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A bit of context - A safe Labour seat switched to a seat where Labour came third (Greens 40%, Reform 28%, Labour 25%).

1) That wasn't as close as polls made it out to be. The polls had Green 7% above or tied with Labour, who were either 3% ahead of or tied with Reform. Instead, Greens walked it by 12%. If we're going to be stuck with making decisions about tactical voting based on the polls then we need polls that are more accurate than that!

2) This is the worst possible result for Labour. If people are going to vote tactically against Reform (which they really want to do), then you *really* want to be able to place yourself as the best alternative to beat them. And now we've had two by-elections where that wasn't the case. One in Wales, which Plaid Cymru won and one in *Manchester*, a Labour heartland, which the Greens won. This makes it look like even where Labour are historically strong they aren't going to beat Reform.

3) What does this do for the Greens in the council elections? Well, presumably it sets them up to claim that they're a strong contender to beat Reform, everywhere where Labour is currently the lead. They might be! They might not be! But it really doesn't look good for Labour any way around.

4) What does it do for the Lib Dems in the council elections? It probably locks them out from any of the Labour heartlands - they'll focus on the Conservative areas of the country. Which, frankly, appears to be their strategy anyway.

5) I have no idea who a bunch of people actually wanted to vote for. It seems likely that at least 28% wanted to vote for each of Labour, Greens, and Reform, but if the polls had shown that Labout was on 30% and Greens were on 28%, who would that extra 12% who voted for the Greens have turned out for?

6) This is a bloody stupid way to run an election system. "I'll vote for whoever has the best chance of beating the party I don't like" is such a fragile way of voting for anything. It "works" in a 2 (or 2.5) party system, as England has been stuck in for decades. It completely fails in a 5 party system (6 in Wales and Scotland).

7) What does this mean for Keir Starmer? Well, I reckon nobody else wants to be PM for the council elections. So I'm not expecting him to resign until the 8th of May.

8) What does this mean for Labour's "Tack rightward to gain votes from fascists" strategy? Your guess is as good as mine, but I really hope it's dead now.

selenak

In which we find out the writers of this show must really like both Thornton Wilder and the last two seasons of Angel: The Series while having issues with one particular Voyager episode, or rather its aftermath. Also, at last, at last, SOMEONE is back an my screen!

( Spoilers take back a key nitpick from last week and are an Angel fan anyway )

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Location: Bamberg

rmc28

for your latest work: Not Pounded By This T-Rex On The USA Men’s Hockey Team Because It Turns Out He’s A MAGA Dork

(I had a full body "you go here TOO?" reaction when I saw that title, haha)

If you've managed to avoid being aware of the latest way men's hockey has been highly disappointing, please continue in blissful ignorance and/or consider watching a PWHL game this weekend, but I'll take this moment of crossover fandom for the comfort it is.

silveradept

The Constitutional requirement for the President of the United States is that "from time to time" he shall "give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient[.]" This has become, by custom, a yearly address, with the intention of setting agendas and celebrating victories of the previous year by the President and his legislative allies.

Given who's in the White House right now, I expected self-aggrandizement, I expected deeply partisan commentary, and I expected Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics that would be deployed in service of the other two. I expected the current administrator to be more in his element, since he didn't have to make policy pronouncements or answer difficult questions or any of the other things that generally take him away from the things he likes to do and make him work in our reality.

That it appeared to be more of a session much like the Prime Minister's Questions, rather than a speech on the state of the Union, I probably should have expected, but did not. I suspect many of the things said during the speech would probably have gotten someone censured in Hansard or any other such record of governmental procedure, as the deeply partisan part was very much something that he wanted to make a point of.

Running on the Associated Press transcript of the speech itself, let us dive in and see what horrors lie on the surface and below it. Not in the transcript are the several times in the speech where there are either chants of "U-S-A!" or Members of Congress attempting to fact-check the administrator or call him out on his falsehoods (or chants trying to drown out those checks and callouts) or the applause that followed some lines.

(Why do this, you might ask? Some of it is because the record needs to be set correctly. Some of it is spite and malice against someone who is unqualified and ineligible to hold the office he is currently caretaking. And some of it is because I've been doing this for a while, and I'm not letting this joker put me off it, not when I'll have plenty of low-hanging lies to point out.)

( To spare your list, and also because the material contained within is likely hazardous to your blood pressure and your SAN score. )

And, as has become tradition, after the administrator gives their address, a designee of the opposition policy provides a rebuttal and a counterpoint speech to the address. The newly-elected Democratic governor of Virginia, Abigail Spanberger, was chosen to give the rebuttal, and chose to do so from the house of the legislature in Virginia. This transcript also does not indicate places where there were applause breaks in the speech, but there were only applause breaks in the speech, rather than chants or trying to drown out people who were likely fact-checking him in real time.

( The Democratic response is much more grounded in the reality we are experiencing )

In a much shorter form, the response speech was more relevant, more important, and more accurate than the speech that preceded it. If the Democratic Party is willing to actually say the message, at the level of crudity and honesty that it requires, with the volume it requires, and with the repetition it requires, they should be able to instill in that part of the country that doesn't want open authoritarian and fascist government the necessary will to punch Nazis in the face, as many times as it takes to get them to go away, in as many ways as they present their face to be punched.

If we want to say the state of the union is strong, then fisticuffs, metaphorical and possibly physical, are in the cards for everyone. If we're feeling generous, Queensbury rules.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Professor Elemental - Fighting Trousers

ysabetwordsmith posting in

common_nature

Today I took some pictures around the yard and did a couple of garden crafts. These are from the house yard and savanna. (See the Worm Bin and the Water Garden.)

