** Resists urge to launch into a long discussion of WWII escape attempts and how many actually did this **

The culture in all parties is pretty poor and it isn't going to change until either something even more awful happens, and/or it happens to someone with the resources and independence to bring a big "fuck you" lawsuit.

Chat, is this good?

My distressingly earnest take on a lot of stuff is that the real divide in politics is by people who are ultimately driven by love and joy and those who are primarily driven by hate and anger. Each finds different objects, policies and directions, but the chasm is between rather than among each side

In 1986, 30 million people watched EastEnders on Christmas day.

#FM26 GIVEAWAY: I completely forgot to do this yesterday with everything going on here at the moment (see previous posts), but I have a spare Steam key for Football Manager 26! Simply like and share this post, and I'll do a random draw and select a winner tomorrow. Good luck!

Insurance would refuse to pay out because you put "Tapestry" on the policy and actually it's an embroidery.

Amateurs. I'm going round the care home with some pre-drafted wills and AI showing me as their grandson.

Fascinating thread and once again striking how weird American Christianity can be.

Striking cultural change noted from Keeping Up Appearance treating it as very weird Hyacinth-ism that you might ask someone to remove their shoes coming into your home.

GSTK

people on here will skeet anything. “charlie brown died on the cross for our sins.” no he didn’t. that isn’t true

The forgotten treat of Christmas: discovering exactly where people you know on social media sit on the class spectrum.

Really enjoying the sign on the lavatory door in my parents' church, which says: "Jesus Christ has washed away your sins but you still need to wash your hands"

Bluesky, what day is it?

Can't believe the MAGA lot are ruining "being really into an impractically huge navy" and making it earnest and weird. THAT WAS MY BIT!

Watching linear TV for the first time in forever, and you know who *is* overrepresented in adverts? People who look about 27, have two kids and a massive house.

My favourite electoral dog story was in the 2017. Out in Canning Town with our candidate and some of his mates who'd come along to help. For those unfamiliar with C-Town, in the mid 00s, DHL delivered to post-invasion Baghdad, but the drivers refused to come here because it was too dangerous.

Luke 2:1 "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." Morgan McSweeney: "Focus groups are going to fucking hate this"

Resulting from this, Christmas is not particularly indulgent this year for us, but I have been informed we have a shit load of opiates in.

You at Christmas: having a row with your Brexity uncle Me at Christmas: massive beef with a big gammon

Events that precede the most vicious litigation of your lives:

Christmas Meat Sale

I mean it is actually a click bait story of someone looking up what tax rates are because we don't actually know what his financial affairs are. At the very least I'd expect him to have some business expenses to deduct.

"Are there no workhouses?" - new from me on benefit culture, this Christmas.

I find nullity and validity of marriages very interesting - one of my favourite bits is that no one fully knows when in the formal wedding ceremony you are actually married.

This year on Bluesky I wrote 2,018 posts and 5,269 replies. I received 192,068 likes, whereas 3,550 was from my most popular post, and apparently I love saying "think" and 🚨! www.madebyolof.com/bluesky-wrap...

This isn't wrong about the political incentives for Labour, but it also demonstrates fiscal nimbyism is going to make it almost impossible to grapple with the challenges Britain faces.

Just remembered the most insane thing I ever asked a candidate, who was talking about her student job working on a reindeer farm and before my brain could stop it, my mouth asked "Did you kill them for their meat?"

Broke: "A British Meji Restoration" Bespoke: "A British Tokugawa Shogunate"

Skeets from late 8th century BC:

First counterfeiters, now lobsters. Bloody wokeness never ends.

The yanks yearn for the goths drinking monster on the green

You should read this.

Google calendar gets a lot of flack for marking the Battle of the Boyne in everyone's diary, but that is at least a Bank Holiday in some part of the country. For some reason Twelfth Night seems to have the same presence and I keep thinking "Have I booked the theatre and forgotten about it?"

"Britain's approach to EU negotiations 2013-202? was typified by the pursuit of mutually exclusive goals". Discuss.

When the seagulls follow the trawler, it is because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea

Going to see Jack White play in Kazakhstan next year feels like a jape at the precise cross section of my interests .

Found France Drake's alt:

An acquaintance of mine noticed a rule change in a relatively niche womens sport which made high scores more likely. Made a decent amount of money betting on "more than X points in a match" before they clocked on to him.

Think you can understand a lot about British politics from the ONS survey reporting that 56% of people said they voted in the last local elections, when turnout in those elections was about 36%.

I don't argue this seriously because you do end up sounding like a nut, but it is interesting how even today you can see evidence of Norman domination of economic and social elites in England nearly a millennium after it happened

My Classical Greek teacher, during prose composition lessons:

You mean Orthodox Christmas, right?

This may become my favourite celebspiracy theory since Olly Murs' Oxford Street Thrutherism

said it earlier but I genuinely do think there's something in anglosphere elite water that basically makes them want to sell out liberal democratic values that Manhattan Institute focus group is a bad omen for the future of Anglosphere right politics

Kemi courting the all important roadman vote.

The amount of people who think half-remembered historical anecdote, let alone past performance, is a guarantee of future success is remarkable.