will2089

You’re looking at special coffins. Most funeral directors have a coffin that’s included with the purchase of a certain package. Might be a basic or a trad oak. The ones you saw are all upgrades

Trust me mate, I know there are sketchy parts but it’s nothing like it was. My Grandma was the strongest woman I knew, she was from Droylsden. It’s technically in Tameside but she’d spent her whole life working in the city. She owned rental properties, businesses, was a councillor for a while and was (I guess) the First Lady when my Grandad was the mayor. She was formidable. The only time I ever saw her scared was when we had to change busses at Piccadilly Gardens (back when it was all sunken into the floor and full of druggies with no clear lines of sight) and she had to drag me across them. It was genuinely scary. Nowadays there are rough bits, always will be I think, but it’s not quite that same sense of visceral danger. Incidentally that experience is also why I don’t care about how ‘ugly’ Piccadilly is now.

It’s not really true. I’m a born and bred Manc. Before gentrification it was a dump. You used to avoid to visit the city centre it was so rough, nor would you even want to go more than you had to because it was dilapidated. You could maybe argue there was a brief window in the 00s where it was just being gentrified but hadn’t quite made it yet so that people didn’t want to move there. It was only a few years though, not some halcyon time of Manchester having it all before it was ‘ruined’. Personally I always find the people most vocal about how Manchester was better are from satellite towns or transplants from other areas of the North

I’ve stopped playing the Lotto mostly, but this will put the final nail in for me. Matching 2 numbers and getting half your stake back? Absolutely not.

I do feel for her in a way, she’s clearly tied her self esteem into her work when you talk to her. That being said, all the pressure to work late, complete more tasks and get stuff done is all pressure that she’s put on herself as our manager doesn’t really give a toss. She told me she’s looking for another job because she doesn’t feel recognised enough and our manager’s manager told her to take a step back and breathe.

My new job is the easiest/chillest job I’ve ever had and I still bought the maximum amount of holidays. There’s a woman on my team who was telling me she only took 10 days A/L last year and was super careful to ensure she took them in ‘quiet’ periods. I can’t imagine not using 19 days of leave

I would argue that it doesn’t make up for it at all. If you tripled my salary I wouldn’t take a job with one day annual leave per year. Your increased salary is also going to be partially eaten up by Health Insurance, my cousin now pays nearly a grand a month now. Then you also have the scourge that is ‘At Will Employment’. No amount of money is worth that unless you get like 1mil a year and unlimited unpaid time off.

Hah. During Covid I worked collecting people who died for a Funeral Firm. I’ll never forget going to this grand great big house to collect a body. We parked in front, got the stretcher out and knocked. Answered by staff who were very nice, I could see a nice big staircase and plenty of room. Then a family member emerged from one of the side rooms and starts going off No no no. You cannot use the main door or staircase. You must use the servants staircase. I was like is this for real? We’re collecting your dead Mum and you’re telling us to use the Servants Staircase? That ended up being round the back and much tighter. Took a good 20 minutes to get down it. Then they complained about the fact we arrived in a Renault Trafic and not a hearse. It was surreal honestly.

I genuinely feel the omnipresent rain is part of the charm but when you do get a sunny day it’s absolutely glorious.

Really depends on what you’re doing on the phone. Some Customers are unhinged and if you have an unusual name you’re a lot easier to track down on socials. I’ve got an unusual first name and I once worked at BT as a Retentions Adviser. People used to find me and send messages on Facebook/Instagram. One particularly noteworthy woman messaged my mum because I couldn’t remove her early termination charge. It could be to do with that, they generally wouldn’t tell a new starter because it’s not a good look.

The Sedan Fusion wasn’t sold in Europe. Our Fusion was a little hatchback.

We want people to rebuild after bankruptcy so they can return to contributing to the economy and fix their finances.

Yeah, I bought my last car using Apple Pay from a dealer. The dealer was actually flabbergasted when it went through, he didn’t know there was such a high limit on Apple Pay apparently.

I used to think that but this year I decided that they’re £1.50 in Sainsbury’s and I’m a big boy with big boy money. Plus they honestly just taste better than chocolate bars. So I’ve already eaten like 8 over the last two weeks.

Yeah I will let people out if there’s no gap behind me but as soon as they start creeping out trying to block the road I’ll just drive around them. The look on their faces is always priceless.

