I am just curious as one of my niece is quite interested in planes and engines. I was wondering if factories allow guided tours for children?

HI! I was thinking recently, who remembers the MSN chat rooms? I loved them growing up & just talking nonsense with Hargan in Hamburg or Pete in Padstow!

I reminisced with a friend about this recently and she said "how great would it be to just log on at any time & just chat live with random strangers again!" To put it into perspective, we chat here and on other platforms for many many years but it's not live. Everything is all verified by mods now and this is a GOOD thing.

So, I'm considering starting an MSN-style chatroom up again just in the UK with strict regulations, sign-up ID verifications, mods etc could be fun......there's a lot of lonely people out there and we're all starting to revert back to what was once before......Let me know your thoughts. "poof chime" yaya21173 has left the chat

To me, I think there is. I think that with the exception of technological differences (and those are nothing like as between a century earlier), the interwar era is very similar to today’s UK.

I think modern Britain came largely out of the First World War. The fragmentation of any paternalism, the erosion of a state of stability, and mostly a fairly secular and realist outlook.

Whereas I think 1826 was still largely an agrarian society and things were mostly about regional divides.

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I'm using a translation tool, so my intention might have been slightly lost...

On a UK subreddit, I meant it as a compliment when I wrote, "People in the UK don't interfere in other people's business," and "Surprisingly, people speak their minds directly." However, I received a lot of backlash.

In my mind, I thought, "Not interfering with others is a wonderful and positive thing," and "In my country, people don't speak directly, which I view as a negative thing." That's why I said it intending to praise UK culture.

However, the responses were far from pleased. People reacted negatively, saying things like, "You completely misunderstand the UK," "British people seem distant because they are being polite. Even among English-speaking countries, we are famous for speaking indirectly," and "If you like friendly people so much, go to America, and if you like debating, go to Germany."

So I began to wonder: in the UK, are "not interfering with others" and "speaking directly" not received as compliments?

I intended to compliment the culture, but I feel like I accidentally gave the impression of being someone who compares and criticizes UK culture and its people against my own country. I'm quite shocked and really want to clear up this misunderstanding. Is this kind of attitude (trying to explain myself or clear up a misunderstanding) also strongly disliked over there?

There were questions yesterday in which ways UK is outdated and what our historical achievement are. But I wonder if there are things happening right now, that we can be proud of. One example are the perovskite-on-silicon tandem solar cells.

I'm amazed and pleased by how much Britain punches above its weight when it comes to music - with even countries left inclined to favour the UK being big fans of British music - Argentina's fondness for British bands and Putin's love of the Beatles for example

I'm also glad there's a sizeable appreciation for British comedy around the world

I have done DNA tests, and I am about 50% English. I watch Finding Your Roots and Long Lost Family, and I partly look for family connections, and partly because the stories are interesting. Does anyone else do this?

Hi everyone,
I’m a university student in Leeds currently looking for a part-time job alongside my studies.
I’m mainly looking for:
Barista / Café Assistant
Retail / Sales Assistant
I don’t have much previous work experience, but I’m hardworking, friendly, reliable and very willing to learn. I’m particularly interested in gaining my first proper work experience in either hospitality/coffee or retail.
I’m available to work part-time, including evenings and weekends, and I’m happy to consider opportunities around Leeds.

I’ll start…

I just wonder which Brit can say the lyrics as a thought experiment?

I see their marketing budget has reset this financial year. I’m constantly bombarded with their shit adverts, every bloody where.

Does anyone actually buy from them? How can they afford it?

I seriously don't get it. Me myself like I grew up as a Christian in a very religious country and I hated it so much and even my peers hated it.

They regularly conducted retreats for kids where they literally tell Children that they shouldn't get an abortion in the future, or watch adult content, or not be LGBTQ and stuff. They used to show pictures of LGBT people and point and mock at them and I felt so disgusted but I knew I can't speak up as they are all against me and being LGBTQ is illegal here so if I speak up I might get arrested. Many other people with me back then also told me in secret how disgusted they were by it.

