#UK weather report

[newscast1]

UK faces major energy crisis as temperatures plummet, costs rise

UK faces major energy crisis as temperatures plummet, costs rise

In the midst of an energy crisis in winter, the UK govt data has revealed that domestic gas and electricity prices have gone up since the past year. A man serves himself a hot drink during at the Ashburton Hall community hub in Croydon, England (Getty image) By Loveena Tandon: The United Kingdom is facing a serious energy crisis as temperatures plummet and energy costs rise along with an…

[sszeemedia]

Met office warns of uncomfortable heatwave and storms across the UK

The UK is bracing for what could be the hottest day of the year, with temperatures expected to soar up to 34°C on Monday, especially in London and other parts of central and eastern England, according to latest weather reports. The Met Office has issued heatwave alerts across the country, as well as warnings for severe thunderstorms in northern regions. Forecaster Craig Snell from the Met Office…

[bryonyashaw]

Heatwave got me like

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[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

Clownfall: the Election Cometh

It's a long one, lads. Buckle up, get comfy, but the circus is in town for its final run. Ambient music as you read can be found here or here, take your pick. Get popcorn. Get snacks and water and a blanket.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Wednesday 22nd May

7.12am

Household favourite and queen of our hearts Pippa Crerar of the Guardian (her who did the investigative journalism that revealed PartyGate to the world) reports that UK inflation fell to a mere, paltry 2.3% in April.  The lowest level in three years!  Huzzah! But … still smaller than the decline that was expected. 

Nonetheless, Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Cunt whoops I'm so sorry I meant Cunt haha whoops said it again make a big fuss about how brilliant this news is, and how it shows that they are Good At Maffs after all that trouble with Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng, who defined themselves as being Good At Maffs and then obliterated the economy in a single day.  Remember that! Good times. But hey, look, THIS PM/Grand Vizier combo are great at this! Inflation has fallen! Stop looking at the predicted rate! A fall is still a fall!

Crerar wonders whether people will actually feel better off, though – prices and mortgage rates are still high, after all. Food for thought.

10.04am

Jeremy Hunt is asked on the Today programme whether Sunak will call a general election.

Now, the logic here is that the government is likely to do better in an election if the economy’s improving; which, SunakCunt are now shrieking from the rooftops. So, is now the time? It's a win, and they've had so few of those, but historically people really do like to fall for the right wing = better economy myth... 

BUT – the Tories are doing so very badly in the polls.  Journalists favour the idea of an autumn election.  Tories do better when the weather’s bad, because fewer people go out and vote.

 “Well that’s a matter for the prime minister, it’s not a matter for me,” says Cunt. 

... Well.  Not ruling it out, then? Diddorol.

10.30am

It's Wednesday, aka the date that Tory cabinet ministers have their weekly meeting. They are duly sent the agenda.

There is no mention at all of an election announcement, nor any plan for an election.

Fair enough! 'Twas an idle thought. Plus, it would actually be bad timing from a logistical perspective - David Cameron, Foreign Secretary and Bae of Pigs, is currently flying out to Albania for an important international meeting, and Jeremy Cunt is on TV all day today - ITV next.

12.18pm

Sunak is asked at Prime Minister’s Questions whether he’ll call a general election.  He doesn’t rule it out.

12.56pm

Fun tweet alert!

2.31pm

Pippa Crerar asked Sunak’s press secretary whether he was calling an election.  She refused to comment.

Surely it’s a terrible time to call an election! Everyone hates them!  But suddenly …

A Cabinet meeting is scheduled for 4.15pm.  David Hameron suddenly u-turns in Albania and comes straight back home, his meeting un-met.  Jeremy Cunt cancels his ITV appearance.  The afternoon meeting is cancelled. Number 10 stops responding to journalists.  Manifesto work has stepped up.  Sunak’s chief-of-staff is spotted wearing a suit and tie WHICH IS UNUSUAL.  Senior ministers have spent the last few days doubling down on dividing lines.  And Tory bosses had a meeting this week to discuss how much money they could spend before a summer election.

The UK press sense blood in the water.

3pm

Okay.

There’s something you need to understand:

People suspect Rishi Sunak doesn’t actually want to live in the UK.  He’d prefer to be in California.  He’s here because he’s an MP.

You need to know this to understand this truly historic incident.

Nadine Dorries has produced a good tweet.

...

...

...

No, we all need to sit with this one for a minute

(For the record... to us, that is an excellent joke. But I strongly suspect she wasn't joking and was trying to make a catty accusation instead, which coincidentally appeared like a roast.

Scientists are referring to this as Stopped Clock Syndrome.)

5.17pm

With great dignity, Rishi Sunak stands outside Number 10 and announces a general election on 4 July.

And by “great dignity”, I mean he’s soaked by rain, while “Things Can Only Get Better” plays in the background courtesy of an anti-Tory protestor with a big speaker and a dream; the song adopted by he Labour Party for the 1997 election, where Tony Blair famously won a landslide victory after 18 years of Tory rule. Eventually, the volume of it is raised so high Sunak is, on more than one level, drowned out.

5.37pm

According to Gabriel Pogrund of the Times, Labour can’t believe Number 10 allowed this to happen.

One Labour insider texts: “Umbrellas are woke”

6.06pm

Good tweet alert!

8pm

A later Guardian article reports that Sunak greeted around a hundred Tory activists – still wearing the same rain-soaked trousers from the announcement.

No word at all on why he doesn't have aides capable of fetching him dry trousers. Perhaps those, too, are woke.

8.14pm

A Sky News reporter is at Sunak’s campaign launch.  But, bafflingly, he’s forcibly removed.  Extraordinary scenes

Elanor's Pro Tip: Removing a journalist may not be the best PR move for the start of an election trail.

8.27pm

9.36pm

A GBNews reporter claims that some Tory MPs are trying desperately to replace Sunak as leader in order to call off the general election.  For this to work, they’d need a vote of no confidence before the dissolution of parliament on Thursday 30 May.  Except actually, that would have to happen before the proroguing of parliament on Friday 24 May.

So … this won’t work.  But how very incredible - and hilarious - that they’re trying.

10.39pm

Let's take a look at the evening headlines!

