wandering_salad

Just wait until you have joint issues.

Absolutely NOT. I have bad joints and some public transport really jolts/rumbles, and I might have to be on it for half an hour. I will use a seat if it is available. I do give up my seat to pregnant women, people carrying a baby in one of them "backpacks" for their front, elderly people, people using something like a cane or crutches, etc. But I'm not giving my seat to kids. Kids that are probably travelling for free or a fraction of what I pay, kids who are probably a nuisance as well.

I wouldn't mind if people riding them only menaced or hurt themselves, but often they are a menace to other road users, they hurt others in crashes they've caused, or they cause damage on other people's property. This isn't about squashing people having a fun time. This is about protecting the public from reckless and dangerous road users. And it's also about protecting kids from taking risks they have no business taking.

The speed pedelec is max 45 km/h and is seen as a heavier-weight moped ("bromfiets"), NOT a low-speed moped (the low-speed moped is max 25 km/h and is called "snorfiets"). Few people are using speed pedelecs, they are mainly using a "normal" e-bike. The fatbike is seen as a normal e-bike as they are limited to 25 km/h with pedal assist, no throttle past 6 km/h. The 2023 law change was for the snorfiets, the bromfiets already required drivers to wear a helmet.

Lol, this is about the Netherlands, where whatever you are saying does not apply.

But it's quite a different experience going 25 km/h using your own pedal power or having (mainly) pedal assist. And kids who happily zip around at 25 km/h (often faster) on an ebike would rarely go this speed on their own power. So... They are using it as a toy, as a way to hang out with friends, as part of "boys will be boys" (semi) criminal behaviour, and that's what is causing the issues.

Some of the fat-tire ones I've seen popular in north America are different from the Dutch fatbikes. The Dutch fatbikes have fat tires but the total diameter is smaller than the ones I think North America mainly has. The Dutch fatbikes look much more like mopeds than like a mountain bike.

No, only certain types of e-bikes are called fatbike in Dutch. Only with that type of ebike do we see a lot of problems.

All of the above.

Dutch, now in the UK and lifelong cyclist until I moved to the north. The Dutch law is simply not sufficient even if it was possible to enforce 100% of the time. When I was a child and teenager in the Netherlands in the 90s and early 00s, e-bikes simply didn't exist. You got a pedal bicycle, and if you were lucky, you got one with more than three years. Mopeds were age 16+, the lighter-weight ones that are limited to 25 km/h did not require a helmet at that time, but the ones that can go up to 45 km/h do require a helmet. I think both require you to have a type of driving license, insurance, and for the vehicle to be approved for public roads. In 2023 (?) the light-weight moped also got a helmet mandate and for some strange reason, Dutch people are really vain and they refuse to wear a helmet. I have lived in the UK for the majority of my adult life (so far) and I first lived in Cambridge where cycling is relatively popular and relatively safe (still got nothing on even the worst place to cycle in the Netherlands). I realised pretty quickly traffic in the UK was more dangerous. Despite being a strong cyclist, I chose to wear a helmet whenever I cycle in the UK. The people who did take their kids out on even small scooters (stepje, in Dutch) and small kick bikes, they would put a helmet on their kid. In the Netherlands, you'll see 1-2 year old kids in the front of their parent's bike in a child seat and NO HELMET... Anyhow, part of the reason that ebikes are more popular now is I think the fact that the fatbike looks much cooler than the normal ebike. The normal ebike has a kind of old image as it was mostly people 60+ who would ride them mainly due to health issues preventing them from pedaling a bike themselves or not at the speed or for the distance they wanted. No helmets, of course. Then the fatbike came around and these guys look much more like mopeds, so they appeal to teenagers and younger adults much more. And they do not require a driving license. There's no lower age limit. You don't need insurance. Your fatbike doesn't need to meet any kind of quality standard. AND you do not have to wear a helmet on it. I read somewhere that they think a bunch of 16+ who would otherwise have gotten the lighter-weight moped (max 25 km/h) decided not to because they just don't want to wear a helmet. It's a silly cultural thing which is quite strange looking at it now that I have lived elsewhere for such a long time. And because there's no lower age set for any ebike, there's kids that want to be like teenagers, so they get a fatbike. My issue is with even really young kids being legally allowed to ride a motorised vehicle in public, even having a friend on the back (as long as there's a seat and footrests for them). How is that OK? Who thought it would be OK for a 10 year old to operate what is essentially a light-weight moped, going up to 25 km/h, with a friend or sibling on the back (potentially a younger child)?! No child that age is experienced, mature, responsible, or capable enough to operate an ebike in public let alone with another child on the back (taking on the responsibility for that child's safety). One example where things went totally wrong is from the USA (?) where 12-year old Molly Steinsapir was on the back of the ebike driven by her 11-year old friend. The driver lost control going downhill and Molly fell off and died from her injuries, despite wearing a bicycle helmet (which Dutch kids/adults rarely do). The parents were IMO neglectful and instead of introspection asking themselves why they let their tween play on an ebike with her friend, they are/have pursued legal action against the helmet manufacturer and the bike manufacturer, I think. I think a lot of parents think that as long as something isn't legal, that it's safe. But that's clearly not how it works. I think kids deserve to be protected from neglectful parents and I'd like to see a lower age limit for all motorised vehicles in public of at least 12 and at that age, NO passenger, AND you should wear a helmet until at least 16 or 18.

