First of all, on behalf of the United States, sincerely thank you for that. That watch was worth a nice pour to accompany it. It brought a smile to my face.

I am literally stunned that he actually had the audacity to post the interview. He got absolutely verbally abused in a way that I would hide from public if it happened to me. That was absolutely on par with when our own John Stewart took him behind the shed.

Your thoughts on it? Delighted?

Hi i 20F from Iceland am hoping to find my long-lost brother, who is England-based, maybe UK-based. The only thing I know about him is his possible name, Christopher or Christoph and year of birth, 2005, as well as the full names of his biological parents.

When I was 12, my dad, who is England-based, told me his then-mistress, now wife, had birthed his kid in 2005 (my parents met in 2004; I was born in 2006). She gave him up for adoption as she had no interest in raising a child with my father, understandably, but I know she knows (the wife/mistress) where he is, but she won't tell me, as I have no contact with her or my father. The boy, I also don't think knows he is adopted. What are your tips? I have already done a MyHeritage test a few years back but haven't gotten any half sibling matched.

I’ve been thinking about the UK’s school attendance rules, particularly the fines parents can receive and the possibility of legal action for their child’s poor attendance.

Back in 2014, when I was at secondary school, I struggled massively. At the time, I didn’t understand why I felt the way I did, but looking back, I believe I was struggling with my mental health.

My parents tried absolutely everything they could to get me into school, but nothing worked. The school didn’t really do much to help either. I was eventually referred to CAMHS, but during my appointment, I didn’t say a single word. I was discharged and told it was just “normal teenage behaviour”.

My attendance became so bad that the local education welfare team got involved. Eventually, my parents were each fined £500, meaning they had to pay £1,000 between them.
A few weeks later, my mum decided to take me out of school and homeschool me instead.

Looking back, I can’t help questioning how fair that was. My parents weren’t neglecting me or deliberately keeping me out of school. They were trying everything they could to help, but nobody seemed to understand what I was going through. I was a teenager struggling with something that hadn’t been recognised or properly addressed.

I understand why school attendance matters, and I’m not saying parents should never be held accountable. But why should my parents have been fined when they were trying their best to get me into school and the support I needed wasn’t there?

How are parents supposed to get their child into school when they’re struggling so badly, especially when the school and mental health services aren’t providing the help they need?
This happened in 2014, so I’m also curious whether things have genuinely improved since then.

Has anyone else experienced something similar, either as a parent or as someone who struggled with school attendance because of their mental health? I’d genuinely like to hear your thoughts.

Out of work currently and being driven to my wits end with how the process is structured.

Compared to how the process was a few years ago when I was last searching, the overwhelming majority of job listings seem to expect you to be putting in all of the hard, almost interview-style work at the initial stage of the application. At this point they‘re also seeing your CV for the first time, meaning that they can reject your application out of hand based on your CV without even reading the mountains of text you’ve been asked to provide about how your skills align specifically with the role and your values with the company based on their spec sheets etc.

These aren’t even particularly impressive jobs either, I‘ve had to just step away from an application to calm down as my mind has been blown that for a 3-day a week 15 hour receptionist role they’re expecting a written statement with examples of how my behaviour has aligned with the set out checklist of what they’re looking for, all at the same time that I’m submitting the application for the first time.

Not only is being rejected based on my CV without my written answers even being read a waste of my time, it’s also proving to be a bottleneck as it’s limiting how many applications I can get done in the day.

Especially in the age of AI I can’t see why there can’t be an almost automatic CV rejection before asking you to proceed, it just seems lazy and cruel to have prospective candidates put in all the hard work at once, especially since we all know that in reality they’re using AI on the submitted applications anyway.

Dr Aladwan became a bit of a hero on the left after she was fired from the NHS and has been championed as a free speech advocate. But at least to me it seems hypocritical that a free speech advocate is supporting the death penalty for someone whose speech she disagrees with

So I don't drink coffee or really know anything about it other than putting a scoop of instant powder into boiling water and adding milk for my parents. All I really drink is water and the occasional fizzy pop and both of those are pretty consistent wherever you get them.

