Don't worry, they've brought in Dido Harding now so it's all gonna be fine

Not all people in the U.K. have names like Piers or Tabitha. Some of them have names like Dave.

Being called Dave does not make you a beer swilling gobshite stereotype. It just makes you someone called Dave.

Making lazy "working class scum" jokes about a storm because it's called Dave is pathetic.

Which he hopes means the outs will see out, but of course they see in.

And he hopes the ins will see in but of course they see out.

And so it is with every story this government tries to tell.

I'm an out, btw.

The Iran situation strikes me as a perfect case study in the omnishambles that is Starmer's government.

Rather than adopt a clear in or out stance, he's building a legal hair-splitting posture - "engaged but only if it's Tuesday and the pilot is called Molly and ...".

Do you wanna buy my book about why it changed? Do you? Eh? Come on!

It comes with a 25% year 1 discount on my internet-selling-you-things blocker [1][2].

[1] Min 20 year term
[2] May not work. Actually, might do fuck all.

I get (and agree with) all of the objections about Jeremy Clarkson. No fan of Top Gear or the Grand Tour.

But, Clarkson's Farm was magnificent. Truly brilliant telly.

And so it was that we were in The Farmer's Dog for Mother's Day. And mighty fine it was too.

I am trying to understand the concept of getting someone to install a Samsung TV ...

... don't you just, umm, take it out of the box, plug it in?

How about Churchill with a rhino he has shot on the £5? That should make everyone happy

I prefer the original proposal but suggest you don't use lorries as they're awfully polluting.

All you really need is a few dozen chipper types with backpacks stuffed with Thermos flasks to get on their bikes and pedal it across.

Ok, call me an old curmudgeon but I am tasked with booking a pub evening meal for this Friday and I am immediately discounting any pub that has changed its menu from "Cod and chips, £12" into "Fish potato 12" pretentious toss.

Two little girls were murdered. Not every story needs to be mangled into a cheap anti Trump gag.

If only someone could invent a method for making naturally highly insulated buildings that can stand for 100s of years out of, I dunno, locally available 100% recyclable materials like mud and straw.

If only, eh - still, we can dare to dream.

It's a niche win, but the image is of a C18th brickwork chimney stack on top of cob mass. Yippee, date right! More importantly, there's a clear diagonal lime mortar line from the bottom left of the brickwork upwards, showing how the stack was originally on the end of a hipped, thatched roof. Reading a building gives me immense joy.

Little things in life: Admiring what is now a single dwelling and saying "I think it was originally two, built at different times in ~C18, with the now central chimney originally on the end wall of the earlier dwelling which had a hipped thatched roof" then seeing this in the loft ...

Given the state of medical science in the 1770s, "I'm not feeling so good, let me go to have a look at the rich man's tower" might have been about as good as "take me to the hospital" ...

Nothing against them but be aware that Biscot Mill is not a small or local business in the way most people think of those things.

They're part of IVC Evidensia, a private equity backed corporate veterinary group with about 2,500 'independently branded' clinics across Europe and Canada.

I've spent many hours, on many occasions, sat in the room in Vienna'a Kunsthistorisches Museum marvelling at the originals.

But, a shout-out to the book Headlong, by Michael Frayn, which is a bloody good farce about them.

£7.99 might be an acceptable sale price for bin olives in Finchley but it's a bit rich for me!

Just saw @ofalafel.bsky.social performing in Bristol.

He's got spare tickets in Corsham apparenrly ... and the show is good!

Some nonsense as part of this meme.

I mean, you can't fault him ...

2020 model here, 30,000km under his belt (yes, "he" - just is).

Tyres replaced, obvs, and this winter I splashed out on some new windscreen wipers.

Other than that, we charge we go ...

I have no penchant for needlework, possessed as I am of stubby fingers and a lingering indifference to repetitive activity.

But, I do need to know now, or anytime before now, if that is available as a kit I can buy and make.

Watching school football. Parents next to me: "I want to work with the school but you have to go through all these bloody child protection checks! Everything's so bloody woke!"

Me (thinking): "Yet more evidence woke is good".

Just been to Taunton Deane services for a much needed wee.

On the way out spotted one of those parcel collection locker things by the petrol station.

Obvious question: Who the fuck gets their parcels delivered to a motorway services?

Right @greenparty.org.uk just saw your party political broadcast on BBC1.

Not tempted to watch Corrie but what's with the staging of Zak in a timewarp house?

Trying to decide whether to enter a half marathon this year (mebbe Barnstaple if it's on?)

On the one hand, CBA. On the other hand, I do like the bit at the end where you get a sample roll-on deodorant, a small bag of Haribo and an ACTUAL MEDAL.

We needed a new washing machine. I do most of the laundry round here, so I know it needs only three buttons: Normal, jumpers and school shirts. In a decent brand, £500.

Wife has feature FOMO: iDose, stain removal, WiFi, in-wash chatbot, you name it.

I got the £500 one. It has been a long morning.

If you're the sort of person who looks at a field and worries that putting solar panels on it "turns the countryside into an industrial landscape":

Rest assured that by looking at a field, you are already looking at an industrial landscape.

This is the kind of harassment I actively applaud.

I dunno if you're in the U.K. or elsewhere but every public charging station I've used just does tap my bank card, it reserves £x, I charge. I've never had to download an app?

That said, I mostly charge at home. I only stalk the public infra at >250 miles or so.

If there was a political party called Uberwokenetzeroistrejoinerism I'd join in a heartbeat.