The good stuff is more expensive. The cheap shit cut with who knows what is £40-£50 per gram. Depends on what the dealers in your area stock, in some places you might only get the good stuff. In others only the shit.

20% of £1 million is £200,000. If you pay £200,000 on a £1 million inheritance, your effective tax rate is 20%. That’s not “changing the maths” that is the math. Total tax paid divided by total inheritance. The 40% figure is the marginal rate on the taxable portion above the threshold. It is the headline figure and not the overall tax rate that someone pays on an inheritance. Pretending the headline rate is the same as the effective rate isn’t about “constants” it’s ignoring how percentages work. At this point you’re either being deliberately obtuse, or you genuinely don’t understand the difference between marginal and effective rates. Either way, there’s not much more to add.

But 40% isn’t the effective rate most people actually pay overall. It’s the marginal rate applied only to the taxable portion above the threshold. Quoting “40% over £1m” as if it’s what someone pays on the whole inheritance is either a misunderstanding of effective vs marginal rates, or it’s cherry-picking the headline rate because it sounds worse than the real proportion paid on the total estate. So which is it?

What are you talking about? If you inherit £1 million and pay £200,000 in tax, your effective tax rate is 20% because £200k is 20% of £1m. If you inherit £3 million and pay £800,000 in inheritance tax, your effective tax rate is about 26.7% because £800k divided by £3m equals 26.67%. That’s the difference between marginal and effective rates. It’s the same with income tax. You might pay 45% on income over £125,000 (roughly), but that 45% only applies to the portion above that threshold. Your effective tax rate the total tax you pay as a percentage of your whole income will be much lower.

What are you talking about? If you pay 200k in Tax on a £1 million inheritance your effective tax rate is 20% because you paid 20% in tax… If you inherit £3 million and pay 800k in Inheritance tax your effective tax rate is 26.66%. It’s the same with income tax, you might pay 45% on earnings over 125k (roughly) but your effective tax rate, as in the proportion of your income that is spent on tax is actually significantly lower.

If you inherited 1 million and got 800k after tax then your actual tax rate is 20%. Basic maths mate. I understand that it’s 40% over 1 million but that’s not the actual tax rate you pay because of the 1 million allowance… You do realise that right? I’m not talking about the super rich really, the class of people I talk about historically were mostly affluent upper middle class or related to a noble family. They just had generations of wealth to draw on so didn’t need to work nor was there any impetus to do so. Just because you consider it to be flawed doesn’t mean it is. Lots of things are widely considered. Doesn’t make them true. Inheritance Tax does need overhauling imo anyway. Loopholes (like Trusts) need to be closed and there needs to be widespread education and changes to how it’s calculated to make more people liable to pay it. It won’t happen because everyone is convinced that they’re millionaires in waiting and the right wing press encourages that notion. The vast majority of people won’t pay inheritance tax or it’ll be negligible at worst. If you are paying the big bucks then you’re literally getting money for an accident of birth.

My parents estate is liable for inheritance tax as is my Grandmother’s. I’m still getting money for doing absolutely rock all except being born into the right family even if I have to pay a small overall percentage to the government. In your example you’re paying 20% of the overall value of the inheritance and getting 800k for doing nothing. You’re getting 4x what you paid in tax and again most people are dodging it anyway. There was a time in this country not so long ago where there was a whole class of people who did nothing except live off their inheritance. You’re advocating a return to those times. And again. The government needs the money.

I don’t agree it’s a flawed tax. Your main argument in other comments appears to be that they’ve already paid tax. You could say that about literally everything. Historically inheritance tax is actually at a fairly low rate and most married couples can have 1 million worth of value in their homes prior to their heirs having to pay it. Additionally realistically most of these people are dodging the tax through trusts and transfers of property ownership/gifts. My heart doesn’t exactly bleed for people who inherit 1.5 million for doing fuck all and then have to pay 200k in Taxes leaving them with ‘only’ 1.3 million.

No it isn’t. The purpose of tax is to raise funds for the Government. We’re in a deficit. Like it or not but less taxes are not the answer to that.

Yeah. Lucky us.

It was really odd. He was quiet but nice enough. I was friends with one of his friends so we interacted a few times. I only remember a few specific conversations with gun and they were all about Runescape. He switched schools pretty early on but I actually saw him again when we were 16. It was a House party. My memory is fuzzy but I’m sure I recall him doing vodka jelly shots at that party which made it all the stranger when I learned what he did and the ‘reasons’ he did it.

