I had a very rough transition to secondary school. I went to one I absolutely hated initially, and in hindsight I should have left within the first month, rather than staying until christmas and having a bloody terrible time. It was hierarchical, claustrophobic, and the complete opposite of my personality. I still can’t look at the school when driving past it.
My advice would be to talk to her, and be aware that if it doesn’t work out at this particular school, it is easy and common to change schools. I changed, settled in at the new place very quickly and my parents said it was like watching a ghost come back to life. I “downgraded” insofar as I went from a very successful school to a less successful one, but I had much more fun, and actually ended up achieving higher grades than anyone at the old school anyway. The school needs to fit the personality of the child.

When you realise your parents don’t really know what the hell is going on either.

I had a month on my own recently away from hometown. It can get lonely quite quickly, if you don’t have a wider support system around, like friends, or even people to chat to down the pub. I moved to a town with the most bland, boring, non-local pubs in the UK, it was impossible to strike up a conversation with any one.
A small amount of human contact (away from work) makes all the difference.
Now I’ve got the opposite problem, living with three generations of one family in a small house.
For my next extended airbnb I am going to stay in the same area, as I know people here.

I popped out for lunch today. The Victorians knew how to run an establishment. Two bar set-up (I could still hear the wailing of the kids in the other section). And I guess back them the kids weren’t allowed in in the first place.
I’m all for venting on here, British people are becoming increasingly rude and territorial over space, infact I’d argue we’ve become the most joyless, passive-aggressive, ugly nation on the face of this fallen rock.
As you were.

Modern cars are so cushioned people don’t realise how fast they are going.
Some people never walk or cycle anywhere, so they have no experience of seeing it from another perspective.
But the main reason is, a lot of drivers are tosspots.
Compulsory self-driving cars can’t come soon enough.

To my knowledge, he didn’t call the police on himself.

I thought he did.

The only point I would make is that this is yet another red flag about the growing hopelessness, anxiety and depression among the UK’s youth.

@richmtb
This article by John Polyani summarises recent developments.
Putin’s development of a megaton nuke is the big game-changer (in response to the submarine, more targetted nukes you mention).
The risk in the current situation is that the US responds by developing its own megaton nukes.

The USA has to learn to let dictators live in peace. If they hadn’t invaded Iraq, and toppled Libya, young Kim wouldn’t feel the need to escalate in the first place.
So many of our contemporary problems come from the fact the US has seriously mismanaged it’s role of “Global Policeman”, and in particular the short-sighted Western desire to “spread democracy” (although this is normally just a sham argument to get the electorate to go along with invading other countries).
When Blighty had an empire, we mismanaged that, but the big gamechanger is nuclear weapons. People have largely forgotten about them since the ending of the Cold War, but in the last 20 years the US in particular has been busy developing a new generation of hydrogen bombs. These things are so powerful they can destroy whole countries, never mind cities.

I can’t really see a way out of Armageddon, I think it is inevitable, it’s just a question of when. But I don’t think it will come down to N Korea; I think the Middle East is where the action will be (as predicted by the good book).

N Korea is not planning to bomb anyone. They’ve seen what happens to other dictatorships when the US wants shot of them, so the young leader is trying to say don’t mess with my regime, as I have the capacity to nuke Japan or S Korea (unlike say Saddam or Gaddafi) if you plan to invade and get rid of me.
So I don’t think anyone is going to nuke anyone else for the moment.
However, the long-term consequences are pretty awful, as Trump will respond by commissioning a new nuclear programme (soon to be followed by Russia, China, Israel, probably the UK) which will lead to classic escalation. Putin admitted by mistake on Russian TV that they are developing a frankly terrifying nuclear weapon which could wipe out the entire Eastern side of the US. Meanwhile the US (thanks to the dominance of the military industrial complex) has been developing submarine-based nukes which can attack any city in the world, with terrifying force.
Throw Iran into the mix and it’s just another excuse for everyone to escalate.

And this is how the world ends, this is how the world ends, this is how the world ends.

When I was about 12, my dad took me into work with him for a few days. I remember him telling me in the car on the way there, “This is the real world. Get used to it.”
It probably had the opposite affect of what he’d intended as I was so scared by the whole experience (it was a frantically busy advertising agency) that I stayed in higher education for as long as possible to avoid the real world.
I’d chime in that many young people have been bought up in a culture which is more centered on emotions/emotional health. That is good insofar as repressing stuff is not healthy, but it can be taken to an extreme, hence the “snowflake” syndrome.
Also, it’s incredibly important to learn to laugh things off and not give a shit.

Remember seeing a thread on here a year or two ago saying the motors had a lower wattage under eu ruling I think?

Yep, it also has a big impact on Dysons, which is why Sir James suddenly became a big Brexiteer.

Looks like our ‘Enry had an issue with the dickhead dust…surprised he lasted that long.

The Big Bang (year 0) supports the Christian account of Creation, The Big Bang (year 1986) supports the Christian idea that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
The Big Bang (2013-) is an increasingly mediocre TV comedy which has no bearing on these Ultimate Questions.

My nephew said to me the other day, “Uncle Badnewz, don’t you think the world would be a better place, if there were no religion and people didn’t hurt each other over it. Then we could all get on and live in spaceships!”
It bought a tear to my eye.
Not because I found it particularly wise, but because he’s 34 years old.

Is it possible that there is a selective pressure that confers reproductive advantage to social groupings? Collective activity with others, and perhaps even the emergence of charismatic leaders might be advantageous to passing on genes.

