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I just think that the whole UK culture (call it what you like) has over the last 30-40 years been totally eradicated now. In fact I don't even know what my culture is anymore. As a lad I grew up in a village called Kingsteighton in Devon, the nearest town was the market town of  Newton Abbot. Everything shut at 5pm on the dot, if you had forgotten to purchase milk, you'd have to borrow some from your neighbours, nowadays you either don't know your neighbours or scared witless to answer the door to them.

Kingsteighton has to all intense and purposes become a suburb of Newton Abbot. As a kid if you traveled from one to the other, you would travel through farmland / countryside. Nowadays there is no break, it's just a constant flow of housing and shops, unless you lived there you wouldn't know whether you were in the village or the town. As a kid, I would cycle into Newton Abbot and take worn out shoes to the cobbler for new soles and heels to be fitted, nowadays you'd laugh at the idea. On a Sunday you could walk from one end of the town center to the other end and not see a soul, if you did you'd probably acknowledge them and they reciprocated in some way or other. Today you probably couldn't give a fig if you saw someone and neither would they...

Milkmen, have nearly all disappeared, probably down to how the major supermarkets squeezed the farmers on price, much like the local pubs as they can not possibly compete with supermarket off-sales nor being under the cosh of a brewery, many pubs can now be purchased for less than a family's average weekly shopping bill...

At school, we were taught and led to believe that as we got older everything would become automated and us children would work less and have more leisure time than our predecessors.... what a huge lie that turned out to be. Cars, everyone nowadays  believes it is a necessity to have one and they cannot survive life without one, our little legs have all but become useless to us, we've all become cocooned in our own little worlds and sod everyone else, otherwise stories like this would never exist and there are plenty more stories just like that.

The last time I went Sunday shopping was at Homebase, not my favourite shop, but it is local and Only wanted some snail/slug killer. I parked the van centrally in the parking bay, the person in the bay to the left hadn't.... As I walked away I can hear, "excuse me" "excuse me" deciding to ignore this I walked into the shop after 5minutes in store. I hear "Oi you, move your fffing van" "yer what?" was my response "your blocking my car in" "no I'm not I'm parked squarely in the bay" he thinks about it and then starts slagging me of for his bad parking. I then find the slug/snail killer. Not wanting to kill my cats I started to read the manufactures instructions and whether it was suitable, I read about 3 or 4 different makes, unbeknown to me a woman was standing behind me, who I eventually clock, I apologised to her and moved to one side. The amount of verbal abuse I received from this woman took the biscuit and I just flipped and I ended up calling her all the names under the sun..... All I've done is to pop out on a Sunday to get a £5.99 bottle of slug killer and all I've got in return is abuse....Which in turn just ruined my Sunday....

Having grown up with 1/2 day closing during the week and no Sunday trading, I think I preferred that. Totally different way of life, certainly less greed, less road rage, less stress I could go on. I'm not even sure that it had a major effect on employment, I think many bosses just altered their staff rotas. People were also more family orientated and certainly more friendly and sociable without the need of social media... I may however just be looking through rose tinted specs, it may just be an old git thing..... I know which I prefer though  

I try not to allow mine to catch natural live prey, they've no need to do it, but cats are instinctive hunters. They use and abuse us humans, one of mine 'Scruffy' one of the ugliest cats ever, she'll only come to you either when you feed her, or you're eating your dinner, or if you're standing next to the fridge/freezer. If you go to pick her up she'll shred your arms, every year when it's her time for vaccinations / health check I have to dress up in my motorbike gear for protection. 

I've got a couple who are real good hunters, Ronsky, he's Bengal cross, he was catching squirrels from 6 weeks old, his brother Igloo, he'll be in the garden all night long, he'll be doing back flips for hours trying to catch moths. You know when he's out at night as the security lights go on and off like a flipping disco.... And then there's Venus, who will dig the garden for me and bring me a pile of worms...... 

It's on the to do list..... Apparently

Strange really as I never really liked cats, but I kind of inherited one was living mortgage free in a flat at the time. Decided to buy a house with a garden for her... like you do Came home from work early one day, standing in the garden another cat popped over the fence, she had a broken leg. Telephoned a charity, who said they would pay to have her put to sleep if I would be kind enough to take her to my vet. After a brief discussion with vet and me parting with the best part of £1500 we got her fixed and I bought her home....

Unbeknown to any of us, she was not spayed and came into season = 6 kittens four of these went to veterinary nurses and I kept one, the other one was going to be re-homed by cats protection. On the eve of me taking this kitten to the CPS, the kitten decided to sleep on my pillow all night.... following morning I drove the 20 odd miles to her new home, got to the front door.... Then guilt kicked in and I could not hand her over, so back home we came.... apart from the odd bite to my toes she has not slept on the bed in the last 10 years, only ever did it that one night.

Then four or five years later, I stumbled across an advert where someone was selling a pregnant cat, stated that it was going to be her second litter as well. To me the cat still looked like a kitten herself as was just being bred for finance. So decided it was going to be her last pregnancy and went and bought her. Took her to the vets to see when the kittens were due, he estimated five weeks according to the scan, he said. At midnight the same day out pop the kittens another four.... The other one was dumped and left behind by some students who got evicted....

Thankfully none of them can breed now, can do what they like within reason. There's only a few ground rules, no puking or crapping indoors and no fighting or clawing of furniture and in return they will be fed, watered, have the best healthcare and a bed..... most of the time they keep their side of the bargain.....

It's a difficult one, especially for those with properties in London. Personally I find the whole idea inheritance tax rather distasteful, regardless of the amount involved. I would say the majority of the properties I visit are worth in excess of £1million the people that live inside them are by and large just normal working class people. Now when these people die and want to hand their properties to their children who are now desperate to get on the housing market, why should they be left with a tax bill that will force them to sell the property? 

No surprise of the no vote result, hopefully both the ECB & IMF will refuse to hand them a lifeline and refuse to lend anymore money. If they do lend they will only be postponing the inevitable.........

We get a lot of field mice, if they get brought indoors their kind of stuffed as they'll have 10 cats surrounding them. If their lucky I'll save them and let them go back in to the local fields. When I first moved here I use to find quite a few dehydrated frogs that had finally croaked it. Not sure why they arrived nor why they completely disappeared, it may have been that someone local had kept some tadpoles in a pond or something.

One of my cats thought her luck was in yesterday, not her fault though, she woke up from her morning nap to find a choice of lunch hopping along the garden fence Lucky for the pigeons the cat starting to wag her tail with all the excitement 

I'm ok with the weather, generally strip off and wear next to nothing, which pleases the ladies no end......... well it did 30 odd years ago

On a serious note, it does seem to take it's toll on my cats. So back in April decided to install an air conditioning unit upstairs where it gets the hottest. Will they go there? Will they heck, you'll find them all crashed out in the greenhouse!

I hate graffiti, never really understood the point of it,  but I did find this funny....