Do you ever hear a word on the news or in a conversation and think, I’m not completely sure what that means?

Education for the Lads is our new category where we’ll explain words and ideas in plain English. Each post will have a simple explanation, an everyday example and a bit more information where it’s useful.

Big ideas, explained simply.

Our first post is Capitalism. See below for the first edition.

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Example:
Someone uses their own money—or borrows it—to open a bakery. They own and run the business, decide what to bake and how much to charge, and keep any profit after paying their costs. If customers prefer another bakery, they can choose to go there instead.

A bit more information
The United States and the United Kingdom are examples of countries with mostly capitalist economies. Both have privately owned businesses, alongside government services, regulations and public spending.

Countries such as China and Vietnam have communist parties in government, but their economies also include private businesses and markets. So they don’t fit neatly into a simple “capitalist or not” list.

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Unabomber: Russell Crowe can’t save this one

I’m a big fan of Russell Crowe. Gladiator is one of my favourite films, and he’s been brilliant in films such as A Beautiful Mind and Romper Stomper. He always seems to give a strong performance, whatever role he’s in.

He’s good in Unabomber, too. In fact, he’s the best thing in it. But even he isn’t good enough to save this one.

The story jumps between the Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski) and the FBI investigation. It keeps flashing ahead to the shack and the capture, but it never builds much tension or gets under your skin. I already knew the story, so I wasn’t expecting a big surprise. I was expecting a decent film about it. This just didn’t do it for me.

If you’ve seen the series Manhunt: Unabomber or the film with Paul Bettany, you’ll know how much more gripping the story can be when it has time to unfold. This feels like a rushed, dull version of something that deserved better.

Crowe does his bit. The film around him lets him down.

Films for the Lads rating: 💩💩💩💩💩

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You know the feeling.

You’ve just been to the barber. He’s tidied the beard up, sorted the neckline, sharpened the cheeks and taken off exactly what you asked him to.

You look in the mirror.

Hmm.

There’s nothing actually wrong with it. The shape is right. It’s neat. It’s tidy. But somehow it just doesn’t look quite as good as you expected.

Then two or three days later, you catch yourself in the mirror again.

There we go. That’s better.

So what changed?

It’s almost

too

tidy when it’s first done

Straight after a beard trim, everything is at its most precise.

The edges are freshly cut, stray hairs have disappeared and the barber has usually brushed, combed and possibly added oil, balm or another product to finish it off.

It can make your beard look a little too perfect — almost like it hasn’t quite settled back onto your face yet.

Give it a day or two and normal life takes over.

The hairs start sitting in their natural direction again. Any product from the barber has been washed out. Your own routine takes over, and a tiny amount of new growth starts softening those freshly cut lines.

You haven’t suddenly grown a better beard in 48 hours.

It’s just stopped looking freshly trimmed.

A little bit of growth can actually help

This is probably the biggest part of it.

Those incredibly sharp cheek and neck lines soften slightly as the first bit of stubble comes through. Any tiny differences in length become less noticeable and the whole beard starts blending together again.

Basically, the barber has created the shape.

A couple of days of growth makes it look like your beard again.

And apparently, that can be the sweet spot.

Fresh enough to look tidy.

Grown in enough not to look like somebody has just attacked your face with a ruler.

So if you leave the barber thinking your beard looked better before you went in, maybe don’t panic.

Give it a couple of days.

There’s a fair chance you’ll walk past the same mirror 48 hours later, have another look and think:

Yeah. He knew what he was doing after all.

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Got kids? Has your son or daughter suddenly started saying “six-seven” while doing some weird little hand gesture — and you haven’t got a Scooby what they’re talking about?

Don’t worry. We’ve looked into it so you don’t have to.

6-7 originally came from rapper Skrilla’s song Doot Doot (6 7) before spreading through TikTok, memes and basketball videos.

NBA player LaMelo Ball got dragged into it too — conveniently, he’s 6ft 7in tall — and the whole thing just kept getting bigger.

Eventually, 6-7 became one of those things kids say because other kids are saying it. There’s no single definition you can learn that’ll suddenly make the conversation make sense.

In fact, that’s sort of the point.

So next time your kid’s saying “6-7” with their mates, probably doing that weird little hand gesture and giggling away, while you’re standing there wondering what the fuck they’re laughing at…

Now you know.

After all that, what does 6-7 actually mean…?

It actually means…

Fuck all!

Welcome to The Lad’s Dictionary — translating the shit you keep hearing into something resembling English.

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The other day I grabbed a deodorant and noticed something strange. The bottle looked identical to the one I’ve always bought, the price didn’t seem much different either, but when I looked at it properly it somehow felt smaller than I remembered

Now maybe my memory is playing tricks on me, but I’m sure they used to be bigger than that.

It turns out there’s actually a name for this trick: shrinkflation.