A great start to Sunak’s campaign, with newspapers - including the Tory giant The Telegraph - celebrating the triumphant launch of his campaign:

Well! WHAT a day! Let's see how Thursday goes.

Thursday 23 May

8.00am

The BBC takes a moment to gleefully throw off the shackles of political oppression of the last 12 years to reveal that Rishi Sunak's announcement of a July election, the single most important announcement for a sitting government, the most sensitive and vitally-timed event in their calendar...

Was a total surprise to the rest of the party.

Tory party MPs found out when we did that they were about to have to campaign again. For a snap GE. Three weeks after having just done it for the council elections, in which they experienced the greatest single loss of their councillors in history. Even the damn meeting agenda was fake.

Still. Perhaps this explains the lack of umbrella or trousers.

9.09am

Nigel Farage confirms he will NOT stand at the general election. 

*pause for applause*

That’s because he’s helping Trump get re-elected in the US right now.

*pause for screams*

This is good news for the Tories!  And the rest of Britain, actually (commiserations to America. Please shoot him). Farage’s right-wing populist party - Reform UK - is the spiritual successor to UKIP and the Brexit Party, who’ve been splitting the right-wing vote for years.  Farage is popular; it’s bad news for Reform if he’s not part of their campaign, but simply fantastic news for those of us who think queer folks, women and people of colour deserve human rights.

9.19am

According to BBC News and others, Sunak has hired Isaac Levido, the election strategist behind the Tories’ landslide win in 2019.  Levido knows his stuff, and advised Sunak to stick with an autumn election.

Sunak ignored this advice.  Lol.

9.20am

In the Guardian, Sunak says there WON’T be planes of immigrants flying to Rwanda before the general election.  Good news for those of us who think it’s monstrous to deport immigrants to countries with unsafe governments.  Bad news for Tory voters who were hoping to get racists to vote for them.

Now, this is particularly funny, because promising to deport refugees to Rwanda in spite of overwhelming legal opposition on human rights grounds is probably the single hill that the Tories have chosen to commit genocide on. This bill has been in and out of every court in the land since they promised it in 2019. It's been on again off again more than a tawdry tabloid romance. But, they finally managed to push it through, and the first planes were set to fly in July.

This means! That Sunak's strongest cards going into the election were the drop in inflation, and the Rwanda bill. He could sell it as "In spite of those bleeding heart liberals, we persevered and managed to tenaciously get rid of these browns and thus fulfilled our promise", and the fact that it won't actually affect the immigration numbers wouldn't be clear until after the election. And make no mistake, it is VITAL that those planes fly before any election - quoth one influential Conservative MP on the right of the party to the BBC:

“I know what question you’re going to ask us again and again. "You’ll say we’ve been banging on about Rwanda for years and we’ve only managed to fly one migrant out there - and we paid him to go”.

It took a single day for that gamble to dramatically fail.

Lol. Lmao, even. One might almost say rofl.

9.21am

Sunak is emphasising his own role in managing the economy.

The Guardian’s Rowena Mason points out that it might be better to sell this as a Tory victory rather than a Sunak victory, considering how badly Sunak’s doing as an individual in the polls.

10.45am

I'm obviously giving a lot of attention here to the funniest and most ridiculous stuff, but let’s take a moment to celebrate some genuinely brilliant journalism:

0_o

The whole article’s worth reading. It confirms that at least one more hi-vis wearer was a Tory councillor in disguise (in this case Ben Hall-Evans). Perhaps this is why they started by removing all the real journalists.

12.42pm

Sunak’s campaign takes him to a brewery in Wales!  He attempts some Bonding With The Working Man and asks the workers if they’re excited for the football.

Top tip: if you don’t realise the country you’re in hasn’t qualified for the Euros, maybe don’t even mention the subject.

6.55pm

... here is a new problem. Ish.

As mentioned, three weeks ago, England held local council elections. In that time, the Tories lost over half their councillors; an unprecedented and staggering loss in one event. We are all still bathing in the schadenfreude.

But, many of those then left the party (probably fairly, actually - monsters though Tories are, that cannot have been fun.) But, the way politics in the UK works is that when you vote, you don't vote for the party - you vote for your local representative, and then it's a numbers game as to which party gets to rule. This means, with this sudden last-minute possibly-impulsively-declared-by-one-soggy-madman election now six weeks away, those candidates all need replacing so that the Tories will have a shot at getting the numbers they need to form a majority government.

Channel 4’s Paul McNamara reports that Conservative HQ have emailed asking for candidates in almost 100 seats.  The deadline’s tight for this – and apparently, joining the lengthening list of people who weren't informed of this stupid election plan, Tory associations are livid at being left so unprepared.

Now, a lot of these seats are Labour strongholds, so you don’t necessarily need more than a token Tory candidate for them. Phew! A great relief.

But some of them are actually good Tory seats. Uh oh!  Basildon, Bury St Edmunds, Wellingborough and Rushden …  It’s a bad hit to the Tories to have so little time to find good candidates for these seats.

8.59pm

Labour launch a campaign video.  It’s long, but the message is, “Remember life before the Tories got into power?  Wasn’t it BRILLIANT?”

And to prove how great 2009 was, they’ve included a clip of David Tennant’s Dr Who saying “I don’t want to go.”

Lol.

9.57pm

Filmmaker Richard Cubitt jokily suggests he could stand as a Tory candidate, and immediately defect to Labour as soon as possible once elected.

I don’t know if the deadline’s closed, but I am now speaking to the chat. Lads: the time will never be better. Do it. Tell the Tories you'll stand for them. Immediately defect. You have the opportunity to do the funniest thing. Be the rot in the barrel. The time is now.

ANYWAY. Oh boy. Day one of campaigning was quite bad. Ah well! Onwards and upwards for Wali Heb Broli. Let's see what Friday brings.

And of course: the losses are staggering (100 candidates!), but it could be worse.

At least it's not senior MPs.

Friday 24 May

7.00am

Over 70 MPs confirm they will not be standing for re-election.

7.35am

It’ll be lovely to see this election get rid of some truly awful Tories.  But no need to wait that long!  John Redwood stands down.  I haven't mentioned him before, but let's look at his clownface eggshell.