The Manchester Bomber was in my form. I’m not sure if him being a psycho makes him notable but his name was in the papers.

Funny how quickly ‘you need therapy’ gets thrown out when someone’s actual lived experience doesn’t match the fairy-tale version in your head. I shared my real story and feelings being a kid with an unusual name, dealing with the daily corrections, the teasing, the eye-rolls, the assumptions about my parents and your response is to diagnose me instead of engaging with it? That’s not empathy, that’s just a convenient way to dismiss anything that challenges your view. Sure, in a perfect world, unique names might be a beautiful gift of individuality. I can see why you’d think that. But we don’t live in that world. Kids are cruel, adults carry biases (studies show that unusual names get fewer interviews), teachers mispronounce it for years, substitute teachers butcher it, job interviewers raise eyebrows and the child who has to navigate all that isn’t the parent who thought it was cute, they’re the one stuck explaining it forever. Naming a child is one of the few permanent decisions we make for someone else without their consent. Prioritising parental creativity over the child’s real-world experience isn’t visionary it’s shortsighted. My feelings aren’t ‘irrelevant’ because they don’t fit your narrative. They’re evidence. And dismissing them with a therapy one liner doesn’t make them go away it just proves the point.

I mean presumably you don’t share the weird Welsh name that my parents gave me so you haven’t had to live with it. Only about 15 people do and they’re all men. I’m telling people to think of the future for their child. Maybe you’re happy with your unusual name. The same is not true for everyone or even most people I’ve met. It’s affected every part of my life, from career prospects to school life to dating. All because my parents didn’t think ahead. They decided to name me in such a way that others would go ‘oh how unusual’ or ‘oh how lovely’ when I was a baby but didn’t consider that I wouldn’t always be a baby. If they’d given me an unusual middle name I’d be fine with that. They didn’t. They instead made sure I’d be regularly embarrassed and constantly having to explain it.

You haven’t lived with it. You’ve got your blinkers on. Just like my parents 🙄

Again. As someone who had an unusual name it was brutal in school. Even now in a corporate job it’s the bane of existence and dominates every single meeting I go into. It sounds like it’d be nice to have an unusual name. Until you have one. There’s something to be said for teachers reading the register and knowing how to pronounce your name immediately instead of the whole class taking the piss when they get it wrong. There’s something to be said for not having to walk each person I meet or talk to at work through the ‘story’ of my name and coach them how to say it. If you give your kids an unusual name then you’re setting them up for headaches for their whole life. At least I can go by Will (my middle name).

At least they won’t be bullied for it or spend their whole life having the same conversation about ‘Oh that’s an unusual name’ or people pronouncing it wrong or having to sound it out all the time or explain the origin. Better to call them Josh/Emma etc. I doubt they’ll really care about having a normal name.

People who say this haven’t had to live with a unusual name. The novelty wore off before I could speak. My kids, if they ever defy the odds and manage to exist, will have the dullest, most English names I can think of.

My Grandad was mayor of a Northern Town in the 70s. They had an annual carnival and my Gran as his wife was expected to manage the guests and stuff. One year Jimmy Saville opened the carnival, she used to say he turned up with two very young women and flounced around like he owned the place. She hated him and thought he was disgusting. Conversely he got on well with my Grandad, to the point that Jimmy offered him a job. My Gran told my Grandad that she’d leave him if he took it. The other years that he was mayor she refused to let him invite Saville again. Loathed him for the rest of her life. Unfortunately she died before it all came out, but I wish she’d lived to see the vindication.

It was an S24 Plus that normally would get signal at music festivals just fine. Everyone in my building used to tell new hires to switch away from O2/GiffGaff/Tesco because it was so notoriously bad. Even the company (a major corp) I worked for eventually switched their company data plan from O2 who they’d been with for 25 years to Vodafone because they couldn’t get a signal in their own home city.

I had a Flagship android first then an iPhone 16 which was the newest iPhone at the time.

I worked in the city centre and was with O2. It was appalling, at lunch time I couldn’t even use my phone ever though it said ‘5G’. No dialling out, no texts nothing. I had to switch to Three which was better but still not amazing.

