Feels like the apocalypse

[housinghero]

Is just me or does it just feel like the bloody end of the world at the moment..

ridiculous heat
water shortages
food shortages
Collapsing government
cost of living
energy prices
impending recession
staff shortgages
risk of fires

We are only just getting over a world wide pandemic- i haven't forgotten that yet....

If I didn't have kids then I would be looking for the nearest tall building.

''Too hot to riot'' someone upthread said.

Dunno about that. Apparently more murders are committed at 33 degrees than any other temp.

It's 33 here today and my temper has been short.

Lets do it!
<riot emoji>

The difference is we didn't have access to news 24/7, we would catch up on the news at ten but rest of day was focused on your own life. Now it's constant barrage through TV, Phone etc

Why can't you just buy a ticket on Trainline?

Love this. You sound like my kind of person 😂

I'm interested about the food shortages thing. Are people genuinely not experiencing a complete lack of particular products or a huge range of 'out of stock' stickers on shelves? Shelves much less full than they used to be? Often, there will be a run of a few weeks/months where we can't get a usual item - not a huge issue, but we tend to buy the cheapest of everything, so definitely having an impact on the shopping bill.
I wouldn't term it a food shortage as such, but definitely a supply/manufacturing issue.

100% this - there’s an awful lot going on at once. I’m pleased there are some who still remain relatively positive - we need that 👍 I’m skint but resourceful and able bodied but how about those who are not? I think the Tories represent an impotent cesspit of privilege and COMPLETE unawareness. I would like to have faith in our leaders 😂😂😂😂😂 Anyone who voted Tory - you fucking well deserve what you get 😁😁😁

I feel lucky. I knew all of my grandparents they were stoic and of an era where they could find a joke or giggle that got them through the war. My dearest nan told me the story of when they were bombed out of their house. Of course it was devastating, but equally she found humour in it. She recalled that her sister wouldn't go to the air raid shelter because of the spiders. When she returned to wreckage there was a spider crawling over the wreckage. Some things are not meant to die she quipped.

I do not underestimate how terrifying life can be at the moment, but as Mumsnet has so often taught me, there is a lot of pleasure and humour around. Oh and never be afraid of spiders.

You say If I didn't have kids then I would be looking for the nearest tall building.

Then you also make flippant comments.

If you are genuinely scared, I hope you can get some mental health support.

But otherwise, please don't make glib comments about committing suicide as a bit of a shocked giggle, to be read by those whose nearest and dearest have done so.

And in the 80s we were told we were heading into another Ice Age

And in the 90’s we were hurtling towards peak oil, but the cfc’s in our fridges and hairspray would probably cause us to be sucked through the hole in the ozone layer first.

Worse still, I used to drink Archers and lemonade.

Well some of these things are ridiculous but hardly the end of the world.

Ridiculous heat - I'm worried about climate change but also its nice that children are getting a proper summer holiday for once. Normally they break up for school and the heavens open, it's nice to hear them playing outside and swimming in the local river.
food shortages - I shop at Lidl and the shelves are certainly more bare but I'm not sure this is the worst thing. For example the last few weeks, rather than there being every type of bread Warburton does and then all those same breads again but in lidl own brand and then French stick, tiger loaf, sourdough, rye bread, bagles, crumpets, seeded load etc. There's been two or three options in stock. We don't need an entire aisle devoted to bread, we can cope.

The other stuff is worrying

it's nice to hear them playing outside and swimming in the local river

are you aware that restrictions have been relaxed for some time about what waste can be disposed of in our waterways? Can’t say I’d let my dc splash about in any river unless I knew for certain what had been going into it.

Nobody was seriously saying this.
There are always extreme ideas knocking about.

But we clearly do have the impact of climate change happening now to us. We will have more issues with drought, more risk of fires during hot weather, more flooding and higher food prices due to adverse weather affecting crops.

Perhaps because for a week all Avanti services have been shown as 'fully booked' on the trainline... You couldn't book Avanti tickets anywhere.
They finally came back up at about 4.30 this evening. Both my outward and return trains next Wednesday are cancelled...
Definitely apocalyptic!

We are an incredible species. We've survived ice ages, floods, drought, earthquakes and the Black Death. Don't write us all off yet. I saw this and marveled at the truth that necessity is the mother of invention:

www.dw.com/en/second-life-for-lithium-ion-batteries/av-62787275

.

Is anyone else getting constant apocalyptic letters?
I got several from the bank this year, with changes in terms and upping of interest rates. I have a fix rate anyway.
Then British Gas keeps sending emails about the direct debit and that I am not paying enough. But I am! I do not own them any flipping money at all. They are asking 3 times what I actually spend for a fixed rate deal by the way. But taking that is madness as the prices are nowhere near that at the moment.
They seem to be intentionally adding pressure and painting a even darker landscape.
I am also a victim of the train strikes. Between delays due to the hot weather and strike days I am not enjoying my commute at all. And those minutes are precious to me as they are the time I have only to myself.

I’m old enough to have worked during the three day weeks. Working at a Clothing factory, it could operate for 72 hours. We worked 2 teams doing 12 hour shifts during those 72 hours. 3x12 = 36 paid hours so not far off our 40 hours. Because the factory was closed for two days a week we we could we sign on and got Unemployment Benefit for those two days. Which was nice.
Coal pit closures throwing thousands out of work.. ship building same, asset stripping our industries, moving it all to Europe.
1976 heatwave, water shortages, standpipes in the streets.

That neccessity is the mother of invention is 100% true. I say that as someone who has spent half of her working life in R&D.
But I thought that having to come up with green energy solutions in masse and ways to be competitive after paying import/export taxes due to Brexit were challenging enough.
I do not need extra problems motivation!

15% mortgage interest rate, think it was 1982? Moved into a new house, we’d stretched ourselves to buy that house on one wage as I was pregnant with no. 2. at the time, £20.000 mortgage (I know!) I remember the letter from the build society telling us the monthly payment had gone up three fold, I had to sit down.
Catch 22. Couldn’t go back to full time work. Couldn’t afford childcare for 2 kids, because, well, 15% interest rates, my parents too old to take on toddler and a baby. I took a job three nights a week in a pub.

I think the energy crisis is going to be horrible. It's not just a case of us all economising.
I didn't know until today that there's no cap on commercial power bills. There's was a guy on the radio who owns a chip shop. His electricity bill is going from £6000 pa to £80000! How is any business supposed to cope with that. So his staff will lose their jobs.
How does this affect schools...hospitals?

Just book a ticket for a different time and stop being so dramatic.

Times have certainly changed and I don't think it's going to get better

@Lily073
You may not have spotted that I put a smiley face on my first post. This might just possibly imply that I wasn't being entirely serious when I suggested that being unable to book a train was a forerunner of the imminent arrival of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Exactly, care homes as well.

No one will be able to afford to pay that they will just close and it will cause mass unemployment. So it’s not even like the energy companies are going to benefit at all themselves.

the government will do something because they have to or else it’s going to end up worse than Covid. When or how much is the question.

By worse than Covid I mean worse than Covid would have been without the restrictions/measures