Toonpack

* Maroon if you please. Anyway it's Sunday and so it's Packers sweatshirt day, otherwise spot on. HHGH !!!!

I can't conceivably be a Tory, I didn't have a nanny.

I'm not insecure at all, I just get mightly peeved when people label a whole fucking generation because of "some" and by some, I mean a few. Housing prices are not cash in hand, it's in bricks and mortar, you sell and buy somewhere else which has also gone up in price, it's not a jackpot. Unless you downsize significantly, which in turn is a reduction in your living standards. Are we (boomers) lucky in respect of proprty, sure, but it wasn't easy and there was shitloads of stuff we didn't have the benefit of that exists today. You go on like they gave houses away. Do you ever stop to consider what your postman/housewife parents went without to afford their £90K house and bring you up ?? Life is tough most of the time. Anyway will leave this before it gets even more heated. Nothing is simple, future generations will do what every generation has done since time immemorial, they'll get through it.

I absolutely did not "wave it all away" people aren't having kids for many. many, reasons and it's NOT solely down to affordability, it's multi-faceted, society has fundamentally changed, not long since, the whole point of existence was get married/have kids, that was your life aim. Women are now "liberated" (as it should be) and have meaningful careers/fuller lives that they don't want to give up and the wages that used to support a one worker household have not kept pace (even back then, for many one wage was not enough) and that's down to the upwards drain of wealth, which has always been there, but these days it's on an industrial global scale. As for "unique challenges" EVERY generation faces their own challenges, if you look at the whole piece around standard of living every generation has it better than the last, the biggest challenge facing the younger generation is going to be climate change and the massed migrations that will bring, together with the fact vast swathes of people are going to be little more than unthinking drones (lies are the new truth see the rise of MAGA/Reform etc.). Regarding "no-one should worry about having kids" - there's never a good time, it's fucking tough (unless you can afford Ewerk's nanny). If you're waiting for the perfect time, it'll never happen. In some ways it's easier to have kids these days because there's maternity/paternity leave and fucking childcare - unheard of when mine were little, and yes it's expensive - why is that ?? Because there's profit to be made. Housing - Whilst I am against the way the rental market runs/is owned I don't get at the basic level why people don't feel they have a roof over their heads when renting. two thirds of people in Germany and Switzerland rent for example. And @Renton who exactly looks down on renters ??? Birth rates are falling everywhere in developed nations, it seems the less developed the higher the birth rates (in Europe that'd be Bulgaria) so the less affluent seem to breed more rapidly than the more affluent. To me that certainly point to it not just being a fiscal issue. And no you didn't single out a single generation, well apart from when you slagged off your parents for "house hopping" and pocketing their £50-£100K as if everyone did it, Oh and a few weeks ago when you stated "I hate boomers" (in this very thread) apart from that, no siree, you didn't. So forgive me if I misconstrued/took your comments as personal.

Oh I have empathy, but I take great exception when the ills of the world are laid at my feet and those of my similarly aged friends who are anything but bathing in Champagne and smoking big cigars. It's the upward sucking of wealth that's the issue.

Who the fuck mentioned council housing 🤷‍♂️

Bollocks.

I know some who did, from my kids generation, well under a rented roof. If you want kids, have kids, there's no easy time, ever.

I did, decades away from home, sunday night (or crack of dawn Monday) to Friday.

Your parents and their property trading profits are the exception, not the rule. I know of no-one in my circle anywhere near that, my best mate is the only one I know who is completely mortgage free and they've lived in the same house 40+ years. You can't tar everyone with the same brush.

It's all down to lack of housing stock and when housing is built it's all bought up by private fucking equity, lots of it from abroad, there's one(at least) house in fucking Holywell owned by an Australian property company. New Estate in Wales recently, only 40% of the houses were bought by private buyers. Wish I'd kept the link. Every generation has it tough in and of it's time, to blame one generation for all the ills of other subsequent ones is preposterous.

Of course it is, but no-one goes down to one wage anymore. Housing is a whole different ballgame.

The knee thing is because the players want it to continue, it's not mandated by any other authority. The boo's would suggest it's still needed.

Why? Because it's not. For starters 12 months PAID maternity leave FFS AND your job kept open for you, but aye it's harder these days 🙄 I know of no-one, of any age, who wanted kids who hasn't had kids, similarly I have never heard anyone say "we'd like kids but can't afford them", it's nothing more than a choice.

Disagree, he'll play an 11 he believes can win the game but he'll rest those who need it.

We missed four, FOUR, Absolute sitters so it's not like were not creating, even when we're sloppy as fuck. No easy games in this league. Onwards and upwards. Big Joe started to look like he's getting back on it as well.

I wouldn't call 2 jobs easy personally.

Easy aye. Which part of his "supplement with a second job" did you miss ?? 🙄

Chilcare !!! Didn't even exist when we had our kids, neither did maternity leave or maternity pay. Female and have a kid = leave your job, there was no choice. This whole the codgers had it easier is bollocks and boils my piss. My Mrs left her job and went out cleaning a pub at 11 every night, when we had our first, so we could make ends meet (just). I also think that there is so much more that people want to do these days, travel, nights out, entertainment etc. That kids would get in the way of that and folks just don't want that burden, they want to enjoy life because there's shitloads more that's accessible to see/do than ever before. Yeah folks can't afford kids because it'd curtail what they actually do like to spend their money on. I don't know any of my kids' mates/generation who wanted kids who hasn't had them, I know a few who are in the "kids!! Fuck that" category too. The issue is down to technological advances and improved efficiencies without a corresponding increase in wages for those still working, with profits retained by corporations/shareholders. If wages had correspondingly kept pace and people could maintain their lifestyles AND have kids pretty sure it'd change, but maintaining your lifestyle and having kids has NEVER been a thing (for the masses) and the script used to be, get married, have kids, no matter how hard that would be, it's what you did, it's not now.

Quite happy in my trench, thanks 👍

Could be worse, could be The Smiths 👍

Joel Bland is just another Barnesy, wrong 99 times out of 100, erstatz journo.

Fully fit squad would be great anytime, fuck the mackem game.

TBD's alter ego ??

Thiaw will score on Saturday 👍