Yeah they do. For me it was always spotty but better when I initially joined. It wasn’t great at work in Manchester City centre like I’d have 5G but it’d take years to load because the network was too busy. Then it was getting worse at home. Final straw was last summer when I went camping with a mate in the Lakes and I couldn’t even dial out, never mind Satnav and stuff while he had 5G.

Yeah I’m with ID and I do great for signal. I think they use Three’s network. I was with Tesco before and it was absolutely abominable. To the point that I excluded all O2 based networks when shopping around. Maybe OP is with one of them?

I don’t really like to talk about it irl, but I was homeless in my 20s after a break up, redundancy and a falling out with my family. I stayed in a Shelter for 3 months, I think people would be surprised at the people in there. It wasn’t pleasant especially, a lot of the other guys had mental health issues so you had to be quite careful. But I don’t think anyone was (noticeably) on drugs and if you were drunk they wouldn’t let you say and you’d be kicked out if you missed 3 nights. Some of the people I met were: A roofer in his 30s, he used to work all day then come back to the shelter. A disabled 70-something who was kicked out by his wife A guy who had a mental breakdown, quit his job at a Solicitors firm and lost everything in a self destructive spiral (his words) There were also a couple of women who didn’t speak English, a woman whose landlord had evicted her and more but I didn’t speak to them much as they had a separate room/facilities.

https://preview.redd.it/gsvqtq2jsfzf1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb461884b672f4a272ea37cc9831dce9622304e8

I mean people have tattoos of things that are important to them or had a big influence on their lives. Harry Potter, for good or ill and irrespective of its literary value, played a big part in the coming of age of millions of people. If JK wasn’t JK and I liked tattoos, I’d consider getting one because the books had a massive influence on who I am today.

My parents are love them (well mostly my dad) and they bought me one for my 25th. Unfortunately I’m stuck with it forever as I haven’t the heart to take it off my car or not move it across to a new one.

Probably. I was made redundant in 2019, I was on just shy of 44k as my basic plus a bonus every year and a company car (I used to travel a LOT, like 2-3 weeks every month). It was soul destroying though. I worked in B2C Compliance and Risk Mitigation for a high street bank. I had to do investigations into possible breaches of compliance at branches & CCCs. I was going into these close knit local teams and they hated me for being from corporate and coming to investigate their actions. I used to do big picture stuff too, but my job role changed significantly when I was there. They wanted to transfer me to another role during the redundancy process (mostly because I was quite young whereas my colleagues were nearer to retirement age). I had to fight them for redundancy. When I got the formal offer I sat in my office and cried in relief. I make less now but wouldn't go back if they tripled my salary.

Honestly, I got made redundant by the bank I worked for before Covid. I was a middle manager in a really specific compliance team that they ultimately decided they no longer needed. I took the first job I could find when Covid kicked off and now I've been promoted a few times so I work in Root Cause Analysis for regulated Complaints in a big company. I don't mind it, I get to speak to people, build reports and presentations but I don't think it's a normal progression from compliance.

I used to work in Compliance and I didn't know anyone who was in it 'deliberately'. Everyone I spoke to just seemed to fall into it, myself included.

I put a case on my phone as I overheard a co-worker gossiping about me and how they thought I 'came from money' because I didn't have one. I just have insurance and think they look better without the case. People assume the weirdest stuff.

Yeah I love my parents and they did a good job for the most part but they used to park us in front of the NTL Box when they needed a break. We had basically unlimited 'screen time' as we also had TVs in our rooms. It also makes me laugh that my generation is now soapboxing about Tiktok brain rot when we had YouTube brain rot and weird animated shows.

Every time I visit my family in the US I get a hard reality check about the quality of our driving. Driving over there is stressful, rules are half followed (which is worse than ignoring them entirely) and the mechanical standard of some of their vehicles is appalling compared to ours. After seeing some of their vehicles heaps running and driving over there I’m grateful for our stringent lot tests.

I met him once. I had a mate from Gloucestershire when I was at Uni and we used to wind each other up a bit, I'd do the 'Hot Fuzz' accent at him and he'd joke about me knowing the Gallagher brothers. Then he came to visit me after graduating and we went out in Manchester. First pub we went in was Rain Bar and who was sitting right opposite the entrance? Noel Gallagher. I've fallen out of touch with this mate now but he didn't let me forget it for the rest of our friendship.