( Walk with me ... )

Current Mood: accomplished

kaberett

Ridiculous indulgent breakfast situation (though having now looked up Culinary Strata because A asked, I am extremely unconvinced that pistachio croissants with raspberries)... counts.
Therapy session, spent entirely talking about One Thing (with tendrils), has left me feeling distinctly more settled.
Today's primary Make Numbers Go Down project has been working my way through some of the short fiction I've had open in tabs since [mumble]. Highlight thus far is Naomi Kritzer's The Thing About Ghost Stories (cn parental death, dementia).
The other New Thing I started consuming today is A Physical Education, which is extremely and often graphically about diet culture and disordered eating, but which 11% of the way through the audio file I am Very Much Enjoying. Further updates to follow. (The library only has audio, I apparently put a hold on it seven weeks ago though I can't at this point remember where I came across it, and The First Headphones I Have Ever Tolerated remain excellent. Shokz OpenRun Pro.)
The Child liked the replacement mock cherries; spring flowers are excellent (we are firmly heading into daffodils now); Routine Dinner tonight DID work even though the app initially Frightened Me by claiming first available pickup was tomorrow morning.

oursin

I've posted occasionally about Maria Sibylla Merian, this sounds like an interesting book on her and her art.

***

The funding to save the area surrounding the Cerne Giant for the National Trust has been raised: any further donations will go to habitat creation and increasing access.

***

Exhibition: North Staffordshire Miners’ Wives Action Group Archive (formed in response to the 1984 miners’ strike,members have been actively campaigning for over 40 years).

***

Martyrdom, Misrepresentation and the ‘Tolpuddle Martyrs’ (I was at uni with a Loveless descendant). And I discovered that the Internet Archive has a recording of the BBC Home Service broadcast of Miles Malleson and H Brook's Six Men of Dorset.

***

More rather horrifying reports coming out about the surrogacy industry: Embryo couriers, student egg donors and cut-price surrogates. Journalist Alev Scott investigates northern Cyprus’s booming baby business — where Brits head for cheap treatment, gender selection and lax legislation.

***

Researching Love Letters:

The National Archives is hosting the exhibition 'Love Letters', exploring 500 years of expressions of love. This exhibition captures the voices of paupers and monarchs, reflecting friendships, romance, and more. But why does love appear in government documents?

***

Recovering “Lesbian” Voices in the Middle Ages: Twelfth and Thirteenth Century Germanic Mystics.

***

The Rohonc Codex: Hungary’s Mysterious Manuscript That No One Can Read

***

Yay: Senate House Library secures future of priceless LGBTQ+ collection with support from the Heritage Fund

Boo: County Durham WWI ledger bought at car boot sale for £20 set to sell for over £1k at auction: The museum-quality register lists the names of 900 men who signed up in just three days in December 1915

elisem

Whoops! It was John Henry Newman's birthday the other day, and I missed the opportunity to post this again. It can be sung to at least one version of John Henry, though things may have to be adjusted here and there. Here ya go:

When John Henry Newman was an Anglican

He went down to the Holy See

Said I wanna see the Pope 'cause I got a crazy hope

That they're gonna make a Catholic out of me, Lord, Lord,

They're gonna make a Catholic out of me.

When John Henry Newman was a young man

He wrote about a Kindly Light

He called it "Pillar of Cloud," and if you sing it real loud

It'll lead you through the gloomy night, Lord, Lord,

It'll lead you through the gloomy night.

John Henry Newman was at Oxford

He was a deacon and a curate too

He got to be a vicar but decided it was quicker

To scribble down a tract or two, Lord, Lord

To scribble down a tract or two.

John Henry Newman up at Oxford

At St. Mary's chapel on the side

He told them in a lecture that it was his conjecture

The middle way was fine and wide, Lord, Lord

The middle way was fine and wide.

John Henry Newman got in trouble

Reading monophysite lore

"This bit about "securus" -- it doesn't reassure us

I think I better think a little more, Lord, Lord,

I think I better think at Littlemore. "

John Henry Newman had a buddy

Father Ambrose, he liked Rome

They liked St. Philip Neri, so in the vale of Mary

They built themselves a home sweet home, Lord, Lord,

They built themselves a home sweet home.

John Henry Newman got converted

And it made him feel alive

But he lost a few subscribers the day he swam the Tiber

On 9 October '45, Lord, Lord,

On 9 October '45.

John Henry Newman bought a ticket

John Henry Newman went to Rome

But though he got ordained, he did not remain

He packed his bags and headed home, Lord, Lord,

He packed his bags and headed home.

John Henry Newman went to Oscott

To have a little toast and jam

And in a blaze of glory to build an Oratory

They later moved to Birmingham, Lord, Lord,

They later moved to Birmingham.

John Henry Newman took exception

To what he heard Kingsley say

Newman said "I showed ya ; I wrote an Apologia

And it's Pro Vita Sua all the way, Lord, Lord,

It's Pro Vita Sua all the way."

John Henry Newman got promoted

And they gave him a big red hat

They put it on his head, and everybody said,

"Mercy, will you look at that, Lord, Lord,

Mercy, will you look at that."

When John Henry Newman was an old man

He was a little on the quiet side.

He got a telegram from heaven on August eleven

And laid down his missal and he died, Lord, Lord,

He laid down his missal and he died.

John Henry Newman in his coffin

On compost did recline

He said "I have chosen, by completely decomposing,

To leave not a relic here to find, Lord, Lord,

I will leave not a relic here to find."

There. That was written by me some while ago -- September 20, 2010, I guess it was. Enjoy!

andrewducker

Nice sunset.