In my home country we don't have school uniforms and it was never an issue. People just wear whatever they like and there was never any kind of policing, not even of my at-times outrageous outfits/hair.

This is year 11 so hardly "children". I assume the teacher will be of the same sex, and teachers all have to have a DBS check. I don't think OP said the teacher is inside the cubicle with the pupils, so ...

Probably because pupil behaviour is more like that of prison populations than of pleasant, well-adjust kids ready to learn.

You read this wrong. 3 times this week the teenager wanted to leave the class for toilet breaks, so that was an issue. No one is making an issue about going to the toilet outside of class hours.

"I absolutely abhor the de-humanisation of children at schools." I bet this is due to dangerous, bullying, unhinged, and harmful behaviour of a part of the pupil population. As they are minors, schools are seen as responsible for them. I would personally suggest they just permanently expel kids even after "just" the first incident if it was a major issue, or maybe using a 2- or 3-strikes policy for lesser issues. I'd have no issue kicking probably around 2-3% of kids out of school permanently because their behaviour is so harmful and disruptive to other kids as well as teachers (and towards property). When your school is filled with well-behaved kids, you don't have to have extreme policies like this (toilet guard, lol). Secondary school is quite a while ago but our toilets were always open IIRC (this was in my home country). But you were expected to hold it in during lessons, and I think hardly anyone ever asked to leave the class to go to the loo. But I was in a school with the top 10-15% of kids with regards to school performance, so the behaviour is generally quite good. Teachers trusted us to act normal, because we did.

I bet they had kids vaping/smoking in the toilets, loitering, hanging out, or maybe bothering other students. No school is going to these extreme measures for no reason.

So what is your solution for (usually) the same pupils demanding to leave class to go to the loo, who then are gone for 5-10 minutes, might have caused issues outside of class, come back and disrupt the lesson for the 29 other kids?

Haha, yes, same here! People so detached from the real world, probably because they spend most of the time by themselves. I guess in those situations you CAN just go whenever you want. I mostly WFH in a solitary capacity so can go whenever I want to, but when I go out, I will still have to plan my toilet visits. Good thing that as a child, teenager, and young adult, I learned how to manage my body functions.

Stop making excuses for people unwilling to meet reasonable expectations. I was a teenager girl and I have NEVER had to leave class to deal with my flow. You learn to plan for it, and at age 14+, you should not be surprised by it anymore and even wear perhaps some more protection than you need just in case. As we get older, have kids, our flow will keep changing, so better to learn to deal with it appropriately early on. Diabetes, you mean type 1? That's a very rare condition and someone like that would get a medical exemption without issue. How does being "neurodivergent" make you not able to reasonably schedule toilet breaks? Maybe then you're better off in a special school where they can cater to issues with continence.

I partially disagree with you. I am also a woman, but that doesn't really matter for urinary/bowel function. I've also lived with at-times pretty bad "irritable bowel syndrome" (which magically went away when I went vegan in my late 20s). In the majority of cases, as an older child and teenager, you can absolutely time your use of the toilet. For instance, you can go during breaks even if you do not yet feel an urge especially for doing number 1, you will be able to get rid of whatever is currently in your bladder even if it was only half full. This usually means you do not feel the urge until AFTER you otherwise would have, so you can stay in class without having to go during class. It's also possible to postpone number 2 unless you have eaten something bad and probably should just go home. I have had so many instances of bowel issues during school time as well but you deal with it, because you can't go to the loo every time you feel something. It's called learning to be an older child/adult. With menstruation, it is all about planning for it. You can swap out your product during breaks. If you have swapped out your pad/tampon and within the next 2 hours you would be flooded, you should use a larger-capacity product or use a tampon AND a pad. And maybe see a doctor if you're losing blood at that rate. At work, there are situations in which I can't just leave to go to the toilet either. If people just went the first urge they get, meetings would never get done! If on a normal occasion you can't hold it in for another 20-40 minutes, then you yourself should probably see a doctor. I think the school has to resort to this policy because pupils would just leave class whenever they felt like it, maybe they were bored, maybe they wanted to vape/smoke in the toilets, maybe they wanted to just wander around school for a couple of minutes. It is disruptive to their own learning but more importantly, it is disruptive to the rest of the class and to the wider school if kids are loitering outside classrooms. So last year you had 14 year old children pissing themselves because they weren't allowed to instantly leave the classroom the first time they felt the urge? Is this for real?! If I were you, I'd prepare your children better for real life, which includes sometimes not being able to go the first time you feel the urge. Secondly, why not advocate for the school to allow kids to use the toilets between changeover, assuming they make it to their next class in time?

