England

[Lang Spoon]

Spoony reckons the best club nights were Friday rather than Sunday. Deary, deary me.

I never said I was fashionable or in any way socially adroit. But I preferred crap pills at Slam on Friday to the fucking Garage on Thursday unlike most of the yahoos and stray hooray Henrys/Frasers in my halls in first year.

[Sporting]

I have a great relationship with my parents now. But a lot of that is due to getting distance from them in late adolescence and growing the fuck up. It gaff be e me perspective and took the oppositional nature out of the relationship

Maybe he would disagree (though I don't think so) but I'd say our relationship with our son is first class. And I know we're not alone among parents in this.

[Lang Spoon]

I take it you're assuming that somebody who doesn't know what hurling is wouldn't know about shinty either given that the quickest description is that it's exactly like shinty. BBC Alba show a lot of games and it's very watchable but I have no idea how any of the players still have all their own teeth

I'd never even assume Scottish people know what Shinty is, back in the day it was very rare you'd ever have the chance to see a game live or on tv in my bit of the central belt.

[Lang Spoon]

Maybe he would disagree (though I don't think so) but I'd say our relationship with our son is first class. And I know we're not alone among parents in this.

im sure he would agree, and I was only speaking for what I needed at 18. I did get the general impression in Spain though a load of lads were very very happy being mammied at home well into their twenties and seemed not very grown up at all. Spanish women on the other hand, seemed extremely mature despite also living with their parents in the main. But I got the impression their brothers got pampered in a way they weren't.

[Toby Gymshorts]

I'm an April to October shorts man. As Balders sez, climate change. No football colours though. Also anything 16+ feels warm to me so it's no geordie stereotype style machismo.

Yep, this. I'm wearing shorts now (WFH thanks to train strikes, and I genuinely do mean "thanks", there) and it's apparently 17 degrees.

I do wear football shirts, but only around the house.

[Sporting]

im sure he would agree, and I was only speaking for what I needed at 18. I did get the general impression in Spain though a load of lads were very very happy being mammied at home well into their twenties and seemed not very grown up at all.

All true. Maybe our son has benefitted from having immigrants as parents and being armed with the knowledge that we are always there for him but perfectly happy for him to leave home. While at university he's going to look for part-time work as he doesn't want to be a burden on us, even though he knows he'll get all the financial support we can give.

[My Name Is Ian]

I'd never even assume Scottish people know what Shinty is, back in the day it was very rare you'd ever have the chance to see a game live or on tv in my bit of the central belt.

I mentioned playing shinty at school a while back on social media, thinking it might have been some weird little thing that only our junior school did it on account of having a Scottish teacher, and was surprised at how many replies I got back from people roughly the same age as me in the South of England saying they used to play it at school too.

[Lang Spoon]

That's amazing. We got cricket (which was a bit weird in a then just about post-industrial central belt town comprehensive)and no shinty.

[slackster]

I’m in West Wales, but it feels little different to much of provincial England.

Much large scale infrastructure is wobbly and deteriorating: the NHS is ailing from GPs thru to Hospitals; state schools repair is seriously underfunded; public transport is poor and buses virtually non-existent at evenings/weekends; social care is as rare as hens-teeth around our way. The condition of roads and what rail services there are aren’t so bad, tbh, and the council seems obsessed on repeated spot-fixing minor lanes/keeping verges mown on trunk routes.

But it’s the depressing degradation of local public spaces I notice: public loos in town/village centres are disappearing quickly; parks and pavements are left to go to seed; public buildings and surrounding spaces are not maintained well unless they are a tourist honeypot; work starts on a site but takes ages to finish leaving cone and orange barrier eyesores dotted around; High Streets are left to rot whilst edge of town malls/superstores that need a car to visit are still being approved despite empty unsold/unlet units. In short, local infrastructure/street scape all looks noticeably much more untidy and uncared for than it used to - away from tourist hotspots where visitors can be gouged.

And nearly everyone moans about all this, but not many make the connection to the steadily shrinking public funds allocated to deal with it.

