[UKPol, football] Oh for god's sake. Are there any actual grown-ups in the room?

Just on the off chance that any of you enjoy #cryptic #crossword puzzles, last Friday's Times xword, by Roger Phillips, is maybe the best puzzle I've ever seen. Nearly every clue is virtuoso showmanship from the setter. Incredible. Cracking The Cryptic have a good video breakdown here […]

I've been an editor and proofreader, on and off, for decades now. I've also worked as a technical author and I've been a published author for one of the most recognised "how to" book series in the world. I got some game. But at the moment, I'm training to be able to do some specialist proofing […]

God Almighty #perthshire is pretty, isn't it? #scotland

Incredible lightning storm going on right now! So cool! #weather #thunder #eastlothian #scotland

I'm #currentlyreading "Thirst: Twelve Drinks That Changed My Life" by John Robins. It really is excellent. Recommended if you enjoy musings on the nature of addiction, the hubris of youth, the complexity of mental (ill)health, or just the struggle of being a slightly awkward middle-aged man […]

#fedihelp #uk I try not to buy from Amazon. Often my solution is to buy from eBay instead. But, increasingly, the eBay purchase turns out to be nothing much more than an Amazon drop-shipper. Does anybody know a reliable way to avoid this? It drives me mad when an Amazon package turns up on my […]

I am at #edinburgh #pride. Call me a sad old fart if you like, but honestly seeing all these young queer people smiling and happy and hugging each other makes me quite emotional. It really is great.

This, from People Make Games, is pretty special. A weird documentary about a man and an art project and an obsession. Absolutely beautiful and I don't mind telling you that the final reveal made me cry, hard. https://youtu.be/Is8N7B9b0GQ #youtube #worldbuilding #art #documentary

RE: https://mastodon.social/@semanticist/116733960670324692 🧵 As is so often the case, @semanticist is bang on the money here.

Aww that's sad news. RIP Anthony Head. I know he'll always be Giles-off-of-Buffy for most people, but do check out Bleak Expectations where he's having the absolute time off his life as Mr Gently Benevolent.

Does anybody out there own one of the ill-fated #JingPad tablets? Have you managed to unlock the bootloader and flash a different OS? I've been bouncing off this for weeks now. #askfedi #linux

Goodbye John, and thanks for all the grimdark. #trenchcrusade #warhammer #art #johnblanche

RE: https://mastodon.social/@johnnie/116618488786821023 Thanks for all the responses to this. It looks like (for various reasons) this is going to have to wait until next [Academic] year to be tackled. But I *will* keep you posted.

The Child's school has started running their PE lessons by dividing the kids into "boys" and "girls", which they never did before. TC is not happy about it, and I happen to know there are several non-binary kids (although not all of them are publicly out). I'm intending to raise it with the […]

How can it be glorious tappsaff sunshine *and* hailstones? Come on #scotland, pick a lane.

[UkPol, transphobes] As the challengers to Starmer begin to emerge, today and every day it's important to say: Fuck off, #WesStreeting

[Ukpol, Scottish politics, Expletive-ridden Rant (TM)] John Swinney says that Scotland needs to be an independent country before Farage becomes Prime Minister. Bitch, you're the fucking First Minister, where've you been? What the fuck do you want *me* to do about it? Get to work. #ukpol #scotland

I have done my civic duty in telling Reform to absolutely fuck right off right now, ie I have voted. #ukpol #scotland #election2026

I just wrote about 1000 words of fiction for A Thing. This really shouldn't be too much of a big deal but honestly my mental health has been so bad recently that this is the first thing I've written for at least a year. Perhaps tomorrow I will write more. Let's see.

[Discussion of (fake) gore and effects makeup] One of The Child's special interests is gore and realistic wound effects makeup. She is entirely self-taught, and she is very very good. She just showed me tonight's practice "wound" on her arm. Even though I *knew* it was fake, just looking at it […]

Okay, #fediadvice please. I need to print a document. A3, greyscale only, probably about 200 double sided sheets. 80gsm is fine. Loose leaf, no binding. What's the cheapest way for me to do that in the #uk? Bonus points if I can chose the grain direction.

I never thought I'd miss "THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER" but if it's now being replaced with "Praise be to Allah" I really think I might start stocking up on canned goods and toilet paper. Holy shit.

