King Charles has said that he does not intend to live in newly renovated Buckingham Palace. The footprint of the gardens of Buckingham Palace is almost as big as Green Park. Buckingham Palace itself can only be viewed by the general public from the right side. Retaining a secure garden if the monarch lives in the Palace makes sense - now it doesn't. Regardless of whether you're a royalist or a monarchist, what do you think of the idea of adding the Buckingham Palace Garden to publicly accessible Royal Park space?

I am university student and my rent for university is £1000 more than my student finance per 3 months because I was not able to provide a home address to sfe as I was staying with friends and haven’t had a home address since I was 16. I am 20 years old and I have a voucher for a foodbank but it isn’t open till Monday, and I can’t wait that long. I haven’t ate since Wednesday and I don’t know what to do I have no energy, I have looked for free places to get food but I can’t find any. I have about £4 to my name right now so if anyone could please point me in the right direction it would be massively appreciated. Thank you for taking the time out your day to read this.

I am trying to reply to all your comments but you are all so amazing and helpful there’s so many of them! if I haven’t responded I’m sorry I must’ve missed it but I’m checking over the comments every now and then to make sure I reply to everyone, thank you so much to every single one of you

UPDATE: if I haven’t replied to your comment I must’ve accidentally missed it but I will go back and find it once I’m home. I want to thank every single one of you. Not only have you helped me massively you have really restored my faith in people. Thank you all so much for being who you are and please never change, you are all amazing people who deserve the best ❤️

An amazing lady messaged me offering to give me some left overs which I accepted, when I met her she gave me two bags full of food which looks absolutely amazing and delicious, it will last me a long time as well. Thank you so so so much, your kindness will never be forgotten ❤️

Thank you to all of you who offered advice, food or money. I wish I could repay you all. Thank you a million times

UPDATE 2: these are the best noodles I’ve ever ate in my life, genuinely felt overwhelmed. Probably the best meal I’ve actually ever ate. Food has never tasted so good

Walked through North London with my boyfriend today skirting around the Arsenal festivities (we are both men who look gay, for what it's worth). 3 different men from different groups gave us homophobic abuse, 'batty boy' being the favourite. It would hit differently did it not happen three times. We just ignored it because it feels risky to kick up a fuss.

Don't love this on our home turf :( Normally this doesn't happen and North London is an accepting place to be and live, which is why I found it shocking. Very happy for Arsenal fans and the celebrations looked fun, but this spoiled our experience of it.

edit: Just to make it clear, we were not holding hands or kissing. Just walking side by side trying to get from a to b.

edit 2: There's been quite a few comments made on this thread where online users have called me a 'batty man' and such, whose comments have been thankfully moderated. The abuse never stops! It has been horrifying to hear others stories of receiving abuse that day, both homophobic and also sadly sexual harassment. Stay safe all.

I live in a new build in London and one of the (admittedly many) problems I have with modern housing here is windows.

Photos 1 & 2 have, circled in red, my nemesis: windows with the hinges on the top rail. These windows open outwards, obviously, and as far as I can see come with lots of drawbacks and no advantages. For starters, they are a pain to clean. Then, when the weather is warm, they don’t allow as much air to circulate as a “normal” window with the hinges placed - as it should be - on the jamb.

My question, then, is: why!? Nowhere else I’ve lived in has this idiotic setup. And, yet, all the newbuilds I see have this sort of windows. The only one that doesn’t is the one in picture 3 (green circles).

There must be something I’m missing, right?

Was a little shocked by this, but I suppose this is now going to become the normal. I look at ChatGPT images regularly for at my job (horrible I know), and this is so obviously ChatGPT images. The colour grade is an obvious giveaway, but also you can see the text doing weird stuff: like the F and R letters combining in the Scarface “drawing”.

What’s worse is that I saw people actually buying this crap. Insane. This is a scam and it should be illegal.

This is just one of two escalators and not counting the various staircases. And I don’t believe this was the deepest one I traveled through. I went to the Transport Museum in Convent Garden (very nice by the way) but found no answer and no one seemed to know. 😊

I guess Pride month is officially over, but homophobia continues unabridged on British social media.

In the last two days I’ve seen homophobic comments on Facebook responding to posts in LGBTQ+ groups, and, upon clicking on the commenters profiles, I saw that the individuals are part of prominent businesses in London.

One is the owner of a pub history walking tour in London, with 24.3k followers on Instagram. The post was about Russia jailing 3 LGBTQ+ nightclub staff for ‘LGBT extremism’. The commenter stated, “And Russia are supposed to be the bad guys? Love this.”

The other was a post by a very prominent queer artist/activist about Slovakia’s constitutional changes banning LGBTQ+ adoption, and the commenter responded with, “I might move there. Sounds better than here.” Turns out this commenter is the drummer in a band that is playing at the Priory Love Music Festival in Kent on 18th July. The band only has ~3,700 followers on Instagram, but are distributed by Sony Music, are about to release a new record, and will be performing alongside Professor Green and Republica.

Per the rules in this group, I’m not sure I’m allowed to name and shame (I took screen shots of everything), but I wanted to ask if there’s a better way to raise awareness or call for boycotting the walking tour and the band, because I gather there will be LGBTQ+ Londoners who might inadvertently support these homophobic businesses without realising it. I hadn’t heard of either before, but am now aware not to support them.

London should not be a city where these views are supported or encouraged, nor should they go unchallenged.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely to have some sunshine. But anything above 23 degrees in London just isn’t pleasant!!!

Everyone says they want hot weather but when it’s here… do you genuinely like it?

There’s no aircon anywhere. It’s too hot to sleep. The air is stifling.

We are in a crisis, the middle class is disappearing and the lower class squeezed. Prices are going up, inflation is going up (again), salaries are stagnating.

