IWLTS in 2020...

[Edith Bacon]

Schools have no authority to sanction parents, Lily. All they can do is appeal to parents in the interest of safety and the goodwill of local residents. And ask traffic officers to patrol occasionally. Our primary has the same issues and it always boiled down to entitled pricks thinking the rules either didn’t matter or didn’t apply to them.

[smalex]

I doubt they'd want to be the officiators of fines, even if they could, theyve got enough to do!

[Lily]

I reckon traffic officers could though.

I just don't get it. Their children are as much at risk from their knobhead parking as anyone else's.

[Glint]

Nope, because their precious Peregrine doesn’t have to cross the road.

Inconsiderate school parking might be a bit of a pet hate of mine.

[Topcat]

I would imagine that school parking is a regular thing on every local page on Facebook and there doesn't seem to be an answer for it.

You certainly couldn't burden the schools with patrolling the streets outside, they're under enough burden and pressure as it is without having to also become traffic wardens for inconsiderate shit heads.

[Morganna]

No, and the parents doing it are all so busy, and far too important to keep to the same rules as everyone else.

[Lily]

Well no, I didn't think they were going to be walking up and down taking note of who's parked where, but there should be some penalty for these people. When people parked at our gym and then buggered off, if someone inside saw them do it they'd run out and tell them to move; otherwise one of the beefy blokes would heft a tyre in front of the offender's car so that they had to shamefacedly come in and ask for it to be moved when they returned.

I think it would be worth the school liaising with the traffic police, but I would imagine they've already thought of it. The only thing you can do is stop people parking at schools altogether I suppose.

[Morganna]

But you can't stop people from parking near to where they live. Which in the case of my two's school was around the school premises. The residents have to go about their business too. There were signs saying no parking or waiting between certain hours (or residents only - I can't remember), but the point is that a lot of people just don't think it applies to them, as 'it's just for a couple of minutes', or 'Peregrine has to carry his tuba', or 'I'm an entitled arsehole who is Very Important', so do it anyway.

I'd have loved to see the Head (a vision in tangerine nylon) dash out with a tyre, though. And I'd have paid money to see Peregrine's parents have to come and ask her for their car back ).

[Kenickie]

The tyre thing is funny.

Iwlts that's really not the same thing.

I'm a twin group, someone has asked about changing one of her twins' name to something totally different (Re.mi to O.din). Someone else has helpfully suggested that maybe they don't need to properly change it as you don't always have to call your child the exact name on their birth certificate: 'My twins are James and Thomas and I call them Jamie and Tommy and Katelin who I call Katie xx'.

[Duophonic]

I don't think the parking issue will ever get solved but I'd definitely report that woman for parking in a disabled bay.

No not really that same thing, Ken.

[Morganna]

It's not the same thing; but I think you can call yourself (or your child) what you like, so long as it's not for purposes of fraud. I don't think she will have to change the birth certificate, if that's what she's asking. I'm not sure which name is worse, though ).

[Skips]

We didn't call my brother by the name on his birth certificate, he legally changed it himself during his 20s.

[Dáire]

I think the bigger issue is that no, she shouldn't call the kid Odin.

I've a friend whose parents decided he didn't look like the name he had, changed it between themselves but never changed it legally. He's never had an issue other than hospitals, who use the original. My dad also goes entirely by his middle and no one ever thinks of him as his forename.

[smalex]

IWLTS it's a £2 second hand toy! I've already posted three photos of it. You either want it or you don't.

[wendy james]

I had that with a £5 table and chairs set. I ended up telling her it was gone, when really I just decided the girls could bloody keep it rather than deal with her!

[smalex]

She seriously requested some more photos of a set of hide and squeak tomy eggs for crying out loud.

[Morganna]

On the subject of local numpties, is it just here where there is a trend for 'rescuing' pets from non-perilous situations? It seems that every week we hear of some poor cat who has suffered a citizen's arrest for being on the streets and looking a bit scruffy, or a dog who is probably just making its way home after wandering out of the garden getting dragged to a vet to get its chip read. The petnappers then post about it, and are lauded for their public spirited behaviour, without any evidence that the animal was in distress, and the owners are declared unfit scumbags who shouldn't be allowed to keep pets.

The latest one managed to rack up over 600 posts, which isn't bad going for a small town. Most of them were vigilante-style ones, though. Two dogs had been 'liberated' from their garden by someone who insisted that they were cold (it was a cold evening), and she had taken them to her own house for the night. The owner could be easily identified by the breeds of the dogs and general area, and people were baying for her blood, despite the lone voice of a bloke who does work for the RSPCA repeatedly saying that there was no case to answer, and that the 'liberator' could be done for theft.

The following day, the site admin team posted an announcement asking people not to bring up the matter again, as the dogs had been returned to the owner by the police, but she was getting hassle from people peering over her garden wall to see the dogs. It's utterly bonkers.

[smalex]

Oh my God! That's quite scary really. The poor woman. I can't say I've noticed much like that, no. Although theres plenty of vigilante traffic police around it seems which I feel very iffy about. I swear one day someone is going to go get attacked by townspeople acting on a post about someone parking on a double yellow for 30 seconds.

[Lily]

That is indeed utterly bonkers, Morgs. It's not like "cat in bin woman".

[Ruby]

There have been similar incidents in my town, Morgs. Those groups disgust me.