It's April. It's snowing. This is unacceptable, Carl.

Ah #scotland. Yesterday, blazing sunshine, got three loads of washing dried. Today, I'm heading to B&Q to buy up all their loose timber and then I'm going to gather two of every animal.

[Firefly] #firefly I'm still a bit sceptical, so I'll believe it when I see it, but I am of course as keen as anyone else to #bringbackfirefly

#slaythespire 2 has hit Early Access, which means that I will now disappear down a rabbithole of glorious roguelike deckbuilding weirdness, wherein I can forget about the awfulness of reality for a bit. If my total hours played on the first game is anything to go by, I may not emerge until about […]

I'll admit, I don't know much about war. And I'm even prepared to reluctantly accept that in a war casualties are probably inevitable. But I'll say this: if the unit of measurement for casualties is "the schoolfull", that's not a great look.

Fucking hell we're all going to die.

Harrison Ford has done some good stuff, but I honestly think #shrinking may be the performance of his career. Such a good show, and he is magnificent. (I'm not saying it's better than Empire, obviously, I'm not insane, but you get where I'm coming from)

I now officially own a teenager. God I feel old. Happy Birthday to The Child.

Well, it happened. The Child asked for help with homework. It was trigonometry. And - oh God the shame of it - I had to look it up. Dammit Johnnie, you knew this was coming! You've trained for this! You only get one First Trig Homework and you blew it. Now she's going to be in therapy and it's […]

RE: https://mastodon.social/@johnnie/112734486956999764 Well this has aged like fucking milk. What a stupidly naive doe-eyed little child I was in - checks notes - 2024?! Oh good god.

[Ukpol, Christmas miracle] Seems like the one thing that's uniting me and my right wing boomer relatives this Christmas is that Wes Streeting can absolutely fuck right off.

Right then. It's officially Christmas (at least in my timezone). I'm off to bed, and then tomorrow I will eat an amount of food that comes with a Surgeon General's warning, and imbibe enough alcohol that I will be unable to be legally sold in the EU without a label that reads "WARNING […]

[Politics, world news, Russia / Ukraine] Hmm I dunno. Feels kind of like the actual dictionary definition of "pretty goddam precedented" to me.

As somebody with an unusual #name (which I changed by #deedpoll), I'll occasionally hear people ask loaded questions like "Yeah, but what's your REAL name? The one on your #birthcertificate?" 😡 Well #fuckthehaters. As of today, my birth certificate's been retroactively updated to show my "real" […]

Playing make-believe with my 6 year old niece. "Okay, Uncle Johnnie, you're a robot but your batteries are always really low so sometimes your brain is broken." Honey, that's 20 solid years of therapy summarised right there. What do I owe you?

Images from previous @robinince post, with added alt text.

Two gun-based atrocities within hours of each other. When the news sites have to make a decision as to which horror is the more objectively awful (and therefore gets to lead), the world really does feel unbearable. Talking to The Child about it, and her quite reasonable question is "but what […]

Holy shit, @pluralistic on The Daily Show! Nice.

The Child, discussing classic Yuletide literature with her friend: "Who is Scrooge?" "You know, from the story." "What story?" "You know. Like the Grinch except he's not a Furry." "Oh yeah, that one."

Hooooooooo boy #southpark

I really shouldn't watch back-to-back Ted Lasso when I'm depressed ... but it's either that or Bojack Horseman and we all know how that ends. Lesser of two evils.

The Andrew Formerly Known As Prince. Just wanted to get that out there on the very very low chance that I'm the first person to think of it, cos it popped into my head in the shower and made me giggle for 5 minutes straight.

"Thriller", in #scots https://youtu.be/evq39SOAVg0 This really made me smile. Happy #halloween everyone. #scotland #ScotsLeid

Some days it's hard to keep positive. I try, but honestly I despair. What's happened to the world? When will the madness end?

Wait fucking Badenoch says her favourite author is *Terry Pratchett*? JFC none of these fucking chuds have anything more than the very thinnest surface-level understanding of any media they've ever encountered do they? Or she's just lying

[Linux, filesystem, pain] Increasingly convinced that btrfs is more trouble than it's worth :-(

If you hold Immigrants to a higher standard than you hold to your own people, that's a Racism #immigration #homesecretary #ukpol #ukpolitics #whiteness #racism