Staying home this NYE? Love quizzes and nerding out with like-minded Internet friends? Well @paulbarlownz.bsky.social has you covered with his Bugger Off 2025 quiz! A great chance to remember all the crazy shit that happened this year! #nzpol www.youtube.com/live/qfS4ITa...

Wonder if I still have time to achieve those New Year’s resolutions from 12 months ago 🤔

Oh no- racists and far right fans don’t like me, my work, the qualifications I have in the areas I talk about or the places I studied because that’s where I studied. Bunch of snowflakes 😂 I’ll take their disdain as a sign I’m pissing off the right people!

Studio tidy complete! I often get right wingers try and dismiss what I say because of the backdrop but the room tells lots of stories. There’s heroes here who overcame fascists, characters who preach science over violence, knowledge over ignorance and the power of working together.

Sure, you probably have plans on New Year’s Eve - but before then, why not pit your wits against others online in an end of the year send off to a really weird year! 7pm New Years Eve! Linked in the bio :) youtu.be/TP2_zsEg-Kc

Severe thunderstorm warning for the time the penultimate episodes of Stranger Things drop here in Aotearoa? That’s an impressive marketing roll out!

The coalition has delivered us a great many shitty things but the “tradition” of rich, out of touch right wing politicians posing in matching expensive pyjamas with their family on Christmas Day is one that feels ridiculously forced and out of touch. We can stop it in 26 by voting for change!

As ready for Christmas as I can be - I may even brave a trip to the kids in Hamilton since I figure the worst new elected people will be busy seeing if Santa leaves chemtrails, complaining about reindeer in their back yard and claiming giving presents is Marxist socialism that’s all Jacinda’s fault.

Cookie dough cheese cake and trashy TV for the pre-holiday win! And now I’m contemplating doing a New Year’s Eve online quiz live stream 🤔 because I’m not good at sitting still

In the past 24 hours I’ve had a water pump on my washing machine break and got a flat tyre on the way to the landromat - seems like an apt way to end 2025 - open.substack.com/pub/paulbarl...

Help Your Loved Ones in the Fight Against Right Wing Algorithmic Indoctrination this Christmas youtu.be/k3UkNETWM1M

Looking at a few ideas for a client project and I experimented a bit with the idea of moving postcards - good thing Tāmaki Makaurau is so picturesque!

Just some casual racism in the debate on foreign home buyers law change from another evangelical Christian National MP - this one being a former Destiny Church member.

For all the terrible, shitty, awful things going on in the world, I will take a win where I can - a copyright claim against a Destiny Church connected extremist group calling for violence against migrants, was upheld after they used my image and one of my videos which they recut to change context.

Being disabled is not linear, not clear-cut, and not without many things to unlearn - I've always been careful about how I exist as both a disabled person and as someone who has a platform. At times, it's meant people have criticised me for not talking about my own experiences. So here they are.

Tonight on the Collective, a bit of a 2025 retrospective with Tania Waikato! We’re looking at the RSB, Voter suppression, TPM break downs, media influence stats and more! 7pm on BHN and Paul… The Other One channels and some host channels as well :)

I’m just going to leave this here so you can enjoy the view - and remember,you should have shorter holidays so the richest people in the country can have more money to donate to anti worker parties next year - so enjoy the views while you can!

I love seeing places packed that often get naysayers and grumpy guts complaining because they don’t understand the importance of placemaking and activation in stimulating local economies.

Must be an election year in 2026 - the minimum wage increase has the decimal point after the number, not before it like the last two years. It’s more than a whole percentage for once and I’m sure that must have pained the workplace relations minister to try and bribe low income earners like that.

I am so tempted to start using LinkedIn more often but make every post slightly more unhinged from reality and closer to the insane stories the platform is known for but even more than usual and see if anyone even notices.

The TPU vs The Finance Minister in a Showdown for the hearts and minds of Right Wing Sheeple… youtu.be/FEXRlMo4qpo

It’s been a long day, lots of mahi, some interesting learnings, some people I like falling out and a quick trip to the Beach to unwind and play with the drone. If awful right wingers could just shut up for the rest of 2025, that would make life so much quieter for us all! Please? For Christmas?

I’ve had my quota of people for the rest of the year - I’m all Peopled out for a while so will be sticking to virtual Peopling for a while to recover From all the people.

Went to the airport, came home, went to the local Beach Haven Christmas market, got dumplings and almost a shiny dinosaur skeleton. And managed to avoid the VFF Regional coordinator who demanded “unjabbed breast milk” from new parents that somehow got voted on here in October. 🤦🏼‍♂️

It’s days like today that I’m kind of glad I don’t use Spotify - I don’t need an algorithm to tell me I seem old - my joints clicking and the grey hairs encroaching do that just fine thanks!

