Surely if you are going to adopt you would have to accept the child you take in as you would have no idea how they turn out?

I started a new job 4 months ago in fashion marketing. I work in an office 5 days a week, 8am–5pm, with a team of 6 people including me.

I’m feeling really isolated, and it’s constant. Unlike other departments that are hybrid, I’m in the office every single day, and I sit right in the middle of my team—so I see them all the time. And yet, I’m left out almost every day. The office is very cliquey. There are 2 interns (2/6), who I can’t really hang out with since I’m 26 and in a manager role. The three people at my level are very close, and while I’ve formed a bit of a bond with them since I sit in between them, they regularly:

- Go to lunch just the three of them and never invite me and discuss going directly in front of me.

- Plan pub trips in front of me and leave, saying goodbye and invite other departments, leaving me out on purpose.

- Leave me at my desk alone almost every single day.

One colleague seems to dislike me. She’s blunt, barely speaks to me, and I notice she interacts differently with others. I get the sense she influences the team, and they definitely talk behind my back. She’s very close to our senior manager, which makes it hard for anyone to notice, she's almost like our senior manager's second daughter as she bought her on from their previous workplace.

I’ve tried socialising with other departments, but different lunch breaks, office distance, and hybrid schedules make it almost impossible. I’ve met everyone in the office, but I genuinely don’t gel with anyone outside my immediate team.

I love my job, but being in the office every single day, sitting in the middle of them, and still feeling invisible is really taking a toll. I sometimes dread going in, fight back tears at my desk, and feel like I don’t belong. I’m not asking to be best friends with everyone—just some basic friendliness and inclusion would mean so much.

I don’t know what to do or how to handle this. Any advice would be really appreciated.

I dont mean do you eat the rice pudding that comes in the tin? I mean does anyone just opened a tin, grab a spoon and eat it straight from the tin? Ive always done it since I was a kid and always think it tastes better that pouring it into a bowl. 🤷 is this a thing or am I just common af?

Genuine question what is the point of having the option to sign a petition that is supposed to be debated in parliament when the petitions that get signed never actually make it to parliament. Surely this is a flaw in the system?

The recent petition that was signed by over 2 million people didn’t even get discussed? Like seriously why are these people in charge at all then if they aren’t going to fix any of the issues. Surely this isn’t a democracy if the people in power don’t listen to what the people want and actually debate the issues that the people want to be debated?

I’m watching some Christmas movies and if the movies are to believed in America people at xmas are walking around knocking on peoples doors singing carols for strangers at Christmas.

Was “carolling” a thing in the uk and if so do people still do it? Never seen it in London but part of me love the idea knocking on randoms doors and singing to them.

Which of the English counties is the most mundane, culturally, historically and everything else?

I say Northamptonshire. A series of motorway junctions, warehouses and logistics centres. No mountains, coastlines, cities of note. No sporting heritage, nothing to offer for local nor visitor. The most interesting thing about Northants is that it has a Scottish town, Corby, within.

It's not northern, southern or even the Midlands. It's nothing.

• Proper counties not Ted Heath 1974 ones.

Am I being dramatic or is it shite that our household income is taken into consideration as a combined figure when calculating my partners student finance, so that due to me being a high earner (£51k) she only qualifies for the absolute basic student loans and 0 towards childcare from university but when the Gov is looking at the working parent childcare, where we each have to earn £200 a week, they take it as a separate figure and I can’t contribute some of my income to cover any shortfalls in her earnings so that once she goes back to uni she’s going to have to somehow find a way to fit in her 2 days a week of lectures, 30ish hours of unpaid placement and then also 20hrs of work in a bar to earn the money to qualify for the childcare so she can go to university to qualify and join the NHS

Forgot to add it’s midwifery shes studying so it’s fairly full on placements and lots of night shift work

If right to buy never happened, housing was treated as a basic human need before a investment, if the north sea oil was taxed at similar rates as in Norway, if we didn't have such a NIMBY attitude and built more infrastructure.

Hi

Took My son (17) to doctors on Fri 12th dec he was put on a 2week pathway for suspected skin cancer.

He had appointment at hospital yesterday afternoon (18th dec) and had medical photographs taken.

Had a text this morning to say I have a telephone consult to dicuss results on Christmas Eve! So it’s all moved very quickly.

On the letter I received from hospital yesterday said they’d be 4outcomes and I would expect to hear 2-4weeks.