He opposed reducing the age of consent for homosexuality in 1994 and 1999, he voted to keep Section 28 in 2003, he opposed same sex marriage, he voted to reintroduce the death penalty in 1988, 1990 and 1994, he’s argued against Greta Thunberg over the UK’s climate emissions.

Although English, he became Secretary of State for Wales in 1993, and at a Tory conference, had to mime badly to the Welsh national anthem which he hadn’t bothered learning.  In 1995, he cheated Wales out of a £100 million grant by returning it unspent to the treasury, so it could go back to England.

So, John – if by some fantastically rare chance you’re somehow reading this – it’s wonderful to see you step down.  I wish you a very warm fuck you.  And I hope the rest of your life is absolutely horrible and filled with immeasurable pain. Kisses.

7.58am

Vicky Spratt of the i newspaper announces that, with an election announced, the Renters’ Reform won’t pass.

This is a big deal, actually - this was a rare good promise in the Tories’ 2019 manifesto to protect renters by ending no-fault evictions.  A good promise!  With cross-parliamentary support, only slowed as much as it was because most Tory backbenchers are landlords and so tried to block it. But the fighting raged on, and it was finally agreed.

And now it’s broken.  Wasting months of work by stakeholders, and thus forming another election promise that would have sailed through if only the election hadn't been called for July.

8.09am

Jeremy Corbyn – remember him? Former Labour leader, who was expelled from the Labour party in 2020 – confirms he’ll be standing as an independent.  He’s continued to be a member of Labour despite being an independent MP – but standing against Labour in an election means he’ll have his membership revoked too.

9.26am

So where are we at? How do you reckon the normal Tories in the party are faring? Do you think they're positive of a win? Do you think they expect to lose?

Great Guardian article here:

Highlights - one government minister happened to bump into his equivalent opposition member, and immediately thrust his official folder towards them, saying, “You might as well have this now.”

Another Tory MP hugged a Labour colleague and cast their arm around the room.  “Good luck.  This is all yours.”

One Tory backbencher was asked if it was a good idea to call an election.  “It’s a disaster. I can’t understand it.”

Even when they’re being optimistic, the Tories seem a little glum.  One long-standing MP said: “Of course I’m going to fight it, I don’t believe in just giving up like the prime minister has obviously decided to.”

A former minister raises an interesting point.  It’s not long, after all, since the Tories suffered those major defeats at the local council elections.  That's impacted the number of candidates, of course - but, local canvassing is largely done, on all parts of the political spectrum, but activist volunteers.

That loss was three weeks ago. If you were a volunteer who just spent weeks knocking on the doors of your neighbours and community, trying to convince them to vote for the dead horse, and then lost – maybe you won’t feel like hitting the streets again so soon. Maybe you'd prefer to be able to meet your neighbours' eyes when you bump into them in the bread slicing queue at Morrisons.

Some MPs have even admitted they won’t be cancelling holiday plans to fight the election.  On top of that, there's over 70 MPs that have already confirmed they’re quitting and won’t be seeking re-election!!! Absolute scenes.

Interestingly, some anti-Sunak Tories report frustration.  They reckon they were close to calling a vote of no-confidence, in the hopes of replacing Sunak with a different leader.  No idea if this is true – and if true, whether Sunak knew it. But given the panicked speed at which it seems to have been called...

11.08am

The campaign takes Rishi Sunak to the Titanic Quarter, to be interviewed by Belfast Live.

Elanor's Pro Tip: if you’re the leader of a failing political party, maybe don’t let journalists interview you on a site named after history’s most famous sinking ship.

11.57am

How’s the campaign going, Rishi?

Oh, Rishi. Looks like someone else is not meeting anyone's eyes in the bread-slicing queue.

1.12pm

Politics UK reports that 75 Tory MPs are now standing down at the election – the same number of Tories who stood down ahead of the 1997 election.

2.49pm

Sunak’s campaign takes him on board an aeroplane.

Elanor's Pro Tip: if you’re the leader of a failing political party, maybe don’t be photographed in front of an exit sign.

7.07pm

MICHAEL GOVE ANNOUNCES HE’S STANDING DOWN AS AN MP!

I could honestly use that gif like seventeen times in this write up. You can all thank me for my restraint in choosing just one.

The 79th Tory to do so at this election – an all-time record exodus.  Hey gang, would you like to see some familiar names joining him in this?

Theresa May

Sajid Javid

Dominic Raab

Matt Hancock

Ben Wallace

Nadhim Zahawi.

It’s just … not a great sign for the party, is it? That so many prominent MPs don’t reckon it’s worth sticking around.

7.50pm

Hey, remember those parody videos of Hitler getting angry with funny subtitles?  Someone made a good Sunak one:

10.48pm

The Guardian’s Kiran Stacey reports that Sunak will retreat from the campaign trail, spending the next day at home.

Honestly... that's probably best. Let him recover from the bread excitement.

10.50pm

We round off the day with Andrea Leadsom announcing she too is standing down as an MP. Bye, bitch.

WHAT A DAY! Still, Saturday will probably be better.

Saturday 25 May

12am

New episode of Doctor Who drops! It contains Welsh faeries. I later write a post explaining this. You're all welcome. Back to the circus.

10.06am

Good tweet alert!

11.14am

Keir Starmer promises to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 if he wins the election.

2.43pm

Hey remember how David Hameron was supposed to be in Albania? And actually went there? And then had to come back because of Rishi's totally-planned-for election announcement?

The Mirror reports that David Cameron spent £60,000 of taxpayers’ money getting to Albania for that trip.  He was there for 89 minutes, before he had to come back in light of the general election announcement.

This means it cost the country £674 a minute for Cameron to be in Albania for about as long as it takes to watch The Lion King.

6.14pm

Labour and the Tories put candidates forward for 650 seats in a general election.

Of course, that's not quite all of them. The Times’ Patrick Maguire understands that Labour have only 13 candidates left to select, which is pretty good.  The Tories are missing slightly more than that. 

They need to find around 190.

(The number is rising. Chat, you know what to do.)

9.29pm

According to the Telegraph, Theresa May has said if she was still PM she would have used an umbrella to declare the election.