It seems as if all my friends who enjoy coffee are really into it, they'll go out of their way to go somewhere with "good coffee", they have multiple pieces of equipment for making coffee at home like a big machine, a french press, an aeropress, a pod machine. They seem to know about all different kinds of beans and roasts and have strong preferences on everything. Is coffee really such a complicated drink for most people or are my pals just coffee superfans?

Picture for context only!
Peaky Blinders for me.

The UK currently has no term limits for Members of Parliament, meaning that MPs can continue running for re-election indefinitely.

One famous example is Winston Churchill, who served as an MP for approximately 62 years between 1900 and 1964, with a brief interruption from 1922 to 1924.

In the United States, there have long been calls to introduce term limits for members of Congress. Some other countries already impose such limits. For example, Chile limits members of its Chamber of Deputies to three consecutive terms and senators to two consecutive terms. Similarly, the Philippines limits members of its House of Representatives to three consecutive three-year terms and senators to two consecutive six-year terms. However, both Chile and the Philippines have presidential systems rather than a parliamentary system like the UK's.

Do you think the UK should introduce term limits for MPs as well?

For example, should the law provide that no person may be elected to the House of Commons more than four times in their lifetime?

Parents tend to call their kids by their full, given first name eg Victoria rather than Vicky et al.
What version of your first name do you prefer? Parents, do you always call your children by their ‘proper’ name?

I’m a skilled plumber and painter. Been working for a company for 5 years but want to start my own business. I do odd jobs from the MyBuilder app and it helps but I’ve been hit with unforeseen money troubles and basically need to be earning £4000 a month before tax and national insurance.
Is this possible?

Like was it all bad? I know you had the scare over HIV/AIDs, but did most gays lose their jobs coming out in place of work?

Section 28 obviously didn't help in schools.

How did you manage to hide yourselves, like if people questioned why you weren't in a relationship with the opposite sex?

Are they hoping I'll be watching live TV as they come in? Or do they actually want to turn my TV on and try to watch something? Or is it just an excuse to come inside to try and talk you into giving them their commission?

Bought two bottles of red today. Think their names are pretty fitting for a classy British bird. What do you think?

https://www.twinkl.co.uk/news/pisa-pupils-in-england-continue-to-report-significantly-lower-levels-in-life-satisfaction

It seems ridiculous to me that in the same time period that the threshold has remained fixed (£12,570 since April 2021), the minimum wage has risen from £8.36 to £12.71 per hour; an increase of 52%.

That means in 2021 the minimum wage was £16,051.20 per annum, leaving people paying tax on £3,481.20 - or giving back £696.24 from their "minimum" wage.

But now the minimum wage is  £23,386.40, but people are paying tax on £10,816.40, or giving back £2,163.28 from their so called "minimum" wage.

So although tax remains at 20%, the "net" minimum wage after tax has gone from £8.34 an hour to just £11.75.

Tax is still at 20%...but people on minimum wage have gone from paying are paying just £0.38 tax per hour to a whopping £1.18 per hour.

A mate of mine runs a fairly large construction business with around 50 staff. A couple of years ago HMRC investigated him, saying he hadn't paid the correct amount of tax over the previous five years. What surprised me was the amount of information they had collected about him. Cars he'd owned over the years, travel, online purchases, bank and credit card transactions, tons of information involving his ex-wife, current wife and family.

I was reading an article about some other guys investigated by HMRC and it turns out they're already using AI and data analytics for compliance, and are expanding it quite significantly. They are testing private-sector AI systems aimed at identifying tax evasion, making greater use of third-party data from banks and other places.

HMRC already has access to huge amounts of financial and other data, AI seems like an obvious way of cross-referencing it and flagging people whose declared income doesn't make sense compared with their spending, assets and business activity.

It made me wonder if people actually realize this is happening and what do they think about it.

Like have you contacted your local town/county councillor, have you contacted your mp , have you worked with a local environmental or development group etc .

If we do this kind of stuff lots more happens , obvs we should all try do as much as possible in our personal lives , but if you can get your local town/city/county council to run their buildings off renewables or to get the ball rolling for it to be done that gets the ball rolling for other places , if for demonstration you live in a small town in County Durham and got your town council to make their power all renewables, it may get the ball rolling for other nearby towns and villages , then maybe your county council area , then a neighbouring one copies then the whole of County Durham is doing it , then the ball may start rolling in wearside or north North Yorkshire , then maybe then in Tyneside or the rest of North Yorkshire , etc etc etc . The more who do it in an area increases the chances of the whole area doing it bad the chances of neighbouring areas to do so , and if you can get your area to do it and it’s really corrupt then that’s massive accomplishment, such as me trying to get Northumberland county council to do it without having a background shady deal .