Where do you live? I live in a town in the North West and we have plenty outdoor space, really easy outdoor access too (best to have a car, but without a car you can't really live here anyways; sports pitches and parks are easily accessed without a car). I didn't spend much time outdoors as a teenager but this was also before smart phones. So how did I keep myself occupied? Working hard on school stuff, paid jobs, learning to play a musical instrument, and a serious art/crafts hobby. No internet needed, no outdoor space needed. I think the issue is that lots of people just do not understand how to make considerate use of shared outdoor spaces, which is why you see so many signs up prohibiting things. No BBQs because people leave the mess if not set woodlands on fire. No ballgames because they end up kicking the ball onto adjoining properties who have had enough or the outdoor space gets constant use to the detriment of people living next to it, and some kids kick balls against fences, walls, and even the walls of housing where people actually live, so... It all starts with behaving like a normal person. If people didn't litter, travellers didn't decide to just set up camp for an indefinite period of time, people didn't set things on fire with their BBQ/camp fires, people didn't bring menacing dogs who menace livestock or wildlife, people didn't bring motorised vehicles to tear apart sports pitches or hiking trails etc, then there'd be more interest from land owners to keep areas open to the public.

IMO if you are sent to some vague/incomplete address, Maps takes you to the address and it turns out to not be anything but bushes in a remote area, you tried your absolute best to figure it out even calling a coworker for help, and then eventually you left because you rightly felt unsafe in an unknown area in the dark by yourself without any direction as to where you were expected, I think you did everything you could. You should not have to endanger yourself just to find your client. It's possible the client lives set away from the main road on either a small road or their own drive, but if that is the case, they should have some kind of reflective/visible bollards or sign or something at the main road so that you are aware the entry to their drive is right there.

I don't drink alcohol. I could say the same thing about people who love their booze, who may easily drink away a £100 on a night out.

I am Dutch and I have never really seen much fireworks stuff in the UK. In the Netherlands it is honestly mental leading up to New Year's Eve (the only time you can legally use fireworks, and you can only buy them from Dec 28-31). I was with my family back home a couple of years ago and I felt like I was in a warzone, it was so, so bad. It's some sort of cultural thing. But since I left my home country, we have more and more explosive attacks where illegal/heavy fireworks are used at any point in the year to send threats, to damage property, when people have beef with someone else. Some fireworks are illegal for the regular public but Dutch people just go to Germany or Belgium to get stuff they can't get in NL. Every year we have people who are seriously injured or even die from this, the amount of litter/waste that doesn't always get cleaned up is horrendous, the noise is terrible, and the intimidation from "youths" who like t throw fireworks at people is really scary. I think the UK is totally fine, it seems fireworks are used responsibly without major issues. Anyone who thinks it's bad here, please let me know where in the UK you live, and I'd like to challenge you to spend Dec 25-Jan 2 in the Netherlands.

Just talk to your manager/HR about this. She should wear additional layers, she can't demand that everyone else works in a temperature they find uncomfortably hot, or does she suggest you wear shorts and a tank top in the office with Slush puppies on tap?

My road has people parking everywhere along the whole thing including steep slopes where the road has narrowed. It's really infuriating to me because you can't use the pavement and even driving is dangerous at times. I find this a UK-wide thing and it baffles people thing this is acceptable. I live in a small town north of Manchester. I would say this is an issue you can report because it makes it so the pavement can't be used.

Where was this 200ml coke at £7? Are you in central London? I think groceries in the UK are mainly quite cheap especially if you look for marked-down items or buy in larger packaging. Rent is expensive. Council tax is expensive. Income tax is lower than in my home country, but I feel public services in my home country are better. Salaries in the UK are really low, though, way lower than my home country.

I don't know why you'd go on this road trip...

You should be asking why pupil behaviour has gotten so bad over the years.

I wouldn't even turn up for that minimum wage even if I didn't have to do anything but sit on my ass, lol.

You mean in places where they don't have a minimum wage?

I've fully stopped eating out because apparently this is now the norm. I find it theft and they just hope you are too polite to ask for it to be removed. They are right. So now instead of me going out for a meal maybe once a month, I no longer do that and instead buy nicer ingredients to sometimes cook something a little more fancy at home. Better value for money, blaring music, no screaming and running kids, no uncertainty of the ingredients (lifestyle and intolerance). Eating out is just not good value anymore.

Why don't you visit some other countries first, just for a week or two on a holiday? Just get into the train to France or take a cheap flight to somewhere in Europe.

