Just to throw an aside in, when exactly did children have to have everything on a plate without an ounce of effort from themselves
I think it's very easy for people of a certain age to be very cynical about the younger generation and their outlook, but my Dad owned some disgracefully unsafe rustbuckets 'back in the day' when most people didn't wear seatbelts. The highlights include a Hillman Hunter with an aerial longer than a double decker bus and a Ford Cortina which developed a massive hole in the floor upon driving through a large puddle.
If the worst we're dealing with these days is some worn tyres and questionable bass tubes then we're doing alright.
Most young people now don't seem interested in cars admittedly, but thankfully there's still a good minority who are still fanatical.
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I think it's very easy for people of a certain age to be very cynical about the younger generation and their outlook,
When exactly are they supposed to learn to spread their own wings and fly, overprotective indulgent parents do them no kindness by spoiling them, giving them unrealistic life expectations.
If their parents continue to fund them and provide everything their children will usually take it, in some ways be daft not to, just as in other walks of life where if everything (usually money) is provided for no effort one can hardly blame the recipient for taking it.
Oggle's right to point out these things, if things like tyres haven't been checked or fixed one can only wonder at the state of the brakes suspension etc.
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I taught both our sons to check oil water and tyres..
And the benefits of regular maintenance.
Helped them choose cars. Paid nothing.
Blame the parents.. If they can't be bothered to help...
Ps if you point it out and they do nothing, tell the police. They might.
Edited by madf on 10/11/2014 at 11:49
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You cannot expect youngsters to keep a check on their cars when its obvious that most experienced drivers don't bother either. If they have never seen their parents check things why would you expect them to do any different.
A few weeks ago we were parked next to an A class Merc at the gardencentre. Couple in late middle age had parked the car. The car was a 52 plate and looked very clean but one thing jumped out at me, the rear tyres had huge cracks in the sidewalls, they were as wide as the tread. It obviously had not happened over night, probably the original tyres. Just hope it gets picked up on the next MOT.
Take our numpty neighbours (I wish someone would). Son claims to be a car mechanic with his own business. He supposedly maintains their car. Every year it fails the MOT and its on stupid things like tyres, lights, wipers etc. If he looks after customers cars as well as his mothers what does he do for his money.
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When exactly are they supposed to learn to spread their own wings and fly, overprotective indulgent parents do them no kindness by spoiling them, giving them unrealistic life expectations.
Well in the first half of your paragraph you talk about spreading wings and flying, but by the end of it you're saying they should have low life expectations and basically, it's that British disease of 'the sooner you realise life is s*** the better.'
'I had a s*** life, so yours must be just as bad, just to keep you rounded.'
No wonder the country is ruined.
If I had kids I'd do everything possible to keep them as far away from the drudgery of going to work purely to stop the council putting them in prison or to stop the electric company taking them to court for as long as humanly possible.
Only live once.
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If I had kids I'd do everything possible to keep them as far away from the drudgery of going to work purely to stop the council putting them in prison
So you would encourage them not to work?
The council will not put them in prison, that would be the courts if it were proven they were law breakers.
or to stop the electric company taking them to court for as long as humanly possible.
They would only take them to court if they did not pay their bills.
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If I had kids I'd do everything possible to keep them as far away from the drudgery of going to work purely to stop the council putting them in prison or to stop the electric company taking them to court for as long as humanly possible.
Only live once.
Hopefully you won't.
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So you would encourage them not to work?
No. I didn't say that. Bring your reading glasses and you'll see that.
Of course I'd want them to have good jobs but I'd hope they could spend their money on nice things rather than just working purely to pay council tax and stay out of prison, as that's what far too many people end up doing with their lives which is rather depressing really.
Like I said, it's very much a British middle aged disease that we want everybody to have just as s*** a life as we've had, because that's fair.
We have a strange take on 'fairness' in this country. It's quite curious really.
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Some of us middle aged, and older, folks have learned by our own and others mistakes.
We may not know all the answers but some things most of us will agree on are..
1. do not borrow money to buy a depreciating asset.
2. two things only are guaranteed in this life, death and taxes, hopefully you can defer the first and minimise the second.
3. the day you pay the last mortgage instalement is one of the most liberating days of your life, THEY no longer have you by the cobblers from that moment.
Spending money on nice things is great, so long as its balanced against providing a secure future and home for yourself and your family.
