Category Archives: News & Current Events

General Election 2017 Poll

Lifestyles, News & Current Events

So with Theresa May calling a snap General Election on 8th June, the news has caught almost everyone off-guard.

In calling the election she wants to get full backing for Brexit and obviously expects a big Conservative majority.

The Labour party and the Lib Dems have both welcomed the call for a General Election although it seems more likely that the Lib Dems could possibly win more seats from the remain voters.

However, as we have seen in recent times, polls and elections have been hard to call and often the predictions have not been correct.

So we thought we would ask what your opinions are in the result of the upcoming election. All answers are anonymous and you an see how the results are going by clicking on the ‘View Results’ link below the vote button.

Who Will Win the UK General Election on 8th June 2017?

  • The Conservative Party (71%, 5 Votes)
  • The Liberal Democrats (29%, 2 Votes)
  • The Labour Party (0%, 0 Votes)
  • UKIP (0%, 0 Votes)
  • The Green Party (0%, 0 Votes)
  • No Conclusive Result (0%, 0 Votes)
  • Other (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 7

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Why You Should Raid Your Child’s Piggy Bank Before October

Business, Children, Home & Garden, Money, News & Current Events

Raiding your child’s piggy bank is not something that I would generally suggest although I am sure there are plenty of people who have suddenly found themselves short of cash or just some change that have needed to do it in the past!

But it might be important that you do it before the middle of October 2017!

The new one pound coin will have 12 sides.

The reason for this is the introduction of the new £1 coin that is happening on 28th March of this year. The new £1 coin will be completely different to the old round one as it will be 12 sided and not round for starters. There are many other aspects of the new pound coin that will be different from the old one in a bid to stop counterfeiters.

You will still be able to use the old £1 coin until 15th October 2017 but after that nobody is obliged to accept the coin. However you will be able to pay it in to most post office and bank accounts, even though you will likely not be able to spend it.

So it is probably a good idea to maybe empty out that piggy bank and either swap it for new coins when you get them, or maybe pay it in to a child’s savings account if they have one.

It will be easier to do this before the 15th October deadline as you (or they) will be able to spend it in shops along with the new one pound coin.

So on 15th October 2017 the old one pound coin will no longer be legal tender.

If you find a stash of £1 coins after the October deadline then take them to your bank.

If you are reading this and it is after the 15th October 2017 deadline and you have found a stash of the old £1 coins then take them into your bank and they should be able to credit them to your account.

No doubt there will be plenty of people finding £1 coins down the back of sofas and in clothes for quite a while to come!

 

 

Why is Everyone Dying?

Arts & Humanities, Health, Lifestyles, News & Current Events, Society,

In 2016 there have been a spate of celebrity deaths that actually kicked off just after Christmas of 2015 with Lemmy of Motorhead.

Obviously the big death that shocked everyone initially was David Bowie on 4th January 2016 but then it seems like a lot of high profile people have followed over the past few months.

So why are so many people dying you may ask? Well one theory is that popular culture really started kicking off in the 1950s and 60s and that is when television became much more widespread. By the beginning of the 1960s around 3/4 of the population had a television in their homes and so you could say that celebrity became much more common and accessible at that stage.

This enabled not only TV celebrities but also musicians to gain much more notoriety and in much larger numbers.

So those people who were becoming well known in the 50s and 60s were likely to be born in the 30s and 40s, which would make a lot of them in their 70s right now.

With life expectancy for men being in the 70s it becomes logical for many of the popular figures in the 60s to now be hitting that kind of milestone.

Obviously there are other factors involved too and in particular it seems that a lot of the deaths in 2016 have been from cancer including Bowie, Alan Rickman, Dan Haggerty, Johan Cruyff,  Victoria Wood and Billy Paul, but cancer is a big killer. Currently 44% of the population are expected to get cancer in their lifetime (in the UK) and of those 50% will survive for 10 or more years.

So really we have to think that maybe it is not a case of lots of well known people dying in 2016, but maybe more of the case that there are more well known people around so we are likely to hear about more celebrity deaths in the coming years as the generation that became celebrities in the 60s and beyond become part of the older generation.

It does seem that 2016 has started pretty badly, but overall life expectancy is getting higher each year and women in particular can expect to live until they are around 83 years old in the UK and 81 in the US. Men are a little behind with an average life expectancy of 79 in the UK, 76 in the US.

Life expectancy is rising continually so anyone born now could have a life expectancy in their 90s and by 2050-60, anyone born around that time may be expected to live until 100!

Trump 7/11 Gaffe

Lifestyles, News & Current Events, Society

So a few days ago Donald Trump was making a speech at a campaign rally in Buffalo, New York when he made a terrible gaffe when speaking about the 9/11 disaster and instead referred to 7-Eleven (a chain store of convenience shops).

Instead of calling the event the 9/11 disaster – he called it ‘7-Eleven’ – in fact he said: “I watched our police and our firemen down at 7-Eleven – down at the World Trade Center”.

He didn’t even seem to realize this mistake at the time he made it but no doubt it was pointed out to him very soon afterwards.

However, even so he has yet to apologize for the gaffe, two days later, even after a social media outburst that means there is no way he doesn’t realize the mistake he made.

Trump does seem to be prone to not thinking before he speaks but possibly this is his worst gaffe…yet. We will wait and see what else he has to offer the media.

Check out the video from CNN for the speech that  he made here: