Parafox

When I was at work, I was at work and I had to separate that from anything else otherwise it would affected me and my home/family life. Fortunately (?) I'm the kind of person that sees things in black and white and I was able to detach the tragedy, trauma and sadness of other peoples lives, from my own. That's not to say I wasn't affected in the long term and those experiences still haunt me from time to time. I might drive past a location where I attended a fatality or past a house where someone had tragically died and recall the whole incident. (I'm writing this and finding it difficult to express 34 years of random involvement in other peoples crises, trauma and distress, be it serious or relatively insignificant). My immediate family only know what I chose to tell them because Mrs P would never want to hear about it, so the most grim, sad, emotional, unpleasant and sometimes horrific stuff I've experienced, I keep in a closed box in my head, but yeah, I could tell you some stories. I hope that answers your question, at least in part.

I watched the news report on it accompanied by the footage. Toe curling stuff. Then I watched Newsnight and the "interview" with Carla Sands and that was worse.

IBS. When you gotta go you gotta go and there can be very little warning. It's only recently afflicted me and I'm still getting used to the signs. However, I take your point about the rarity of being in that situation.

That's fair enough and I get it from that aspect. I guess I hadn't given it wider consideration other than a personal priority in a difficult and embarrassing situation where I had no choice but to defecate in front of people because I couldn't access an unoccupied, locked toilet. And that was dehumanising for me. It's not just about the space and associated facilities, which is unarguable. It's about the needs of all. Men's toilets aren't locked to keep women out and vice versa. Having toilet facilities for the disabled is absolutely the right thing but to make a functioning toilet inaccessible to the majority for the sake of a minority is unfair and discriminatory.

I was asked a specific question by @Tommy G in the "New Mattress" topic which took an unexpected turn as you'll know if you've looked at it. Following a few posts about abandoned mattresses etc, in front gardens on council estates and then my response, as follows: "We mock but going into such homes and seeing the existence therein would need a whole new topic to describe the squalor and neglect I have personally experienced and I wasn't even a social worker, just a passing presence in an emergency". Tommy G then legitimately asked what was the worst I'd seen with regard to squalor and neglect? I posted this, which I think needs a wider viewing than a mattress topic just to accentuate that poverty and squalor are not that uncommon and are distressing for all involved: Tommy G: Whats the worst you've seen? My reply: A baby born on a filth encrusted sofa that had recently been the birth place of a litter of kittens and was still damp from the animals placenta. The baby had the umbilical cord intact but separated from the mother. Mum was still bleeding onto the sofa, The human placenta had been delivered. Two dogs were sniffing around it. There was no electricity or central heating. The walls in the room were bare plaster that had the old wallpaper scraped off to burn in the fireplace and had subsequently been smeared with animal excrement. Dog and cat food and bodily waste was trodden into the "carpet" and had hardened off so it was more like lino. It was a while ago now but I seem to remember there were 3 adults and 5-6 kids ranging from toddler to young teen also living in the property as well as a number of "pets" including reptiles in tanks. I recall being told that the adults slept downstairs as the floorboards in the main bedroom had been ripped up for firewood. The same reason that were no doors or architraves. The baby girl was born healthy, a good weight and size and was full term. We took baby and her mother to hospital for the baby's safety and made a safeguarding referral. I have no idea what became of any of them but it was so tragic and overwhelming at the time. A part of the real world that not many of us see or experience first hand. Edited 3 hours ago by Parafox

A baby born on a filth encrusted sofa that had recently been the birth place of a litter of kittens and was still damp from the animals placenta. The baby had the umbilical cord intact but separated from the mother. Mum was still bleeding onto the sofa, The human placenta had been delivered. Two dogs were sniffing around it. There was no electricity or central heating. The walls in the room were bare plaster that had the old wallpaper scraped off to burn in the fireplace and had subsequently been smeared with animal excrement. Dog and cat food and bodily waste was trodden into the "carpet" and had hardened off so it was more like lino. It was a while ago now but I seem to remember there were 3 adults and 5-6 kids ranging from toddler to young teen also living in the property as well as a number of "pets" including reptiles in tanks. I recall being told that the adults slept downstairs as the floorboards in the main bedroom had been ripped up for firewood. The same reason that were no doors or architraves. The baby girl was born healthy, a good weight and size and was full term. We took baby and her mother to hospital for the baby's safety and made a safeguarding referral. I have no idea what became of any of them but it was so tragic and overwhelming at the time. Hand Avenue. FWIW.

Disabled toilets that are locked when you're desperate and the able bodied toilets are either occupied or shut. I can't understand why they lock disabled bogs which requires a "radar key" to get access, when we all have to go at some point, sometimes urgently. That's inhumane.

