Petit Prince

They sure need to do something. Liverpool feels like a warezone and the same goes for Manchester, Birmingham and Wolverhampton judging by what I've seen on TV. I've never been so scared in my life.

It's proper scary. The Cher Lloyd signing one is kinda funny though. Some people probably would use them in these circumstances.

The Apple Store in L1 today :lol: Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Hope you see my point though. I work in retail and I'm on late sometime this week and I'm proper scared that someone's gonna try and loot our shop because we're short-staffed in the evening. Also been advised not to leave the house because my area isn't safe. It really annoys me when people when people make stupid jokes about it. By the way I don't think it would improve the situation if shop owners were allowed to have guns. It would probably only cause more violence on both sides.

I bet you wouldn't be laughing if this was happening in your area!!

They do. The job situation is very difficult around here, I've been looking for full-time work all summer and I haven't anything and I've got a degree and quite a lot work experience. I don't wanna know what like if you leave school with no qualifications... Still I can't believe this is actually happening. Many of them are very young (like 10, 12 year old) and they're destroying their own neighbourhoods.

I've seen it, it must have been terrifying. My friend told me that they tried to break into several houses where her mum lives. I haven't left the house all day, it said on the BBC website that the main road by mine should be avoided and they've looted some shops there apparently. I really hope the Liverpool game will be cancelled if the situation doesn't get any better.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/video/2011/jul/31/haringey-youth-club-closures-video?intcmp=239 This is quite interesting.

Yeah I wasn't suggesting that it's the reason for the riots. I'm sure many of them don't feel represented by the government and they wanna show they're discontent. They don't seem to be attacking symbolic places though, they're mostly looting random shops and destroying their own neighbourhoods.

You might be right actually. Only if one person is working though. I just know that one of my friend's ex-boyfriend was no longer getting any benefits after they started living together. My friend was on minimum wage at the time so it made quite a big difference for them.

True. One of my friends got stopped by the police once and they claimed that they knew him. He's never committed any crime and the police haven't stopped him before either and they didn't apologise properly when they realised that they stopped the wrong person. He certainly felt that they were being racist and I heard similar stuff from the kids I was working with too. It's individuals rather than the police as an organisation but I can understand that people lose their respect for the police if they hear about those kind of things.

^ But we're talking about areas where many people are on benefits so they'd be better off if they didn't live with their partner, no?

Well some of them are obviously taking advantage of the situation. It's rather easy to loot stores if the police are busy in other parts of the city. They might not be making a political statement but the government's still responsible for the social injustice in this country and the lack of opportunities for young people from deprived areas. This has been an issue for many years so I kind of agree with you but I do think the current government made the situation worse (eg cutting funding in the youth sector, education etc). In other news, Liverpool is now on Sky News. I'm proper scared. :embarrassed:

Apparently there's been riots on Lodge Lane/ in the Toxteth area. My friend saw gangs in the street when she was on her way home from work and there is a lot of police presence too. I've read plenty of rumours on Facebook, no idea if it's true. I was supposed to go for an interview in London tomorrow but I don't think I'll be leaving the house. It's all quite scary, it feels like nowhere is safe anymore.

You'll find gang crime in many parts of the UK and certainly in most of the major cities. I'm no expert on this but London seems to be a lot more divided than other cities in the UK. The deprived areas in London are some of the worst in the whole UK. I'm going to be moving to London soon and the one thing I've noticed is that housing prices are more than twice as high while the quality of the houses is in fact worse. It seems to be quite common for students and young professionals to share a room and many people can't afford to rent a flat even if they're working full-time.

I don't like U2. I only know one U2 fan so I wouldn't really be able to comment on their fans. My friend is lovely but he's a bit of a music snob.

Eating fatty foods does help, not sure about the milk though.

Agreed. You should also get a takeaway on your way home and drink loads of water.

I don't think I've spoken to you before but I read some of this thread and I'm sorry to hear things didn't work out. I grew up with a very controlling father and I can relate to your situation. As hard as things are at the moment, the most important thing is that his behaviour doesn't affect your relationship. I'm glad to hear that you'll be going to college soon so you can no longer threaten to throw you out if you don't do what he tells you too. Things certainly got a lot easier for me when I moved out of my parents' house and I hope it will be the same for you. I wish you all the best!

I know nothing about this. However, I've still got some money in a Swiss account that I haven't used in the past three years or so. I converted it into Pounds recently and I realised that I had a lot more in this account than I thought, like £700 more. I couldn't believe it when I saw it because I never actually had a lot of money in this account. The Swiss Franc must have gotten a lot stronger.

Thanks, I'll look into it. I think we're gonna be with Virgin for the internet (not sure about TV) next year so I'll have to see if we can still get the BT deal. The internet's included in the rent so it was the landlords decision. The BBC got back to me. I used to work as a customer service representative for an airline and our emails sounded exactly the same. I didn't expect a personal response off course, just wanted to let them know that I'm very unhappy with their decision.

I agree! It's been the most exciting in a long time. Great race today, I'm really made up for Button! Shame that Hamilton's race got ruined by the wrong strategy tough, could have been a double victory for McLaren. I am hugely disappointed with the BBC's decision to stop showing every race. I watched nearly every race since 1996 and I don't think I'll be able to afford sky next year. :( Something similar happened in Switzerland, where the public broadcaster decided to stop showing F1 a couple of years ago but complaint letters from thousands of fans around the country caused the to reconsider their decision. I complained to the BBC, I doubt it's gonna help but I think the deal with Sky's wrong. Formula 1 is very popular in this country and the interest has probably increased in recent years with two British world champions currently driving in F1 and I think that the TV licence payers should be able to have a say in this. F1 fans who live in the UK should sign this :) http://www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/keepf1onthebbc

I don't know, personally I'd just wait and see what happens. I don't think he'd tell you if he only contacted you because he wanted the guitar and he'll probably get in touch with you after the camp if he wants to see you. I don't what's best to do in your situation, I always mess it up when it comes to those kind of things. If it was me, I'd probably get drunk with him and hope he'll say something and maybe tell him that I like him or something but it's probably not the best idea. You'll feel less shy but he can't be sure if you actually meant what you said (this could also be a good thing though, not sure). Either way, he doesn't seem have changed from what you said and he might not be ready for a serious relationship. :\

I've got the same problem. I applied for a few jobs in Manchester this summer and two companies told me that they didn't consider me because I live too far away. I'm not sure why that's a problem if I'm willing to travel. I will doing my MA in London though so hopefully I'll be able to gain some experience next year.

It's actually quite difficult to find work where I live. Most of the people I graduated with haven't found a job yet.