She probably would have, too.

10.11pm

Now then!!! Gather round boys and girls and all the rest!

Remember: the election was called based upon the following main cards in Sunak's hand:

The Rwanda bill

Inflation falling

The Renter's Reform Bill

Inflation fell, but not by as much as it should have. The Rwanda plan fell through a day later. The election itself has blocked the Renter's Reform bill.

Rishi needs a new set of promises stat, in order to shore up votes from his most important bastions of support. What can he offer?

The evening brings the answer!

At 10.11pm - note the time - in spite of having taken the day off, Sunak promises mandatory national service for every 18 year old if he wins the election.  Either a year-long army placement, or a weekend a month volunteering for a year.

Sounds like a good pledge, if you’re hoping to motivate 18-year-olds to vote against you.

10.16pm

The Financial Times’ Jim Pickard reveals that the National Citizen Service (David Cameron’s legacy project) had its funding slashed by two-thirds in a 2022 review of government youth funding - when the chancellor was Rishi Sunak.

Five minutes.  That’s how long it took a journalist to melt Sunak’s new pledge.

Still; Tories never let facts get in the way.

10.27pm

Politics UK reports that leaked documents suggest teenagers would be jailed for refusing this national service.

11.47pm

Sunak's bad ideas generator works hard, but the meme makers of the internet work harder:

Still. Sunday is a day of rest! Hopefully Sunday will be better.

Sunday 26 May

9.50am

Let’s check the Sunday tweets.

Starting to think whoever is in charge of optics for Rishi Sunak may be a Labour plant.

10.21am

Fantastic tweet alert:

I Agree With Gabby

3pm

And then... PLOT TWIST!!!

FT’s Lucy Fisher reports that Sunak’s national service pledge - including assigning up to 30,000 18-year-olds to the military - was rejected this week by one of his own defence ministers.

Defence personnel minister Andrew Murrison warned of a hit to morale, headcount and resources if “potentially unwilling national service recruits” were introduced alongside Britain’s professional armed forces.

EVEN THE ARMY DON'T WANT THIS.

6.47pm

And then:

Incredible story from Gabriel Pogrund of the Times.

St Paul’s School, if you haven't heard of it, is an expensive and famous private school in England somewhere (I forget where and don't care).  As with other private schools, they’d be subject post-election to a Labour plan to remove their VAT exemption.

Tory MP Greg Hands took matters into his own Greg hands, and messaged the school’s parents’ WhatsApp group to try and drum up anti-Labour sentiment.

I can see the logic. These are parents with money, who have chosen to send their children to a private school that often means an easy track into politics generally and the Tory party specifically. I see why he thought he was safe.

Tumblrs, he was not safe.

Parents intervened, complaining about Hands spamming the chat, and claiming his use of the chat was “inappropriate”.

One parent messaged: “Can we stop assuming everyone is a Tory in this group.  A return to more morality, less corruption and more social conscience in British politics is not something to oppose necessarily.”

Another expressed that some parents will “feel it is hard to defend private schools being vat exempt.”

Ouch. Swing and a miss, Greg Hands.

Anyway. New week, new campaigning. I am writing this on Tuesday, and so our tale is nearly at an end for now; so let's see what happened on Monday.

Monday 27 May (Yesterday)

7.40am

Britain's teenagers respond to the national service plan. I love this tweet and the video it reposts:

And here, for your viewing pleasure, is the video:

8.17am

Tory MP Steve Baker (more on him later) actually tweets a public criticism of Sunak’s national service plan.  You might be thinking "Well yes, obviously"! But no! For you see, when approaching elections, parties need to be united. Divided parties generally find it harder to win elections.

Naughty Steve.

8.41am

Foreign Office Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan, having seen the absolute shambles of Sunak’s campaigning, wakes up this fine Monday morn and invites him to hold her beer.

Appearing on Times Radio, she’s asked whether the parents of teenagers could be prosecuted if the teens refuse to take up national service.

And she doesn’t rule it out.

NO BUT WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT ARE YOU DOING ANNE-MARIE. IS THIS YOUR FIRST DAY OUT OF THE HOUSE.

Parents are NOT prosecuted for any wrongdoing of their ADULT CHILDREN.  How do you not understand this basic legal concept. The answer to that question was “no”!  You say “no” because it makes your party more likely to be elected, and you say “no” because the answer is no.

Oh dear. What a gaffe, as the papers say. Gosh, I really hope Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s gaffe stays contained.

8.56am

The Telegraph duly reports that parents of 18-year-olds might be fined if their children refuse national service.

Anne-Marie Trevelyan’s gaffe did not stay contained.

10.55am

Looks like the Tories are unhappy that the press revealed that Sunak took a day off from campaigning.

But that’s okay, they have a new strategy!  Reported by Politico, they’ve decided to suggest that Keir Starmer is too old to be a good Prime Minister.

They called him “weary” yesterday afternoon;

Tory Party Chair Richard Holden says it’s “bizarre” for Starmer to rest at home the day before a speech (but not for Rishi to - ? You know what, never mind);

A Tory aide tells the Sun that Starmer should be dubbed “Sir Sleepy” (what a Zinger, as those conscripted into national service say);

Another Tory aide calls Starmer “Sleepy Keir” according to the FT.

Keir Starmer is 61 years old.

11.17am

Let's check Tory candidate numbers!!!

Now last we looked it was 190, but obviously, as this is possibly their most urgent priority, they've been working flat out and recruiting across the land and so they have, fair play, managed to reduce that number.

The Spectator therefore reports that the Tories have 12 days to select 160 candidates.  Would you like to see the maths?

This means, on average, they need to select one candidate every 100 minutes.  Which is slightly less time than it takes to watch Toy Story 3.

#ChatYouKnowWhatToDo

12.41pm

The FT’s Lucy Fisher reports that Tory HQ has accidentally sent out an email criticising Tory MPs for failing to campaign, and warning of financial concerns in some seats.

Cannot stress this enough: even if the Tory campaign was going really well and they were predicting a landslide their way, this would be a terrible blow.

5.02pm

The Mirror reports that Tory MP Steve Baker is on holiday in Greece.  That’s pretty irresponsible, isn’t it?  What does Baker have to say for himself?

