When I started my current job we all had desk phones, rather than use GChat or Slack. Everyone else's rang regularly; mine never did. After a couple of months I contacted IT to come and have a look at it.... there was absolutely nothing wrong with the phone 😔
Senedd election update
Leaflets through the door:
Labour 1
Plaid Cymru 1
Reform 1
(Was glad of the last one of these as it's been cold in the evenings and I'd run out of firelighters)
Placards outside houses seen from bus windows between Denbigh, Ruthin and Mold:
Plaid Cymru 5
All other parties 0
Overheard conversation upstairs on the 51…
‘So, yeah, so 28 days from now… so that’s a couple of weeks away, then’
‘No, a month’
‘What?’
‘28 days… so a month’
‘Yeah, so a couple of weeks’
‘Well, 28 days’
‘Yeah, couple of weeks’
An office table, on which there sits a ‘Southbank Centre’ branded mug, an open notebook with notes in it and a pen. Seated across the table, opposite the viewer, is a very large stuffed Moomintroll toy. He looks slightly nervous. As he should, we all know he spends his days doing nothing in the breakout space.
Appraisal season is relentless.
I’m not even his line manager.
Always nice to get an insight into how the other half live
Woken up by the hotel fire alarm, at a time close to that which I’d planned to rise at anyway.
Still, ten seconds of confused ‘What the hell is going on with my phone? Why is it so loud?’ scrabbling in the dark.
Latest Senedd election scores…
Leaflets through the door:
Labour 1
All other parties 0
Placards outside houses in nearby villages:
Plaid Cymru 3
Reform 1
All other parties 0
Also in this issue are a glorious @camsell59.bsky.social match of the month feature, plus typically great words from @danielgraywriter.bsky.social, Cameron Carter and others.
But you absolutely need to buy it for the genuinely incredible trophies story alone.
An inside page from When Saturday Comes issue 464. The page features an article titled ‘Spot Checks’ by Glen Wilson with pictures of Wales football players and the subheading ‘Despite another campaign ending in heartbreak, Craig Bellamy has revitalised Wales’. The words of the article are blurred out.
The new issue of @wsc.co.uk (464) is out now.
Includes 750 words from me on Wales’ World Cup (non) qualifying campaign.
Bit harsh on your wife, I’m sure she’s lovely
Not quite as inspired as the Romeo & Juliet half and half, but we’ve got these excellent David Shrigley football scarves in our shop.
I fear I’d mostly be waving the ‘Pleeeeease’ side at my mob
Paging @secondmentions.bsky.social
Things could’ve been prevented from getting this far had Donald Trump’s statements, speeches and social posts only ever been reported word for word.
Every time the press have given him the unmerited benefit of rationalising or normalising his words, they’ve enabled him and his actions.
Although given it’s the one gig that clashes with Harry Styles’ own I’m not anticipating it coming off, sadly.
I threw that track into the playlist purely to sew that seed.
Harry Styles’ Meltdown line-up was announced at lunchtime today.
(Who knew he and I share a love for Getdown Services?)
Find out who else has been added to the festival bill, and give them a listen via this non-expertly collated playlist…
This morning’s inexplicable waking earworm was the violin part from Camera Obscura’s ‘French Navy’ which, again, it feels rude not to share…
Bit harsh from Guy Mowbray… he’s only 16
Good stuff. What do you go with material-wise? I like to think you made absolutely no reference to being bollock-naked, and just did a tight 15 of political satire
‘Hey, my eyes are up here… but also…’
How did the gig go?
There weren’t all that many from Caernarfon there either (understandable, their entire season has been played away)
Or maybe there isn’t and people buying my stuff have just finally grown the fuck up and realised it’s 2026.
I think there’s a setting in Vinted where you can ensure people don’t choose that (I had similar issues whereby getting to the one place miles away that’d do that cost so much it made selling the item pointless). Try going in your settings and looking under Postage.
Kanye West being booked to headline Wireless Fest on all three nights feels like a major and utterly grim cultural shift. Ten years ago, a huge artist who recorded and released a tune called “Heil H*tler” would have gone to the wilderness and stayed there. But he has been welcomed back in through the front door. And this is on the heads of the festival organisers, each of whom should be publicly grilled about this choice. Indulgence of anti-Semitism is one of the early warning signs of the return of old horrors, and it doesn’t get more indulgent than this.
Cheers to everyone else who followed suit and also did this.
It meant the Pawb Foundation were able to give out 25+ tickets for the game tonight to people who wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to attend Wales matches.
Sound. I've just sent you a direct message with the details of what to do.
(It involves using someone at Pawb’s phone number, and I don’t know if they want that number public, hence the second step)
On this.
As I can’t justify travelling from North Wales for a dead rubber, I’ve donated my ticket to the FAW’s Pawb Foundation so someone else, who wouldn’t normally get to go to a Wales match, can do so.
If you want to do the same, drop me a DM and I’ll let you know the details of how to do it
Excited to share news of another intern joining us later this year.
If you're reading this @dualipa.bsky.social, get in early if you want to find a desk on a Wednesday... and best to bring in your own mug.
Won a bronze medal as well, the knob.
And he’ll barely mention it. Just a silent withering look the next time one of the rest of us complains about a a muscle twinge from taking the bins out.