(And lovely that the sun is up when I wake the kids at 7am and the sky still looks like this when I get home at 6pm)
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/thursday-reading-97/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65648

Current
The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins

Last books finished
Britain’s Other D-Day: The Politics of Decimalisation, by Andy Cook
Pavilion of Women, by Pearl S. Buck
The Fifth Elephant, by Terry Pratchett
Liberation: The Unoffical and Unauthorised Guide to Blake’s 7, by Alan Stevens and Fiona Moore
Serbian Folk Tales, ed. Jake Jackson

Next books
Ghost Stories, by George Mann et al
De gekste plek van België: 111 bizarre locaties en hun bijzondere verhaal, by Jeroen van der Spek (if I can find it)
A Power Unbound, by Freya Marske

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/thursday-reading-97/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65648

fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-dead-take-the-a-train-by-cassandra-khaw-and-richard-kadrey/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65482

Second paragraph of third chapter:

Tyler Banks was Thorne & Dirk’s head of Client Excisions, meaning he made problems disappear. Cut them entirely out of existence when necessary. However, he didn’t like getting his hands dirty with the seriously dangerous jobs. That’s what Julie was for— but she was the last thing on his mind as he stepped into the room.

Urban fantasy with our magically empowered heroine dealing with demonic intrusions and her own disastrous love life. I did not get very far because the horror scenes were gruesomely anatomical, and there is only so much of that that I can read. You can get The Dead Take the A Train here.

This was my top unread book acquired in 2024. Next on that pile is A Power Unbound, by Freya Marske, of which I have higher hopes.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-dead-take-the-a-train-by-cassandra-khaw-and-richard-kadrey/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65482

james_davis_nicoll

"What is this thing, and where the heck did it come from?" is a great way to start any story!

Five Science Fiction Stories About Investigating Enigmatic Artifacts

james_davis_nicoll

What better cure for melancholy than to serve under a captain whose obsessed pursuit of a leviathan will surely doom all involved?

Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall

spiralsheep

[/prompted by a conversation with another disabled person this morning]

Just because a doctor suggests a test doesn't mean you have to do it. Always ask how the results might effect your treatment or health outcome and if there isn't a satisfactory answer then refuse any test that is painful, or expensive, or might have some other negative outcome outweighing any positives.

Example from my actual life (paraphrased but I swear this is an accurate summary):

Doctor: The scan showed you have [damage]. The next step is to give you the [electric shocks from a cattle prod] test.

Me: But y tho?

Doctor: ::explains how test is conducted by giving the patient electric shocks from a cattle prod::

Me: Yes I understand, but y tho?

Doctors: To measure the ability of your nerves and muscles to conduct electricity.

Me: Yes, but y tho?

Doctor, beginning to sound less assured: Because it's a standard test?

Me: And how would the results effect my treatment / outcome?

Doctor: ... ... ... It wouldn't?

Me: So, imma gonna skip the electric shocks from a cattle prod test, 'k thnx!

In conclusion specifically: after this bizarre conversation I checked the more sensible patient-centred discussion websites, as one does, and discovered long comment sections full of people I can summarise as "It hurt and made no difference to anything" with a few people saying they'd been through this test more than once! I'm sure there must be some actual medical purpose for which these tests give valid and useful results (or there were at some time in the recent past) but without in-depth research I didn't find any. Basically, if you have numbness or pain and can verbalise this clearly then telling the doctor is as much use as them electrocuting you with a cattle prod, and probably more use because patients are likely to be more accurate (e.g. it would be easy to misplace an electrode and get a false negative).

In conclusion generally, I repeat: just because a doctor suggests a test doesn't mean you have to do it. Always ask how the results might effect your treatment or health outcome and if there isn't a satisfactory answer then refuse any test that is painful, or expensive, or might have some other negative outcome outweighing any positives. OBV.

andrewducker

1. Probably Hans Zimmer's finest work: (tags:music movies Disney video funny )

selenak

Last year I marathoned the very well made series “Paradise” (Hulu in the US, Disney + for the rest of us), but was quite torn about whether or not I was happy regarding the announcement of a second season due to the show’s success. It seemed to me the first season told a mostly self contained story and the premise would lose its key ingredient in a second season. Also, there had been a couple of shows which were terrible when more than one season was greenlighted because they clearly hadn’t planned for it. Otoh: nitpicks aside, I did love Lost, which made a pretty radical premise change and pulled it off. And the first season of Paradise had been pretty perfect for what it was. So I watched. And based on the first three episodes now released (and there is a reason why the first three came together, more beneath the spoiler cut), I am happy to report that it looks like I was wrong in my fears. Those three eps are excellent.

( Spoilers are now all pumped up and ready… )

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: on the train

tamaranth

2026/029: Bread of Angels — Patti Smith

How can we leap back up? Get back on our feet, grab a cart, and start gathering the debris, both physical and emotional. Crush it into small stones, then pulverize them and as the dust settles, dance upon it. How do we do that? By returning to our child self, weathering our obstacles in good faith. For children operate in the perpetual present, they go on, rebuild their castles, lay down their casts and crutches, and walk again. [loc. 2494]

Another memoir from Patti Smith, author of Just Kids and M Train (the latter of which I have not read). Bread of Angels (the title refers to 'unpremeditated gestures of kindness') covers Smith's childhood, her years as a pioneering punk artist, and her 'walking away' from success to have a real life, marrying Fred 'Sonic' Smith and having children.( Read more... )

Current Mood: hopeful

kaberett

Made it to the plot! Brought home more salad than we actually wanted to eat this evening! Mostly lamb's lettuce but some bonus baby beetroot and spinach leaves :)
Also, the broad beans are starting to emerge (well, the ones that didn't get partly dug up and then abandoned on the surface unmunched, anyway; those have now been reinterred).
In the course of Making An Effort to Close More Tabs I rediscovered Standard Ebooks, and downloaded a bunch of things I'd apparently been interested in for Some Time: Standard Ebooks takes ebooks from sources like Project Gutenberg, formats and typesets them using a carefully designed and professional-grade style manual, fully proofreads and corrects them, and then builds them to create a new edition that takes advantage of state-of-the-art ereader and browser technology.
I spent some of the evening doing minor crafts with supplies A acquired, to make replacement cherries for a children's board game, using red wooden beans and green cotton string. I am mildly concerned that the Child might disapprove of the string being green rather than red, but We Shall See...
Cleeeeeeeeeen hair.

cosmolinguist

I've accrued a simply horrifying number of open tabs, and I'm finally able to whittle them down a bit.

