« I think that it’s a problem that people enjoy hanging out with people they like, rather than people they don’t like ». Dude: it’s you that has a problem.

We’ve been expecting you Mr Bond

Honestly, @wikipedia.org if you could find some way to determine the people who have already given - possibly quite generously - to support you and thereby not nag them about not supporting you, we might feel more warmly towards you 😬

I *hate* brown foliage more than almost anything in the world. And so my neighbour’s (the neighbour is lovely btw) brown cherry is almost painful to look at at this time of year, as it so clearly yearns to be a normal green. Why did this mania for brown leaves come about?

Samson and Delilah, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1528–30 (flipped), 📸 by Jason Miller

They’re joking, right? Please tell me they’re joking. They have eyes, don’t they? And that photo?

Tee hee

Dear Avi,

Reading a nice-sounding recipe to possibly try, but just got to this bit that says « drain the (150g of) black olives and pat dry. With a sharp knife make three or four cuts in each olive from end to end and then cut each segment away from the stone as carefully as you can. Chop the olives. » 🤯

Introduce yourself with 10 bands/musicians you’ve seen live! Ricky Martin The Pet Shop Boys City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra National Orchestra of Belgium London Symphony Orchestra Monteverdi Choir Orchestre symphonique de Montréal Brussels Philharmonic Hallé Orchestra David Guetta

Started easy but got harder…. www.maptap.gg May 20 100🎯 100🎯 100🎯 95🏅 91😁 Final score: 958

i can't demand anyone cancel Spotify, quit going to Google for searches, stop hanging out on X/Twitter, etc but: i did quit those things, it wasn't that difficult, and i complain about them far less now that i don't have to interact with them highly recommend untangling yourself from shit u hate!

So I’m in Vienna having dinner near Schwedenplatz and, not knowing the area well, googled “Schwedenplatz”. And because I’m Belgian, the AI has decided to tell me the obvious lie that other people have searched for things to do in Vienna as well as in nearby Antwerp. 🤡🤡🤡

Brussels Pride parade draws 216,000 people

The EU accepts people as they are. Hate has no place here. Parliament has backed LGBTIQ+ rights for years. Now in focus: ending conversion practices. On the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia, Parliament stands with the LGBTIQ+ community 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Today is International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia #IDAHOBIT We should be ashamed that this year, the UK has fallen again in the rankings for LGBT+ equality on the ILGA Rainbow map. 🧵

www.maptap.gg May 17 100🎯 99🎯 95🏅 96🔥 99🎯 Final score: 974

So it turns out that I got to the age of 63 without having distinguished clearly in my head Bahrain on the one hand and Brunei on the other. I mean it’s all sultans* and arms sales, isn’t it? www.maptap.gg May 16 96🏅 100🎯 95👑 95🏅 100🎯 Final score: 971 *Yes, I know. Bahrain has a king.

À la veille de la Pride de Bruxelles, "le rejet et les violences contre les jeunes LGBTQIA + sont une fabrique à sans-abri", rappelle l’asbl Le Refuge

oh let's see what my friends and family are up to on the messages toda- 🟩🟨🟩🟩🟨 🟩🟩🟨🟨🟩 🐈🎯🔥🐈🎯 ​🐈🐟🐟🎯🟨 🐟🟨🎯🐈🐟 🟩🔥🔥🐈🎯 🐟🟨🐟🐟🐈 🔥🔥🎯🟩🔥 🐈🐟🎯🔥🟩 🟩🟨

www.maptap.gg May 15 90🌟 97🔥 100🎯 100🎯 100🎯 Final score: 987 Not at all bad. Hit by the Futtbuck, Wyoming syndrome (see earlier posts for details 😁) in place 1, but otherwise creditable. Though apart from 1, it was pretty easy today tbf.

Not bad today. It‘s a fun quiz, but it makes me smile when the maker thinks that guessing the location of Futtbuck, Mid Dakota is “easy”, whilst doing so for Montréal is “hard“. www.maptap.gg May 13 95🏆 94🏅 99🎯 96🔥 96🔥 Final score: 963

Fantastic.

He was elected leader of the Labour Party on the basis of promises he didn’t keep. And he was elected Prime Minister on the basis of a policy platform quite different from that he is actually pursuing. His whole vibe was “competent and trustworthy”, but he has proved to be neither.

