Smuel's good morning extravaganza

Darude- Sandstorm.

 

While entertaining yesterday, my guest mentioned a "hard shandy", mixing lager with an lemon flavoured alcopop rather than the standard lemonade. Feeling outrageous, I instead mixed IPA with the lemon flavoured alcohol.

The results were.. delicious. The resinous hoppy flavour of the IPA is perfectly matched by the citrus and sweetness the alcopop can bring, making it very refreshing. I think the drink should be called a Jojobobo.

Bottomline, you should all get a little Jojobobo in your mouths at the next available opportunity. I'm going to spend a lot of the day getting Jojobobo into my own mouth.

Good morning, and Good Friday. Bow to Britain, Sweden and Oz's antiquated religious public holidays, America.

...apart from the 12 states that do celebrate it as a state holiday.

 

Who founded MicroProse and mow the lawn? Zitmaaier (ride-on motor mower in Dutch)

And good morning.

 

See two posts below for the spoiler tag reasoning, then carry on if you like to read things that make the world seem like slightly a less brighter place...

Spoiler

Just heard my downstairs neighbour call her granddaughter a "fucking little bitch", an "arsehole", repeatedly a "fucking idiot" and mimicking the kid's voice while she was crying in derision. It has certainly got my blood up.

I'm not sure whether to threaten our child protective services in a letter, or just contact the services directly, or what. I guess the easiest thing is to let it slide as I'll be moving when I finish my PhD or possibly even when I'm writing up in the next few months, but despite it being easier I wouldn't feel good about myself for doing that. I think my neighbour is extremely pathetic beyond being a terrible person, so she would likely correct her behaviour just from a strongly worded letter because it's more stress for her to confront me over it. I think if it was the kids' own parents I would be fine contacting the NSPCC directly, but I'm not really sure what the normal thing to do the child isn't currently with their parent or guardian - it's not like she lives with the neighbour. With Zanza being a policeman, I thought either him or some of you might have a better idea of what to do with a view of the law.

The kid seems to have bounced back pretty quickly, so I can only assume this is all normal to her, which is depressing.

Child abuse

[A puppy and kitten frolic] is always the cheeriest way to kick off a good morning.

 

It would appear I'm having a better morning than you.

Good morning?

 

Spoiler

I would say so Philes, I would say so.

I decided to grow a pair and give the NSPCC a call, and they told me unless I knew the child's name or home address there was nothing they could do, and likewise with the social services. I did say I knew both the names of my neighbours (and I think it would be their son's daughter, so presumably he and the child would likely have one of those surnames), but they said they don't pursue information like that as the son could have changed his name and, again, neither would social services. I guess it's a little too much like hearsay after a point.

They said my most effective option is ringing the police when it happens (as ringing the social services when this kind of stuff happens just amounts to themselves ringing the police), but they acknowledged even if I did request to be anonymous my neighbours would know it was me and I would be shitting on my own doorstep.

I guess if they commit something egregiously horrible (something physical) in my ear shot against one of the kids, then I would ring the police, but really the main problem is likely the kid's own parents (as I said, she bounced back quickly, so I'm sure they get the same somewhere else) so snitching on the grandparents who only give them occasional misery doesn't really achieve much in practical terms. Maybe I should just pop round and ask, "Hey, you know that kid you called a 'fucking little bitch' this morning, could you give me her full Christian name and address?"

My only options are now confront them directly, or just let it slide. I think they are receptive to direct confrontation as they're essentially miserable wretches who want their heroin fun-time to last forever, so if they can minimise hassle and I'm hassling they will back down (I think I mentioned on here I confronted them about being heroin addicts, just going mental at them nothing physical, and entirely stopped giving me any grief - which was a huge plus). However, the trouble is with those sort of people there's obviously a line where if I cross it they'll find the amount of hassle I'm giving them overwhelming and ring the scumbag relatives to sort me out. I'm guessing if I get external agencies involved in their lives then they probably wouldn't take much pushing to come to that.

My initial visceral and emotional reaction to hearing that through my floor was to play her at her own game by going round there and repeatedly punching her in the face until she learnt child abuse is not okay. As I haven't done that, and there's pretty much fuck all else I can do, I guess I'll have to chalk this one up to Child Abusers 1 - Decent Society 0.

Doesn't that give you a warm feeling inside?

A pretty bitter unpleasant morning, all told.

EDIT: I mean, I decided what can only be described as my misery wave was a little too depressing even for this forum. Retro spoiler tags are in effect, divulge in for that feeling of sadness you always thought you were missing, and good morning!

 

Now I'm sad. That just sounds like a bad situation. There are some things in this life which are out of our control, and whether or not this situation is one of those is something you'll have to decide for yourself. Just don't shoot yourself in the foot doing it.

Good morning.