I'm finally able to read a few of those I've accumulated about Minneapolis/ICE. Here's my favorite one so far:

I feel more from Minnesota than I’ve ever felt. is a great quote -- even from four thousand miles away I feel more from Minnesota than I ever have, but this goes on:

But now I know as I’m walking down the street that I have hundreds of people who will swarm to help me if needed, and that I will swarm to help them.... It’s like building a muscle of solidarity across race, across class. It’s something the Left talks about a lot, but I’ve never experienced it like this. And it’s truly ordinary people — it’s not majority organizers or activists. It’s people who’ve never organized a day in their lives but know something wrong is happening and want to do something.

And on dealing with the fear:

it starts really small, and then the small things become more risky, and you don’t want to give them up... So now the people delivering groceries — which, again, is a very low-risk thing — have been trained to know that in case ICE grabs them, they should never write the list of addresses down digitally. You write it on a physical piece of paper, and if ICE grabs you, you eat the piece of paper. ...[D]elivering groceries shouldn’t be high-risk. It violates people’s sense of dignity and basic rights, and that’s what creates courage.

The whole thing is so good, it's well worth a read.

james_davis_nicoll

The Good Society Bundle featuring Good Society, the Jane Austen-inspired tabletop roleplaying game from Storybrewers Roleplaying.

Bundle of Holding: Good Society (from 2024)

oursin

What I read

Finished Eleven Hours to Murder and went on to Death by the Dozen, which combine the cozy antics of Cat Caliban and her posse with mysteries tending to be rooted in past historical events in and around Cincinnatti. And Cat is after all pursuing a career as a PI, rather than taking up some quirky midlife career and just stumbling over bodies. And her partner is a retired cop who used to work in Juvie, not homicide. So counter to a lot of the recurrent tropes....

Then I realised, oops, that next meeting of in-person book group appears to be next Sunday - though I have not received any further notification since exchange of emails after the last meeting - so I have been reading Anna Funder, Wifedom: Mrs Orwell’s Invisible Life (2023), which is blurbed as 'genre-bending', meaning it does things I am not that on board with, i.e. the writer's personal stuff/odyssey and b) fictionalising bits as narrative. Though I am marking it up somewhat for her realisation that her Great Hero G Orwell was A Horror. I daresay a lot of his trouble with being basically incapable in managing matters and practicalities was down to class and educational background but you'd have thought he might have cottoned on to some of that? rather than blithely eating up the whole of their butter ration? (fairly minor in the overall marital picture).

On the go

Read a bit more in I Am a Woman but still feeling a bit bogged down, even if Laura has finally had a night of sapphic passion.

Elizabeth George, A Slowly Dying Cause (Inspector Lynley Book 22) (2025). Fortunately this was a Kobo deal. Phoning it in. Also getting rather bogged down. 20% in and only just getting a sight of Lynley, let alone Havers. Includes great chunks of autobiographical reminiscence from the corpse.

Have also made some progress on volume for review.

Up next

Have apparently manifested, in place where I would never have thought to look for it, GB Stern, The Woman in the Hall (1939), which I had been fruitlessly looking for elsewhere, with a notion of maybe recommending for book group, as has recently been reissued for the first time since 1939 by British Library Women Writers.

fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/cards-on-the-table-by-agatha-christie/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65452

Second paragraph of third chapter:

“Who plays bridge?” asked Mr. Shaitana. “Mrs. Lorrimer, I know. And Doctor Roberts. Do you play, Miss Meredith?”

A mid-period Christie, in which the murder is carried out during a bridge game, in the presence of Hercule Poirot and three of Christie’s other regular characters. Since we know none of them can have done it (spoiler: indeed, none of them is the murderer), suspicion turns to the four bridge players, who are characterised in detail to help us pick and choose the potential baddie. The plot is a little improbable, as each of the suspects has their own history of causing death; did they do it again? And solving the mystery involves several more deaths. But it’s classic Christie, and it’s no harm for Poirot to be forced to share the stage with some of her other characters (including Colonel Race, previously seen in The Man in the Brown Suit). You can get Cards on the Table here.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/cards-on-the-table-by-agatha-christie/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65452

andrewducker

A critical question came up at lunch today, for which I do not have a satisfactory answer. So, throwing it open to the floor:

Are there *any* movies which would not be improved by the addition of Godzilla?

james_davis_nicoll

What could possibly go wrong with playing along with an unhappy teen's delusions?

Babel no Toshokan by Tsubana

andrewducker

1. Manchester Women's Institute to fold after members quit over new transgender ban: (tags:women transgender LGBT UK OhForFucksSake bigotry )
2. Israeli ExecuƟons of Palestinian Aid Workers and Efforts to Conceal Evidence: (tags:israel gaza murder )

oursin

Happy birthday,

brigid,

choirwoman,

tigerflower and

toft!

tamaranth

2026/028: The Kite Runner — Khalid Hosseini

"There is only one sin, and that is theft... When you kill a man, you steal a life. You steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.”

