Demitri_C Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 7 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said: No doubt worse in London, and maybe I’m naive or just haven’t yet been affected but I just don’t live with this fear. I accept it could happen, any time because there are psychopaths out there but I don’t allow it to govern my choices and I certainly don’t live in fear of it. Id love to have that mentality mate. But the likely hood of having that mentality in london is likely you will have a crime commited against you. Dont ever move here ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 3 hours ago, tinker said: This all over, it's peoples perception of the danger on the streets that surrenders the streets. Yes crime exists but its a rare event, don't surrender to fear. I don't, I ride my bike home from work after 12am most nights and through a roughish estate. Done it for 10 years. What area do you live in ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted March 16, 2021 Moderator Share Posted March 16, 2021 8 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Id love to have that mentality mate. But the likely hood of having that mentality in london is likely you will have a crime commited against you. Statistically London isn't in the top 5 places with the highest rates of violent crime in England. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 Just now, OutByEaster? said: Statistically London isn't in the top 5 places with the highest rates of violent crime in England. That doesnt mean its safe though mate Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted March 16, 2021 Moderator Share Posted March 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: That doesn't mean its safe though mate True enough, but it's safer than Birmingham! (and much safer than Manchester apparently). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demitri_C Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 1 minute ago, OutByEaster? said: True enough, but it's safer than Birmingham! (and much safer than Manchester apparently). Is it safer than brum? Not sure about that. Manchester i would agree with though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted March 16, 2021 Moderator Share Posted March 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, Demitri_C said: Is it safer than brum? Not sure about that. Manchester i would agree with though It's also safer than Cleveland and West Yorkshire (which are the worst two areas of the country in the latest league tables) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 A couple of years back, I was killing some time wandering the back streets around Hoxton. Ended up wandering through a housing estate, about 11:30 / midnight. When somebody up on a balcony started shouting ‘undercover cop, there’s an undercover cop’ and pointing at me. I left. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Risso Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 40 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said: True enough, but it's safer than Birmingham! (and much safer than Manchester apparently). I've never seen any trouble in Manchester, and worked there for years with numerous nights out and late journeys home. Like any big city there are areas you probably wouldn't want to walk through at night, but unless you live in those areas, why would you anyway? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Albrighton Posted March 16, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted March 16, 2021 The bill passed, 359 - 263. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 1 minute ago, Mark Albrighton said: The bill passed, 359 - 263. I already feel less threat of being annoyed. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted March 16, 2021 Moderator Share Posted March 16, 2021 2 minutes ago, Risso said: I've never seen any trouble in Manchester, and worked there for years with numerous nights out and late journeys home. Like any big city there are areas you probably wouldn't want to walk through at night, but unless you live in those areas, why would you anyway? Yep, I'm sure Merseyside is somewhere on that list near the top and I work into the night and through to the early morning and pretty have done for over 20 years in an industry that is pretty much at the top of the tree for violent crime to happen to and really never had much bother Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tinker Posted March 16, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted March 16, 2021 3 hours ago, Demitri_C said: What area do you live in ? I live in Smiths Wood and ride through the Bromford and Castle Vale. My comment earlier was seen from my point of view, as a man, I take nothing away from women who have a completely different experience of life and what's normal to them. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Shomin Geki Posted March 16, 2021 Popular Post Share Posted March 16, 2021 4 hours ago, GeorgeVilla82 said: I very rarely post on VT, much more of a lurker, but I just wanted to respond to this. Nothing personal against you @tinker, but this approach is one of the problems with women's concerns being taken seriously by men. I'm a 30-something woman, and happen to live 2 streets down from where Sarah Everard was last seen alive. Although what happened to her is incredibly rare, it highlighted the fears that most women live with every day. Every time we walk somewhere at night, or unknown, or quiet, we make a risk assessment on what we would do if we were attacked (most likely by a man). We make this risk assessment because it's happened, or has nearly happened, to most of us. My friends and I have been followed on numerous occasions, groped in bars, made to feel very uncomfortable on public transport with lewd comments, been grabbed or even assaulted. There might occasionally be violence involved but the majority of the time, it's "just" sexual. These events aren't rare - they're experienced every day by a lot of women. That's why we carry our keys between our fingers when we walk home so that we have something to use in defence, why we tell each other to text when we get home safely, why we pretend to be on the phone when we walk past groups of drunk men to try to not get noticed. I'm not saying that men don't sometimes have the same fears, or that this happens to all women. But it's so much more prevalent