Evidence please.

No, "everyone knows this where I am" isn't evidence.

No, seeing more dead badgers on the road than other animals isn't evidence. Badgers run across the road without looking (yes, I've seen them). So do deer. That's why those two animals are commonly dead on the road, with the ratio depending on the surrounding countryside.

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

There is huge network of illegal badger hunting on private estates across the UK and many badgers killed by dogs are dumped roadside to conceal evidence of illegal hunting

[-]

ctesibius@reddit

So you assert. Now find evidence.

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

Do you want photos? Why would a person make this up!

[-]

ctesibius@reddit

One person makes stuff up, other people hear it, and pass it on unexamined, which is what you are doing. You are or should be aware of this in politics. Now. is this story about badgers being killed true or false? You don’t know because you never asked for a source.

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Any_Foundation_661@reddit

What evidence do you want? You're not going to find people boasting about doing this because it's a crime!

[-]

EchoesofIllyria@reddit

They’re being an arse but tbf you can find reports of many crimes being committed without people boasting about doing them. If it’s endemic as we’re being told that shouldn’t be too difficult.

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Any_Foundation_661@reddit

There are plenty of reports here of it.

[-]

EchoesofIllyria@reddit

In this thread? No there aren’t. There’s one instagram post and a link with the same info from Badger Trust, and a police link, both of which explain what it is. Neither of those are reports or say how many they receive beyond “numerous” which could mean 10 or 10,000.

Frankly, both of those things should be enough for OP so I’m not sure why you’re lying to me.

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

[-]

EchoesofIllyria@reddit

I don’t know why you’re sending this to me. I disagree with OP but this is exactly the information THEY are looking for.

I swear some of you on here are more interested in being superior than you are in reading.

[-]

ctesibius@reddit

That's not the way this works. If you assert that this is a common crime, it's up to you to show that this is the case, not for anyone else to prove otherwise.

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

Ive witnessed with my own eyes. I dont need to ask for a source. Ive worked in estate management for 30+ years. You dont have to take my word for it, there is plenty evidence that badger hunting is still going on for anyone that wishes to do a quick internet search

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Roger-Melly@reddit

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

https://www.badgertrust.org.uk/badger-crime-types-of-badger-crime

[-]

ctesibius@reddit

Right, now you’re part way there. The next thing you need is to justify “a huge network”.

And seriously, the reason I’m pulling you up on this question of quantity is because I see badger setts all the time - they are easy to find if you are interested. And not once have I seen one that has been interfered with.

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

https://www.nwcu.police.uk/how-do-we-prioritise/priorities/badger-crime/

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

Blinkered by choice and lack of critcal thinking skills. Your personal experience vs academic proof, i wont waste my time on you as you dont seem able to carry out self directed research. Its easier for you to call people liars than to have curiosity and dig for truth

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

You can look at reports of wildlife crime from last year here

https://naturewatch.org/campaigns/wildlife-crime/what-is-badger-baiting/

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

https://www.instagram.com/p/DUDADXjkgXH/

[-]

ctesibius@reddit

Estimate qf quantity please.

Look, you’ve probably come across Americans saying that the UK is horribly dangerous for knife crime. You may have come across UN statistics showing it’s one of the safest countries on Earth. How do Americans make that mistake? Because someone will come up with one crime and infer that it must be common. This is what you are doing. Please think this through: it shouldn’t be necessary to point out issues like this.

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

You lack required thinking skills to adapt to incoming information. Im able to crunch data and stats to show you that this is an endemic cultural legacy, in response to the finacial implications of vaccinating cows for TB. You are the person asking for information but you clearly havent engaged with the resources, prehaps it is you who is a 'moron' not me!?

[-]

AskUK-ModTeam@reddit

Don't be a dick to each other, or other subreddits, places, or people.

Don't be a dick to each other, or other subreddits, places, or people. AskUK contains a variety of ages, experiences, and backgrounds - consider not everyone is operating on the same level or background as you. Listen to others before you respond, and be courteous when doing so.

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

https://protectthewild.org.uk/fox-hunting/animal-cruelty-charges-ex-essex-suffolk-huntsman-pleads-guilty/

[-]

LeftyTimStoutheart@reddit

This is not true and I have been hearing this myth for two decades now.

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

Its not a myth, its just very hard to prosecute rich land owners

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

Reponding from East Anglia where i have witnessed with my own eyes. The practice of dumping dead badgers that have been ripped apart by dogs, is common practice...

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Any_Foundation_661@reddit

Counterpoint: I live in rural Kent and it's common knowledge here. How else would you explain the disproportionate number of badges as roadkill vs other more common forms of wildlife?

[-]

LeftyTimStoutheart@reddit

Oh it's common knowledge is it? So farmers country wide find a badger on their property, kill it and instead of disposing it in many of the easy they could they go sometimes miles to the edge of their property to make it look like roadkill? C'mon dude, just think about it for a second. I see loads of roadkill pheasants - is this farmers doing too?

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Any_Foundation_661@reddit

Pheasants are common, stupid and not protected.

Badgers are a threat to farming (particularly dairy) and protected. Why wouldn't farmers knock them off then put the bodies on the road?

[-]

bitterlemon80@reddit

😢

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Crusty_White_Baton@reddit

I stayed at a place called Badger Bar in the Lakes on Sunday night and saw this guy!

[-]

bababababoos@reddit

LOL my perspective got a bit wonky there, thought its ears were its eyes til I zoomed in all "tf is up with that badger?!"

[-]

Oh-reality-come-back@reddit

OH my goodness!! That’s a beautiful picture

I’m glad for you, I want to go there one day

[-]

itsableeder@reddit

My mum has a garden badger that comes out in the evenings and just potters around. It used to drive her dog mad when the dog was still alive.

It's massive.

[-]

AussieHxC@reddit

Saw one for the first time the other week. When they aren't flat on the road they're absolutely huge! It looked like a small bear

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Shaky-B@reddit

I saw one once around the garages at 5 o’clock in the morning as I was leaving, hungover, for work. I wasn’t fully awake yet and at first only saw the reflection of its eyes, then the outline of its huge frame. I thought it was some sort of demon creature and ran in the opposite direction.

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mwhi1017@reddit

I see loads, probably hundreds a month.

I work nights, driving around.

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PootMcGroot@reddit

Where abouts are you? I'm in Yorkshire and see hundreds of hedgehogs... but no badgers.

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bitterlemon80@reddit

I grew up in the Norfolk countryside and never saw a badger, moved to London and saw loads! I worked in a pub and would get home about 2am, walking through a little wooded but to get to my flat and there's all this rustling in a bush. I was slightly shitting myself when out popped this massive badger, we just looked at each other for about 30 seconds and then he trotted off to do his badger business!

[-]

mwhi1017@reddit

The West Midlands, lots of Hedgehogs too, and deer, and muntjacks, and I admit only once, wallabies.

[-]

JennyW93@reddit

I used to live in a rural area, so saw them a lot. But by far the best one I ever saw was one sitting up on a bench like a human.