This novel, by an expatriate Afghani author, explores guilt, betrayal and redemption in Afghanistan. The narrator is Amir, son of a wealthy Pashtan father ('Baba'), whose mother died giving birth to him. His closest friend is Hassan, the son of Amir's father's servant Ali: his mother ran away when he was little. The Hazara (the ethnic group to which Hassan and Ali belong) are oppressed, discriminated against and mocked. Baba, to young Amir's horror, treats Hassan as well as he treats Amir himself. The boys enjoy the traditional Afghan sport of kite-fighting, and Hassan is Amir's 'kite runner', pursuing the conquered kites with preternatural accuracy.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: sad

andrewducker

Sophia spent a chunk of Monday evening writing up her half term week without having to. Her handwriting is already better than mine.
Original is here on Pixelfed.scot.

aurumcalendula

...I somehow missed that Escapade was this last weekend, despite sending vids to it (and apparently I overlooked the email about the Discord invite too)

aurumcalendula

Title: Where Love Goes
Fandom: ClaireBell
Music: Where Love Goes by Kai Mata
Summary: 'this could be the start of something special'
Notes: Premiered at Escapade 36!

( streaming )

AO3 | bsky | tumblr | YouTube

( Additional Notes )

kaberett

inCompleted White Puzzle!!! We were right about That One Piece being the missing one, and now that I'm not worried about spoilers I have poked the internet and it (mostly in the form of reddit) confirms that Those Are The Missing Bit.
one (1) orchid flower is all the way open!
supermarket had discount fancy croissant, so we are most of the way to prepped for Fancy Breakfast tomorrow morning :)

cosmolinguist

Looking at my podcasts the other day, glaring at the ones I want to update for not updating enough, I did a thing that I know I've done before and I'm sure I will again: I thought gosh I really like that Gareth Dennis, why am I so behind on his??

Then I listen to some and (when it's not about train crashes) pretty soon I'm like I should be taking notes on this, this is about WORK. Free bus passes, driverless public transport, that's stuff I get paid to think about so I don't wanna do it in my spare time so much.

So the podcast episode goes half-unlistened to. Again.

I was already thinking that before the most recent episode, about the Gorton & Denton by-election. I listen to podcasts for escapism, that's why I like baseball! This is no kind of escape.

But today, maybe because of my time off (both a break from thinking about transport policy, and more time to listen to podcasts so I'm burning through them quicker) or maybe because the podcasts I like really aren't updating enough no matter how much I glare at the app, I put this one on.

It was at first pretty novel to hear a voice I associate with engineering disasters etc. talking about roads I've been on and places I know well.

I do think it's interesting how much transport has been emblematic of this election: when I first saw the locally-infamous "Patricia Clegg" letter that Reform is trying to deceive people with, the thing that stuck out to me most was "the buses aren't working," and I just scoffed at this slight on my beloved Bee Network -- not like I'm anything to do with TfGM or Labour or anything, but I'm really impressed at what Andy Burnham has been able to do and it really is nonsense to say that buses don't work when we have, for the first time, real-time information available in the app and AV announcements on increasingly many buses. This more than anything, more than even a candidate from Hitchin, made me feel like that letter was not written by any "concerned neighbour" but by someone who hasn't been to Manchester, not recently.

We got a postcard today "from" Andy Burnham himself telling us "the community has to unite around our candidate or you'll get a Reform MP" (typical Labour, telling us we have to do what they tell us to) and on this postcard, as well as the expected photo of him with the candidate is just a particular photo of yellow Bee Network buses that I've seen in every TfGM press release and news story about them. It really is a symbol of his; bringing about the first franchise outside of London, and the coming integration with local train services, really does feel miraculous.

So yeah, it really is interesting how much transport has been a useful lens to view the by-election with.

But man. Between this by-election and Minnesota, I'm like... never mind living in interesting times, I'm weary of living in interesting places.

wychwood

Last week was all choir all the time (concert went well, but the Concerts Without A Funny Turn card goes back down to zero, annoyingly) and then I went straight into a weekend of Extreme Socialising because

shreena and

quizcustodet came up for a visit. Friday night I went out with

shreena and A for dinner, delicious food at a Vietnamese restaurant (the marmite-and-peanut-butter-coated cauliflower was especially good!).

Saturday was my birthday treat; the Lego Discovery Centre only lets you in if you have children with you, so

shreena and

quizcustodet donated me their children and bought me a ticket to go with them *g*. I really enjoyed it; there's a mix of rides (and a big soft-play area) and a little 3D film and also a big open area where you can, you know, play with Lego. There were stations for building specific models, stations that were just buckets of Lego for you to play with, a tiny zipline where you could build little machines and see if they could make it the whole way along, a car-building area with test track, etc etc. I spent probably half an hour or so building a tiny house (with contributions from

shreena and their older son J), which was extremely soothing.

And then on Sunday we went to ( Cadbury World )

All-in-all a pretty good weekend, but an inevitably exhausting one. I am now attempting to live a deeply regulated life to try and get back to normal and untrash my sleep cycle, etc etc, so we'll see how that goes...

redbird

I have just been out for a walk, a day after the blizzard: bright blue sky, temperature around freezing, and most but not all of the sidewalks have been cleared, so I walked down the middle of the street for a bit. The turkey flock that hangs out on Egremont Road is now up to at least 12 birds, two of which were sitting on a railing. [We got 16-18 inches of snow, I think--the official number from the airport is 16.5, which is significant, but a lot less than this storm dumped on some places.]

fromtheheartofeurope_feed

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/house-of-open-wounds-by-adrian-tchaikovsky/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65449

Second paragraph of third chapter:

She pointedly ignored the ungracious hail, sitting out in the slanted morning sun with her folding desk, working on her triple-entry accounting. The first entry to calculate, the second to check the calculations and the third, on a separate piece of paper, to include all the errant entries that she wouldn’t be reporting to anyone but still felt the obscure need to keep track of.