for us that it's a part of life - just normal behaviour - when it really shouldn't be. And telling people not to surrender to fear negates the genuine concerns that women have, so they stop raising them and the behaviour is normalised. I know opinions will differ on this, and I don't propose to get into a heated debate on it, but just wanted to post my view. I very much agree with this wholeheartedly. I currently live in East London. Not the worst area. Not the nicest. I often work odd hours and so frequently go for runs or train with a football at night. I've stayed reasonably fit all my life and I make the calculation that it's pretty unlikely somebody would attack someone of my appearance. I can always run away just in case. But I have a principle that if there's a group of more than three people lingering around the field where I'm training I will make an unfussy exit. Now, I've nursed a niggling injury the past couple of years that I eventually learned was a chronic condition. I'm now unsteadier on my feet and considerably less strong and fit than I used to be. And boy does it make a difference! Yes, I'll get the odd comment, as I suppose I'm resigned to wearing my football gear at a strange hour, but this also includes wandering about, day or night. Very occasionally somebody will approach me or cause a nuisance. I've always considered it part of my societal responsibility to not turn a blind eye to my surroundings. Whether that's showing vigilance or indeed kindness when appropriate. But simply knowing that I'm more vulnerable than I was has had a striking effect. Simply going out now can feel threatening and onerous. That all adds up, with every weird glance, person invading your personal space, or observation of unusual behaviour. The whole thing has become, over the years of living in London, exhausting and debilitating. The wear and tear of a real sense of anxiety and doubt eating away at you. It can make London, not the easiest of cities at the best of times, seem acutely unfriendly and threatening, both directly and abstractly. People want to live in nice places to avoid little things like unpleasant interactions, an atmosphere of distrust or a simple lack of valuing the lives of others, be it social or institutional. It chips away at you, bit by bit. I'm acutely aware of the need, particularly during lockdown, of getting out of the house, spreading my legs, going for a walk, clearing my head. All of these things, my greater sense of vulnerability, the suggestion (and occasional manifestation) of danger, finding myself stuck in a hostile environment surrounded by a great deal of indifference, and the real need to manage the stress of diminished mental and emotional (and dare I say spiritual too) wellbeing, create a toxic brew. All of this is undoubtedly magnified simply by my not being a dude. By quite some margin. It's not simply about getting attacked or being harmed in any obvious way. It's about the overall toll it takes on someone's life, of having your freedom and a sense of being valued and respected taken away. Whilst being constantly reminded of all of this, as a blind, indifferent or sceptical eye is turned towards it. These things are incredibly important and shouldn't be minimised. There's almost some equivalence with what was discussed recently in one of the politics threads, about that mentality of levelling things down rather than up, a race to the bottom of entitlements and rights. How come somebody should be asking for better than what I have? Rather than having a baseline of what is decent and fair for everyone and then making sure that standard is achieved. I'd argue there's a grown up conversation this country seems not to want to have about sufficient governmental funding and functionality, and the holistic sense of accountability essential to its proper running, whether locally or at the highest level, but there are obviously no easy or immediate answers. What there is is calling a spade a spade and not turning away from the full impact of what women experience. Everyone has some sense of what this is like, through repetitious observation as well as recurrent testimony. The question I ask myself is do I want to live in a society where that is normalised? Is it fair that's what some people have to experience? And I go on from there. It would seem there's too many people who aren't minded to properly consider this. The issue isn't going to go away. It's my sense that until the full magnitude of what is being spoken about is taken seriously this issue will come up again and again. I really don't want a society where that has to happen. 6 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 Cheer up folks. We’ve got the money for 60 extra nukes. If that doesn’t make you feel safer I don’t know what will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Cheer up folks. We’ve got the money for 60 extra nukes. If that doesn’t make you feel safer I don’t know what will. £10bn. How much would that too-expensive payrise for nurses be again? 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 3 minutes ago, chrisp65 said: Cheer up folks. We’ve got the money for 60 extra nukes. If that doesn’t make you feel safer I don’t know what will. It better not be coming out of the extra £350m a week the NHS are getting 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted March 16, 2021 Share Posted March 16, 2021 1 minute ago, Genie said: It better not be coming out of the extra £350m a week the NHS are getting It's easy to be flippant, but what you have to consider is that currently we only have 4% of the amount of nukes that Russia has, and this £10bn that we've shaken out of the magic money tree is going to take that to a whopping 5.6%. We'll see how brave those ruski bastards are when they taste some cold British uranium. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rds1983 Posted March 17, 2021 VT Supporter Share Posted March 17, 2021 12 hours ago, chrisp65 said: I already feel less threat of being annoyed. This post seriously annoys me. I demand you are banned for 10 years! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dodgyknees Posted March 17, 2021 Share Posted March 17, 2021 1 hour ago, Rds1983 said: This post seriously annoys me. I demand you are banned for 10 years! Not the time to protest, mate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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