"The Prime Minister told everyone we could go on holiday and then called a snap election. So I've chosen to do my campaign work in Greece."

… this is the greatest Tory campaign in history.

(And once again... when exactly did you decide to do this, Rishi?)

5.15pm

In an absolutely baffling move whose motives I still cannot entirely fathom, Tory MP Lucy Allan - a repugnant, malignant liar of a woman who once altered an email from a constituent so she could claim it contained a death threat against her - is suspended by the party, for telling voters in her ward to vote for Reform UK instead of the Tories.

...

...

...

...wwwhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

6.18pm

Good tweet alert! Here's political journalist Jonn Elledge:

6.30pm

Meanwhile, a Tory chooses to contact journalist Theo Usherwood over WhatsApp, criticising the election strategist Isaac Levido:

Now this is particularly interesting, because Levido is the guy who managed to swing the last GE to BlowJo, even though Labour were riding high on Corbyn. And I don't know, maybe he is actually shit at this and all that was luck.

I just... wouldn't have said he was the reason for this one going the way it is. Necessarily.

Finally, let's finish off Monday with a last good tweet:

10.06pm

***

That's all for now, folks! Thank you for reading, enjoy the circus playing out this week!

[render-bomb]

It blows my mind that yesterday it was in the minuses and yet today it's 12°C, like how is that even possible?

[chuthulhu-plays]

I generally watch LPs of horror games bc I'm too anxious to actually play them but a lot of them have FANTASTIC stories, so sometimes I just binge-watch KrinxTV for background noise. Been watching a lot of playthroughs of Still Wakes The Deep because it's such a delight to hear Scottish voice actors get work and I thought I'd address some questions I keep seeing Let's Players ask:

--Adair is a member of the National Front as you can find out from posters in his cabin, a Neo-Fascist British political party that’s been going since the sixties. While it often preaches British ethnic unity, in practice that often means “everybody in the UK should be exactly like East End Londerners” and features plentiful disdain for Scottish, Irish, and Welsh folk, alongside those perceived as “not British”. No wonder the wanker eats alone in the canteen.

--Neeps and Tatties=turnips and potatoes, mashed, drenched in butter or sauce. Fills your belly, keeps you warm, probably makes you sink like a stone because it’s so heavy.

--Cranachan=a dessert made of raspberries, honey, cream and oats, absolutely delicious

--Rennick calls Caz a “wee ned prick”. Ned is apocryphally said to stand for “non-educated delinquent” and is basically just a way of calling someone an uneducated, lower-class criminal

--A lot of things said by and about Roy indicate that he’s a teetotaller who went through AA and specifically became Catholic and is making an effort at converting Caz.

--I think it’s entertaining how Scottish nicknames often follow a pattern of shortening/rejiggering that I also see a lot with Australian nicknames—Cameron becomes Caz, Rafferty becomes Raffs, etc. Trots is an unusual one but is almost certainly a reference to him being a communist, presumably a Trotskyist. Gibbo is also an unusual one in that it’s just very silly. There’s a kind of indignity implied in being killed by a guy called Gibbo.

--A few times on the radio you hear the Shipping Forecast, a type of weather report aimed at specifically reporting weather conditions out on the ocean, and is also famous for the report being read in such a calm, soothing tone that some folk use it as a sleep aid.

--All the yellow paint for interactable things is very video gamey, yes, but is also in line with old British health and safety standards, and yellow paint on things like emergency ladders or on the edges of stairs that are trip hazards is a thing ou can still see in some older buildings.

--Caz keeps saying he’s “good with the leccy”; leccy=electricity. Caz is implied to be quite a wee guy who can get through a lot of tight spaces, and my uncle swears blind that electricians used to refuse to take on apprentices over a certain size because they only wanted to train wee guys who could get up into the tight spaces that a lot of older buildings are full of. On that note, “wee man” is a term of endearment, generally, and isn’t exclusively applied to short guys.

--Finlay saying of Gibbo that “he’s no right” is INCREDIBLY OMINOUS. It sounds mild but “he’s no right, that boy” is what older folk say about a child who’s been found disembowelling cats for fun or someone they strongly suspect is a pedophile. It’s not something you’d say about a friend who’s just acting a bit unusually.

– “Great minds united over a Buckie”--Buckfast, or Buckie, is a caffienated tonic wine that’s cheap, widely accessible, and is a bit like rocket fuel for bad decisions.

– “Ya roaster” tbh I don’t really know where it comes from, calling someone a roaster, but I’ve always felt like it has a vibe of telling them they’re huffing their own farts.

--Scunnert/scunnered--buggered, screwed, utterly fucked, etc

– “You’re the jammiest bastart on this rig” Someone who is jammy is someone who has incredible luck that is implied to be related to their sheer confidence or willingness to engage in risky behaviour. Walking along the street and finding a pound coin isn’t jammy; crossing the road confident that the cars won’t hit you and stopping in the middle to pick up a pound coin before making it unscathed to the other side is jammy as all hell.

--Barlinnie is the biggest prison in Scotland, and largely hosts violent offenders—it’s where Caz would definitely go for hospitalizing a man.

--Weans are children (contraction of wee yins/wee ones). I thought this one was contextually obvious but apparently not.

SPOILERS BELOW

--”One spark and the whole thing’ll go up”—this is referring to the wee spark of flame in the lighter used to blow up the rig, but is also kind of a pun because electricians are often called sparks or sparkies, and in the end it’s Caz who blows up the rig.

[caramelcuppaccino]

hey everyone. turkey has been struck by a very strong earthquake around four am. even now, many regions are being struck still. the weather is cold and snowy and people had to leave their homes. many people have lost their lives (edit: it’s been reported that the number is 1004 now (edit: more than 1500) (edit: more than 2000) (edit: more than 3000) (edit: 5434) (edit: more than 12.000 peope have lost their lives) (edit: more than 34.000 people have lost their lives) (edit: more than 40.000 people have lost their lives) (edit: more than 9000 injured people) (edit: 22.000 injured people) (edit: 31.777) (edit: more than 62.000 people are injured) and there are many people who are stuck under the wrecks (edit: number unkown) it has been reported that around two thousand buildings have collapsed and keep collapsing (edit: more than 9000) turkey has declared a fourth level alert state. the ‘’level 4’’ alarm condition includes an international call for help. if you can and would like to, this is the most reliable organization you can donate to:

(ps: akad and red crescent are not trusted by turkish locals. especially afad because they are lying about the help they send and the number of people. please refrain from donating to them. AHBAP is the most trustworthy organization that sends help immediately).