[-]

ADHDJ86@reddit

A badger attacked my mates dog, 1st time id seen 1 in person. The thing was huge and ferocious. Scary as fuck

[-]

Phwoffy@reddit

We lived in Shetland for a number of years. Had some friends come to visit and they were absolutely blown away by the... starlings - what are they? Such a lovely noise? Why don't we have these in England? Unfortunately, I think birds and nature in general are just incredibly overlooked in people's everyday lives.

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PootMcGroot@reddit

We have starlings but they're quite regional (but in massive numbers in those areas).

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eatwindmills@reddit

I’m staying with the in laws near London and they have a huge group of wild parakeets that sing constantly. There’s thousands of them and it’s never quiet outside

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Tomme599@reddit

I seem to remember reading somewhere that London is technically a woodland due to the numerous trees lining so many streets. There are certainly a lot of trees round about where I live.

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UnacceptableUse@reddit

I have a thing set up in my garden which listens constantly and reports on what birds exist. So far it's detected > 50 different species

[-]

spoons431@reddit

I've got the merlin bird app - which IDs the type of birds by the birdsong happening and number of different species that you hear is a lot!

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11Kram@reddit

I live on the edge of a small town next to woods. I often get 20 or more identifications on the Merlin birdsong ID app in the garden.

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Eastern-Leopard-2866@reddit

I have a relatively small garden and it is full of birds, i have wood pigeons and house martins ( i think!) nesting in front, and blackbirds raising their second brood of the year out back. plus loads of sparrows, some jackdawsand a tit or two

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spoons431@reddit

House martins have much less pointy tails and no red on their face (if that helps!)

The Merlin app would tell you.

In mine which is a courtyard thing in the city has a bunch of very noisy Robins, sparrows, thrushes, blackbirds, a couple of finches and a couple.of tits. And apparently at least one Wren though its the brid that ive not seen!

[-]

Eastern-Leopard-2866@reddit

Had a good look at them this morning, definitely martins :-)

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PootMcGroot@reddit

Not a songbird, but I currently have an tawny owl living in an oak tree outside my main bedroom window.

We have a love/hate relationship when he's hooting every 20 seconds at 4am.

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magme89@reddit

We have a tawny owl couple round our way too! They visit monthly and it's such s delight to hear them calling back and forth. Tawit tawoooooo

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Any-Republic-4269@reddit

And it's the time of year for it! Oi! Over here! Sqwwaaaarkkkk. We often have baby ones sitting on the roof. There's no sleep some nights

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spoons431@reddit

They are loud aren't they?

My old flat used to have one living outside it! As a country girl like foxes it was the first time I'd heard one just living in the wild!

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parsuval@reddit

It’s great isn’t it?

I was camping the other week and did the sound identification. There were so many birds singing it didn’t fit on one screen, I had to scroll.

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DTH2001@reddit

I read a while ago that the UK spends more on bird food than the rest of Europe combined

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pinkdaisylemon@reddit

I never remember hearing birds singing at night but now I hear it all the time. Are these a new species? It seems so strange.

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iamabigtree@reddit

Can confirm they are making quite the racket. I think they are fighting.

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IOnlyUpvoteBadPuns@reddit

I think we're in the perfect sweet spot because it's all relatively inoffensive too. I lived in Australia for a bit and there were a couple of lorikeets that would rock up and scream at my window at half 5 every morning.

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Lilja-Logason@reddit

I love birds but not the song thrush choir outside my bedroom at 4am!!

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Beta_1@reddit

Just sitting outside about 4 miles from the centre of Birmingham and I can hear at least one wren, a robin, and two others I can't identify (But probably sparrow or great tit given what's common in my garden) all at full volume

[-]

dbltax@reddit

I'm currently sat in my garden having a morning cuppa, and I've seen/heard rock doves, wood pigeons, carrion crows, magpies, starlings, great tits, blue tits, sparrows, wrens, a goldcrest, a great spotted woodpecker, a red kite circling overhead and even a couple of swifts dashing about.

The blue tits have been very busy this morning feeding their young that I can hear chirping away in a nest box. They'll be fledging before long.

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Excellent-Abies-259@reddit

Every morning at 05:30 at my window. I'd love to know what they are talking about.

Insert rick and Morty squirrel scene here.

[-]

parsuval@reddit

I’m listening to a blackbird giving it beans right now!

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TheGrannyLover_@reddit

I have 3 nests of them in the area of my house, 3am no fail every night they start chirping for hours and hours.

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parsuval@reddit

Lucky!

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QuizzicalSquid7@reddit

Worst possible thing when the suns coming up and you’re trying to sleep but sure

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glytxh@reddit

Filth. Dirt. Rubbish. Grime.

I moved to England from Germany in 1997. The first thing that struck me was just how grotty everything was. Every surface is coated in a thin layer of dirt. There’s rubbish basically everywhere. Fly tipping is a national sport.

The last 30 years has just seen this continue. No change. No efforts to change. Nobody even seems to see it.

The United Kingdom is a dirty country, and it’s seemingly always just someone else’s problem.

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TravellingLight18@reddit

I agree with the general point, though I don’t think you’d necessarily notice it going Germany-UK now.

For context, I’ve just toured Netherlands-Poland-Lithuania-Latvia-Nordics. From arriving in Rotterdam on, I’ve been able to- when motivated, not pretending I’ve done it everywhere - to clear whatever litter I’ve seen in any of those places myself in a few mins. And then yesterday I passed through Hamburg, and immediately felt like I was back in the Uk. I’m sure Germany has quieter, better pockets, but the cities are like ours - too much litter dropped, too little spent on clearing it up.

[-]

glytxh@reddit

I moved here in 1997, so it’s admittedly been a fair while.

I’ve not been back home in a long time.

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I_ALWAYS_UPVOTE_CATS@reddit

The problem is a lack of enforcement and therefore consequences. Littering is illegal, and fly-tipping attracts huge penalties... but only if caught. There simply aren't enough resources dedicated towards enforcing it.

Plus there's a quite nasty individualistic culture that has been around since the 80s but definitely got worse after covid.

[-]

glytxh@reddit

She's our Reagan.

Everything shit always leads back to her.

Ding Dong and all...

[-]

E420CDI@reddit

The pair of them foisted neoliberalism on us all

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MidnightVisible1992@reddit

I don't really see this where I am from (Derbyshire). The smaller towns and villages are really clean, hardly any litter. However, go to certain places in Sheffield which is my closest city and its shocking the level of litter. Places like Page Hall have a serious problem and it's such a shame. I also live near the area managed by the Duke of Devonshire so litter, hedgerows, grass verges are all maintained very well. I definitely think it comes down to the area rather than a sweeping generalisation of the entire country. Either way, my kids will tell someone off for littering in front of them and we do litter picking so maybe the future can be a little brighter.

[-]

grandhighblood@reddit

I'm from not too far away from you and those parts are definitely the lucky parts. Chesterfield is atrocious and so are a lot of the surrounding villages - it's once you get into the properly rural bits that people start actually taking pride in where they live.

[-]

glytxh@reddit

The bottom end of Bolsover has come a long way in the last 20 years to be fair.

