No Pepple no party #RSACAN #WorldCup

Harry Brook: The talent of Tendulkar with the brains of a blobfish.

I love Ben Stokes but that was all ego, and just not cricket

The most Stokesian way to end an unbelievable career. One of the best to ever do it #thecricket

Lynda Barry did not squeeze your heart and simultaneously explain the point of all art with the barest of line drawings so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable."

Petit Deéjeuner

Djed Spence the only England player with any moral fibre

Hydration break

A very good friend stayed in my flat whilst I was away and a thousand things have been moved just slightly or done differently to how I do them and I'm not mad but oh my god it's stressing me the fuck out. Just low-level disruption to order and routine everywhere I look. I need a lie down already.

I've spent my first afternoon back in the UK having a deep existential crisis because Cooper dog didn't recognise me when I got off the train. I did some reading about it and have satisfied myself that it's OK but god, way to bring me crashing back down to earth, pooch. He's very cuddly now.

Every book I read on my five week European adventure: Endling by Maria Reva A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal by @robinince.bsky.social Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham Transcription by Ben Lerner The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig

Now leaving Totnes. Next stop COOPER DOG! 🐕‍🦺

5G signal: Hiking up a Croatian mountain? Perfect ✅ Three miles off the coast of France on an island nature reserve? Perfect ✅ Anywhere in Brexit land? Hopes and prayers 🤞 🤞

Five weeks of travelling across Europe by train has really driven home how uniquely awful the British train travel experience is.

Just landed back in the UK. Anything interesting happen whilst I was airborne? 👀

I've cancelled my trip to Paris, ending my trip in Marseille on the Frioul archipelago instead and flying home from here on Monday. Forty degrees during fashion week didn't bear thinking about. I've loved this European grand tour but I'm so ready to be home with Cooper dog now.

Guess which sweaty Englishman is going to be in Paris on those two 40°C days? Yeah I may die.

They're showing adverts during the hydration break, the bastards.

Watching England's opening World Cup match in an Irish pub in Milan, where it is *still* 30 degrees at 21:30. What could possibly go wrong?

Monsieur, the game, it is gone

I didn't think any single building could possibly rival the Hungarian Parliament in Budapest for most stunning of the trip, but god damn Duomo Di Milano, you may have done it.

Old Wesley Harding was a friend to all the greens He travelled with a pasty in his hand All around the football league he's beaten every team Janners chant his name across the land

FINE if no one else will write a Bob Dylan John Wesley Harding chant for Argyle's new vice-captain then I suppose I'll have to do it #argyle

I'm on a train in Italy that's been stationary for 2 hours and they've just started handing out water and snacks. I'm starting to think I might be sleeping on this thing.

Lighthouse ✅ Big wheel ✅ Rimini is just Italian Plymouth really

Congratulations to Curaçao on only conceding the same number of goals in a World Cup finals match against Germany as five-times-winners Brazil did. Quite the achievement.

Yesterday was really special: www.polarsteps.com/DeejSullivan...

First double decker train of the trip. Definitely not in Bulgaria anymore.

The mini cabin on a ÖBB Nightjet sleeper train is, shockingly, not built for a 6'2" fat man. That was absolutely torturous. Never again.

A trillion dollars and still a cunt.

English commentators looking at Matěj Kovář's name, sweating: "Well the first name looks a bit like Matty, that'll do, but what the hell is an 'ř'??" "Just mumble a bit and stick an S on the end, no-one will notice"

If Muslims or members of the Asian and Black community had set fire to white people’s homes with children running for their lives, do you think we would be discussing legitimate concerns or focussing on who radicalised them and ideological and contributing cultural factors?

Slovenia is unbelievably pretty, btw. It's bordering on indecent.

Slovenia is unbelievably pretty, btw. It's bordering on indecent.

There's a small child on my Zagreb to Ljubljana train singing Baby Shark in Slovenian and, whilst initially charming, it has quickly become just as irritating as it is in English. Some things are universal.

Excuse my language but I just walked up a fucking mountain

RIP legend

Day 16: Crossing to Croatia Seven hours of (mostly) comfortable, air-conditioned travel, past Balaton Lake and through increasingly left-behind looking Hungarian border towns, over this bridge, and I'm in country number three. Croatia. Excited to see what a weekend in Zagreb has to offer.

I read five books in May but they were all ebooks so I can't take a satisfying photo of them all stacked up. If you only listen to one recommendation from me, please read A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing. It made me cry in public in the middle of Budapest. It's phenomenal.

"Sorry for only telling the entire ladies squad their contracts weren't being renewed by email, we did ask the manager to do it for us after she'd resigned in protest at our decision to cut the team's budget, but she didn't for some reason. We will review this." Fucking shameful #pafc

I just arrived in Budapest on my ‘Deej's Sabbatical’ trip. Check out the full story at www.polarsteps.com/DeejSullivan...

I've arrived in Budapest but more to the point I've been reading A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing by Alice Evelyn Yang, published by @deadinkbookshop.bsky.social, on the way and why the hell isn't every single person talking about this book and showering it with awards? It's absolutely fucking superb

Oh of course Ryanair's "AI assistant" is incapable of answering simple questions and just relentlessly attempts to add extras to your booking. Fuck I hate every single thing about flying so much.

GREG DAVIES: seems like a kind of a shit task. Everyone just seems like they're going home normally. ALEX HORNE: well before you say that let's have a look at how Odysseus did. cut to panel of AJAX, MENELAUS, AGAMEMNON, and DIOMEDES who are all staring at ODYSSEUS with his head in his hands

So long to the swifts of Burgas, who have kept me company through the past few virus-ridden days. Just the small matter of a six hour train to Sofia and a flight to Budapest today...

Being really sick with the flu in a foreign country where you don't know anyone or speak the language, and hardly anyone speaks English, fucking sucks.

For the first time on this trip I woke up this morning feeling genuinely unwell. The baking heat and high pollen count is not helping one bit. Made it to Billa for a few bits but now holed up in the apartment with a book, hoping I will at least get to enjoy a thunderstorm on the balcony later 🤞🤞

Ahh the joys of hay-fever... This place is absolutely beautiful, look at all the trees and plants and flowers and OH DEAR GOD MY EYES ARE ON FIRE it's so pretty

Sun, sea, and tsatsa. Is this heaven?