Also, whoever came up with this can get a pint off me if they ever spot me in a pub.

At the risk of obvious jokes: I have just smuggled a gammon into Germany.

We're through security, after the by-now-standard drug swabs on the packets of Red Leicester in my coat pockets.

I'm planning to make it through customs on the "mate just let him through, can't you see he's got issues" ticket.

Finishing off the long Liverpool weekend in the Philharmonic.

In happier news, this Bryn Williams guy seems to know what he is doing.

Imagine having a total banger of a shit-take lined up, like "D-Day was anti-communist", and then a half-cut Hegseth tops you without even trying.

So 'Puffin Island' is a bit of a misnomer. It's not that we didn't see any puffins, it's that there are so many other cool birds there - and a bunch of grey seals.

Working our way through the restaurants we had no time for during the honeymoon.

The local animal shelter has this cat and I 1.) Absolutely need him to join the other two 2.) Am gonna call him "Sergey"

Trump II is reality TV but it's actually reality. Trump II is reality TV perfection. It's not planned, it's not scripted, these people really are like this (good luck trying to script them). It's just pure, unfiltered, "all the worst people you've ever known on TV, at the same time, always".

If anyone ever catches any sign of a market for explaining German LibDems to English LibDems, or explaining English Greens to German Greens - or ideally both for twice the fee - just let me know yeah. I need €5k per hour for the pain it causes me though.

I feel like I, the only fiscally conservative Green in the village, should feel happier about this.

A major problem in this line of thinking is imagining that some class of perfidious billionaires is behind the bond market when it’s actually a few thousand money managers who work for groups like the Ontario Teachers Union Pension Fund

Egon Krenz in one. Not entirely sure about the Honeckers, but probably. Fuck's sake.

Klaus Lage's "Halt aus". A song about growing old and just being happy that there's somebody who'll bear your constant presence, and love you despite the obvious flaws. www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_JX...

Watching the game with my GP and the bastard is refusing to give us morphine to ease the pain/boredom.

I've seen a lot of shit matches this year and this might be the worst.

Immerhinnichtschlimmsterfallunwohlgenugtuung In case anybody needs a German word for being relieved, but not exactly happy, at Arsenal leading.

I think this also allows for Slot to be remembered more generously than he was regarded towards the end.

Gonna give "Field of Death" a ring and ask whether they need an almost 42-year old keeper with a dodgy knee.

I swear, if that thunderstorm does materialise today, I'll put on "Durch den Monsun" on full blast, thereby sacrificing most of what is left of my residual coolness to the rain gods.

Ihr habt keine Ahnung wie sehr ich diese kleine Sturmzelle grad anfeuer

I've found the NIMBY King. "Boah grabt die Bombe doch einfach wieder ein und scheiß drauf ey!"

Eines muss man Großbritannien dann doch lassen: Da findet sich zwar auch immer noch kein GUTER Premierminister, aber der Absägeprozess für die, ähm, definitiv-nicht-so-guten funktioniert immerhin noch prima.

There's a real tension in political coverage between praising "grown up" decisions in the abstract and castigating anyone who tries any of them for their hopeless political naivety.

"We made an Ozzy Osbourne AI avatar" is just a fancy way of saying "we made another chatbot go nuts, but this one's animated and REALLY into drugs and booze", isn't it?

There is a local homeless lady who is immaculately polite in person, but unless she is involved in some kind of personal interaction, she walks around yelling "MISSGEBURTEN! IHR HURENSÖHNE! ALLES FOTZZZZZÄÄÄÄÄÄN". And I'm starting to think that might not be the worst strategy.

I love the Kerkez Mullet

"hiding a garage full of let-go balloons, from the sky" One of these days I'll figure out whether the ballons are obtained from the sky, or being hidden from it. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBtX...

"The TV that insults me freely, still I know what I'm dying to see..." www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI9v...

Southampton fans watching the playoffs final #HULMID

I once got away with translating the headline "Aufstand der Aktionäre" as "The shareholders are revolting".

Interim park picnic score: 1 kingfisher 1 muskrat 2 nesting crows A bunch of frogs fighting over whose pond it is 1 raven who likes frogs for lunch

Between the FT Arsenal piece and the bank geezer with the "lower value human capital" utterance, I'm getting serious flashbacks to a certain CHRO who declared themselves "a Klopp disciple" and the works council then had to fight them to a standstill on a number of insane initiatives.

I'm not going back to X to explain it to Iain, but the way to get through to people like that is to point out this: People are not like goods imports. When they come they also need to eat, look after and entertain themselves. To do that they buy goods and services from people here, creating work.

Six months of swimming twice a week and all the nice shirts I bought ages ago fit me again. Suit jackets next.

No idea why Tuchel is getting all the hate over his squad selection. Toney's experience playing in half-empty stadiums under an authoritarian regime could prove invaluable.

Checking in at the hotel like Me: "Hi, we have a reservation under M" Receptionist: "...Katharina M?" Me: "that's my wife" @huan-san.bsky.social: "I am not his wife"

Die Leute sagen Deutschland kriegt nix mehr auf die Kette, but we just fly-tipped a dying whale on Denmark's doorstep and while that's kind of weird it's also strangely impressive. www.n-tv.de/panorama/Buc...

Back when I did freelance teaching I got given a group of Year 7/8 Hauptschüler for the Ganztagsprogramm. Keep them entertained after lunch. This girl turned up with a paper and made a demonstrative point of reading it rather than paying attention to me.

Oh great my wife's got the catnip out and now we've got a geriatric cat with the zoomies on our hands.

The British government is an elaborate conspiracy to ruin my long weekends.

"Having the numbers" is a fantastic phrase. Sometimes, it means you actually have the numbers. 95% of the time everyone knows you're trying to back out of something with some kind of dignity. "I definitely have the numbers," I tell the used-car salesman, "I just gotta check, erm..."

We had this AI training at work the other day, about how Co-Pilot lets us talk to our documents. I thought anybody in any kind of editorial role regularly yells at documents.

I am very tired of the stupid-savvy 'oh you think politicians were honest before Donald Trump' take, like yes there has in fact been a qualitative change in the way modern american politics have been conducted that is largely attributable to him, and is bad.

The chicken caesar sannies at Lucy Cavendish college ca. 2001/2

In other news, a cat from the local area continues to reject awareness of her own tail.

Turns out it's probably from the 1920s and similar ones in worse shape go for considerably more than €15. Erm, anybody know anything about antique pub mirror preservation?