This is the second in the Tyrant Philosophers series which started with City of Last Chances. Our protagonist, a survivor from the previous book, is conscripted into a military field hospital where with the help of his personal god, he is able to heal the wounded – provided that they then refrain from violence, a riff also from Forever Peace. There’s a complex cast of characters and a varied political and geographical landscape of war; there’s plenty of plot to keep you interested, but it’s still a very long book! I hugely admire Tchaikovsky’s industry and talent, but I would love it if he could write at shorter length too…

You can get House of Open Wounds here.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/house-of-open-wounds-by-adrian-tchaikovsky/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65449

oursin

'I'm so glad I didn't die with the measles when I was little!'

Thinking a bit further about that education meme and the line You were in relatively good physical and mental health.

Well, on the one hand, I had my vaccinations for smallpox, diphtheria and whooping cough all in order at a young age.

I did, however, get measles, chickenpox and mumps once I started school and they were going around. And in those days if you had an infectious disease you were obliged to stay off school for a designated quarantine period (and return your library books to the Public Health Department for fumigation).

I think scarlet fever was still around though rare, and I have a vague recollection of some child at the school actually dying from it?

Polio vaccination only came in when I was 7 or 8.

I suffered from severe tonsillitis until they removed them when I was 6, I am not at all sure, in the light of present thinking on the subject, that this was necessary, but it was very common.

In less dramatic health interventions, I mention the free codliver oil, orange juice and milk bestowed by a munificent government.

I am a little surprised, in retrospect, that my short sight wasn't picked up through testing at school, but in fact my mother noticed me squinting at things and took me for an eye-test.

I feel that I had fair amounts of time off from school being ill one way and another (besides the aforementioned epidemic diseases and operation) - not to mention the appendectomy and its after-effects when I was at uni - but that this didn't have any major adverse impact.

At the grammar school I was tagged for remedial exercises to do with the way I walked (on the outsides of my feet?): am not sure this had any effect whatsoever.

My migraines were not identified as such.

Period pains were after the way of womanhood, pretty much.

On the whole, relatively good health. A certain amount of mental stress, especially at uni.

mousetrappling

Book

“The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World” William Dalrymple

Buddhism is particularly associated with merchants in its early days, in contrast to Hinduism where you lose caste if you indulge in trade. This means it’s carried on trade routes, and this bit of the book talks quite a bit about ancient trade between India & the Mediterranean, not just with Egypt during the Roman Period, but also with Mesopotamia much earlier c. 2500 BCE.

Qarabag FK v. Newcastle (1-6), playoffs in Champions League

Digging for Britain

The northeast of England plus the southeast of Scotland. Quite a lot around the Roman era, including a Pictish settlement and what’s probably a Roman whetstone factory in Sunderland. There was also a bit on Gloucester Museum solving its cataloguing & storage problem by getting volunteers in to help.

Man City v. Newcastle (2-1)

The Great Philosophers

An episode on Husserl, Heidegger & Modern Existentialists, which mostly concentrated on Heidegger. Husserl was cast as rather arrogantly thinking he was the culmination of all that Descartes had started, then Heidegger pushes back against Husserl and that whole branch of philosophy. His basic idea is that you can’t think of us each as subjects that interact essentially from a distance with objects that may or may not constitute a real world, but instead we are out there in the real world and that our attention is often not consciously directed at any object so that’s not an answer to the questions of how our consciousness works.

Podcasts

Oh God What Now

A guest episode looking at the question of if we’re ready for a war with Russia (not really), and a normal panel show looking at could Farage do what Trump has done & also talking about a documentary that’s just aired about Tony Blair (I’ve recorded it but we haven’t watched it). The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (and how the victims of Epstein are still being elided), and the upcoming Gorton & Denton by-election.

The Rest is Politics

Talking about Rubio & Starmer’s speeches from the Munich conference (their consensus was that Rubio’s message was the same as Vance’s last year but masked it more with flattery). A bit of a rant about how Farage gets away with everything, the Thai elections & the Bangladesh elections, more on the Munich conference. The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (without Rory). Trump’s tariffs, more on the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor with Rory this time, the proposed SEND reforms.

The Bunker

Weekly wrap up (mostly about the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.) Start the Week. How Russia (and Putin) ended up how they are now when it looked like it might be so different in the 1990s. Pete Hegseth and the US military.

The Rest is Politics US

The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor in the context of US domestic politics, the mid-terms. The Supreme Court declaring the tariffs invalid, recorded before Trump put them back on again, and very optimistic about this being the beginning of the end of Trump.

Talk 90s to Me

Britney Spears (only in the context of her first hit really, and her career prior to that).

The History of England

Guest/interview episode, covering c. 1000 years of English history very briskly through the lens of what various factors that meant that things like the Industrial Revolution & the Enlightenment happened here, and the better bits of modernity (prosperity, the welfare state).

Origin Story

A Patreon only Q&A episode, mostly jumping off from the season on Socialism that they’ve just wrapped up.

Empire

Another episode (fifth, I think) of their series on the Indian Uprising of 1857, this time covering the story of Lakshmibai who was ruler of one of the states that the East India Company tried to absorb at about this time and ended up leading part of the rebellion practically despite her best efforts to remain loyal. The sixth episode in this series, about the Siege of Delhi.

The Rest is Science

Randomness, chaos, disorder, the creation of meaning, and the origins of the universe and consciousness (for the latter essentially the idea is that we have evolved to create meaning from what we observe as a way of surviving and this is why we generate a sense of self, and if the universe had inherent meaning we wouldn’t’ve needed to evolve that ability).

Journey Through Time

Wrapping up their series on the Spanish Civil War, and looking at how it didn’t end up with any reconciliation after it ended, then after Franco dies there is a codified “forgetting” which is only now beginning to unravel. Also framing it as having something to teach us in the modern day about when & how to intervene as fascism takes hold.