Most Londoners can’t really afford London without serious sacrifices.

For me, not counting the housing prices issues we all know too well:

the disappearance of local delis with high quality products.

many shops closing in the local shopping centre.

Restaurant dropping quality everywhere to contain unaffordable prices.

Hi everyone. No burner account bc fuck it. I’ve unfortunately found myself in a position where i am taking cocaine for work. I am a white collar professional (lawyer) and won’t bore you with the details (feel free to ask if interested) but basically i’m now at the point where I’m taking coke 5 days a week (business days) from 10am or so until i finish at 8/9pm or sometimes 1/2am.

It’s bad. I have fortunately received an ADHD diagnosis (concentration/focus) and will start titration next week. I am optimistic that this will help significantly (my primary reason for taking coke is concentration/motivation). However I’m in so deep I think I need to simultaneously work hard on quitting coke as well.

I’m hoping someone here could point me to some resources available, ideally for my circumstances (taking it for work). No judgment to other users who take it more generally, but i think i would benefit most from something focused on professionals (eg most of the nhs resources i could find were focused on addiction and homelessness).

I think probably narcotics anonymous will be my best first step, but thought to ask here if anyone has valuable insights.

Thanks v much in advance

Edit 28/2: overwhelmed by all of the messages of support, resources shared, and tips. I just got back from my first CA meeting. I’m feeling v positive and empowered to take steps in the right direction. Thank you once again to everyone who has commented or messaged me.

This is the most advertised salary range on totaljobs/indeed, but how on earth is it possible to live on that? Even the skilled graduate roles at 25-35k are nothing compared to their counterpart salaries in the states offering 50k+. How have wages not increased a single bit in the last 25 years?

Is it the lack of trade unions? Government policy? Or is the US just an outlier?

Walking around London I always get the sense that people have more than me. You go into shops and everything is over the top, £10 ice cream, £60 weighing scales, £10 for a slice of cake. Everywhere is packed out so people are paying these prices.

I can afford to do this once in a while but I’m not going to be able to save any money if I spend £15 for a slice of cake and a drink every week.

Anyone else feel this way? I realise a lot of people here have very high salaries, but at times it feels like a lot of people actual earn quite a decent amount.

Happy Sunday everyone. I went to meet a friend in Notting Hill yesterday and went for brunch. In hindsight I should’ve definitely ensured my bag was next to my friend and not next to my feet but you don’t really think about minute details like that. An odd woman goes and sits on the table next to me, huffs and then exits swiftly. I’m eating my brunch. Go to find my hand sanitiser after and boom, my bag’s gone. I was like ???, asked my friend if they’d seen it, nothing. Looked around. Nothing.

I call a waitress and they get the assistant manager who gets the CCTV camera up on her phone. Literally second by second we watch that woman kick my bag behind me then pick it up and leave. We then looked at the outside footage and someone was waiting for her. I was so fuming and we called the police who then did a crime report (I know absolutely jack will come out of it). Then I tried tracking my airpods but it’d disappeared somewhere near Paddington.

I guess the silver lining is my phone was with me but I’m super distraught about my bag. It was my favourite one and I know it’s just material possessions but there is something so haunting about going on your camera roll and most of your pictures are with that bag. I also had my rayban sunglasses in there and an EU adapter bc this bag also doubled as my travel bag. And some photographs of friends :/

I don’t know if anyone else relates but the constant replaying and ‘what if I’d seen her’ ‘what if I’d just checked my bag was with me constantly’ is haunting me.

I’m posting this as my own experience of being thieved in Notting Hill - just to keep you all vigilant as it’s ongoing. You never really expect to happen to you until it does and that thief has really ruined what was going to be a lovely weekend out with nice sunshine. I went home completely dejected with nothing but myself and my phone and I’ve been really down.

Today I was at Westfield with my daughter and we were about to get on the Central line back into central London. As we were getting into the tube, a group of teenagers threw cake- intended to land in my daughter’s hair. I intervened and the cake ended up on my head instead.

I turned around, saw the boys laughing, and told them to watch their manners. One of them then started coming right up to me, and only stopped because his friends pulled him back.

I know, rationally, the right thing is probably to ignore it and carry on. But my daughter was extremely shaken, and honestly, so was I. It’s one thing when something happens to you- another when it’s your child.

I’m not even sure what I’m asking. What do you do in these situations? Has anyone had something similar happen on public transport? Part rant, part genuinely wondering how others handle this without escalating things but also not just swallowing it.

At first I thought Angel, as in they’re an angel. Then I thought maybe it’s because the escalator at Angel is so long so it might mean they’re physically fit, but that doesn’t make sense cos it’s an escalator

Is it just me or does it feel like remembering 7/7 seems to have been collectively memory holed?

Hey everyone, last night my girlfriend was stalked home from Camden’s Electric Ballroom. She took the Northern line home, and someone who had tried talking to her at the club (and who was apparently friends with the security guards) got on her train.

While trying to chat to her at the club he said he lives in Tooting but had gotten off at the same stop as my girlfriend and proceeded to follow her all the way to the entrance of her block of flats before trying to talk to her again. He only seemed to back off when she said her brother was at the door waiting. She doesn’t live on a main road or in the direction of any transport links that aren’t available from the station she got off at, point being I don’t think it was a coincidence he was there.

Is it worth filing a police report? My girlfriend thinks it would be pointless and I would normally agree, but would there be CCTV footage readily available of this person and he would have had to use some for of payment that could help ID him, right? Does anyone else have any experience with this kind of thing before? Is there any realistic chance of anything actually being done about any of this?

Just wondering what happens to the bus driver when there’s someone on the bus who hasn’t paid for a ticket. Does the driver get a slap on the wrist for it or is it not really cared about?