Yes, it is the case. Religious communities, especially traditionalist ones, have higher fertility rates than non-religious communities. I believe this is known as “The Religious Shall inherit the Earth” phenomena.

I was thinking about evolution last night.
Some religious believers like Francis Collins accept evolution, but from a moral perspective, I think I would have trouble believing that a wholly good God would use evolution to run a universe.
It’s wasteful, for a start, and involves suffering, death, and is overall an pitiless and ruthless process.
Hence I can understand why there is so much resistance to evolution in the US in religious circles; the rise of modern atheism is almost entirely rooted in the discoveries of Darwin and Wallace.

A debt-crisis caused by the reckless practices of the financial sector (encouraged by central banks) has resulted in austerity for the public sector.

That kind of austerity doesn’t work, and it’s entirely unfair to punish people who had no involvement in causing the crisis too.

And since the crisis, central banks have worsened the problem with measures like QE which largely benefit the already wealthy and financial speculators and penalise responsible savers.

We are 10 years into this crisis. What a depressing 10 years it’s been.

Should you be taking on a 25 year mortgage commitment?

Although my current job isn’t secure, I could go back to self-employment and fulfill mortgage obligations. It’s quite an easy transition as the area I’m in is very niche and it’s easy to shift between the two.

@jekkyl, ok thanks, that’s what I thought may be the case.

Thanks. But what if I showed 4 years of self employment, then payslips/salary from current job going back 18 months, then re-activated the company next year?

First saw him in King of Comedy, then looked at his earlier work.
On this one, I agree with the French – one of the greatest comic actors in all of film, with a real hint of menace.
RIP Jerry.

If it is a long-haul for work once a year, then I would medicate for it – on certain anti-anxiety medications, with enough dosage, you simply wouldn’t be able to have a panic attack.
If work demands you fly more than that, then I’d say upfront, I can’t do that, and see what they say, or leave the job.
The manager’s comments were snide and suggests he/she is a bell-end.
In terms of the panic attacks, I think it’s likely you are not afraid of flying but that you suffered a big panic attack in an airport and now your nervous system associates it with danger/fear. Perhaps you could work on that angle with the therapist.

Split, Croatia.

Inland Portugal is a good call.
I often salivate over this website[/url].
Balearics are always going to be expensive.

Roads are too dangerous to me. I never took up the dark side for this reason, and moved to a New Town with cycle paths to pootle along on my town bike.
Glad you are ok, that could have been game over.

Doesn’t sound too bad, I had a hairline fracture on the old fib bone, although it was higher up. It mended itself and I was supposed to be on crutches for over a month but I could get by after two weeks without them, but your fracture is lower down so could be different.

Let’s face it, the only way to settle the issue is a civil war.
We’re probably overdue one in any case.

I think it is 90 percent sure to happen.
The German economy is starting to hit the buffers and as they pull the strings in Europe, a deal will be forced through to ensure German manufacturers retain access to the UK.
This helps strengthen the UK’s hand in negotiations; I think Hammond will end up being PM, perhaps by the end of this year, and his vision of Brexit will prevail.

Big Joe Joyce.
Up Joyce!

@dickyboy thats what i pay a therapist for.
Ive always had issues offloading to friends and family as i feel guilty about it.

@kimbers i thought universities had been open to the free market and increasingly feel like working in corporations

@vinnyeh, that’s a very good point. I used to freelance before moving to a full-time role, but my sales channel was already set-up by a well-established organisation, and the work itself was fairly non-pressure. It was actually the best time of my life work-wise, unfortunately that contract went under, so I had to move to current full-time role.

@njee, you could be right, it’s a company going through your typical restructuring/transitioning process.
If I could get a job at a company which is on the up, then I imagine things could be different.
But then again, don’t most corporates now use performance management, targets, carrot-and-stick neo-mangerial techniques? Part of my problem is I hate being under pressure all the time.
In terms of my domestic situation, I have no kids, no partner, I’ve done this deliberately as I know I have a low-stress threshold and need the freedom to walk away from an unhappy job.

It’s usually people that make things stressful and you have to deal with them whether you’re employed or freelance.

Very true. I suppose with freelancing the idea is you are only working a contract for around 6 months, then you are out of it, and you don’t have to get involved in the politics.

Being able to switch-off is a must for succeeding in the corporate world, or just being a plain old workaholic.

Yep. When I’m under stress I dream about sitting my Finals without having done any revision.

I sat my Finals in 1992.

I have a very similar dream when under stress. Except I’m back at school, but at my present age, my uniform doesn’t fit me, and the teachers haven’t seen me for 2 years and I’m about to sit my A-Levels. That one usually involves waking up in a cold sweat.

My biggest regret in life is that I didn’t take a year out after uni to go travelling.

Print industry has been dying, but I attended an event on the future of retail and one of the speakers said he thought it would grow again.
This is because there is a lot of innovation bridging online-offline, e.g. old-skool style posters advertising gigs, which you can swipe your mobile across to book.
He said a load of print companies have been selling off their printers but they might be worth a few bob soon.

We continue hanging on in quiet desperation, it’s the English way.

This is good news, says Badnewz.

I went from a part-time, low stress job to a full-time, high stress one.
I think I would get lost now on the loop I used to two or three times a week, it’s been that long since I’ve saddled up the mtb.
I’d never go to the dark side for as long as I live in the South East, the road are far too dangerous.

You need a social support system, friends and like-minded people.
Are there any mountain bike clubs you can join locally?
Stress feeds off isolation IME.