 

I decided not to go further with it unless there is a worthy police situation; when the male ex-partner of that equation is around (presumably the grandfather, but I'm not sure) he reprimands her for speaking out of turn and he also seems fine and reasonable with any grandkids that stay over - the trouble is on the occasions when he's not over and she thinks it okay to be a psycho. The parents, from me watching them as they drop kids off, seem perfectly middle class - so probably my thoughts of the girl rebounding too quickly are baseless.

I guess there's also elements of my own end of PhD frustrations colouring my judgement, and the fact I hate her and I think she's the kind of person who could only make the world a better place by being in prison. Facebook is never any use for things like this, I don't want the bleatings of people who don't really know me very well spouting their opinions when they don't give a care to approach anything logically in the first place. It's why I hate social media in general.

Still, she was extremely out of line and it does constitute abuse, and I would have took a lot of pleasure in hammering on her door and if she answered shouting at her about how pathetic she was until I made her feel like a small person - which she fundamentally deserves to feel like. It's very strange how such a loser can warp the people around her so that she still has sway over them, why her ex-longterm partner still stays usually daily I do not know (I think she must hold something over him) but she treats him like literal shit even though she sits at home all day and he earns money for the both of them. Even if I was someone had got themselves indebted to her, there would be literally no amount of guilt that could make me revisit someone like that.

In any case, I'll endeavour to keep my sour attitude out of the Good Morning thread as I've made decidedly too many posts along those lines recently.

Good morning.

 

Indeed. Actual descriptions of people's mornings have no place in this thread.

Good morning.

 

Good [insert appropriate time] to the people here. Other people's mornings does not count.

 

Sorry I didn't see this sooner mate. Contacting the police during the incident is the best course of action usually, especially if there is violence involved. You can chalk it up to an argument that sounds like domestic violence, we take those calls very seriously over here.

As for the child services, poor form on their behalf if they did not take the report due to a lack of some details. If you can tell hem the address and even the name of the offending person, they would be required to liaise with Police or other services to gather the rest of the details. Over here Care Youth Protection Services (CYPS) can request we check the welfare of a person or premises and then report back to them. Once they know there is no danger to them they can then do checks themselves.

Inbox me if you have any further questions or need advice. Our legal system and procedures are similar but of course there will be differences.

 

Thanks for the info. As I mentioned I think I'll now leave things as they are, unless there is a situation where I suspect domestic violence is at play. The kid isn't round there often, and when he ex-partner is there (which he usually is, he practically lives there and only occasionally will overnight somewhere else) he dishes out punishment in a responsible way using authority and not raising his voice, etc.

The NSPCC is actually the leading children's charity in the UK, rather than the actual social services, but when they have slogans like, "Don't wait to know a child is in danger, call us today..." I did expect something more than for them to do absolutely nothing. Maybe if I had contacted the social services directly instead I would have got better results, but the NSPCC mentioned that the response would have been the same from them, so I'm not sure.

I guess hopefully one day how she acts will catch up with her. A few months back she was threatening to stab her partner, and also to gouge his eye out. I thought it was oddly specific she'd stop at just the one eye, personally. I guess if she does escalate their toxic situation at least she'd be put in prison which, as she literally makes the lives of everyone around her worse, I'd say is the best place for her.

Good morning.

 

If we're sharing horror stories, I stubbed my toe recently.

Good morning.

 

At least you didn't step on a Lego

 

It's good to know that the French aren't jumping on the foot-shooting bandwagon.

Good morning.

 

It annoys me that although a lot of the EU countries have massive anti-EU sentiment, it was only Britain that actually put it to a vote and so only us that have made massive bellends of ourselves by letting either by-gone era bigots or massive idiots (who likely are the children of/swayed by by-gone era bigots) win such a momental vote based on what was at the time pure madman conjecture and jingoism. How can so many people just sit there and think, "Hey, well people talk big on this globalisation thing, but I'm sure it's just a fad. Europe will revert back to pre-WWII era posturing soon enough and abandon all the social and economic benefits globalisation can bring, so we'll stay ahead of the curve. You'll see soon EU, mark my words!"? We're just going to be an eternal laughing stock as people who didn't realise the way the tide was going (though, let's face it, just shy of 50% of people did and we're still stuck in a country full of slightly greater than 50% wankers).

Although the France election was fought along the lines partisan politics, it's not like they're going to have a referendum EU vote like we did, which would have been much closer than their election. So fuck France for their sensible politicking, and fuck us more for our stupid decision that about half of us didn't make - and even if no one decides to fuck us anyway all of Britain is already literally fucked. Fuck.

Good morning. And you better vote Lib Dem, Smuel, or I will find you and bite you. It's literally an unwritten party rule, find someone and bite them until they vote for the Lib Dems. Take that for a threat!

 

So that's why nobody turns up at your parties.

Good morning.