Was at a festival there recently, and was kind of astounded at how nice the area is now.

Chesterfield is a pit tho. Ain't defending that place.

[-]

glytxh@reddit

I'm one county over.

We have beautiful countryside. Frankly it kinda spoils us with how picturesque and accessible it all is.

But I also came home with a rucksack of other people's rubbish today after a three hour walk in the woods.

[-]

LordSn00ty@reddit

It's this. I remember living overseas and every time I'd come back home it would catch my attention for about a week before it faded into the background.

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Ok-Customer-5770@reddit

Air quality has dramatically improved (orders of magnitude stuff) in the UK since 1997. Whilst you might be historically right about the thin layer of dirt, it isnt anymore like that, and hasnt been for some time.

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glytxh@reddit

In regards to moving away from coal and focussing on genuine renewable infrastructure, the UK is definitely setting a bit of a benchmark, and punching well above its weight class.

I guess we’re burning a lot less coal these days.

Appreciate this extra context. Thanks!

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Kamikaze-X@reddit

A lot of us do actually care but there's a minority that don't and make it worse for the rest of us

Fly tipping for example - it only takes 1 dedicated fly tipper to dump literal tonnes of rubbish, but cleanup takes far more effort

[-]

Terrible_Tap_4385@reddit

If you don’t like it, feel free to return to Germany. Don’t let the door hit you on the arse when you leave….

[-]

CrossCityLine@reddit

!pow multiple rule 1 breaks.

[-]

charlytune@reddit

If you don't like people expressing a valid opinion based on observation, feel free to leave the Internet. Don't let the laptop lid hurt your sensitive ickle fingers as you close it on your way out.

[-]

Terrible_Tap_4385@reddit

Oh my god, you are SUCH a melt I have second hand embarrassment for you

[-]

Robestos86@reddit

You just are embarrassment.

[-]

BarnacleExpressor@reddit

Yeah fuck this guy for wanting his country to be slightly better in some way!

[-]

Terrible_Tap_4385@reddit

Someone’s been #triggered

[-]

glytxh@reddit

All right there Mr. Yaxley-Lennon. Keep your hair on.

[-]

Beartato4772@reddit

On the plus side, a perfect illustration of why nothing ever changes.

[-]

_Given2fly_@reddit

What is it with these new accounts saying the most hostile nonsense? Seems a bit like bot behaviour.

[-]

_LV426@reddit

Just like on YouTube they always have 4 numbers to their username

[-]

GrimQuim@reddit

Be better.

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glytxh@reddit

Make me.

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arichard@reddit

In Sheffield we have the Sheffield litter pickers who regularly do large stretches, like the snake pass, so, some people do give a toss. But that they exist at all kinds of proves your point

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Crandom@reddit

Crazy. I went to Berlin recently and was shocked by how dirty the U/S-bahn stations are compared to the UK.

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Aw00gaaa@reddit

Litter bins

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60sstuff@reddit

cocaine use. Obviously i know we all know it gets used etc but in pretty much every pub i go into now within a few minutes you can spot a lot of people on gear

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quartersessions@reddit

Brushing a finger across the top of a toilet cistern in a lot of places can certainly demonstrate the point.

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evelynsmee@reddit

I think this is everywhere. Went to a festival in France and they had dog drugs searching the coaches before allowed to disembark and they said hold out any wads of cash, because it always tests positive it's redundant in a drug search. According to the police there anyway. I can't claim to be a cocaine specialist!

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Jezbod@reddit

IIRC, they calculated how much cocaine was been "taken" in an Italian city by the level of metabolite in the waste water.

[-]

fn_fucker@reddit

and how much was it

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BrownBoyCoy@reddit

The results were announced by the investigator as "Mama Mia!"

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Jezbod@reddit

A nose full

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The-Scottish-Rock@reddit

The triangular spinning things under traffic light wait buttons designed for sensory impaired people.

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robparfrey@reddit

I tought every kid new about this.

As dumb as we were when we were 12, we had all convinced our selves that spinning them made the kights change faster haha.

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grouchy_fox@reddit

This is a phenomena actually used in design. Some busy junctions have crossings that just change on a timer with the roads but still have buttons that just light up the wait box because people get annoyed if they don't think they're controlling it

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robparfrey@reddit

Ywah I've heard of that. Apparently more common in America due to the higher level of traffic effectivly taking priority.

[-]

grouchy_fox@reddit

It definitely happens here, though. I know of at least a couple near me

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GraphicDesignMonkey@reddit

I showed them to my 6yo nieces the other day, they were blown away!

[-]

MonkeysMonolith@reddit

Tom Scott’s video at least means a lot more people know now.

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BigBaboonButt5@reddit

This is weird. I’m 52 and only learned this yesterday from a random video on FB. And here it is again for the 2nd time in 2 days.

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stripeFX@reddit

Baader-Meinhof phenomenon - which you’ll now no doubt start seeing mentioned

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thewatchbreaker@reddit

I’m 27 and I’ve never even noticed these before. Had to Google it to see what they even look like. I use traffic crossings multiple times a day, what the hell

[-]

-thisname-@reddit

Bats

[-]

ExternalMud9911@reddit

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BrightonDBA@reddit

Illegal immigrants, apparently!

[-]

sc_BK@reddit

Nuclear waste trains?

[-]

evelynsmee@reddit

They used to park up next to my primary school 😂

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7788d@reddit

back in the day when it was still operational I did my work experience at Oldbury power station. I got to spend an afternoon with the guys who were in charge of the fuel/waste transportation and it was fascinating just how much engineering went into the containers for the fuel.

From what I can remember they were rated for a ridiculously high drop that was higher than any railway bridge in the country so there was no change of falling that far. Not only that but the rating was for a corner landing which posed greatest risk. They were also made to withstand impacts that could arise from rail accidents and they showed me a video of a test where they had a locomotive crash directly into a container. The locomotive was totaled and the container was basically unscathed

They did not fuck around with the safety margins on these things.

[-]

ShootNaka@reddit

There’s a well known video - Here

They crashed a train into one of the flasks as a test for public and it barely left a scratch.

[-]

Even_Passenger_3685@reddit

That’s an ace video thank you

[-]

7788d@reddit

Thats the exact video they showed me! Absolutely wild how it just tanks the hit

[-]

Alternative-Emu2000@reddit

On a related note, if you see an HGV with "CTS-Logistics" livery, there's a good chance it's full of ammunition, missiles, explosive shells etc.

[-]

simkk@reddit

I also watched that Auto Shenanigans video

[-]

xeneco1981@reddit

hyperbolic paraboloid

[-]

EnbyArthropod@reddit

Ah, I first learned about Markham Moor on The Boring Talks

[-]

Gadget100@reddit

I miss that series.

[-]

CAElite@reddit

That's neat, are they double headed for redundancy?

Must admit, as an engineer with a general profession related interest in infrastructure, how we actually move nuclear waste around never came up on my radar.

[-]

sc_BK@reddit

I would think so, just to have a backup.

