This led to one of the weirdest Retail Work moments in my life; I am stacking dog food on the shelves and someone walks up and starts asking me if I'm worried the LHC is going to create a deadly black hole Sir, this is a Somerfield... do... do you want some Dentastix?

It's absolutely astonishing we're nearly 20 years into SNP Governance and partisans for the Labour party, a party which has become an active participant in a hate movement against trans people and which is increasingly anti-migrant, still howl and squeal about the Nats being the real right wingers

Tapping my own personal sign once again medium.com/@allanfaulds...

Also this is why, sure, Joe Public is not talking and never has talked about electoral reform, but you are a fundamentally stupid and/or malicious bastard dismissing those of us who cared about it on that basis: there is literally nothing more important in a democracy than how democracy itself works

So Reform UK are getting closer and closer to just full-out "remigration" and still the Great and the Good of our politics and media will tut and shake their heads and tell us we can't call Reform and their supporters evil or racist, even though they're obviously evil and racist.

After 18 months of DnDing, we have miniatures for the whole party! (@ewnhc.bsky.social has had one for ages hence being painted) Look at my guy's little shield!

I just want to note for the record that all the photos I have up are within the past 2 years, so I am EXTRA smug about this (in reality the salt and pepper nature of my hair is less clear in photos, there is no way I do look 25, but taking the compliment on behalf of my mum's excellent genes)

Finally totting up my total Vienna costs (which were perfectly manageable) and "a bit below half the difference between mortgage + insurance + factors fees vs what the new tenant in my old flat is paying in rent" is a very smugly satisfying way to think about it, renting really is a racket eh

Incidentally, there's a weird thing whereby there are three quite intense territorial disputes in Latin America with non-Latin countries; Guatemala-Belize, Venezuela-Guyana, and Argentina-Falklands, in all of which the UK is in the unusual position of Actually Being On the Right Side

Not me shouting "THE VENN DIAGRAM OF WEIRDO LEFTISTS PAYING ATTENTION TO YOUR PARTY AND PEOPLE WHO USE BLUESKY IS A CIRCLE" at @blairanderson35.bsky.social when he was suggesting I might have missed the drama by not being a Twitter girlie anymore

I have done very little dating in my 30's really, compared to the all-consuming drama of my 20's, so I had forgotten how... weird it feels to fall into a bit of a rhythm of chatting to someone and then, suddenly, you are no longer doing so but you've got the lingering itch of habituation

This is a clusterfuck for the ages isn't it

Well if the UK Government do actually finally bloody do this, that's £155 million the Scottish Government don't need to spend on their mitigation payment... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Is it? I might have checked with the premiere source of Scottish by-election analysis before making that claim but sure, wire in, this is based on... what, a completely in line with national polling swing in HLS and a surprise victory in Barrhead? Holy carefully selected evidence Batman!

Suddenly been reminded of the concept of Salt and Chilli Tattie Scones, something I am very keen to try making, maybe that's lunches over the weekend sorted

Love to have a perfectly functional Scottish firm that provides a good, Scotland focussed information service, bought over by a London one that immediately makes it worse, losing the Scottish depth whilst flooding my inbox with useless Westminster bollocks 🙃

Horses still exist in republics Stephen

Say what you will about Alba and the gods know I do, but they at least launched a real party that you could be a real member of and stood real candidates that lost all their deposits, Your Party is almost certainly not even getting that far

Green parties across the UK get deried by some on the Traditional Left for not being rooted in working class communities or the trade union movement, but 1 they generally have the Left policies regardless and 2 they don't have the sheer incompetence of every Left Alternative the UK has ever seen

These people couldnae run a menage

Having gone straight into another committee evidence session as my first thing back at work, now it is time for The Emails, pray for me

Just returning to this briefly and thinking about having been in Slovakia again the other day: do not underestimate the possibility of the UK, ultimately, just falling to bits not because of mass demands for disunion, but because political disagreements become nigh-on impossible to navigate

I have no legal expertise but my view on scrapping Not Proven is that if you have something unique (or nearly), and it's an ancient relic, and nobody who has had more recent cause to set a system up uses it, that probably speaks to it being unnecessary - just, purely, instinctively!

