Latest Moan From You and Me 2023

It's the children that suffer sadly.

 

I'm sure this has cropped up before How does that work when the parents are more than likely living on State benefits? It would be far more useful and effective to make the kids do some form of work or community service during their free time. If nothing else, it wouldn't leave them much time to be a nuisance

 

Well, they arn't all on benefits, and how then do you deal with the parents when they cause problems.
To my thinking, until the brat reaches 18 he or she is the responsibility of the parents, so anything the kid does becomes the parents problem.

Maybe its time to bring back the Workhouse.

 

I think the only solution is to give the coppers, and the courts, a bit of backbone.

You chase someone illegally riding a motorbike with the intention of trying to catch them. If you catch them, destroy the bike and arrange a suitable punishment for the offender. If they fall off and hurt themselves, and this is a novel idea, accept that they brought it on themselves, rather than investigating the copper.

That said, there are two sides to every story. Society as a whole should work out why it is that some youths choose to become toe rags, and see if there's anything that can be done to keep them happy and occupied in a more positive way.

 

They become toe rags because they either get roped in by their mates or the parents are also toe rags.
One of the houses in my street was a meeting place for the bikes and it only happened when his Mum was at work, she found out about, although lets face it she knew he had an illegal bike, and its been stopped now, they have just moved up to a house further up the road.

We all probably got up to stuff that we shouldn't have done when we were kids, but its just so blatant now and they are not scared because there are no consequences, if the bike gets crushed they just nick another one or the parents buy them another one.

They know they are under age and the law wont touch them.
Softy softy, How true that is these days.

 

That is often true.

But I also think society as a whole has to shoulder some of the responsibility. There's an old saying, it takes a whole village to raise a child. Mostly we don't have the community spirit and cohesion we used to have. I have some theories as to why that is.

In terms of giving kids a sense of purpose, as well as something harmless to keep them occupied, I think that's lacking these days too. Find just about any green space in residential areas and you'll usually also see a sign saying 'no ball games'. When I was a kid we'd play out and kick a ball about or play our interpretation of tennis or cricket. Doesn't really happen now be because it's been discouraged for years.

I should reiterate, I'm not defending toe rags. I just think some of them didn't have to become toe rags in the first place.

In my other leisure activity of martial arts, we used to get quite a few potential toe rags. They'd often join because the options were, join the toe rags, get bullied by the toe rags, or learn to fight so they didn't have to fear the toe rags so much. Fewer join these days, largely because social media has provided a platform for the charlatans who portray the martial arts in an embarrassing light. I believe some still go to the boxing club, and our local boxing club welcomes them, but I wonder how many such opportunities there are around the country.

When I was a youth another option for not getting bullied was to get involved in something that was considered cool. Back in my youth that was BMX and mountain biking. We had excellent BMX tracks all over the place, and nobody minded mountain bikers going up the woods. Nowadays there are very few BMX tracks, and the ones that are left are all knackered after years of zero maintenance, and it seems mountain bikers aren't even welcome up the very top of the woods anymore despite the fact that hardly anyone else goes up there.

If you take away all the options for harmless fun, then inevitably some kids are going to find other ways to have fun, at society's expense.

 

When you hear the Profit Nat West has just announced it makes the profits of British Gas seem negligible.
When you take into account these companies are getting their money from us we are being seriously ripped off, something has to change.

 

A depressing read......just what we need before the Autumn/ Winter weather forces us all indoors.

MSN

 

I'm really scared about all the scaremongering that goes on these days.
I think lemmings, (are any of them left), have the right idea.

Then they wonder why we have a mental health crisis, we used to just get on with life and took what happened, but now we seem to have to be made to prepare for every eventuality.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, being bombarded with doom and gloom is even worse.

 

It's very iffy.

"The Zoe Health Study, which takes its data from people self-reporting Covid", etc.

 

So it wasn't the fall that killed them?

 

SE water are reviewing the hosepipe ban on the 4th Aug, so I might be able to get the hose out on the 5th, could come in handy for pumping the flood waters away.

It was just a knee jerk reaction on their part as they were in a state of total panic back in June.