I think most of the ones I've seen also have a couple of carriages on the train for workers, including security, and armed Civil Nuclear Constabulary officers travelling by car nearby

[-]

CAElite@reddit

Hehe, I used to work in an adjacent field transporting small load nuclear & biological ADR. Generally components for hospital imaging machines & active radiotherapy ingredients, although we also did medical samples (stool, blood etc).

That side of the industry is mostly security through obscurity, we operated small load exemptions of 0.8-2kg of active ingredient, hammering up and down the M6 in unmarked white vans.

With the small load exemption we didn't really need to inform any authorities of the movements, but we had a whole list of phone numbers we had to call if anything went wrong. Fortunately was never in the circumstance where I needed to call any of those numbers, did witness a whole hospital logistics bay get evacuated after a canister was crushed during loading though, which was a fun day.

[-]

FreezerCop@reddit

As a former DGSA (mainly explosives) I enjoyed this post

[-]

sc_BK@reddit

I aw this job on indeed the other week

https://nucleartransportsolutions.current-vacancies.com/Jobs/Advert/4175772

[-]

Alternative-Emu2000@reddit

I've met lots of people (usually on the younger side) who are adamant that there are no fire hydrants in the UK, and that fire engines just fill up the tank at the fire station.

[-]

robparfrey@reddit

As a younger side person. Are they not just in the ground. Acessable by a small cover to what i assume is a stop cock/ hose attachment point.

We dont have stereotypical US hydrant that are above ground as far as I've known. Tho im sure there are occasional cases perhaps.

[-]

Alternative-Emu2000@reddit

They are. The hydrants themselves are underground, marked with black and yellow "H" signs on a nearby post or wall.

There are a few above-ground fire hydrants, but they tend to be in places like power plants, fuel depots, air bases, etc.

[-]

Jezbod@reddit

I prefer the New Zealand method of having blue reflective "cats eyes" style markers in the centre of the road, to show where the hydrants are.

They are easily visible during the day and just needs a torch shining up the road at night to see them.

[-]

shogatsu1999@reddit

Pretty cool I'd like to see that, although we should claim that as British just because cats eyes were invented here.

[-]

Jezbod@reddit

It’s more the modern strip of reflective material than a real cats eye.

[-]

Leaky_Taps@reddit

Yeah we stopped farming cats for their eyes decades ago. Barbaric practice.

[-]

Jezbod@reddit

Also the skill required to swing the hammer, to remove the eyes in one piece, was not being passed on to the next generation.

[-]

BrownBoyCoy@reddit

Little known fact, The Great Blind Cat pandemic coincided with the Black Plague, as the rats and mice were able to roam about not being hunted

[-]

DebsUK693@reddit

Love the thought that AI might get trained on comments like this.

[-]

LazyEmu5073@reddit

We have the H on a small post, or wall/fence, due to snow.

[-]

Dovejannister@reddit

You have a preference for hydrant markers?

[-]

thetoastmonster@reddit

Yes, and in-ground covers are usually labelled "FH".

[-]

paenusbreth@reddit

When you take the cover off, you attach a standpipe, to which you can then attach hoses.

Or in rural areas where the hydrant hasn't been inspected/used in years, you dig the mud out first.

[-]

nrsys@reddit

To some degree they are right - fire engines do carry an onboard supply of water, and we don't have the American style of visible red hydrants that stick up out of the ground.

They are also completely wrong, as the UK has hydrants all over urban areas, they are just a bit more hidden - they are all underground, so all you see is a manhole cover on the ground. Look out for the w small yellow 'H' signs, they are markers to tell you the size and location of the nearest one.

[-]

RtHonJamesHacker@reddit

Was there a reason the UK decided to go this route, instead more easily accessible and visible above ground hydrants?

[-]

Mr_Reaper__@reddit

Above ground hydrants will freeze and burst in low temperatures. You can prevent it by draining the above ground portion after use, but if they forget and don't come back to winterise them before the first frost it destroys the hydrant. Placing them far enough below ground guarantees the pipes don't freeze. It also minimises accidental damage and vandalism.

[-]

nrsys@reddit

I believe partly looks, partly placement.

The obvious bit is that America is filled with red hydrants sticking up all over the streets - an iconic sight, but one that clutters up the landscape and causes an obstruction to pedestrians and people using the pavements.

It also means that they need to be placed in suitably non-trafficed areas - the edges of pavements where that obstruction is minimal.

The UK system is cleaner as they are essentially invisible, and slightly less convenient as they don't stand out quite the same (though the fire service have maps, along with signage on the streets to identify them). They also have more freedom in locating them, as you can pass over them when not in use, so they don't need to be placed at the edges of pavements, but instead can be wherever the water supplies are and can be easily accessed.

[-]

bluesam3@reddit

The obvious benefit would be that it doesn't leave you with a bunch of big obstacles in the way of the pavement.

[-]

Daveddozey@reddit

I can’t remember fireman Sam using a hydrant

[-]

DarkNinjaPenguin@reddit

He did, they're under the pavement. He'd use a big T-shaped rod to turn the water on and off.

[-]

Daveddozey@reddit

To date a fire hydrant has been used thrice; In Sam's Day Off, Trevor uses a hydrant to refill Jupiter's water tank and in Fireman James and Day Of The Penguin, the team go round Pontypandy to inspect and test the pressure of all the village's hydrants.

[-]

leftintheshaddows@reddit

I have one outside my house and every now and then the council come and flush it out but always around 3 in the morning so it wakes me up. Also have a window cleaner that uses it to fill his van, not sure if he is allowed.

[-]

_lippykid@reddit

They do fill up and transport water, but there’s water hookups hidden in the roads and on the sides of buildings in towns and cities

You’ll see yellow signs with black H’s all over the place once you start looking

[-]

Broad-Attention-6133@reddit

Haha I've always laughed at that idea, I remember all a kid wondering where they stored the water 😂

[-]

Soar_Fingers@reddit

Rats

[-]

E420CDI@reddit

Father Ted: "Yes, Father, we can see them as well."

[-]

Standard_Summer_180@reddit

Not Britain, but in Cornwall there are mines everywhere. People think they see the old mines houses and thats it - nope. The network underground is insane, and its so easy to find the ground with the tunnels under. People were shocked when a road started cracking near me the other day due to an old mine shaft under the ground. People who did actually know about it said it was just a matter of time.

[-]

E420CDI@reddit

Here in Sheffield, too.

[-]

Too-Late-For-A-Name@reddit

Cornwall is absolutely British, as it is a county located on the island of Great Britain

[-]

Standard_Summer_180@reddit

Oh I just meant in terms of it not being a widespread issue across Britain:)

[-]

rabidrob42@reddit

It's the same in South Wales Valleys, hell the village I grew up in started out as a mining village, it's been turned into housing now, but you could see the old housing and wheels from the bottom of our village.

[-]

Asleep_Equivalent920@reddit

Same sort of thing in Glasgow. You'll occasionally get an old mine shaft collapse and the take down a building with it. You even get a section on home reports when your buting to say if you're at risk of mines collapsing in the area.

