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Comment by edent | Hacker News Reader

This is cute - although I suspect every single country could list off a range of crazy laws and social norms which evolved over the years.

In the UK you can... * Drive, pay taxes, join the army, and have children - but can't be trusted with the vote.

* Become an MP even if you lose the popular vote.

* Have sex when you're 16, but you can't look at pictures of people like you doing it.

* Go shopping on a Sunday - although the shop won't sell you anything until an hour after opening.

* Have to apply for university before you know your exam results.

* Cannot copy your CD onto your MP3 player legally.

* Send soldiers off to war, but have a charity pay for their care when they get home.

I'd love to know what bizarre things happen in other countries.

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> "Cannot copy your CD onto your MP3 player legally."

Not strictly true anymore[1].

Additionally, I think that having a higher age of consent for appearing in pornography than simply of having sex is entirely reasonable. You may have been referring to legal ability to buy pornography, and maybe that's a fair criticism, but you phrased it such that the person depicted was under 18, which is more morally problematic.

[1] http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/tech/news/a446817/uk-law-change-... << please note, I can't find a better source than this. the Daily Fail and the BBC both ran articles when the intention to make the change was announced, but don't seem to have followed up when it was enacted a year later.

> Go shopping on a Sunday - although the shop won't sell you anything until an hour after opening.

Does that apply to any specific shops? I don't shop that early on Sundays, but I don't think I've ever seen this applied.

There are limited sunday trading hours. Some shops choose to get around this by opening an hour earlier but not opening the tills.

It's a loophole really, and it isn't true that all shops must wait, just those that choose to use this loophole.

Also it's based on size of shop, so not all shops have limits on trading hours.

I don't think any of these Sunday trading hours rules apply in Scotland.

The "apply for university before you know your exam results" doesn't apply here either.

However, one of our legal oddities is that we have an extra verdict available in criminal trials, as well as "guilty" and "non guilty" we also have "not proven":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

[Corrected - I said "innocent" rather than "not guilty"]

Just for clarification, in England we have "Guilty" and "Not Guilty", there is no "innocent" here. The closest to an "innocent" verdict is probably the dismissal of charges by a judge.

Shops over a certain floorspace have restricted opening hours on Sundays. (see: https://www.gov.uk/trading-hours-for-retailers-the-law)

Some shops exploit a loophole in that a shop isn't open unless the tills are open.

If you are doing your big periodic grocery shopping in a large supermarket, then it may take you an hour to get everything into your trolley and round to the tills.

So, a shop that is legally open from 1000 to 1800 can open to shoppers at 0900, because few customers would actually buy anything in the first hour of opening anyway.

24 hour Tesco not being open after 4pm on Sunday is the bane of my life.

What is it about driving, paying taxes or joining the army, and having children (easy if you've hit puberty) that necessarily determines that you have a sufficient grasp of the issues required to make a supportable case for voting for one candidate as against another? A bizarre decision? I don't think so though I would ensure a delay for the option of joining the army until say twenty one.

> * Become an MP even if you lose the popular vote.

That's a misleading way to explain FPTP. I think a better way is: you need to win the most votes, but you're not required to have more than 50% of votes.

I slightly bemused that some one presumably living in the UK think that we have an electoral college USA style.

... charity which makes money by selling you corned beef in a supermarket

But under age soldiers cant actually fight.

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