Reading, scrolling, drinking tea whilst listening to BBC R6M and snippets of David Bowie interviews; his eloquence, humour and modesty have quite set my old chin a'quiver.

As our American friends here are, quite rightly, currently outraged at the latest Trump outrage, a British irrelevancy: one's favourite counties. I have been fortunate to travel extensively around our small island. At different times of our lives, we have different tastes and priorities 1》

Hmm. I live just to the north of the 1 in '104' mph predicted wind speed. Better keep the cat in. I hear that all movement in Cornwall is discouraged (no public transport).

Only the best people.

"It could never happen here" Fuck off.

It used to be said, in less knowing days, that if we looked at the USA, we Brits could see 10 years into our future. To predict Farage's talking points these days, we merely look back a little while at MAGA memes and policies, to his checklist of unempathic, wilful ignorance.

Sarah is an excellent writer, a must read, both here and in her prescient books.

Storm Goretti approaches

The pink paper, getting pinker by the decade. @alphaville.ft.com Buy that sub editor a beer. www.ft.com/content/ad94...

🎉 Welcome to the Public Domain, COMPOSITION WITH RED, BLUE, AND YELLOW (1930) 🎨 🖼️ Piet Mondrian’s most iconic painting is Neoplasticism in refined form with primary colors, black lines, & asymmetrical balance distilled to essentials. Learn more ➡️ blog.archive.org/public-domai... #PublicDomainDay

“The American people always support strong and wrong versus weak and right.” Discuss: is this a uniquely American characteristic?

This fine specimen 'runs' Durham County Council for #Reform. Littered in his grubby CV are bankrupt companies, to the tune of two million quid, including one with unpaid debts of >£300k to... Durham Council.

Heavily discounted in the UK atm. Without, in anyway, wishing to legitimise/excuse violence, a person using them in my company would sorely try my patience.

Milton: Paradise Lost. (quoted from a Book Two heading, in that excellent tome from Neal Stephenson: Quicksilver) #booksky

Captain America would now be on Trump's hit list.

A good thread, showing how far "post truth" social media, especially Twitter, Tiktok and Facebook, have gone.

A working definition of the F word (no, not that one)

Ok. So. They anonymised the sheep.

Loads and loads of words flying about, these are better than most.

Last car you took a picture of: A 1937 Bentley Blower turned up on my seafront the other day, similar to one that an uncle of mine (allegedly) drove in the Mille Miglia road race.

Piece of shit partial summary.

Yeah, I know fossil fuel, but

Happy New Year; 2026 that is, not 1666.

*Currently dancing round the room to Lust for Life on R6M*

“Can’t believe NYC elected a Muslim as mayor.” In truth—a Black American Christian woman swearing in a Ugandan American Muslim of South Asian ethnicity as his Syrian American wife holds the Qurans he swears in on, all while standing on the steps of a subway station—is the most NYC thing imaginable.

2026 TruthSocial "I have the GREATEST FAITH in my new Secretary of Culture (not that heathen mudhut CANCEL Culturr but real GodFearing). Together Sec. Incitatus and I will be planning some Very Popular GAMES in the GREAT CHRISTIAN TRADITION of Sacrifice!" THANK YOU FOR YOU ATTENTION SDJT

Roubini seems to dog my life; despite this reading like a standard economist analysis written by ChadGBP, he's right. But is the situation recoverable, do we have the common will? Or have we had our day, like the empires that we spawned? www.theguardian.com/business/202...

Happy New Year! "Fox News Face, the pancake makeup and bleach-blond hair that every female Fox News anchor is required to adopt. GearBod, the puffed-up look men get on too much synthetic testosterone, veins writhing beneath their skin like grey worms." www.liberalcurrents.com/the-new-gend...

Normalising hate, the establishment right wing playbook, set to become more rabid in 2026, and not only in the U.S.

This from @vizcomic.bsky.social will never get old.

Someone gave Saylor a book titled "Martingale as an Investment Strategy: Averaging Down to Hell with Borrowed Money" for Christmas. #BTC share.google/H5TaxgEdaEb9...

Tesla schadenfreude time. In just shy of two years, their battery supplier writes down the value of the contract, from $2.9 billion to $7,386. Fuck Musk, and all who sail with him. electrek.co/2025/12/29/t...

A winter walk.

BBC, following the script with "Mass emigration from Broken etcetc" piece, naturally including the key quote from the parasite industry "David Little, financial planning partner at UK wealth manager Evelyn Partners, believes *Dubai plug*"

And guess who's doing the criticising? Yes, it's "Bobbie" Jenrick, the Beeb's favourite corrupt Tory quote, and gauleiter of anagrammic Newark. They even paid for a stock image of him to pad this non outrage, in Parliament, even though they're not sitting. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Special Relationship.

I wonder what the story is behind this. It's obvious that many of these comparatively well structured, reasonable grammar, non capitalised posts are made by someone different to the authentic DJT rants. My Q's are: Who is dictating these? Why? Does he even know? Will they carry on after his death?

Visiting family over Christmas, the kids have been watching some films via ITVX in Britain, and I've been using the house WiFi for my phone so... everywhere I surf, I get ITVX ads. This type of advertising is soo dumb.

A Boxing Day wander in the grounds of Dunster Castle, Somerset, run by the #NationalTrust. A rare Dawn Redwood tree, banana plants, a woodland trail and a wooden drumkit. 5°c, warmest for three days.

Père Ubu's "Non Alignment Pact" playing on BBC R6M now. A banging toon!

Excellent. "There is also a moral humility in this way of living. If you take a stochastic view of life, you can no longer claim that success was inevitable or purely deserved. Outcomes across society, careers, and even relationships are never proportional to effort or virtue."

I have picked up some genuine new followers recently, as well as some rather ah strange ones. Thank you for following me; if I don't immediately follow you back it's because I'm interested in original posts, not endless (excellent though they are) reposts of mega accounts e.g. @atrupar.com

Truth

A Very English afternoon at my hotel spa. Pool: quantum calcs regarding acceptable lane widths. Jacuzzi: shared with mid/upper couple, topic walking. The air rang with "Absolutely"s and "Jolly good!"s. Sauna: brief conversation with lone male: "Thank you for the offer, not really my cup of tea".

"Others put to death this year include a journalist and two young men who were children at the time of their alleged protest-related crimes. Five were women." www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"The time is 1.30. We interrupt our program of reasonably pleasant music without adverts to bring you today's latest update on the Muslim Invasion of Fighting Age Males." -Radio 6 Music news. #BBC

A Christmas #DVD treat; a dark, surreal, French, steam punk extravaganza starring some excellent child actors and, naturellement, Ron 'Hellboy' Perlman. #movie filmsky

I think it's wild that a daily "small boat crossing update figure" now seems to be an embedded feature on BBC Radio 6 Music news headlines. #BBC

"Ceasefire"

The Emperor Has No Clothes.