Shrinkflation is when companies quietly reduce the size of a product instead of increasing the price. The packaging often looks almost identical, so unless you check the weight or volume, you might never notice the difference.

Chocolate bars are a good example. Many bars have gradually shrunk over the years, but the trick doesn’t stop there. Multipacks often contain bars that are even smaller than the standard version you’d buy individually.

So not only has the bar itself become smaller over time, but the multipack versions are often smaller again. At first glance it looks like a bargain — four bars for a lower price — but when you compare the weight, you’re sometimes getting far less chocolate than you think.

Crisps, cereal boxes, deodorant, chocolate bars — loads of everyday products have gradually shrunk over the years while prices have crept up.

Sometimes it’s even spun as a good thing.

You’ll see phrases like “lighter snack”, “perfect portion size”, or “new compact packaging.”

In other words: the product got smaller.

It’s clever marketing really. Most shoppers notice a price increase straight away, but far fewer notice when a product quietly drops from 75ml to 50ml, or from 200g to 180g.

And it’s not just food either. Even property adverts sometimes do something similar. You’ll often see phrases like “modern compact apartments”, which can sometimes be another way of saying smaller living spaces for the same price.

Of course, sometimes smaller products genuinely do make sense. But next time you’re in the supermarket, have a quick look at the price per gram or millilitre on the shelf label.

That’s usually the quickest way to see what you’re really paying.

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It’s not because you were driving faster — it’s because your brain treats the two journeys differently.

On the way there, everything is unfamiliar. New roads, new landmarks, and uncertainty make your brain work harder. You subconsciously check progress more often, which stretches your perception of time.

On the way back, the route is familiar. Your brain switches to autopilot, stores fewer memories, and stops actively tracking the journey. With less attention on the road, time feels like it passes faster.

Same distance. Same journey.

Different perception of time.

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We spend our lives trying to avoid adverts.

We pay extra to remove them, block them, mute them, skip them.

Then we fly thousands of miles to Times Square — the most aggressively advertised place on the planet — and stand there staring at screens.

Here’s the funny part:

I can’t remember a single advert I saw.

Not one brand. Not one product.

The only thing I remember is my wife mentioning Mean Girls — because it was something our daughter watched. That stuck. The million-dollar screens didn’t.

Which says a lot.

Times Square isn’t memorable because of what it’s selling.

It’s memorable because of the people you’re with, the throwaway comments, the shared moments — the stuff advertising can’t buy.

The irony is, the loudest ads in the world end up being background noise…

and the quiet human moments are what stay with you.

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If it was a real weekly forecast, they’d only need to tell us once a week.

What it actually is:

“Based on what we know right now, this is our best guess — check back tomorrow when it’s different.”

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You’ve probably heard of Hot Fuzz.

You’ve almost certainly seen bits of it on TV.

But if it somehow slipped past you at the time — or you’ve only ever half-watched it — it’s well worth sitting down and giving it a proper go.

On the surface, it looks like a daft action comedy. Underneath that, it’s a surprisingly sharp film that rewards repeat viewing more than most.

Why it still holds up

At its core, Hot Fuzz is a buddy cop film, but it doesn’t just parody the genre — it genuinely understands it. The action scenes are over-the-top on purpose, the dialogue is packed with throwaway lines, and nearly every joke pays off later in the film if you’re paying attention.

It’s also one of those rare films that gets better the more times you watch it. Once you know where it’s going, you start spotting all the little setups, callbacks, and background gags that you’d completely miss the first time round.

The pacing helps as well. It starts off fairly grounded, then slowly ramps up the absurdity until it’s gone completely off the rails — but somehow still makes sense within its own logic.

The Lads Room verdict

This is an easy watch in the best possible way.

It’s funny without trying too hard, violent without being grim, and clever without disappearing up its own backside. You can stick it on casually, or actually sit and watch it properly — it works either way.

If you like films that are:

• Highly rewatchable
  
• Packed with quotable lines
  
• Silly on the surface but well put together underneath
  

…this one deserves its place in your rotation.

The Lads Room Rating: Pretty f***ing good

A few things you might not know

If you’ve already watched Hot Fuzz, here are a few extra details that add a bit more appreciation on a rewatch:

• Although the film is set in the fictional village of Sandford, it was largely filmed in Somerset, with several real villages used for exterior shots.
  
• Many of the action scenes deliberately mimic classic Hollywood cop films, right down to camera angles and editing styles — it’s parody, but very intentional parody.
  
• A lot of the jokes and lines that seem like throwaway gags early on are actually setups for much later payoffs.
  
• The village itself was designed to feel almost too perfect, which helps sell the slow reveal as things start getting stranger.
  
• Some scenes that look chaotic and improvised were actually tightly choreographed, especially during the action-heavy final act.
• Cate Blanchett makes a brief, masked appearance as Nicholas Angel’s ex-girlfriend — which is why most people never realise it’s her.
  
  

Part of our ongoing “Classics You Might Have Missed” picks.

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