[-]

HanakenVulpine@reddit

There’s a clause in our mortgage that says we forfeit the house if they find something they want to mine under it again at any point! Apparently it’s standard for the area

[-]

Standard_Summer_180@reddit

Yeah we have the same. My brother in law pulled out of a house purchase because they found an unstable mine shaft under the land during the mining survey that would cost 30k just to investigate

[-]

TheodoreEDamascus@reddit

Nottinghamshire is like this. Old pitheads are everywhere. The actual shafts go for miles in every direction from all of them

[-]

maersyl@reddit

Definitely Britain, we had the same issues in County Durham. I’m sure there’ll be issues all over the country. We loved a good old mine.

[-]

DarkNinjaPenguin@reddit

There was one in East Lothian a couple of decades back that opened up dangerously close to the main east coast train line. I remember the trains had to slow to a crawl when they passed for a few months while they figured out what to do. They ended up pouring thousands of tonnes of concrete in to fill the void because the alternative would have been redirecting the whole line - the main train line between Edinburgh and London.

[-]

EnumeratedArray@reddit

Most of Britain has this. The peak district is a fun one because there are thousands of caves where the entrance is a tiny hole under a tree, but then when you go in exploring it's miles and miles of vast cave networks. Many of the valleys in the peak district are actually manic made too, where large natural caves were mined out all the way to the roof.

[-]

Standard_Summer_180@reddit

Thats mad! I had no idea about that.

[-]

Dedward5@reddit

It’s mind blowing https://abandonedminemodels.com/cornwall

The scale of it and how early some of it was compared to say the the start of the Industrial Revolution.

[-]

Synetry@reddit

Amazing to see thank you for the links

[-]

lookuponriver@reddit

That was awesome thank you

[-]

Standard_Summer_180@reddit

Crazy isnt it! Theres so much spongey ground when we walk the dog around our green areas, Im sure theres more than the one network they know about.

[-]

r_keel_esq@reddit

I visited a Tin Mining museum in Cornwall a couple of years ago, and they had a 3D model showing the extent of the mines there. It was utterly astonishing.

On a related note, about 25 years there was a massive piece of work to pump concrete into all the old mines underneath Byres Road in the west end of Glasgow. The mines predates the expansion of the city on that direction, but there was an ever growing risk that the big, heavy sandstone building now in that area would collapse. This is one of the busiest retail and residential streets in Glasgow and it was half closed for months.

[-]

_lippykid@reddit

Mate, I totally thought you were talking about land mines

[-]

I-Spot-Dalmatians@reddit

Land mines are probably the best thing for a lot of Cornwall

[-]

jecowa@reddit

I thought it was water mines until like halfway into it.

[-]

Standard_Summer_180@reddit

😂😂😂

[-]

I-Spot-Dalmatians@reddit

See it all the time, mate of mine lives in treneere about 3 doors up from where the road collapsed into a mineshaft a couple years ago

[-]

iamabigtree@reddit

NE England the same. The woods I go walking in the remnants of mining are everywhere.

[-]

the_gwyd@reddit

I'm working on a large construction project across the Pennines and it's everywhere. EVERYWHERE! Before I started working on this, I had no idea how many abandoned mine shafts there were, even in ostensibly very urban areas (city centre of Huddersfield anybody?). There's a whole team dedicated to mitigating the risk of mine shaft collapse. It's crazy.

[-]

JennyW93@reddit

I’m in Wales. I used to play in a woods about a mile from my house that had a bridleway through it and opened into this huge beautiful clearing with a rope swing.

Went back recently to show my niece, who was about the age I was when I first discovered this place.

The whole area was fenced off with high, barbed-wire fences, and “danger: keep out” signs. Turns out there were several uncapped mine shafts in there.

[-]

MayDuppname@reddit

Over 50% of the entire county of Nottinghamshire has been undermined for coal at some point.

There are often mine tunnels at many different depths under the same property.

They left a barrier from the groundwater aquifers (our drinking water supply) just a few feet thick. Without pumps constantly working to drain the water level in the mines, the dirty water would contaminate the drinking water supply.

[-]

LiveLaughLockheed@reddit

Same in South Yorkshire. When we bought our house, the searches included a mining survey that indicated there was still an open permit (left over from the 1900s!) for deep pit mining for our area.

Never explored, but it was interesting anyway! I checked the borehole for our area and indeed 8m below the surface here you start getting coal deposits.

At least I know I won't have too far to dig if I'm ever in need!

[-]

probablyaythrowaway@reddit

Took me a second to figure out what kind of mines you were on about. Land mines or land mines

[-]

TheodoreEDamascus@reddit

Nottinghamshire is like this. Old pitheads are everywhere. The actual shafts go for miles in every direction from all of them.

[-]

strawberrypops@reddit

Yup, I remember walking to school one morning and not being able to walk back the same way as a mine had opened up. One also opened under the school. Oh, and another in the playing field. One opened at the end of my road a few years ago and there’s currently one open right outside my friend’s house. They’re blimmin everywhere!

[-]

Standard_Summer_180@reddit

Yep! Mad isnt it. Theyre building a new estate behind mine and the developers apparently got shitty when there was a whole field that suddenly had a shaft collapse after the mining assessments were done, so they cant build on it now. I cant remember the details but Im pleased nonetheless

[-]

strawberrypops@reddit

Every cloud! It’s insane to me that we have no idea where the mines are, like we just lost track of them over the years. I grew up in Camborne and they seemed to be everywhere.

[-]

paulmclaughlin@reddit

There's been tin mining in Cornwall for millennia, exporting as far as the Mediterranean during the bronze age.

[-]

Still-BangingYourMum@reddit

It's been a good breeding season for them, and now after being born and living the main part of their lives underground. For a few brief weeks some can be seen in the wild as they break out from their subterranean life to look for new mates.

[-]

goingtothewinchester@reddit

South Wales is similar. We have issues regularly with roads and buildings being damaged because of abandoned mines resulting in sinkholes.

[-]

2003bluecat@reddit

Inpost lockers

[-]

Odd-Paramedic-3826@reddit (OP)

i have a bone to pick with inpost. My closest locker is often full so when i order something to it and there's no space they send it to the next closest locker, which is 0.9 miles away as the crow flies, but in reality it's actually a 7 mile round trip because there's a bunch of farmers fields and a river between it and me. It'd be a lot better if they could send it to the one down the road, which is 1.1 miles away but you can walk in a straight line to get there

[-]

BigBaboonButt5@reddit

How do I get InPost to send to the next nearest locker? If there is no room in the one I choose, it goes back to the depot until the next day. There is another set of InPost lockers literally 500m away, but they are never diverted there. Is there a setting I can change? Sorry - off topic, I know!

[-]

Odd-Paramedic-3826@reddit (OP)

idk, whenever i order one and the locker is full it just gets diverted automatically

[-]

2003bluecat@reddit

https://maps.app.goo.gl/mVr7fG84YCXidftN7?g_st=ic one on either side of the road here, what’s this business about being 0.9 miles apart?

[-]

Odd-Paramedic-3826@reddit (OP)

not every locker in the country is like that. I'm in a more rural area

[-]

PanakinMcSkywalker@reddit

Road markings on roundabouts

[-]

yabyum@reddit

Ninjas.

