Time for a change in the electoral system. Under STV, Reform at the current 30% would get....30% of the seats. As, of course, would Labour have done last time out.

I would suggest that the Irish Passport Office introduce a question for UK applicants asking if you a) voted leave, and b) ever voted UKIP/ Reform Ltd. and if yes, boots you off the site.

Now that I am over 60, I do find these stories about 'moms' and 'dads' who are sweetly innocent as to the ways of the world a little disturbing - will people soon start explaining things slowly and patiently to me also, even if I actually know stuff?

I like the way Starmer says ‘We recognised the State of Israel more than 75 years ago as a homeland for the Jewish people’ as if the UK had no role in those events and no responsibility for how they played out.

This picture is going to be on the cover of textbooks titled ‘Church & State: American Religious Politics in the 21st century’

Canada also recognising Palestine today after refusing visas to @kneecapceol.bsky.social for actually recognising Palestine for what it is.

My partner landed in Dublin yesterday en route to Cork and encountered complete chaos with the various competing bus services. She negotiated it, being used to it, but visitors with poor English were bewildered. And yet the govt thing the airport can handle 60m travellers a year.

I have a bad feeling that the next outrage will be the replacement of many of the MLK Boulevards across the states with the name of a recent dead racist.

🎯

Good to see the Orange Order are 'now available in paperback '

I for one am in favour of oxford university turning the brains of half of britain’s chattering classes into sludge

Tuam is basically Roscommon.

Arklow is an odd one; the accent sounds like a modulation of the Louth accent as much as anything, as if it had hoped over Dublin and headed for its holiday home in Courttown.

There was a counter eurovision once - Peel played the hell out of that album www.rte.ie/culture/2023...

I was joking, but an Alternative Eurovision for Gaza could be an absolute smash of a show.

If it was, it would at least be organised.

Oh Canada...

Good afternoon @laboursatvir.bsky.social @darrenpaffey.bsky.social would you like to explain this man's comments to your constituents who work or study at @unisouthampton.bsky.social? Is he representing party views? Heaven forbid that anyone at university should be exploring research and knowledge.

Brendan Behan once remarked that the first item on the agenda of any left organisation was 'the split'.

Roy Nichols from 1:46 and the job done look when he's finished. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbEs...

In the toilet in more ways than one.

The endlessly weird thing for an Irish person living in the north of England is the sheer normality of the housing market. People with jobs can buy houses. That's it.

...and increasingly on even the popular art forms. Privately educated still have ‘vice-like grip’ on most powerful UK jobs | Social mobility | The Guardian share.google/qapy1gZgHIjW...

Dear God.

I wiah I was surprised.

'He has a growing and unsustainable vinyl habit' Certainly not sustainable if you don't STAND THEM UP STRAIGHT. www.theguardian.com/thefilter/20...

Installed an extra 512 chip of RAM on an ATARI myself.

"The university will stop sharing the data required to be included in the ranking as of 2026. As a result, Sorbonne University will no longer feature in future rankings produced by THE, which include the World University Rankings, the Rankings by Subject or the Impact Rankings." Excellent!

Brilliant. Trying now to work out a Leeds route that would take you the same distance and variety of areas.

From Bowyer Bell's Secret Army (1979 ed): the man on the right clearly isn't McGuinness, unless he was a master of disguise - but who is it?

'Breed like rabbits' eh? Just like Catholics in NI, like the Irish more generally before the famine, when Carlyle, a man admired in Britain, figured a little pruning of the population would do no harm.

Do they all wear the same blue suit?

The suggestion is that Mandelson and McSweeney spoke on Tuesday last. So, was Morgan working for his ostensible boss, and trying to establish the truth of the matter ahead of PMQ, or was he colluding with 'Petey' to work on his defence strategy?

"It is understood that your chief of staff was in touch with Mandelson on Tuesday, whilst the permanent secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth was awaiting a response to official inquiries. When did your chief of staff speak with Mandelson this week and what did he discuss with him?"

8 weeks since Aer Lingus cancelled a flight on me and still no compensation. And no useful email address, just a 'no reply' response to a form. Or a phone number where you're on hold for an hour. Thank you for your attention in this matter.

Literally 24 hours from Tulsa

Last few boxes making their way out of storage. Completely forgot I owned this, any it's wonderful

I can. The decline of catholicism has led to a happy and healthier society. There you go.

Nor in mine; not 'very wealthy' but comfortable, studenty and academics who want to be able to cycle to work. Ditto with same day appointments.

Spoiler: does not feature Derek Smalls

Truly odd record. Recorded live in the Union Chapel (I think?) Chris Spedding and Ray Russell on guitars, monster drum sound. Released on MFP!?. Copy I have is France/ Benelux issue, hence helpful sleeve notes.

Morgan McSweeney has a new job?

No wonder Musk is impressed, the London march stretched all the way to the Arc de Triomphe

And how are they going to get into the city?

No pasty faced Londoners getting a taste yesterday of what nationalists in NI get every year on the 12th. The sense that you really won't be safe on the streets of your own city because large numbers of people are marching with the specific intention of letting you know how much they hate you.

Rudie Literally can't Fail. London' Literally Burning. Literally Complete Control.

(Van Morrison and) Him.

It's notable how often having 'a gay taoiseach' is mentioned as significant by people I talk to here about Ireland; much more than the referenda as a sign of social progress. And more than most in Ireland cared one way or the other.