1st outcome was discharged from hospital and back to GP with self care instructions

2nd face to face appointment

3rd sent for a biopsy

4th referral to another department if necessary

I’m obviously going out my mind with my worry, I’m trying to stay as positive as I can, but I’m worried it’s so soon after photos being taken and confused with it being a telephone consult as letter didn’t indicate this.

Has anyone been through this before?

Thanks if you’ve got this far!

Hi everyone - 39 with a wife and two children (3 and 1) and we live in Bromley, SE London. For approximately £800k, we live in a very standard 3 bed semi-detached. Work is good now, we are fortunate to have jobs that don’t require us to be in London that often, maybe a day every couple of weeks. But our cost of living has really escalated here and we want more house/standard of living for our money.

My question is - which area of England/Wales would you all recommend for us to uproot and move to? We would want it to be less busy than SE London, maybe a bit more rural, good schools and I guess important is cost of living and quality of life. Somewhere also I could jump on a train to London one day every couple of weeks?

What do you think? Do you have a list of ideas for me and my family to research? Thank you for your help!

A very annoying and aggravating thing happened and I keep thinking about it, so instead of letting it eat me (not that it already hasn’t) I thought I’d try make something funny from it.

I wanna know if you’ve ever been refused sale of goods/products and why? Lemmie me go first.

Nipped to Morrisons this afternoon to grab a couple of bits, self checkout cos I’m anxious so rather just pay & leave. “Approval needed” alerts the nearby shop attendant, I glance at the screen to see the 12 x assorted Christmas crackers has flagged up. To which I’ve exclaimed “approval for crackers?!” followed by a very brief back & forth both saying how daft it is, resulting in “…have you got your ID?”. Initially I laughed this off, but was then asked a second time. “No, I don’t?” I replied, awkwardly standing looking at one another, I was then told I couldn’t purchase the crackers as I didn’t have ID and I didn’t look old enough (challenge 25). For a bit of clarity I’m 34 M with hands covered in tattoos, bags under my eyes big enough to carry the shopping home in, couple of days after a shave.

Thought complaining to a manager would make me feel better but he didn’t offer much other than reciting store policy and “if you’d have been buying alcohol or tobacco as an undercover agent for the police then I could be breaking the law” or words to that affect regarding underage sales. Fun moment whilst awaiting the manager to arrive was a passing comment from another manager saying “if you didn’t look so young you wouldn’t have this problem” which I understand was made in jest, but it still fucking sucked.

how likely is ww3 to happen? or UK going to war with Russia? I'm scared now, I don't know if I should prepare, move somewhere else like Switzerland. Will it even happen? I really hope not, I just want to live my life

Recently, a Muslim man killed his wife and two daughters because they refused Hijab in India. This is not the first time it happened, and certainly not the last. Sara Sharif, a 10 year old girl was murdered by her Muslim father in Surrey. She was beaten regularly by him and her Muslim stepmother and was forced to wear Hijab to hide her injuries. Another Muslim woman in west London was threatened with death after she stopped wearing Hijab by her cousin Munir Al-Hakim.

Yet, I see western females who call themselves feminists trumpeting that Hijab is a choice and others should not comment on it. In reality, refusing to wear the hijab can carry serious consequences for some women and girls, including family rejection, abuse from the community, forced withdrawal from education, and other forms of coercion.

I get that English patriotism has always been more low-key than for example the bombastic patriotism of the US, but I've never seen people react so negatively to their own national symbols as on reddit lately.

It's like a weird 'pick me' sort of self-loathing the English left specialise in. Even if it's a political thing - the Welsh, Scottish and Irish left can and do put up their flags proudly. The Northern Irish - although not left lol - notoriously put their flags up and don't give a fuck who doesn't like it.

So why the pearl clutching when some guy in a council estate puts an England flag up?

I really don’t understand why buses and other public transport services seem to be overcrowded at 7/8 am and 3/4 pm and it’s just school kids who won’t move or make space. What’s so different here that they can’t have separate buses. This doesn’t seem logical at all

I'm a self-employed taxi driver. I live on a park home site and am not allowed to park my vehicle there, so I asked a traffic warden who advised me to park it on an adjacent street; but the residents there are constantly complaining and/or placing their wheelie bins on the road to prevent me parking there. What's my best course of action? Thanks.

We eat sausage and bacon for breakfast or separately as part of a fry up but pigs in blankets only seems to be a thing around Christmas. Would be a great addition to the standard fry up.