You’ve not noticed them have you.

Exactly.

[-]

doctorgibson@reddit

In this picture there are 47 ninjas. None of them can be seen.

[-]

oh_not_again_please@reddit

Ninja No1, will you stand up please?

[-]

BrownBoyCoy@reddit

I see 84 of them

[-]

Routine_Ad1823@reddit

I like the theory that every country has ninjas but the Japanese ones are just rubbish so we see them

[-]

DarkNinjaPenguin@reddit

Shhhh

[-]

tallbutshy@reddit

Anyone remember the Ask A Ninja podcast?

[-]

NotEvenBad@reddit

Loved that guy

[-]

Lemonpalm@reddit

I saw tons the other day in Tower Hamlets - they were hardly stealthy!

[-]

anoamas321@reddit

As in the air fryer/multi cooker. It seems every fucker has one

[-]

notaspecificthing@reddit

They're in your kitchen

[-]

yabyum@reddit

If they were they can help with the painting this weekend!

[-]

CeeApostropheD@reddit

Perverted ninja enjoys being seen

One of my favourite Onion headlines.

[-]

JoseJalapenoOnStick@reddit

Ninjas are like john cena everyone has heard of them but no one has seen them

[-]

Sirlacker@reddit

I have one, as I type, in my garden.

[-]

Reddit__user_@reddit

Never type in your garden.

The ninjas will get you whilst you are distracted, typing.

🏍🥷

[-]

Still-BangingYourMum@reddit

Shhhhhsh. Back away very carefully. Do not make eye contact, this one is roosting and so may have already eaten.

[-]

Exotic_Lobster6039@reddit

Alot to the pipe lines you see will actually be high pressure gas main. They even fly them to spot people working near to them.

[-]

Ok-Airport-6058@reddit

Warning signs for literally everything. As if we are numpties… oh…

[-]

ObviousContact@reddit

Rubbish - the Uk is a dirty place

[-]

thecrius@reddit

I went down the 20 top replies and nobody said "Cameras" .

Damn.

[-]

Successful_Hope6604@reddit

I’ve noticed a lot of wildflowers in urban spaces recently. ❤️

[-]

TheNorthDock@reddit

C*nts

[-]

Natf47@reddit

I find it pretty amazing how we have so much free food growing all around us that most people have no clue about. Even down to weeds such as stinging nettles.

[-]

fake_cheese@reddit

This sounds like the start of a bad take on the cost of living crisis.

[-]

Awkward_Brain_@reddit

'no wonder Gen Z can't afford to live, they're not making their own nettle soup and bramble wine!'

[-]

Natf47@reddit

"Instead of drinking coffee and eating Avocados every day, people should live within their means! Everyone has stinging nettles growing in their gardens don't they? When I was growing up we'd eat stinging nettle soup and then go out and frolic through the fields of wheat!"

[-]

swamp_witch369@reddit

Theresa, is that you?

[-]

CoffeeIgnoramus@reddit

I agree. I once dated a forager, and not that I would do it all the time but literally found stuff everywhere. Even in city centres like blackberries growing on the fencing next to a lidl store. It's literally free fruit that people are going in and buying.

I think, as much as we don't like to admit it, as a nation, we tend to feel like if we buy it in packaging, it's "the proper stuff" and out in nature, it's maybe not so safe or something is wrong with it. Which is sad really. Because we're shipping it in from somewhere at a cost and at a carbon footprint when it grows naturally just in front of the shop. Also people don't realise how little cleanliness is in the food process before the packaging point.

[-]

the_weaver_of_dreams@reddit

Don't you think it's more to do with convenience?

To forage, you need some knowledge about what you're picking (some fruits are obvious, fungi not so much) and where to pick it, then you need to take a bag with you and spend some time picking it. Which is actually very pleasant and rewarding if you have the time to spare, but it's undoubtedly easier to just buy it from a shop.

[-]

CoffeeIgnoramus@reddit

Yeah, I agree, but I still think it's shocking that some of these are really obvious and the bushes stay fully laden with fruit. I'm not saying people shouldn't go shopping but most people in the UK seem to have no clue or not even risk it.

But I agree with your point about going out and seeking it being difficult at times.

I'm more on about the fact we have an abundance of food growing that we all know and yet we seem a bit uncomfortable with picking or eating from it. Like even picking at it as you pass seems to be unusual.

[-]

PartyPoison98@reddit

and out in nature, it's maybe not so safe or something is wrong with it.

I mean, this is true for a lot of stuff in nature though. You have to know your stuff to know whats fine and whats not. Its easier with foraging plants and berries and what not, but once you get into fungi territory its very dicey.

[-]

Oh-reality-come-back@reddit

Foraging in the uk is really nice. The foraging uk sub is really good too

[-]

MidnightVisible1992@reddit

Our town has fruit trees in public park anyone can help themselves too. We get apples and blackberries for crumbles all summer. Then there's stuff like bilberries, elderberries, sloeberries etc. Teaching our kids to spot things to forage has been such a joy the last few years and we have learnt so much! A campsite we go to has so many trees with these amazing green/slightly purple plums that are more sour than regular and taste so good.

[-]

EllieTho@reddit

Victorian stench pipes. Look similar to lamp posts at head height and most people don't have any idea they exist.

[-]

hairymouse@reddit

I’ve seen a few of these, what were they for?

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EllieTho@reddit

They let the gases out and stopped the sewers exploding

[-]

shendy42@reddit

Vents for sewers, drains.
Some even have little fans on top.

[-]

TrollDeMortLunchBox@reddit

Victorian infrastructure was incredible, and it’s lasted!

[-]

Major_Bahoobage@reddit

Victorian stink pipes

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-VVVYGGDRASIL-@reddit

Illegal imigrants

[-]

UnacceptableUse@reddit

!pow 1 no politics

[-]

maht90@reddit

racism

[-]

BrotherClive@reddit

Racists ☹️

[-]

Soggy-Parsley-4866@reddit

The most tolerant nation on earth.

[-]

Ok-Sherbet-3519@reddit

People drinking high strength cider like Diamond White. The offie shelves are fully stocked with 2l bottles of the stuff and, while I've yet to see someone walk out of there with one, they're not taking shelf space for fun.

[-]

Tennis_Proper@reddit

I worked with an alcoholic who drank that stuff (along with anything else he could get his hands on cheap). Really knew his stuff but was barely coherent some days. The management tolerated him mostly, just waiting it out until he got his pension as he’d been there for decades and nobody wanted to be the guy to deprive him of it if he got binned for misconduct.

[-]

glytxh@reddit

Nobody is drinking them for fun.

Trust me.

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ab00@reddit

And the homeless alcoholics sadly.

[-]

glytxh@reddit

This guys ain’t having fun.

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ab00@reddit

Good point.

[-]

Nicolaemeowsescu@reddit

I used to work in an off licence and it was always the same people buying it. I don't think I'd be able to drink 6 litres of anything a day, let alone diamond white.