Oh so the only “ideological ferals” are the ones whose feral ideology harms at risk young people. We really need to make sure voters in 2026 help this man and his party retire permanently.

The Laundering Scheme that Washes Bias Media For the Masses youtu.be/oEWBAN9tu88

Maybe it would have been easier to get “back on track” if they’d started by “fixing the basics” first - like learning how a government works, the impacts it has on day to day lives of non millionaires and actually doing what you campaigned on 🤷🏼‍♂️

On a community Fb page, just spotted a local anti vax election candidate, one who pushed Plan B for covid and is now encouraging parents to hold measles parties, to avoid a local mall “like the plague” - c’mon, you clearly have no idea the meaning of the phrase 🤦🏼‍♂️

Time line cleanse - I finally got the sunset shot over the harbour I’ve been wanting for ages - so enjoy, I guess!

I guess it’s time to update the CV to include Award Winning Podcaster! I need to say a huge thanks to everyone who voted for me for this - it was a real shock and a genuinely pleasant surprise :)

What on earth is up with Farmers Christmas ornaments this year? Popped into one yesterday to kill time and found bedazzled broccoli, french fries, beer cans and a triceratops stuck in a donut. I’m not sure I see the logic behind them. Merry Christmas here’s a broccoli that shiny! 🤷🏼‍♂️

Oh yeah - I’m part of a new shiny thing on Sunday! Come check it out - I’ll be the one pressing buttons in the corner (because it’s a rectangle screen with four people so we all get a corner!)

How much have asset sales cost us in the past? The answer is a lot - so of course National is reflating the idea…Asset Sales or Asset Security - the 2026 Election Choice youtu.be/VX_5dra0y1w

When I was in Manilla a couple of months back I fell in love with this Death Star looking Ikea lamp - finally had an electrician (Dad, who is a registered sparky) install it today in the studio! And it looks so good! Sometimes a little joy can do wonders for the soul!

Ok, purely unscientific random question. I noticed during the local election there seemed to be some places that called this a speed bump and others that called it a speed lump. I’m curious what you call it and which part of the country you’re from?

By their own standards, is the National Party a bunch of liars? After all their anti-CGT tail spin is claiming Chippy is one 🤔 youtu.be/0w7u4k9q_f4

September 2025 polling data from Reid showed more kiwis support the type of CGT announced today than oppose it. And it’s far enough out from the election that voters will be able to see how it works while the party full of landlords profiting under current settings cry about it.

I dust off the old degrees in media to ask the question - Is our MSM Shifting its Bias? youtu.be/oSqU6-6KBzU

🥹

Bit of a crowd today in Auckland for #oct23strike action! One estimate I heard was 15 to 20 thousand people!

Had one last trip to the Waikato before the new Council gets in Wednesday - then HCC will have a pathologically lying conspiracy theorist, someone who kept misrepresenting themselves as a lawyer, and someone who gave out not drink coke straws as a marketing gimmick on it. That’s democracy for you 🤷🏼‍♂️

This tweet is 10 years old to the day - feel free to save it and use it as you see the local election results get finalised and see who won, who promised impossible things like low rates and maintained services, fixing all the potholes and downplaying climate change impacts and road safety features.

With final election results starting to land tonight, gotta say I’m relived the people of Cambridge decided against letting in a conspiracy theorist who wanted to storm Parliament and gave out ivermectin for Covid - who got really upset at me when the things she said and posted were said and posted.

Is the outgoing Kaipara Mayor trying to pull a Trump style "stop the steal" move? youtu.be/IeYQxlY2DBM

I really hate seeing MAGA bullshit being dragged into our government. It’s been two years to the day since the General Election - we have one more (ish) to go until we can flush this kind of stuff out of our government, cause we don’t want to go down that path.

Forced to take a day off due to lines work from Vector - so I did some adulting and went and got tomato plants and did some gardening because sometimes we all need a mental timeline cleanse!

Ok after an afternoon of results, texts, calls, messages on other apps and emails, I have some thoughts on today’s Local Election results 1) Voter turnout is depressing. 32%ish on average across AoNZ is pathetic. 2) The Māori Wards referendum should never have happened - it was a racebaiting farce…

Well fuck - Selwyn has elected a majority of Council with links to VFF, Act, and Trump fans. Maybe put that on the no fly list for the next three years

A thread of some of the “lovely” comments I’ve had this election from some really keen voters