I think he forgets most of it. Can you recall every tweet you put out? And I imagine you're not in the early stages of Alzheimer's

I only found out recently that US police are trained to empty an entire clip, which I think is 7 rounds, into a person if they feel under threat. I think the difference with our firearms officers is that are less likely to be shot at from close quarters whereas in America, most criminals carry and will shoot at police at close range thereby posing a greater threat to life.

My daughter who I have spoken about often on here has now been further diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. There's now way back from this and her life will likely be a roller coaster of sectioning, release into the community, sectioned again and so on. It's heart-breaking to look at the photos we have of her as a child, generally happy yet somehow sad behind the eyes, who we knew had difficulties but never thought she'd be destined to have these MH struggles which we know now will never end for her. For several years she lived pretty independently, had a flat she was proud of, had a companion cat she still loves dearly and was outwardly, doing well. We used to go on weekly shopping trips me and her, dad and daughter together, a coffee and cake or maybe a cooked breakfast. A chat about stuff. She always said she was proud of me being a paramedic and she wanted to do good as well. She worked as a volunteer in a nearby charity shop and a wellbeing cafe for a while. Then over the last few years everything started to go wrong for her, threats to the neighbours, thinking they were breaking into her flat when she was asleep and damaging or stealing her belongings, serious self harm, serious threats to others, outbursts of anger, paranoid thinking and so on. And now were where we're at. We can't have direct contact because of the threat she poses because she hates us and wants us dead and has said she'll stab us if we ever go near her again and in a paranoid schizophrenic phase that's not impossible albeit unlikely. So for now, she is still in a secure MH unit. We don't really know what comes next but to watch someone you have loved from a child to become this kind of "demon", is emotionally indescribable. It's a struggle and more so as I (we) get older and less able to step in. I guess we just have to hand the majority of her life over to the professionals. Not that I have much faith in that prospect.

Or the rusty dog cage. The list goes on. We mock but going into such homes and seeing the existence therein would need a whole new topic to describe the squalor and neglect I have personally experienced and I wasn't even a social worker, just a passing presence in an emergency. I bet the OP wasn't expecting his question to take such a turn.

Whilst you're there you could also get a sofa, a TV stand (sometimes with a TV), a bath, some part worn tyres and a bike frame.

Mrs P is on a diet but I'm not so I have been eating different stuff, things I like. One of the things I like is a lamb chop which I've not had for quite some time. Went to the dreaded Morrisons to get a couple... £9!!!! I mean FFS, £9 for supermarket standard lamb chops. I bought 3 pork loin steaks in a pack instead for £4. We'd got no mint sauce anyway so it's a win in some respects.

Dunno, but he must've done pretty well as he got an open top bus tour:

Costco. Full of 'em.

During a Saturday job when I was about 15 and working at a well know bakery, I pissed in a tub of glacé cherries that were due to be used to decorate cakes. It was only a trickle but another kid said he'd seen me and was going to tell, so I shut him in the giant walk-in fridge until he promised to keep Stumm.

Just for the record, a mild mannered man from Leicestershire has just returned to posting after a ban for posting something he should have known not to. He had no defence and has accepted his sanction, the first ever after 15 years. He would strongly recommend not posting after a bottle of wine. His motto now is, "think before you click, you dick".

Any "link" that requires a login/password before you can access an unknown (to you) site is almost certainly phishing.

Forest 1 down already

Fleetwood Town AFC We Thank you.

The WOAT?

LCFC = Vardy. Vardy = LCFC. There'll never be another in my lifetime. I've shed tears 3 times over LCFC, the first promotion to the PL. The PL title. The FA cup. Times in my life I'll never forget and JV was always going to be the GOAT for me.

Just another shite, rigged, nothing TV show, among so many others.

His nose is on the brown, now he's looking for the pink.

We have 3 bins, one for garden waste, one for recyclable waste i.e card, glass, tins and solid plastics (not those people you see at Old Trafford BTW), and a third for general waste. We can't recycle soft plastics in any form unless we separate them and take to a soft plastics recycling skip or receptacle if we can find one. I'm not one for rooting through my waste to peel off every bit of polythene/shrink wrap/sticky tape from everything that goes in the various bins. Even the wrap around labels on milk cartons has to be removed before the container can go in the recycling. I accept the need but it's a ****ing chore and sometimes I CBA! Also, if the brown bin is for compostable waste like leaves, grass cuttings etc why can't I dispose of vegetable peelings? One time, we missed the recycling collection. I phoned the council to request a special collection as the bin was full. They said just chuck it in the non-recyclable waste. So then, I might as well not bother with the effort of recycling...