[-]

Petty-Artichoke@reddit

I’m in Scotland and have only just realised, after seeing this comment, that I’ve seen a lot less 2l bottles of cider in newsagents since minimum unit pricing was introduced. They were a fixture of my early 90s teenage years.

[-]

Vehlin@reddit

We used to buythe 3l bottles when we were kids

[-]

GetNooted@reddit

They're sacrificial stock to be shoplifted by 15 year olds.

[-]

Stan-Ferris@reddit

5g

[-]

Denziloshamen@reddit

You’ve not been to Chichester I see!!

[-]

fn_fucker@reddit

Have you ever been to Goodwood FOS? sorry its a bit off topic

[-]

Denziloshamen@reddit

Yep. Pain in the arse if you live or work in the area ver the four days it’s on. The roads are gridlocked enough on a normal day, but FOS is one long queue of cars for miles who all left home far too late to get there early enough to enjoy a full day there.

[-]

amboandy@reddit

Pffft I had both my COVID jabs AND the booster. I have 15G

[-]

Lo_jak@reddit

Wait until you get your Ebola jab!! That unlocks GPS and infrared nightvision

[-]

TrollDeMortLunchBox@reddit

The fact it gets dark so early and stays that way for more than half the year.

I was born in the UK and lived in the states for 20. When I came back I realised that first winter just how badly I’d been affected by seasonal depression in my childhood due to the lack of light.

[-]

fake_cheese@reddit

Cyclists

[-]

PipalaShone@reddit

The irony being that cyclists are the most inconsiderate road users of all

[-]

Space_Hunzo@reddit

I think losing the old style cycle proficiency test was a bit setback. Its a pity because cycling is such a great way to get some independence especially where public transport is patchy, but unless you have an adult who can pass on good habits or somebody gets you to do the bikeability scheme that replaced cycle proficiency, nobody's going to show you how to share the road safely.

[-]

_a_m_s_m@reddit

For sure, it’s so unfortunate there’s such a chronic lack of safe cycling infrastructure given that 70% of trips are under 5 miles.

[-]

Salty-Package9202@reddit

Dingle attentive wish I could include, attached boyfriend, and they can't judge in any way. Then give me a judgement per schooling.

[-]

snail4@reddit

Pillboxes and unexploded ordinance

It'll mostly be certain city's for ordinance but the pillboxs are everywhere!

I love finding them.

[-]

Old_Quit_851@reddit

Don’t want to be that guy but when talking about explosives it’s ordnance (found at as wrote something and used the wrong one and it resulted in a rejection for something)

[-]

snail4@reddit

Be that guy, it's probably auto correct on my behalf.

Every day's a school day.

I may be misremembering, but I believe the OS maps that we know and love were originally a way to see where the bombs were.

[-]

Lemmyheadwind@reddit

Sycophancy and obsequiousness.

[-]

GraphicDesignMonkey@reddit

Dog shit on the ground, and dogshit bags hanging in hedges.

Walking to town is like navigating a minefield, jobbies dotted all over.

[-]

_FreddieLovesDelilah@reddit

Bad people.

[-]

LordGeni@reddit

Also good people

[-]

_FreddieLovesDelilah@reddit

So true.

[-]

lady_is_a_one@reddit

Those little bumps on the pavement for vision impaired people to know where the crossing is.

I think this is a good thing, of course!

[-]

xeneco1981@reddit

They put some in my village a couple of years back….and then very quickly came back to relay them. When I asked why, they told me they hadn’t been lined up properly when installed. That day i learned that they don’t just mark the crossing area, but the direction of the bumps give direction to the other side of the road

[-]

catsaregreat78@reddit

Yeah, some contractors laid some locally and they face out into the main road instead of crossing the bellmouth as they’re supposed to. Think they’re still there…

[-]

Roger-Melly@reddit

Fuel pipelines, we do not not have this in the UK?!

[-]

LakesGeek@reddit

Shit, piss
Massive rivers of it, all the time, in every direction. We forget about it once it’s flushed but it joins massive amounts on a long journey underground.

[-]

budgiebirdman@reddit

When I go to watch football I always marvel at the amount of piss that must enter the sewers during the course of the day; for a crowd of 25,000 people, many of whom are drinking beer it must be somewhere between ten and twenty thousand litres. So ten or twenty tonnes of piss. I don't know what the shit estimate would be but it must be very low because you'd be lucky to get in a cubicle for a shit for because of the people using them for cocaine.

[-]

ArmchairHedonist@reddit

To a local river where a private equity owned asset stripped debt laden water company discharges it without treatment.

We used to be able to forget about it, but not anymore. We should also never forget who did it.

Privatisation that is. Not the shit. That was you. Or me.

[-]

Ancient_Kale_3173@reddit

Pedo’s

[-]

pebblesprite@reddit

are you American? The correct English spelling is paedo

[-]

BigPecks@reddit

Oh ffs it's spelt "paedos" in this country and you don't need an apostrophe for a plural.

[-]

StarkRavingPeanuts@reddit

True, experts speculate that 1 in 5 people have attractions to minors, with 1 in 10 attracted to prepubescent children specifically.

[-]

Sphairos1969@reddit

Cars, car parks and roads.

[-]

Scowlin_Munkeh@reddit

Cars. They are everywhere! People seemed to have stopped noticing that when they step out the front door everything is covered in fkn cars.

[-]

NekoFever@reddit

I hate how the council has to put bollards and barricades everywhere because any open verge, footpath or tarmac gets turned into a car park if they don’t. Ours planted a load of trees on verges last year and most of them were placed, it seemed, pointedly in the middle of tyre tracks that had torn up the nice greenery.

I’m also a fan of a particular comedy film from the 60s that I used to watch with my grandparents because it was filmed around where I partly grew up. All these lovely wide avenues in the 60s are now single lane car parks.

I get why it’s happened but it’s still a huge shame and a failure of planning.

[-]

Beartato4772@reddit

One cause of this in residential areas is the previous 20 years of governments decided people had too many cars.

They didn't solve this by making public transport any good, or by ensuing amenities are in walking distance.

They solved it by only granted planning permissions for new developments with one parking space per house. Of course that doesn't magically mean a family doesn't need 2 cars (or 3 once a kid hits late teens). So the excess cars just get parked wherever, preventing access to the entire area by the mobility compromised and emergency services.

[-]

ohhhhhyeeeessss@reddit

This is just bollocks excluding the second paragraph.

Can you point me towards the previous 20 years of governments deciding people had too many cars?! I'd say only in the last 5 or so does there feel like a national step change in policy. And even then Sunaks was positioning against 'the war on motorists'.

Government's don't grant planning permission for new developments. Local authorities do. Who also set their own parking standards. And certainly the vast majority don't have standards like anything you describe. And even if that wasn't the case then yes you might not have the extent of inconsiderate on-street parking but you'd likely have more cars on the road.

Most of these problems often arise on small terraced streets which obviously have limited space as they were designed before the era of the car being widespread

[-]

adequatepigeon@reddit

Witches and wizards ✨️

[-]

f23n09fnu0w@reddit

I have to go with atoms

[-]

adequatepigeon@reddit

Bats! they make up nearly a quarter of all native British mammal species, with 18 different species residing across England, Scotland, and Wales 🦇

[-]

thierry_ennui_@reddit

Paedophile immigrants, if the newspapers are to be believed

[-]

EchoesOfZhivago@reddit

Bins, especially in Walsall! Never seen a mess like it.