Teaching your children, and leading by example, how to make economies wherever possible is part of a parents responsibility, any fool can spend money and have what they might think is a good time, some has been celebs and previous premiership footballers make fine examples of how not to do it.
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<< No wonder the country is ruined.
If I had kids I'd do everything possible to keep them as far away from the drudgery of going to work purely to stop the council putting them in prison or to stop the electric company taking them to court for as long as humanly possible. >>
It is not automatically true that 'going to work' is drudgery, though I realise there are quite a lot of boring or unpleasant jobs - which many Brits are too proud to take on, preferring to be generous and leave them to 'immigrants'. Of course if the drudgery mindset is already in place and 'benefits' are available, why bother? It's as good a way to ruin the country as any other.
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So you would encourage them not to work?
No. I didn't say that. Bring your reading glasses and you'll see that.
Sorry, looked at it again, what you actually said was
If I had kids I'd do everything possible to keep them as far away from the drudgery of going to work
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So you would encourage them not to work?
No. I didn't say that. Bring your reading glasses and you'll see that.
Sorry, looked at it again, what you actually said was
If I had kids I'd do everything possible to keep them as far away from the drudgery of going to work
No. Sorry., Try again.
Bring your reading glasses. If you've lost them, then use that zoom function available on most browsers.
You've cut the second half of the sentence to make it look like what you wish I said.
Looking for a job with the Daily Express are we?
Edited by jamie745 on 10/11/2014 at 16:05
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Gordon here believes young people need to lower their life expectations but I think millions of them already have depressingly low - or zero - aspiration anyway which is a problem. It's probably more true in families where they see their parents slave away but get nowhere. People need to have a sense that what they're doing is worthwhile or else they simply won't put the effort in and that's true of every age group.
I'm lucky in the way I've generally had jobs I really don't mind going to, mainly because I get to work almost on my own and have reasonable autonomy, but I'm not most people. It's unrealistic to expect every job to be fun or enjoyable, but the whole point of going to work should be so as you get to do the things you want to on weekends. If you can't, then what's the point?
People can bleat about politicians, welfare systems, immigrants, education and all the other things they already had a bee in their bonnet about, but there's only ever been one way to get people do to more stuff for you.
Pay them more.
Money talks.
Anyway, who was the spanner with these ridiculous wheels on this VW? He should be locked in a fridge.
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<< Gordon here believes young people need to lower their life expectations but I think millions of them already have depressingly low - or zero - aspiration anyway which is a problem. It's probably more true in families where they see their parents slave away but get nowhere >>
I'm afraid Gordon may be right. His generation (and mine) were the lucky ones, and the younger generation may have to get used to the possibility that they may be less lucky. A hundred years ago most people expected things to continue as they knew them, rather than automatically getting better. Getting ahead usually meant making an effort, e.g. being bright enough to get into grammar school, or else night classes. It has only recently been assumed that if you get a job at 16, after working a year or two you will be on a 'proper wage' and can do what you want at weekends, run a car, etc. Usually a few years saving was needed.
The missing ingredient is learning to live with delayed gratification. Today it's all me-me, now-now.
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This thread reminds me of someone whose little princess didn't like the used fiesta she was given when she passed her test, She had a couple of accidents in it and it got repaired at daddy's expense. She then decided that she would no longer bother to check the oil level and drove it until it more or less seized up.
Then daddy bought her a nice new shiney car, Which she wanted.
I can only say, She is lucky she is not my daughter because she would be walking alot.
As someone has already said, It's not just the young. There are plenty of people who drive and never do any checks on their cars. Many of them probably never have them serviced either. I have two male relatives (not young) who have both destroyed engines through their own ignorance. One seized an engine after the oil feed pipe to the turbo burst and they thought that the "STOP low oil level" warning was for less important people than himself.
The other destroyed an engine while trying to drive 60miles with no coolant in the engine due to a burst pipe - He thought he would fix it when he got home.
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The other destroyed an engine while trying to drive 60miles with no coolant in the engine due to a burst pipe - He thought he would fix it when he got home.
I love the idea that an ignoramus who thinks that is a good idea, also thinks they are capable of fixing it themselves. Delsuional muppet.
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The other destroyed an engine while trying to drive 60miles with no coolant in the engine due to a burst pipe - He thought he would fix it when he got home.
I love the idea that an ignoramus who thinks that is a good idea, also thinks they are capable of fixing it themselves. Delsuional muppet.