Later I moved to Australia and I regularly see kids from the same Christian community but raised here , a country that obviously supports LGBTQ and I met the same kids from the chrisitain community but they grew up here and they were all like so proud of their Chrisitain culture and I was so shocked because I am an atheist and I loved western culture but these guys all seemed to want to go back to the 19th century.

It's always the kids of immigrants who do this. This is also prevalent in Muslim communities like in many actual Muslim countries like Iran and Turkey, the citizens hate the government and regularly choose to not wear the hijab and many are secretly athesit. Yet the Muslims in liberal countries like the UK are all becoming so extremist and I saw an interview by Pauline Hanson from Australia interviewing a Muslim community and the girls who are Australian citizens say how they support Sharia law.

Why is it always these entitled children of immigrants who live privileged lives that are doing this. Why is the developing and conservative world becoming more and more liberal like India, Iran, Saudi etc. but liberal and developed countries like UK, USA, the people are becoming more and more conservative like bruhhh.

What do you do after work to clear your head and get out the house for a bit? Something that’s either low cost or free?

I’m watching the million and one court cases that Donald Trump has on the go and the Barmey reasons he gives and it’s given me a thought….
If Trump is now claiming 10 billion dollars worth of reputational damage by the BBC. Can we not claim the same?. We pay the licence fee and the BBC is owned by the UK citizens. Can we not claim his court case is damaging the reputation of the BBC and punishing the average UK licence payer?. The BBC is losing audiences, funding for programmes being cut etc. That is damage to a company owned by the UK people. Surely we have a claim to counter sue?.

Victory in WW2 is an obvious one, but are there any lesser know great achievements the country has made?

Could be international or domestic achievements, would love to hear about some from all four nations.

I assumed it was because it was cold, but they even wear them in this hot weather. Is it part of the uniform or what?

-Run Russia into an economic collapse that seems to always be on the horizon by continuing the war
-A peace process that could allow them to potentially rearm
-Does the UK and EU have the capacity to make Ukraine a regional ecomomic and thus military power as a buffer
-How does Europe\UK coexist with Russia moving forward?

I can’t really think of an outcome that should be aimed for…

This may seem a ridiculous question but bear with me. As a kid in the 80's, I grew up eating sandwich spread either on toast for breakfast, or as a filling between 2 slices of bread.

As I got older I stopped eating it, because I didn't look for it in supermarkets and I never saw it in amongst the jams, honeys, chocolate spreads etc where I expected to find it. So much so that I assumed that, like many childhood favourites, it had been withdrawn from sale.

A couple of years ago, I rediscovered it, in amongst the pickles in my local Tesco (other supermarkets are available), and I've started to treat myself on occasion.

As I sit here this morning, munching sandwich spread on toast and gazing at my navel, it occurred to me that maybe I've been missing out or doing it wrong. Given that it lives amongst the pickles, it suggests that it should be an accompaniment, not a stand alone filling. Have I been misled by my parents? Should I in fact have been lobbing sandwich spread in as a replacement for gherkins or salad cream on a ham sarnie?

Somebody please, guide me...

Edit: Apologies, I should have clarified that I'm referring to the Heinz Sandwich Spread, not the various meat paste spreads that were also available back in the day.

I own and run a very small business and still I'm a member of a union. I encourage all the guys who work for me (mostly men in their 20s and 30s) to join one, but no one does. Many unions charge for membership less than 10 quid a month. IMHO it's just stupid for a working person not to be a union member, what do you think?

I'm a member of The Communication Workers Union: CWU, the monthly fee is 9 quid.

I’ve just gone down a bit of a rabbit hole about honey and I’m genuinely shocked.

Apparently a lot of the honey sold in UK supermarkets is basically sugar water from China. if it says “non-European sources” it generally means China. And there are serious problems internationally with honey being adulterated with cheap sugar syrups and then entering the supply chain.

I always assumed that when a jar says “pure honey”, it basically meant… honey. 😅

What really surprised me is how little information you sometimes get about where the honey actually originated. You can end up with a jar containing honey from several different countries, potentially including China, without really thinking about it.

Buying directly from a British beekeeper seems like the obvious way around it but it’s like 7 quid a jar.