[-]

susususero@reddit

Bollards shaped resembling an upturned cannon with a cannonball welded to the end.

[-]

Pukit@reddit

It’s urban myth they are French cannons from Trafalgar. The UK had such a massive supply they just used these.

London also has railings made from WW1 metal stretchers.

[-]

hairymouse@reddit

I refuse to believe the ones outside Brighton train station are not real cannons.

[-]

JimDixon@reddit

I've noticed the resemblance. Did they once use real cannons?

[-]

can_i_smell_burning@reddit

Captured French cannons I believe. They used a different size cannonball so they were unable to be used by us so we repurposed them to flaunt our military dominance.

[-]

UKxFallz@reddit

I you go to the city in London I’m pretty sure all the bollards are old Victorian cannons.

I remember learning about it in school but I vaguely remember it may be due to the shortage of iron and steel during and after the Second World War

[-]

Champagne_Bunnny@reddit

They did used to use real cannons, I read a really detailed Web page about it once but I unfortunately didn't bookmark it.

[-]

Itchy_Hunter_4388@reddit

Bins

[-]

Heypisshands@reddit

Air

[-]

honeyeater62@reddit

Moss, absolutely everywhere

[-]

lk910@reddit

Parakeets

[-]

Proteus-8742@reddit

The sky

[-]

sungrad@reddit

Give it a week.

[-]

CrazyPlatypusLady@reddit

Nice to see the Tubes of Death mentioned.

There's one near my house that prevented me getting fibre internet fitted for 3 months. And it's why most of the estate I love on isn't connected to gas mains.

Obviously no in detail maps of the former GPSS pipelines exists for national security. Which prices to be a complete ball ache if you need to dig anything deeper than a patio footing.

Openreach had to contact the company that maintains the local branch of the TOD to find out if it was under my house. And they took ages to respond. Even though I could happily have taken a surveyor and shown them where the thing is (not under my house, not even under my estate), they still needed permission to dig a 50cm trench in a pavement.

I rather like my local Tube of Death and have tracked it from source to upper storage point using Google maps satellite images. You can literally see where the thing runs based on how the buildings grew up around it... Apart from the occasional anomalous ones from the few years where my local branch wasn't active for fuel, but kept operational by pumping water through it. It was then reactivated at the start of the Cold War.

Anyway... Have a picture of a marker that I did for a laugh last year. I'm not even kidding. That thing won an award for its weirdness of subject.

(There's a whole lecture about the GPSS on YouTube by the guy who wrote the only existing book on the subject, it's dry and boring but if you're into the Tubes of Death, it's worth the hour and half).

(I feel like an autism sleeper agent, they didn't need to test me, they just need to wave a picture of a GPSS marker and let me go off like a Duracell bunny).

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optio___espacio_@reddit

The fifth column marching through the institutions

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CoffeeIgnoramus@reddit

Watch this comment section, single-handedly handing out details of security risks.

How to find all: - the jet fuel - the nuclear waste - the weapons - ...and the ninjas

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Robestos86@reddit

Op, how do we spot these things as that sounds really cool.

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JerryCornelius22@reddit

Cctv. We are under surveillance 247 instead uk

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Daveddozey@reddit

Yet it doesn’t seem to work

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Any-Republic-4269@reddit

Potholes. They are everywhere, even have people living in them, but no one has ever seen one

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drivelhead@reddit

If you leave them long enough then they'll all join up and will no longer be a problem. The roads will just be a few cm lower.

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rphilosophy11@reddit

Mosques.

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St2Crank@reddit

Cocaine.

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Penster78@reddit

Litter

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Icy_Meringue_5534@reddit

Also the national gas grid network, a massive underground network of pipes marked overground by white poles, often with a red cap.

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BeanOnAJourney@reddit

Too many people are completely oblivious to the natural world and all the varied and wonderful fauna that's native to this country.

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DazzzASTER@reddit

TIL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dURJxKKuw1U

Fuel Pipelines video. GPSS.

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Downtown_Science_286@reddit

I love the GPSS, I've hunted down many markers, marked the route of it on my local map, and sneaked into several disused PSDs!

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mellonians@reddit

Broadcast infrastructure.

Unless it's a big ticket site like Emley Moor or Crystal Palace, no one has any appreciation of "that's where TV comes from" or where FM or even AM radio. DAB is especially hidden.

Most people think the larger towers and masts are just mobile phone or don't know what they are, but we have such an array of sites from massive towers to ones that look just like a single telegraph pole. Dog walkers walk past all the time and don't appreciate it. I look after them and it's like I have a ninja job. But if I cock it up that's when people really notice!

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luala@reddit

I’m a bit obsessed with the royal crests on postboxes. It’s actually a quite interesting insight into when an area was developed. The ones round my way are all Victorian because the housing was built right at the end of that reign.

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Worried-Penalty8744@reddit

There’s an entire subreddit for that. It occasionally appears in my home page list for some reason as to my knowledge I’ve never showed any interest in them

r/ukpostboxes

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know-need@reddit

Steroids.

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derpyfloofus@reddit

A mate of mine growing up their family had a jet fuel pipeline running near their back garden and they didn’t even know about it. They only found out about it when they wanted to build an extension and planning was refused because it would have been too close.

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CAElite@reddit

The sheer amount of cameras. I made a conscious effort to try to count all the cameras I passed on my way to work and easily got past 40, and that's on a 45 minute drive from rural-ish Scotland into Glasgow.

By the numbers London has the most fixed camera per sq km in the world, with most other UK cities trading blows with China's commerce hubs in the top 10 table. They're so ubiquitous in the UK it's not until you spend a lot of time out of the country that you start noticing how frequent they are when you get back.

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Fine_Cress_649@reddit

Whenever I go to big cities, all the cameras make me feel slightly paranoid and uneasy. I can't explain it, because I know that my phone is spying on me all the time anyway, but it's just that much more obvious that you're being constantly surveilled in a city

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PrizeCrew994@reddit

In coastal towns and cities, seagulls! It wasn’t till I moved away and came back for the first time I noticed the constant noise.

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Zaliciouz@reddit

Money laundering shops are present in all cities, towns, even some villages too.

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pixeltash@reddit

The markers roadside for the fuel pipelines aren't so people don't dig there, they are warnings so if a car crash happened there the fire and rescue service can take precautions.

They were initially installed during the second world war. The pipelines were dug at night and are/were still an official secret.

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Cops would say they don't know anything as well.

And the last person? Said he didn't know himself.

Others choose to lie because of a selfish paycheck.
I'd rather die.

Instead of killing myself I'm doing something about it.

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Crafty-Reality-9425@reddit

Are you OK? Genuine question.

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girlsunderpressure@reddit

what are you talking about

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Odd-Paramedic-3826@reddit (OP)

you ask the simplest of things on reddit and get people in the replies talking like sephiroth

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