Exhibitions

Made in Egypt

At the Fitzwilliam Museum. Looking at ancient Egyptian objects through the lens of how they were made. So they were organised by material (stone, pottery, faience etc), and the materials were organised to some degree by production method (pottery, faience, glass all need fire; linen, baskets, papyrus were all plant fibres sort of woven). I’d seen quite a few of the objects before (even the loans) but it was an interestingly different way to look at the them. I also particularly liked the way they used Nina M. Davis watercolour paintings of the reliefs from the tomb of Rekhmire to tie the whole thing visually together – these scenes show craftsmen at work, and they had appropriate bits projected onto the walls near the different sections with some of them animated.

Music

Art Brut live at Cambridge Corn Exchange

Support for Maxïmo Park, I thought I only knew one of their tracks but I think I actually knew two. They were quite fun as the opening act but I still don’t think I need an album.

Maxïmo Park live at Cambridge Corn Exchange

This was the 20th anniversary of their first album, A Certain Trigger, so that was what they were touring. Unlike PRR’s similarly themed show they didn’t play it all in order, instead mixing the songs in with stuff from their other albums. A good gig, they always put on a very high energy show and it’s a lot of fun to watch. We were right at the front again – this time because the audience for Maxïmo Park gigs always seem to arrive comically late, so we got there just after doors should’ve opened and then bought merch & put stuff in the cloakroom and still made it to the barriers at the front.

Various “Now 12”

Talks

“New Discoveries from the City of the Snake Goddess” Nicky Nielsen

Taking us through the preliminary results from the 2024 excavations at Tell Nabasha. There isn’t much of the archaeology left due to modern building, but the two trenches he talked about tell us about two different periods – tower houses during the Late Period (with food production & cereal processing sites) and Ptolemaic occupation of what had previously (still was?) the temple site, which ended with a catastrophic fire.

Games

Diablo IV

It’s been 2 weeks since we played, so a bit of reminding ourselves how these characters worked with a NM dungeon, then a handful of Pits. Mostly at Tier 65, but we did do a Tier 66 at the end so I do now have the credit for one after the disconn incident two weeks ago.

james_davis_nicoll

The New Madrid Fault teaches a memorable lesson about the transience of things.

The Rift by Walter Jon Williams

chickenfeet

Includes a rather good "Les Illuminations"

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/02/24/britten-from-monaco/

oursin

Happy birthday,

donnaq!

qatsi

Book Review: My Inventions and Other Writings, by Nikola Tesla
If I'd read this a few years ago I would probably have filed it as largely pseudoscience. With developments in recent years, I would still regard it as such, but would add that there's a lot of egotistic pronouncement about what Tesla would like to be the case in areas where he did not have knowledge (because it wasn't available yet). Tesla was right about quite a few things and maybe was a genius - certainly he thought so - but he was also wrong about a lot of things and failed to keep quiet about them. Does any of this (probably not all of this) sound familiar?

Sadly there isn't that much real science in the book, and the edition I read also omits the illustrations which originally accompanied the writing, which might be important in some cases. There is a lot of writing about war and armaments, which reads completely naïvely today (the idea of machines fighting each other in a bloodless war is not quite how things turned out). Most of the writing is either nineteenth century, or refers to events in that period. Some things might have been different if Tesla had understood relativity or the photoelectric effect - or human nature.

tamaranth

2026/027: Nonesuch — Francis Spufford

...here they still were, since they were not the dead ones, under the weary yellow lighting, sharing the unspoken knowledge that, every night the bombers came, ten thousand possible exits from life opened silently, and unpredictably, and without appeal, down which anyone and anything could fall. [loc. 4817]

My initial review: rereading for this 'proper review' was sheer delight, and I am eager to read the second half of this duology.

The story begins in August 1939. Iris Hawkins lives in a Clapham boarding house, works at a City brokerage, and is fascinated by economics. One evening, she flees a disastrous date and ends up at a bohemian dance club, where she encounters the other two protagonists: Geoff Hale, a gawky engineer who works for the BBC, and Lall Cunningham, the icy recipient of Geoff's unrequited love. Iris intends her seduction of Geoff to be a one night stand, but things become more complicated ( Read more... )

Current Mood: jubilant

royalsongbird posting in

little_details

hello! im currently working on a fantasy story where the country it takes place in (or at the very least starts in- im still figuring out plot details) is inspired by indonesia, but im having trouble finding good resources about indonesian architecture in the vague time period im writing in- i dont have a specific idea beyond the vague medieval times setting most fantasy stories use, but im more than willing to try and narrow it down if it helps. if anyone has resources i could look into, that would be very helpful!

shewhostaples posting in

girlmeetstrouble

Apologies everyone, I'm not feeling very well.

This does at least give me a chance to let you know that we'll be reading chapters 1-3. Thereafter we'll do either two or three chapters per week (there are 22 total) but I need to look ahead to see what split makes most sense.

aurumcalendula

Amazon seems to have fixed the typos in the summary and sample of Jeannie Lin's Love, Death & Lanterns! Unfortunately they seem to have either have not done so in the ebook itself, or my copy is glitched (redownloading, clearing caches, and even deleting and rebuying it still gives me a copy with one of the main characters' names misspelled).

I have a version of it sans-typos from when it was one of the HEA Collective novellas, but this is annoying me.

chickenfeet

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/02/23/music-and-theatre-in-march/

full_metal_ox posting in

little_details

squidgiepdx belongs to this comm, but he’s perpetually been some combination of sick and busy, so I’ve taken the liberty of helping him out.