He is the same ignoramus who filled a mini 850 with 4.5 GALLONS of engine oil !! followed a couple of days later by him showing me how he could put it on ramps - Result was a mini with the ramps under the floor, Front wheels still spinning in the air, With him still sat with foot on throttle while me and a couple of mates were stood laughing at him. Complete numpty with cars.
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I'd guess if you pulled the average privately-owned motor you'd see plenty of tarry oil, dodgy tyres and much else besides. Not so easy to tell Big Barry from over the road with his 52-plate S-class that souds like it has had the rear suspension bushes removed and placed in the cylinder head that you're checking his dipstick whether he likes it or not and will be passing judgement on him personally depending on what you find.
The OP is doing these people a favour of course, but the thread has taken a more malign tone. A bit less of the youngster-bashing would be useful- the young are presented pretty much incessantly by certain sections of the media that they are workshy incompetents with debased educations who deserve nothing more than a zero-hour employment, while simultaneously being milked dry via outrageous housing costs to fund the lifestyles of others who were clever enough to have been born a few decades prior.
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If I had to get political I'd say the idea that all young people are useless is a very modern message, put out about 10 years ago by the Government to cover up the fact they'd just let 1million Poles in and there was nothing they could do about it.
'Well we need all of these Poles because the young working class are useless.'
They weren't useless in 2003, before the Poles gained unrestricted access, but overnight in 2004 they were suddenly useless.
Can't help but notice the potatoes still got picked and the cabbages didn't rot in the fields in 2003, before the Poles were allowed in with zero restrictions, but now they say the potatoes would all rot and the supermarket shelves would be empty if it weren't for these people.
On the subject of car maintenance, I was chatting to my independent mechanic who I've always taken cars to and he said most of his work these days is recovery work. Nobody spends money on preventative work for their cars anymore, like winter checks or servicing. They just pay out massive bills when it goes bang and fishing broken cars out of ditches with 'check engine' lights is three quarters of his work.
People of all ages these days just don't give a toss.
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Nobody spends money on preventative work for their cars anymore.
That does seem to be more and more common thesedays.
People now seem to think differently about cars. I remember telling a young woman that she should have her timing belt changed on her 11year old car, Her reply was basically she wasnt going to waste money on it and if it broke she would just buy a new car.
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It's hard to know how much to help your children. I taught both my sons to drive and we bought them a £500 car each. They pay the insurance and running costs. On the one hand I could have told them to earn the money to do it all themselves, but on the other hand, they have both benefited from getting jobs where their own transport is vital. They have friends who can't drive and that has restricted the jobs open to them. I'm glad I did what we did for them.
Neither of the £500 cars have ever been cleaned and neither son regularly checks oil and tyres etc. I check them, but not when they are looking. When I found one of them needed new tyres, I asked my son if he had checked his car over recently which prompted him to spot the need for tyres.
And yes jamie, I do want them to have the poo life that I've had. I am being made redundant early next year after 36 years with the same company. I'll leave with two years money and a final salary pension. I've also had a subsidised mortgage and a host of other benefits that colleagues under 30 can't believe. Yes, I wish my sons could have such a tough time. But they won't and so maybe a little guilt drives me to give them a helping hand occassionally.
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Out of interest Chris, what do you do? I ask as a 30 year old who's already had 7 employers and can't imagine spending 36 years in one place. What sort of job can you stay in for 36 years then be made redundant from?
The 'I want your life to be as poo as mine' is a mindset which actually seems to extend to everybody except your own kids. Even the most cynical, grumpy, 'bring back 'anging' folk will do anything to help their own kids, while at the same time complaining everybody elses kid is a spoilt waste of space.
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Crikey OP you've opened the floodgates to some bitterness, loathing and small minded musings here. Anyway back to the subject, eldest son no interest in cars whatsoever, would never check oil, tyres think of servicing or MOT, it's just transport. Younger son, loves cars, religiously checks everything, regularly cleans inside and out. We pay all running costs so lack of maintenance by eldest is just lack of interest. Both very lucky how reliable and well made modern cars are.
Couple of other points why would you not provide the best opportunities you can for your kids, make them aspirational that way they will make the effort. Don't bleat about how rubbish work is set an example by changing things you're not happy about.
Why single out the Polish, those who have had the courage to seek opportunity and move to a different country deserve praise. As a UK citizen we have more opportunity than most to do exactly the same.
Borrow money by all means to buy a car if it's what you want, it's not an asset though GB why would you think it is?
