WTF

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... 233878.ece

Seriously dudes, weak, lame.

lol, that's horrible. Stupid kids (both of em) and completely irresponsible parents. Congratulations, you've allowed your children to ruin their lives and the life of their kid. Woo! Go!

such immense decadence

Well that just says everything about the situation. I have to say though (as wrong as it is to say it), that having lived near Hull for most of my life, this doesn't really shock me (Hull has the 2nd highest rate for teenage pregnancy in the UK).

Council house scutters, nothing but a bloody drain who will probably be living better off than me now.

Council house? Is that like the projects?

err...the internet is a good thing. Apparently yea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_house
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_hou ... ted_States

yep, but that article fails to convey that 99% of those places are filled with druggies, single parents with 3,000,000,000 kids and all eating up our benefits whilst having better houses than those of us who work but somehow make less. (not that I'd want one of those houses but you know).

The plot thickens!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ather.html




what a tramp! Seriously tho Pev, don't kids have anything else to do in the UK but erh, showing each other affection?

I wish I could've been showing chicks my "affection" when I was 13. I just didn't know any chicks slutty enough at that age. And the projects are full of people on welfare and food stamps with dozens of children and plenty of drugs. Though I wouldn't consider them nice by any stretch of the imagination. They're typically full of violence.

Obviously not. It aint like their parents can't afford a computer or games console for them, they're both on benefits, they've probably got 3 tvs

Best bit I read in the paper yesterday was one of the lads claiming to be the father; "Boys used to be allowed to sleep in her bed all the time. I only slept with her the once".

What kind of frigging parent lets boys sleep in their daughters bed at (at the time) 14? Hell my mother didn't even want me and Mole to sleep in the same bed when we went on holiday with them, and I was 19!

The UK has been bad for teenage pregnancy for ages though (mainly via the dozens of single parents on benefits who have 5 kids themselves coz it's a good way to get more benefits). As I said before, Hull (near where I used to live) is the 2nd biggest for teenage pregnancy in the country so the ages don't surprise me in the slightest. The only reason this story has made the papers is because the boy looks 8, which is younger than the youngest father so far (forget, think he was 11 or something).

Heh, funny you should say that. From what I've seen at friends' and girlfriends' families on the shall we say fringes of society, I always remembered one common theme: they have a lot of TV's. All of them. They might not be able to make it to the end of the month with their money, but they have 5 TV's - one in the living room, one for the parents and one for each kid. And when one broke down, replacing it became a priority.

It led me to believe that a lot of struggling people* just have really fucked up financial priorities and would be able to, at the very least, get by without too many problems if they adapated their spending patterns. I can go totally spartan (the lifestyle, not the people ) if the situation requires it...I pretty much lived on sandwiches in my first few months in Prague, simply because I had to be careful financially because I didn't really know how to estimate my income/expense balance in a new country with different currency at first. I think I lost about 15 pounds doing so.

I see the same thing with my father's clients, who's a self-employed physiotherapist. Some of them are on welfare and get the money from the state to pay for the physio sessions - only sometimes when my father goes to actually perform the physio, they turn out to have spent the money on something. Not rarely a new TV or some such.

You know what it is? People trying to fill to void, to dull the pain of their meaningless lives. Or in some cases, feeling guilty towards their children for being poor and overcompensating by buying them expensive clothes/technology/phones they can't really afford.

It's funny how that works. My family was never poor (not rich either but hey) and I consistenly had the crappiest clothes, lowest allowance in high school and definitely didn't get a motorcycle, car or apartment when I turned 16 or 18. I only got a mobile phone when I was 22 (paid it myself). Did that fuck up my social life or popularity? Hardly.

Oh and my future daugher's won't even be kissing anyone before she's with a guy I approve of. Which is gonna be a while!!


*Note: I'm talking about poor-but-not-dirt-poor people here...I do know some people are so poor no amount of money management is gonna help them rise above that. Generational poverty and all that jazz.

yea, I hear you. Growing up we weren't really poor (not when I remember, at least) but I got screwed in the 'free stuff' department. I've also lived very poor, especially when I first got out of the Army and was trying to support several people off my crap ass wage I was making. Now that I'm making better money I spend more on crap that's not strictly necessary, but that's the benefit of making decent money, right? Occasionally I think about just living spartan again to save cash.... but that's no fun.

Oh definitely. I'm spending way too much money now that I actually have it. Some things are totally worth it (L4D), others not so much.

Gonna cut down on fast food...not becoming fat, just too big an expense.

I'm a cheap bastard on anything that doesn't involve girls or games, I'm afraid. My friend chided me last week for refusing to go bowling with them (at first) because I didn't want to spend any more cash after buying a new 60€ cell phone.

me: "Dude I just spent 60€ on a new phone!!"
they: "60€? That's totally cheap, you whiney cheap-ass fucker"

In the end, I stayed and beat their asses at bowling. But still.

jeez, you really are a cheap ass bastard. A nice cell phone is totally worth spending cash on imo. hehe. I think I could do without my massage club membership, though.

I'm pretty bad, I grew up pretty spoiled. But, there have been times when I have been on my own that I was seriously poor. I remember supporting myself with only $20 bucks a week for food for myself, 2 dogs, a cat and cat litter. It was awful. I pretty much had bread, off brand cheese slices, butter, ramen noodles, milk and eggs. And my dogs had to eat off brand dog food which I felt awful about. But they still got their shots and monthly medications. It was hard but I know I could do it if I had to do it again.

But, with that said I am much happoer when I get my nails done, get a massage, and get to do a little shopping. As long as I am putting some money in the bank each month and paying all my bills I see no harm. Wish I made more money though!

Yea, I wish you made more money too. I wish I made more money. Double what I'm making now would be nice... I'd like to be able to afford to buy a nice house. especially with the market all saturated the way it is.