Not me opening up a map of Chinese provinces to determine if Sichuan was in the Vietnam/Japan/Korea/Oceania bloc It is not, in which case I'm afraid I have to be a Basic Euro Bitch and say it's yellow for the Italian, Spanish and various Tattie Cuisines of Northern Europe for me

Look at the 16-24 numbers, good gods. A thought I'd already had yesterday was "what if this is Wales' 2007 moment?", whereby the election of a nationalist government starts out rocky but eventually leads to a supercharging of Independence support that then becomes generationally embedded. Welp...

My one regret from Vienna is I was wilting so hard in the heat at the World Trampionships I forgot to buy merch, more fool me

Giggling at the fact YouGov have had to extend the Y axis further compared to a few weeks ago

Glaswegian central heating systems in September

This is an absolute existential crisis level poll for Welsh Labour, holy hells this is utterly dire

Welcome home, Allan

Love to be on Scottish soil

Pray for my flight home not to be delayed like way out was because getting up this early twice in a week is brutal

I lost one of my charge cables yesterday (the one I usually take into the office) so you can imagine my annoyance when I also lost a pair of socks today. I had two pairs of white trainer socks with me but only packed one back away! Imagine then my relief when I realised I was wearing the other pair

Spot the day my only plan was "go for a wander" (hint: today)

My considered take on "is economic uncertainty making people fash" is broadly "no, but it is encouraging people who are not fash to vote for the same party as those who are, who themselves are emboldened by politicians afraid to take them on because they assume/fear it is actually representative"

Okay I am done, no more holiday, just a bus back to Vienna, packing, and up early for flight home 😭 Once I am home though I do not intend on being on my feet for more than one minute at a time, always forget how knackering a city break is

Even in this heat it would be unjustifiably indulgent to have two ice cream cones a few hours apart That's why I got sorbet in a tub instead

My Most SNP bridge gag over on BBS would have KILLED on Twitter, in large part because the Brainworms Community would be furiously RTing it as an admission of bias on my part because only someone who was truly a Nat would think such jokes were allowable Anyway here's the Most SNP and other sights

The last time I was in Bratislava (2014), we had to walk through this park to get to our hostel. It was overgrown, falling to bits, with a dry and decrepit fountain. They've given it a wee lick of paint since then eh? (Envious of the kids playing in the water, I'm settling for a Pepsi Max...)

If not cake, why cake vibed?

Not to spite folk back home but it is 24 degrees in Bratislava

I love to go to Town Town

So the SPÖ (main centre left party) have a district office just round the corner from my hotel, which from a UK perspective is such a mind boggling concept these days, imagine having the cash for that level of locality, but also reminds me of a superb Scottish vs European Young Greens interaction

I do understand that if you're going to stay somewhat centrally in a big city you may have the misfortune of them doing Works on the street outside, but they seem to have started the heavy machinery at about 6am. That's taking the piss isn't it?

it’s so stupid we have to pretend everyone was ‘wrong’ about the law for 15 years and not just say the actual objective truth that the Supreme Court changed the law

Me, mentally: Weird how the big bit is all non-Imperial museums and the actual imperial museum is a side wing Tour guide: That whole curved bit was only completed in the 20thC so never got to serve as an imperial palace, this is the bit the imperial family actually inhabited Ah

I don't think Javier Milei is going to invade the Falklands though, to be fair, it's not like there's anything that can be written off these days

Ah now that's a Spanish Habsburg for sure, look at that jaw

Having a full on giggle fit having skimmed my photos from the day to weed out the week ones, nothing but respect for this random woman, gaun yersel hen

The US: This is the First Floor, which means it is the first floor you enter from the ground. The UK: This is the First Floor, which means it is the first floor above the ground. Austria for some reason: This is the First Floor, which means it is the first floor above the ground and the mezzanine.