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A lot of people are very lucky that modern cars - anything from late 90s onwards really - are very well made and don't go wrong easily. That woman who hasn't had a cambelt change on the 11 year old car will likely still get years of trouble free travelling before it does explode spectacularly in a shower of valves, cogs and springs. Considering the British used to be ripped off on cars due to having RHD, we now have a very good used market in this country with decent cars available freely for £2k.
We may live in an age where officialdom does everything in its power to restrict car use and effectiveness, by stealing all of the motorists money and throwing it at trains and buses which still don't work and are still overpriced, but the irony is it's probably never been easier to have a car - putting aside harsh insurance conditions in the inner cities.
Why single out the Polish, those who have had the courage to seek opportunity and move to a different country deserve praise.
Well I didn't blame the Poles themselves and I have no problem with them personally, my point was two fold; there's too many of them here and even more critically, there's nothing the Government can do about it if they wanted to, because Britain doesn't have borders anymore, they're not immigrants, because immigrants have to apply for access. Almost 500 million people from 27 other countries have automatic entitlement to live here. That's not an immigrant.
My problem is purely based on numbers. You cannot increase the population by the size of Reading every year and expect everything to be fine, and it isn't.
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<< We may live in an age where officialdom does everything in its power to restrict car use and effectiveness, by stealing all of the motorists money and throwing it at trains and buses which still don't work and are still overpriced, but the irony is it's probably never been easier to have a car .... >>
Officialdom doesn't need to 'restrict car use' - so many people 'use' their cars that they seem surprised by how choked the roads are as a result. There is no easy solution to this as long as the car population grows at a faster rate than the available tarmac - which certainly cannot be made to catch up.
As for trains and buses - if there aren't enough, it follows that it will need still more money to provide more. I suspect too much goes to 'shareholders' after privatisation, but people demand high safety standards and expect the cost of those (e.g replacing level crossings with bridges) to come from thin air. New rolling stock has to be paid for too - and you won't like that most of that comes from abroad.
Your grumbles are understandable, but please let us know how your solutions?
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Drd63:
Ask a divorce lawyer whether a valuable car is an asset or not.
Hmm?
And Jamie has a bit of a point:
Even though we have it a LOT better in the UK than in many countries, from the amount of homework that gets rammed at my PRIMARY school kid, it does at times feel that the government just sees us all as cattle: Once born, you are force-fattened on education in the hope that you’ll get a well-paid job so as to maximise the government’s tax revenue harvest. Much of a true childhood is out the window nowadays, and then they also keep increasing the age at which you’re allowed to be put out to grass in retirement.
And that’s a ‘life’.
A few get to be rich enough to get to be able to do what they want all day.
Many more are ‘useless’ enough that they get everything provided for them and thus get to do pretty much what they want all day.
The vast majority are trapped in the struggle just to continue getting through their lives while being harvested for tax. And a very large portion of those people will never be able to attain jobs that they truly love doing.
At times I’ve seriously considered telling my lad: “Look, don’t bother fretting about an education: Get to 16 or 17, try and find a girl you think you’ll actually be able to stand living-with long term, create a baby, and then go crying to the Welfare that you need a house and everything paid. Just make sure that you perform poorly-enough in any mandatory job interviews that you don’t get taken-on, and you’re sorted. You may not be able to afford a car, but just about everything else will be provided for you gratis. You can spend your days going for a walk or cycle in the countryside, writing poetry, painting landscapes, learning a musical instrument, avidly-following the stock market so you can make a killing with a modest outlay, writing a novel, etc etc.
THAT is much more like ‘a life’, is it not?
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I love your comments Handcart - if only it was as simple as that !
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<< A few get to be rich enough to get to be able to do what they want all day.
Many more are ‘useless’ enough that they get everything provided for them and thus get to do pretty much what they want all day.
The vast majority are trapped in the struggle just to continue getting through their lives while being harvested for tax. And a very large portion of those people will never be able to attain jobs that they truly love doing. >>
Handcart, with primary-age kids I presume you are at the rat-race age and perhaps subject to a lot of frustration. But try to imagine life 100 or 200 years ago where, unless you were lucky, you had a life of repetitive hard graft to look forward to - and maybe a shortish one too. Because of 'progress' most tedious jobs today at least are not crippling or hazardous. Why should 21st-century life be a bed of roses?
And many of those who survived to retire didn't last long afterwards. If so many weren't living to 90 or more nowadays the pensionable age might not have to rise.