European Commission has updated its follow buttons. ✅ Mastodon and Bluesky are in; ⛔ X, Facebook, YouTube are out. (Only when you scroll all the way down, FB and YT are still there, but no longer X.) commission.europa.eu/index_en

Not unhappy with that. Quite tough today. www.maptap.gg May 7 100🎯 95🏅 84😁 98🎯 91👑 Final score: 930

www.maptap.gg May 6 100🎯 92🏆 97🔥 100🎯 89👑 Final score: 953

Statements that have now come to light from a handful of @TheGreenParty candidates are totally unacceptable & require immediate action. There’s no place for anti-semitism or any hate speech in the party. This is a society-wide problem & needs to be rooted out wherever it’s found

www.maptap.gg May 4 100🎯 93🏆 96🔥 96🏅 94🏅 Final score: 955

www.maptap.gg May 3 94🏅 98🎯 99🎯 93🏆 97🔥 Final score: 960 Not bad.

From a man who served in the shadow cabinet throughout almost the whole of Corbyn’s tenure, this is a bit rich.

Statement from Newcastle Green Party

A statement from the Newcastle Green Group on the Blakelaw & Cowgate Candidate Tina Ion

Guinguettes : d’où viennent ces bars en plein air devenus incontournables, et quelle est leur histoire ?

I'm I extremely uneasy in the Metropolitan Police directly attacking a politician in the middle of an election campaign, even if the police were in the right (which let's face it, they are). To be honest I don't really think it's their role at any time.

Happy birthday @raremags.bsky.social!

The funny thing about Hannah Spencer is that she’s literally exactly what everyone pretends they want from politicians in political media: a working class woman who has broken into politics from a normal job, speaking her mind from genuine lived experience. And they fucking hate her for it lol

www.maptap.gg April 26 99🎯 89👑 95🏅 90👑 99🎯 Final score: 945

Energy company: “We’d like to cover Dartmoor with solar panels and put a windfarm around Westminster Abbey”. Greens: “Maybe not.” Every centrist dad on Bluesky - especially Labour-adjacent ones - who doesn’t take to Zach Polanski: “The Greens are worse than Trump.” (I exaggerate for comic effect 😀)

This is a dance off. If you see this repost a dance, or you are eliminated.

Genuinely though, how often does this happen - in any sport - that commentators from other countries cry real tears of joy. Italian commentators were crying, French commentators were crying. British analysts were screaming like I‘ve never seen before. Truly incredible.

Quite a lot of premature alleluiacation on #RTBF Musiq3 right now. Rookie error, chaps. You can’t break out the alleluias until tomorrow!

They’re playing the Desert Island Discs theme on RTBF Musiq3 and I have become culturally confused. 😆

Well I’ve given the new regime at BBC Radio 3 breakfast a fair hearing, I think. It‘s About a year since the departure of @petroc.bsky.social and although they tell us audience numbers are on the up, it’s not for me. So I will stay loyal to ”Through the Night” at breakfast: always worth hearing.

Wer stellt den neuen Münchner OB?

Retirement party tomorrow! And @theguardian.com’s Felicity Cloake should take a bow for the recipe for the porchetta. My tip is to use a solid fat (lard for example) for the stuffing. If you use olive oil it makes rolling and tying vastly more difficult.

Listening to RTBF Musiq3 and reflecting with a certain grim satisfaction that when AI begins to compose music just a bit better, then Max Richter will be the first to become complete replaceable.

Except for the slightly mawkish first track (which came after the effing swallows) please pass on warm congratulations to producer Jess for an excellent first hour or so of music. Lots of variety, a couple of new (to me) things, some substantial stuff. 👍👍👍 @tommckinney.bsky.social

Really enjoying @lintonstephens.bsky.social doing breakfast on BBC radio 3 this week. Lovely warm voice, not too much yakking on, able to let the music speak for itself. Solid French and Spanish pronunciation 😁 And no sodding birds, thank the lord. They all sound much the same after a while, Tom.

Well, though yesterday was the official first day of my retirement, this is the first moment of difference. I got back from the gym a few minutes ago and now… I’m free. No rush to the office. No Monday morning meetings. Nothing I ought to have done over the weekend but didn’t hanging over me. 😆