((please do not hesitate to contact me if you need help with the website/language while donating))

(((1€ and 1$ almost equal to 20 turkish lira. so even a little amounts means a lot to us.)))

((((it has been reported that around 194.000 people are under the wrecks and still waiting to be rescued))))

(((((people are sharing notices of victims who are still under the wrecks and waiting to be rescued on twitter ever since the earthquake and turkish government officially announced that they are banning twitter. this is the reason why we don’t want you to donate to afad and red crescent; they only listen to the government. they don’t care about the people.)))))

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HOW TO DONATE:

HOW TO AND WHERE TO DONATE

FOR UK:

ANOTHER FUND FOR SYRIA AND TURKEY:

HOW TO DONATE:

[gothhabiba]

[bypass paywall]

[Northern Africa] has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.

“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”

North Africa, the Sahara desert and the Sahel, a semi-arid belt north of the Sudanian savanna, are some of the most vulnerable areas because they have larger land masses relative to the rest of the continent, meaning they tend to heat up faster. Scientists have attributed the unprecedented temperatures to a combination of human-induced climate change and the return of El Niño, a natural phenomenon that alters weather patterns. 

The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off.

[...] Elsewhere on the continent, the crisis is also being felt. In the Horn of Africa, at least 43,000 people died in Somalia alone last year as a result of the worst drought in four decades. A study found that global warming is changing rain patterns and bringing more heat to Somalia and some of its neighbors, for longer stretches of time. Further south, unusually destructive cyclones in 2019 claimed more than a thousand lives in Mozambique and Zimbabwe alone. 

[zangtang]

Everything can change at any point!

Create images here: https://www.bing.com/images/create?FORM=GENILP before i say anything else though: not following someone else's prompts means you'll likely find some wild and unexpected things yourself. If you follow my prompts like they're laws, you will only ever get results like mine. There are people doing much cooler, weirder things. Don't get restricted by this.

the site was VERY BROKEN for the last 6 days, you haven't been banned. You get 15 boosts a day which usually override any current downtime, but the popup thinks you get 25 a week, which is an indicator of how busted and poorly planned they were for this flood of users. It's not too hard to create illegal results, and there's millions of users, so it's very unlikely a human is ever looking at your results. Unless you're doing really spectacularly terrible things, of course. If you get the warning as soon as you enter your prompt, change the most controversial aspects of your prompt immediately, as repeats of this will get you suspended for increasingly long times. It is possible to make alt accounts with throwaway emails though. It's unconfirmed but it appears that US residents get priority access during US times, and UK residents can only reliably make things from 7am to 1pm for example. Weekend access is a crapshoot. I don't personally pay for ChatGPT so I can't say anything about the alleged priority access you get there, but even that can be slow and restricted during the worst times (I assume this will the their priority to fix though). There are many conflicting reports about whether it's more censored or not. Reports is a very fancy way of saying reddit comments.

Everything I superstitiously guess about prompts:

you can be very descriptive and write in natural english, or you can be very brief. both methods work, I suspect both versions do different things. repetition and restating the same thing in other ways also seems to emphasise (possibly.) Prompts can be quite chaotic and contradictory - you can describe a lot of things happening and it may surprise you, so have fun with weirdness! some words are "heavy" against the automated filters, and can be safe in one prompt and unsafe in another. think of it like buckaroo, the AI is trying to find meaning in your prompt and it will sometimes combine things and get mad about it. be aware of politics and words that may be used in erotic senses, and switch those up.

this is the format I use the most because i am super lazy and unimaginative. items in [ ] are optional and can be anything, and I don't know how the word order matters - in old Midjourney it mattered quite a bit according to guides, but now they're all pushing to parse natural english I'm not so sure:

[number of] [body type] [age] [nationality] [male noun or job] wearing [clothes], with a [size, shape] belly, [hair description], [pose], [location, time of day, weather, lighting, era], [facial expression or attitude], [actions]

The number of guys can be vague like "several." Also placing a number here will generally result in all men being fat. To add a second, very different person (even women! imagine the power), simply describe that in plain english later in the prompt. Try adding "with friends" or something and seeing what happens.

Mentioning body type is separate from mentioning that he has a large stomach because "fat man" alone doesn't make him very fat. also, the body type prompt will dictate his physical build underneath the belly - this allows you to make mpreg very easily, for example. Mentioning his belly separately also seems to be a key part in making clothes not cover it up. However, DallE has clearly gotten much better at this for some clothes, but not all of them. Formalwear is improving, though tactical vests no longer do the cute thing they used to do, and football shirts still ride up reliably. Nationality can be weird, and you can use it to exploit stereotypes, or it can be an eye-opening view of stereotypes from countries you barely know about - want to know what differentiates an Angolan man from a Kenyan man? Probably don't trust AI results! I suspect some countries are controversial due to current politics, and I suspect some are controversial due to fetishy stereotyping. However, if for example "English man" got censored, consider going for capital cities or famous regions, eg "London man." Maybe look up sports teams from that country. I'm a big fan of the "Italian-American" prompt but lately it's gotten quite a few results blocked, so I'd switch to "New Jersey," maybe even "New Jersey Italian."

"Handsome" may slim your results down, or even break the prompt entirely. Consider making your men footballers or rugby players, mention trendy haircuts, or using out of date synonyms to get round it. AI isn't all that likely to give you especially ugly results anyway, particularly if you specify ages under 40. It doesn't get the hair precisely right, but even a generic prompt like "short thick hair" can help. Giving your character a job may dictate what he'll wear, but you might want to specify what clothes you want anyway. Don't mention either if you hope he'll turn out naked. Certain jobs are tricky to use, as AI strains to be as unpolitical as possible - it doesn't want you doing politicians and it sometimes seems to refuse anything that might make the police or military look bad. However, it will accept "wearing a [colour] uniform/pilot shirt" very happily, because it's duuuuumb.