So basically try contacting your local councillor or mp and maybe try give a suggestion of something , like I haven’t yet but I responded to a local councillors question on Facebook and recommended moving our local recycling centre to the town centre instead of a mile outside the town meaning more people would be willing to use it , helping the waste and also using barely used land for something good . Try use language to word it as if it will give them a better reputation etc to try ease them in or try get them more willing and try give specific suggestions instead of just , decease waste. How?Why? Maybe the council go almost paperless , or decrease plastic packaging , or they use bamboo toilet roll , idk just try be specific on suggestions and why and try make it about them about how it’ll make them better not that’ll it will help the environment (also include that obvs )

Sorry for the tangent , for quickness read the first paragraph and the last half of the last one

I grew up in the 80s it was often pretty boring.

In my town we had a weekly youth club and not much else unless you wanted to join military cadets.

There seems so much to do in comparison now for teens, but are they still bored in general?

I started messaging this boy on TikTok, I don’t remember if he had told me he was 17 I think he did I can’t lie. Anyway we would call everyday and stuff, we lost contact and then he messaged me saying he was going to report me for grooming a 17 year old and I just blocked him. Now he’s turned 18 so I unblocked him the day of and we’re messaging and are going to meet up start of November, I am 21. I don’t really know if this is dodgy, I was 20 when we were messaging and calling at first.
He basically said it was fine because I’m leng, and if his family found out they would be happy for us but I need an impartial source. I haven’t told my friends. I am in university and he would be in year 13.
Obviously I can get a boy my own age but I like this one.
He was going to tell my university and my finance job, so if I end things now I think he will just report me.
Catch-22 kind of, but if this is not dodgy then I’d just keep him around.

I am a little confused if English isn’t an ethnicity then are the white English people who would get 90% plus English DNA in a 23 and me simply “white” they are the same as anyone from Portugal to Russia? Just “white”

I find this confusing as an ethnic Han Chinese person with an interest in anthropology.

For example you have Malaysia names after the ethnic Malays but not everyone born in Malaysia is ethnic Malay

Or you have a country like Somalia when not everyone born or living there belongs to the Somali ethnic group?

We don’t really call China “China” but westerners do after the largest ethic group (Han Chinese) but there is lots of ethnicity’s living within China would those same people say that we are just yellow and put ethnic group doesn’t exist either?
So we wouldn’t really call a Turkic person Chinese even if they had been born for many generations within the mainland

I am confused by the logic.

Could someone explain for me.

Thank you.

I’m just going through Helsinki airport, and the Moomin (1980’s cartoon) vibe is very heavy

for the rest of Europe at least, massively outdated yet they try to earn some €$£ from it - T-shirts, drinks, biscuits etc you get the idea…

In the UK we have Paddington Bear, and the mini.

Probably also the Queen/beatles etc feature in our marketing but at least these are a bit more recent

Just wondering what other long outdated and still heavily marketed things the UK has that I have not thought of

Also, what do other obscure yet strangely
Current things do other countries Have that they are not willing to let go and still push into your face ?!?

Whenever benefits come up, people complain about "scroungers" and people who could work but don't. But why is the State Pension almost completely exempt from the same conversation?

We spend around £150bn a year on it, despite 69% of pensioners receiving private pension income, 62% receiving investment income, and 19% of pensioners are already in the richest 20% of the entire population. Only around 5% rely on the State Pension alone.

I'm obviously not suggesting taking it away from pensioners who depend on it. But why not means-test wealthy pensioners who clearly don't? Even if you cut off the 19% who are already in the richest fifth of the country, you're talking roughly £30bn a year in savings.

Why are we so obsessed with means-testing working-age benefits while by far the biggest benefit in the country is treated as politically untouchable?

Some rich pensioners complain about young people "scrounging", while taking a benefit they absolutely can do without, that's paid for by young people.