Just do it, man. If not now, when? A shame to put off to a point where you can no longer make the move.

Dutchie here. Please don't go to Amsterdam, we are full. I'm in the UK now, and I also lived in another European country before. If I had no ties in the UK, I'd have left years ago to explore another European/Western country for at least a year. I only lived in north/west Europe so the cultures are quite similar and the landscape although different, isn't HUGELY different. So not big culture or climate shock. In some ways life is different but that's just the novelty, and eventually after a few weeks or months, the shine is kind of gone as it's just normal now, and you will see normal day to day issues you have back home as well. I think it's good for anyone to spend at least a year abroad even if it's just the country next door. You really get a different perspective on your own culture/country even if the differences aren't huge.

They should simply get a passport.

It won't. It will just make life harder/less privacy for people who are already obeying the law. I read some argument that there's British people who do not have a driving license or passport so they struggle to provide evidence of their identity and somehow digital ID helps them, but why can't they just get a passport? In my home country it is totally normal to have a passport or European ID card (it is a law in my country that from age 14 on, you must be able to provide an identity document like passport or ID card when asked by police, I imagine this is to help with law enforcement).

I'd tell them 'no'. I don't know these people, the house will look different from when they lived here as work as been done on it, it's not a building of historical or architectural value, and the house is filled with my personal belongings that strangers have no business checking out.

Exactly my thoughts. I find it so disingenuous to beg for money from people so YOU can go to a developing country to spend some weeks or even months there in a country and culture you don't know to "help". It's really just a holiday.

I never believed in things like this, nor in people going abroad to volunteer to "work" in a developing country. Just the money for flights, other travel, lodging, food, vaccinations, insurance etc. to physically move some person from the UK to an African country (and back) would be in the thousands, and for what? For some person lucky to be born in a rich country to go and be a voluntourist doing a bit of simple work that really should have been a paid role for a skilled local person or a local person training on the job. The £3000-4000 or so it might cost to do this for a month or whatever could simply be donated to employ SEVERAL local people for at least a year so they can actually afford to improve their region and have a dignified way to make money. I wouldn't donate to a fundraiser you describe.

I've literally seen an XL bully at a dog and agriculture event (with live stock) who was wearing a muzzle that he easily pushed off. The owner saw it and didn't care, he thought it was all cute/hilarious...

The dog won't be muzzled at home, so the father (a vulnerable adult) and the son (a vulnerable minor (?)) are at risk. This kind of dog doesn't belong in any home IMO.

Someone who is not mentally or physically capable of owning a dog simply should not. Someone with such a severe mental health issue may ALSO pose a risk to this dog. Who knows, tomorrow the man might think Satan lives inside this dog and he needs to do "surgery" on the dog to rid it of evil spirits. I am convinced there's stories like this where owners have terribly injured or ended their own pets.

Report it to the council. People getting dogs like this especially for their "autistic son" are unhinged IMO. Save that letter, as it is evidence these people have no business having a dog like this. When I worked as a dog walker, my leashed, friendly dog was attacked by an unleashed Staffordshire bull terrier walked by a very old and frail woman who did nothing to remedy the situation (not even call the dog back; she was just 2-3 meters away). This was an unprovoked attack without any warning signs given. The dog I walked needed surgery whereas this terrible dog who had tried to kill my dog (it went straight for the neck) had not a scratch. I later found out that this dog had already attacked other dogs as well. Police didn't give a sh\*t, unfortunately, but I warned local people by posting pictures in a local group. Report this. People like this also lie all the time. They say they'll do better, but then they won't. They might be lying about their medical/personal situation as well, who knows. Anything to get sympathy. But it's just a matter of time until this dog attacks a human or another animal. Imagine if the son gets got by this dog and you did NOT report your recent experience?

Same. I usually wear trainers and most of them lasted me for years. I usually have about 2-3 pairs of shoes I regularly wear so cycle between them.

Have you had someone look at how you use your shoes, how well the shoes fit, and your gait/how you walk, how you wear down the shoes? What breaks/rips/tears/falls apart first, and in what way? What breaks after that? Do you keep buying the same brand, or same style/type of shoe? It's possible you are wearing shoes that are not the right size or right shape for your foot, or that maybe you need insoles or something to prevent uneven wear/excessive strain/pressure on areas of the shoe not meant for that.

Sounds like a bad environment to work in. Do you think that you could find another job fairly easily? Might not be a bad time to go look for a new job to start AFTER your honeymoon and just work at your current place until mid December or something, only giving them as much notice as required by your contract?

Cambridge or Oxford.

If I fully lost my eye and just had the socket with a skin graft healed etc, I would get some kind of Terminator-style one with a red "laser" pointing out of my prosthetic eye.

I imagine they get quite a lot of crap at their job, mainly entitled/angry parents is my guess.