Mention trousers, footwear or even just feet if your results keep zooming in too much. (It'll also zoom in if you mention too much about his face, I think.) Side view appears to make certain prompts fatter, but will often mean he's looking away - you can add "Looking at camera" if you want that. Metallic and plastic clothes can have very fun and weird results, especially if you change the location to a night setting in the rain. Gladiator costumes will reduce his clothes to a few leather straps.

"Flex pose" and "strong pose" will get butch bodybuilder poses (it will also buff up the muscle mass) and "battling strong winds" gets very superhero poses. At least when I was trying these out, I found I couldn't actually get proper bodybuilder poses or mention of superheroes past the censor, but it's been a few weeks so who knows what it's up to now. Give them all a go!

Casual poses and actions can liven things up a little if you just want portraits but don't want it to repeatedly be the same thing facing you directly. Getting out of a car, climbing stairs, leaning against things, adjusting his clothes or putting on a coat, all these kinds of things work. Smoking or drinking does quite a lot. "Tired" or "Exhausted" changes his attitude a lot too, your leans get leaned into more.

Contact words can be a little difficult, so consider ways to exploit using soft contact, or be very wordy and detailed about it so it's not misinterpreting you. "Patting him on the back" is a fairly safe phrase, but DallE isn't intelligent, so it will allow the contact but it will struggle to be precise, especially when the bodies are fat or not positioned in a way they can reach the back - the result of this is that there will be a lot of belly pats. Prodding in the stomach, pointing at the stomach, these both work, but I think DallE is vague about stomach=torso and you may want "pointing at his belt" to give a lower focus. Admiring can direct attention and vibes, whispering will draw their heads closer and make them interact somewhat. Embracing and hugging work but is very heavy for the censor, "hugging on his shoulder/belly" seems safer for some reason. Shaking, grabbing, "examining/concerned about his belly" can work. Bizarrely, squeezing past another man in a narrow corridor/doorway/cupboard works if you want a LOT of contact. And if you want unpredictable contact, fighting can work.

For more dynamic safe contact, try sporting actions. Baseball slides, football tackles, that kind of thing. It's hard to get them to lie flat and the AI seems to resist allowing heads to touch the ground, but "lying in a hammock" works pretty well, and sometimes specifying what the head is touching works. pretty much every minor prompt variation and scenario I've ever used:

"falling onto a broken chair/breaking an object with his weight" "washing windows" "with waiters helping him up" "with friends bringing him food" "falling over another man" "outside of a skyscraper washing windows, harness for safety, hoisted" "hyper-obese man wearing denim dungarees with an enormous inflated belly, drinking from a hose" ("blowing into a hose" gets better expressions for that IMO) "stuck in a broken narrow red british phonebooth with another man, bursting out with his enormous belly, black trousers" "bent over eating at a pie eating contest wearing a dirty white tank top with an enormous round belly and his face hidden buried in messy pie" "sitting on a throne next to a very fat 35 year old spanish monarch" "lying on his back the floor, enjoying a banquet, side view, tired expression" "very fat 35 year old handsome british man wearing tracksuit and gold chain with a hugely distended beerbelly, man with a massive round stomach, washing his car in a carpark at night side view" "at water park, stuck in a water slide" "before and after weightloss picture, in the left he is X and in the right he is Y" "with a large round belly spilled over eating at a banquet with an enormous round belly, bronzed, with waiters helping him up/being prodded with a fork" "washing dishes and leaning over his belly on a freestanding enamel pedestal basin" "climbing and leaning against a stepladder to change a lightbulb on the ceiling [with friend holding the stepladder steady]" "side view, photo of two 40 year old beefy handsome fat italian-american rugby player with a hugely distended round belly, resting hand on his chest, wearing a tracksuit with a gigantic round sagging stomach, gold chain, raining, whispering in a car park at night, leaning/hugging on shoulder, tired, stern expression looking at camera, smoking a cigarette" "side view photo of two strong 40 year old handsome samoan rugby player with a hugely distended round beerbelly, chest hair, wearing a white formal shirt and black suit, hugging on his belly, proud expectant father, boyfriends outside a busy pub at night, stern, looking at camera, raining" "two fat los angeles rams handsome footballers wearing white pilot shirt and plain tie and black trousers pushing through a narrow saloon door with their enormously distended beerbellies, stern" "photo of very fat 30 year old hunk rugby player with enormously distended belly, carrying his belly in a wheelbarrow" "very fat 35 year old man wearing white pilot shirt with an enormous round belly, tough man with a very large beerbelly, too fat for small broken airplane seat sitting on another man, fat belly spilling over armrest and pressing against over man, black trousers, slightly concerned, suave" "being carried on the back of a flatbed truck" can turn them into horrific lardvalanches but you don't get much control over it

original characters do not steal prompts: "30 year old man who looks like he's the main character from the game Uncharted with an enormous distended round beerbelly, with one hand on a bar in a pub, nathan" This is sometimes surprisingly effective, but most often it'll simply draw vibes from the IP mentioned, so you can use it to get specific settings at least

Try spelling the names wrong or reversing the name order - sometimes it'll even accept names sprinkled throughout the prompt. Repeating the name may increase its effect (it might also not!) Also it's speculated that placing the celebrity fraud in a place or situation they would normally be found in helps. That said, I could only get a Robert Downey Jr if I made him dress as a gladiator. So maybe weirdness and ingenuity are your strengths. see also https://www.tumblr.com/baron-bear/731903035856584704/what-do-you-use-for-your-ai-stuff

[beardedmrbean]

Part of Stonehenge has been covered in orange powder paint by protesters.

Two Just Stop Oil campaigners sprayed the powder paint on the historic site near Salisbury, Wiltshire, at about 12:00 BST on Wednesday.

The move comes the day before celebrations beginfor the Summer Solstice at the 5,000-year-old landmark.

Wiltshire Police confirmed two people had been arrested on suspicion of damaging the ancient monument.

Just Stop Oil said the orange powder paint was cornflour and it would "wash away with rain".