[as for shorts, they go on/come off when the clocks change]

[Greenlander]

Shorts in late September in the UK?

Too right. And October, November, December. Not forgetting January, February, March and then it's Easter and then everyone's wearing them.

It's my Bermudian heritage.

[San Bernardhinault]

I'm a shorts when it's warm person, although I don't remember being shorts-in-Britain in October. I fully understand shorts at Gatwick, though. You're flying back from somewhere hot. I personally am not a fan of shorts on planes - bare skin against plane-seats is just uncomfortable - but can see why it happens. Replica kit shirts, though, are not acceptable except in specific environments (playing sport or watching sport, basically) for anyone over the age of about 11.

[treibeis]

I'm a shorts when it's warm person, although I don't remember being shorts-in-Britain in October. I fully understand shorts at Gatwick, though. You're flying back from somewhere hot. I personally am not a fan of shorts on planes - bare skin against plane-seats is just uncomfortable - but can see why it happens. Replica kit shirts, though, are not acceptable except in specific environments (playing sport or watching sport, basically) for anyone over the age of about 11.

The shorts-wearers at Gatwick that I meant were the people picking up family and friends. They hadn't flown anywhere.

[caja-dglh]

I never said I was fashionable or in any way socially adroit. But I preferred crap pills at Slam on Friday to the fucking Garage on Thursday unlike most of the yahoos and stray hooray Henrys/Frasers in my halls in first year.

I get that (though Slam was tiresome real fast). I just took a load of Mondays off and did Optimo.

[My Name Is Ian]

I'm currently waiting at my kids' school to pick them up and can see three men and one woman wearing shorts. With a swirling breeze going on, it doesn't feel like shorts weather to *me*.

That's 25% of the men that I can see from where I'm standing.

But then, it's very seldom shorts weather for me. I've had the same one pair of shorts for about twenty years and they still look surprisingly new because I only put them on for a week every five years or so.

[Toby Gymshorts]

What I don't understand are people who wear long trousers (or worse, jeans) to sit around the house.

I can't think of anything less comfortable.

[JoeysToe]

On the subject of public transport, it isn't just the the lack of routes / services that's an issue, but the lack of joint ticketing. I've spent the last four years commuting about 10 miles by train and cycling at either end. I bought an annual rail season ticket which is relatively good value. Every time I had to catch the bus because of a storm, needing to take something heavy in or a problem with the train, I had to pay over £7 for a day ticket.

Now we have moved, my wife is in an almost identical situation. If you live in a major conurbation, you can usually get a ticket that allows travel on all public transport within that locality. The rest of us have to decide on one form of transport over all others for the next 12 months and rigidly stick to it to make it affordable. There needs to be more fluidity for people living outside the major population centres too.

[WOM]

What I don't understand are people who wear long trousers (or worse, jeans) to sit around the house.

I can't think of anything less comfortable.

My kids feel the same way. I can't think of anything more comfortable. I wear jeans every day of the week (in non-shorts weather). I wore jeans to give both my parents' eulogies.

I should add, I don't wear rough, horrible jeans that 1890s miners would have worn. Mine have a bit of 'give' to them. American Eagle brand, usually. Slim Fit.

[treibeis]

What I don't understand are people who wear long trousers (or worse, jeans) to sit around the house.

I can't think of anything less comfortable.

You can't think of anything less comfortable than sitting on a settee in jeans?

Tart.

[DCI Harry Batt]

I wouldn't wear shorts outdoors in England. But not because I'm too cold.

[WOM]

Ugly legs?

[DCI Harry Batt]

A bit more complicated than that, but more or less, yeah.

[WOM]

Ah, soz.

[sw2borshch]

What I don't understand are people who wear long trousers (or worse, jeans) to sit around the house.

I can't think of anything less comfortable.

Are you counting joggers and trackie bottoms as long trousers?

[Lang Spoon]

Since covid jeans now count as my formal wear. I'm in jogging bottoms wfh when it's too cold for shorts.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Are you counting joggers and trackie bottoms as long trousers?

Probably not, which is where my objections fall apart, really.

Still wouldn't wear them to sit around the house.