He’s trying to track down a particular BTS shot from Stargate: Atlantis:

And now on to the SGA Picture part of the deal. So I wrote a quickie story for romancingmcshep about John Sheppard's ass (the fest goes until February 28th if you're interested!) and the whole story is based on a picture that NOBODY can find anymore. I KNOW! It's frustrating! Anyway, there's what I think is a "behind the scenes" shot of most likely S01E03 "Hide and Seek" or S01E05 "Suspicion" where it's focused on Joe Flanigan's butt. Like kinda blatantly. He's kneeling on the Gateroom floor over Rodney, I believe and you can see where his t-shirt is pulled up and the waistband of his BDUs are lower - showing some skin and some of his boxers. This is what I think the camera sees in that shot, as Sheppard is kneeling like that but I remember there being a whole lot more skin. Does anyone remember a BTS photo like this? SO FRUSTRATING that I can't find it when I know I've seen it a hundred times.

His post: https://squidgiepdx.dreamwidth.org/341626.html

ETA 25 February 2026: The specific shot has yet to be identified, but

openidwouldwork has kindly provided a resource devoted to this extremely specialized topic: https://dailystargatebooty.tumblr.com/

cosmolinguist

Tonight's knock on the door was a Labour canvasser who asked if I was planning to vote; I said I'd just done my postal vote this afternoon, and "I'm afraid I voted Green," I tried to let him down gently.

He still tried to show me the latest "only Labour can beat Reform" chart which baffled me: from my own time canvassing I can only expect that in such circumstances they have a box to tick for "voted for someone else" and you move on! Arguing with people who've already voted is a waste of time.

I hadn't been going to get in to this but since he wasn't going away I told him that I'm a disabled immigrant and Labour are making life more difficult for all of those so I couldn't vote for them. He said "well Angeliki settled here from Europe..."

It just felt so point-missing. I don't really care about the demographics of a candidate too much. I care how they'll vote, I care about their party's policies and how they'll affect all immigrants! (Or any other group on the wrong side of this power imbalance.)

I appreciate there's a lot of new volunteers on all sides in this by-election. (Seriously dude, I hope they trained you enough that you know there should be a box for you to tick that says I can be done wasting your and all your colleagues' time!) But it's hard not to feel like this is what Labour has been for all twenty of the years I lived here: focus on this exceptional individual, not the boring systemic problems that the party will always shy away from.

The funniest thing was, as I was finally getting this guy to go away, I'd spotted another guy behind him and I'd assumed he was a fellow canvasser with this guy, but as I started to close the door, he caught my attention to say "I'm from the Greens, did you want to put up a sign?" And only then I remembered that D had in fact asked for one the other day, so me and this guy and D eventually ended up out in the rain trying to find something to affix it to before ending up dragging a big tree in a big pot to the edge of the driveway for maximum visibility.

I hope that sends the Labour canvassers a message, for the couple more days until this election finally happens.

james_davis_nicoll

A bundle for Mists of Akuma, the tabletop roleplaying campaign setting of Eastern fantasy noir steampunk from Storm Bunny Studios for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition.

Bundle of Holding: Mists of Akuma

Profile

white_hart

December 2025

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Page Summary

andrewducker - Some thoughts on the Gorton and Denton by-election
selenak - Star Trek: Starfleet Academy 1.08
rmc28 - bless you Chuck Tingle
silveradept - A long and boring speech, annual in its delivery.
ysabetwordsmith in common_nature - Photos: House Yard
kaberett - some good things.
oursin - Odds and ends
elisem - Cardinal John Henry Newman filk, repeated
andrewducker - Photo cross-post
fromtheheartofeurope_feed - Thursday reading
fromtheheartofeurope_feed - The Dead Take the A Train, by Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey
james_davis_nicoll - Five Science Fiction Stories About Investigating Enigmatic Artifacts
james_davis_nicoll - Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall
spiralsheep - In which you can just refuse
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 26-02-2026
selenak - Paradise Season 2, episodes 1- 3
tamaranth - 2026/029: Bread of Angels — Patti Smit
kaberett - some good things
cosmolinguist - Minneapolis Is Going on Offense Against ICE
james_davis_nicoll - Bundle of Holding: Good Society (from 2024)
oursin - Wednesday dutifully attended the Fellows' symposia
fromtheheartofeurope_feed - Cards on the Table, by Agatha Christie
andrewducker - I need to know about movie improvements
james_davis_nicoll - Babel no Toshokan by Tsubana
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 25-02-2026
oursin - (no subject)
tamaranth - 2026/028: The Kite Runner — Khalid Hosseini
andrewducker - Photo cross-post
aurumcalendula - (no subject)
aurumcalendula - Where Love Goes | ClaireBell
kaberett - some good things make a post
cosmolinguist - Interesting places
wychwood - to exist in the face of suffering and death and somehow still keep singing
redbird - a nice walk, a day after the blizzard
fromtheheartofeurope_feed - House of Open Wounds, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
oursin - As Rose Red said in the Katy books -
mousetrappling - Tuesday 17 February 2026 to Tuesday 24 February 2026
james_davis_nicoll - The Rift by Walter Jon Williams
chickenfeet - Britten from Monaco
andrewducker - Interesting Links for 24-02-2026
oursin - (no subject)
qatsi - The Other Tesla
tamaranth - 2026/027: Nonesuch — Francis Spufford
royalsongbird in little_details - indonesia architecture
shewhostaples in girlmeetstrouble - Delaying next book until next week
aurumcalendula - (no subject)
chickenfeet - March in Toronto; music and theatre
full_metal_ox in little_details - Squidgie calls for aid! Can anyone retrieve a memetic photo of John Sheppard’s butt?
cosmolinguist - Political engagement
james_davis_nicoll - Bundle of Holding: Mists of Akuma

Style Credit

Style: Ivory Alcea for Mobility by branchandroot
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