What has all this to do with small hatchbacks? :-)
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Oh I agree life is a lot better than 100 years ago being down the coal mine at age 7.
My thrust was not so much that, as the state of the continuing inequalities in Britain in 2014. Bankers lining their pockets by bending the foreign exchange rates, and addicts getting a free house and having furniture and appliances that I can't afford. Meanwhile I see my nephew with a degree and a management job really really struggling to buy a first house and then constantly worrying whether it'll be repossessed if he gets made redundant.
It's the same for most people of course, but when I see the homework load my kid gets and the stress it's causing him already even at his young age, I just wonder what it's all for. Surely things should be better than this by now.
And yes it hasn't got too much to do with small hatchbacks, apart from how Jamie steered the thread a bit onto subjects like the drudgery of work and whether the potatoes used to get picked - versus 17 year-olds having a car each.
The hypertarget-led education regime is leading to all (I generalise) 18 year olds having to be be able to afford to run a car to go to uni, but not being able to afford to buy a house once they're in their graduate jobs...
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In answer to your question jamie, an insurance company. I can already sense your blood pressure rising!
Not the same role for 36 years, although there has been a theme running through linking them together. At times it's been good and at times not so good. The last few years have been a drag and if it hadn't been for the benefits, I would possibly have considered leaving. But no one with my benefits would leave voluntarily, so I have positioned myself so that when the inevitable next re-organisation came, I had made myself dispensible.
My replacement has been recruited. He knows nothing about the job I do, but he will be half the price. You will also be pleased to hear jamie, he comes from Eastern Europe. Take a tablet now lad! But good luck to him as I wouldn't have had the balls to up sticks, leaving family and friends, to start from scratch in a foriegn land.
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You're probably getting a good enough deal not to want to challenge it, Chris, but if you're being made redundant there shouldn't be a 'replacement'.
Technically it's the position, rather than the person, that is redundant.
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With a bit of luck Chris might get his cake and eat it, many of my fomer colleagues on the transporters were paid hansomely off, then when the company realised they'd shifted too many out and lost difficult to source skills they re-employed many, kerblinkingching...the asset strippers/resellers who took the company over couldn't spend money, other peoples that is, quickly enough...i have no doubt the same 'competence' is to be found in all industries, the bigger the more likely, hope it works that way for Chris if he wants it.
To answer a few points from the thread,
Yes we help our children, but as much by guidance and making them responsible, giving them all irrespective of whether they can be bothered to care for it isn't for me.
Turning our children into good little taxpaying drones, getting well paid jobs and then spending it all on the good life (lots of lovely tax and VAT take for the govt of the day to waste) isn't going to provide them with a secure future for them or their own families.
Sometimes hitting themselves in the pocket is the best way they can learn, when their mistakes or neglect costs them hundreds or thousands of pounds they arn't quite as flippant as when bank of mum and dad just shrugs and replaces the last discarded unappreciated toy.
Just to put things in perspective, about 100 years ago some teenagers weren't too bone idle or spoiled to look after their free car all ex's paid, they were hunkered down on The Somme dodging bullets and shells desperately trying to stay alive, i wonder what they would say now.
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Many of the smart young lads that I teach have cars bought for them. Very few of them have even a Saturday job, and they are shocked when I tell them I didn't learn to drive until I was 24 because I couldn't afford it and my parents would never have been able to, or want to, cough up for that sort of thing. They are very 'easy come, easy go' and apply this attitude to everything, from lab equipment in class to cars. When did we change attitude? I am barely half a generation away from these lads in age.
They also don't know anything about cars and judge them based on looks and noise. Not all, but most!
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Yes Avant, I am aware of that. But my replacement will only be doing part of my job and will be a lower grade. Because I've been there so long I get called upon to do other things. At present, I'm covering for someone on long term sick leave. I taught that person to do the job and if I wasn't there, the Company would be in a bit of a fix. Won't be my problem soon! This re-organisation is all about saving money. The same amount of work is there, but they want it done cheaper.
It's a possibility I could be called back GB on a 'project', but I'm not sure I'd want to. There's no bad feeling about my redundancy as it was my preference and the Company were able to accomodate my wish.
P.S. Why is it that whilst I "reply to this message", it ends up at the bottom of the thread?
Edited by Chris M on 12/11/2014 at 20:06
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For better or worse, the software arranges the messages chronologically. But there's no problem if - as you did very clearly - you leave it in no doubt as to which post you're replying to.
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