The group named the two protesters as Niamh Lynch, a 21-year-old student from Oxford, and Rajan Naidu, a 73-year-old from Birmingham, in a statement.

'Extremely upsetting'

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak condemned the incident as a “disgraceful act of vandalism”.

Leader of the Labour Party Sir Keir Starmer said the damage was "outrageous" and described Just Stop Oil as "pathetic".

Members of the public were heard shouting "no" and seen running to intervene as the campaigners ran up to the stone circle at the Unesco world heritage site.

A spokeswoman for English Heritage described the spraying of the monument as "extremely upsetting" and confirmed the site remained open to the public.

She said the incident would not affect the annual summer solstice, with celebrations still planned to take place overnight on Thursday.

BBC correspondent, Paul Clifton, the first reporter to get to the scene shortly after the incident, said the three stones closest to the public path were "splattered" with the powder.

He added that many of the tourists visiting the monument were "slightly bemused".

"Stonehenge managers and security guards are standing by the path," he said.

"I've heard a suggestion that because it is powder paint and the weather is dry and sunny, it may perhaps be removed without lasting damage, but they will need experts to inspect the stone before forming an opinion."

Just Stop Oil said the motivation behind the incident was to demand the next UK government end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030.

A spokesperson for the group said: "Continuing to burn coal, oil and gas will result in the death of millions.

"We have to come together to defend humanity or we risk everything."

Mike Pitts, archaeologist and author of How to Build Stonehenge, said the incident was "potentially quite concerning".

He said: “The monument has been fenced off for decades and the megaliths' surfaces are protected.

"They are sensitive and they are completely covered in prehistoric markings which remain to be fully studied and any surface damage to the stones is hugely concerning.

“A rich garden of life has grow on the megaliths, an exceptional lichen garden has grown. So it’s potentially quite concerning.”

A spokesman for Wiltshire Police said: "We responded to a report that orange paint had been sprayed on some of the stones by two suspects.

"Our enquiries are ongoing and we are working closely with English Heritage."

[bomberqueen17]

who let me out

Most of the time I spend on Tumblr has been taken up in writing these Aubreyad book recaps so I haven't been talking about my own life but there's not a lot to say.

However!

I am making a voyage to England next week which is extremely exciting, and yes I'm going to see the museum exhibit about that archaeology dig I was so excited about. I have been so stressed lately that I have barely thought about this and in fact last night I finally was like "do i need like. socks n underwear for this trip. idek." and i haven't even looked at weather reports so I don't know what clothes I need. But I did live in the UK for a while once so I'm fairly confident that my good raincoat and new waterproof boots will be a good start towards an autumn wardrobe.

So I hope to talk about that more, coming up.

Meanwhile, rambling about personal life stuff

The last stint at the farm was so fucking stressful. I had to work the market sometimes, which means a full day of work on Saturday. We had so much work to get through, and several people who help us weren't available, so we had to do it all ourselves, and that meant some ten-hour days, meant some exhausting slogs. At the end I was like "do you know what I'm not going to do while I'm on vacation?" "no, what" "ever touch raw chicken." I singlehandedly had to package like 1000 pounds of raw chicken in two days, after having packaged 200 whole chickens the day before. I was just so tired of the way raw cold chicken feels in my hands. Ugh ugh ugh.

I got so stressed I just wasn't sleeping, which sucked. Oh, I'd get into bed, and I'd fall asleep at my normal time-- usually around 10pm-- and then I'd wake up at 2am and that was it, I was up for the day. I tried various things-- went to bed at 9, woke up at 1-- lay there pretending to sleep-- got up and wrote-- got up and walked around-- one night I watched the entirety of the Master & Commander movie from 2003 on YouTube. Why not! I did remember some of it from 20 years ago, how funny.

(My dad liked that movie. His favorite thing to do during movies was to quibble about historical inaccuracies. But this movie had so much fanservice for reenactors in it that he was quietly delighted. His quibble was that the violin and cello duets were too good, they should've recorded amateurs. He had a point.)

Anyway. I was researching various methods of helping one sleep-- the only one at my disposal was weed gummies and I spent one very miserable night just lying there high and bored and not sleeping and wasn't totally sober when morning came and that fucking sucked. I commute on foot or I never would have risked it, but being very slightly still high and exhausted and trying to do repetitive physical work was really, really dispiriting.

but we got everything done. In the end. And I left. And once I got home I went to sleep and I have not had really any appreciable trouble sleeping since. I can even nap, sometimes!

Heck.

One of the things I'd meant to take care of while I was at the farm was that of course on my birthday, my fucking driver's license expired. On the one hand, thank you DMV, it used to be that everyone's license expired on the same day, so you'd have to go wait in massive lines to get it dealt with. Now it's... not evenly distributed exactly, because people's birthdays are a random distribution, but it's a perfectly logical and reasonable way to organize expiration dates. But it meant that in the midst of this exhausting miserable stint of work when I didn't have time to do anything really fun for my birthday (don't cry for me, my mom made me a cake and my BIL bought me ice cream treats) I also was consumed with angst about needing to renew my license. i was so sure they'd yell at me because I hadn't renewed before it expired-- but they wanted me to do an eye test, and I could not, could not coordinate that, I'm overdue for an optometrist appointment by several years and I just could not fucking make it happen.

So I went to the DMV yesterday and was like "i both want to renew this license and upgrade it to the enhanced version since that will be required for planes soon" and they were like "we need both your passport and your social security card and two proofs of residency." and i was like you need the social security card and proof of residency to get the passport. and they were like yeah but we need all four things too. so I went back home with the form and found the various necessary proofs, but then I was able to make an appointment to go back. Great!

(They say, "make an appointment online!" but if you look up the DMV website there's nowhere to do it, and if you go to the website of that branch of the DMV there's nowhere to do it. Want to know why? Because it's not through the DMV it is through the county clerk's office. Now U Know: Go to the county clerk's office and navigate to their section on the DMV. It's separate! Who fuckin knew! Now you do! [In my case this was erie.gov because that is my county, but it may vary for you and if you are not in new york state i have no advice for you.]

All having an appointment means is that you are in a separate queue to be seen, which is likely faster than the general pool but may not be. Still, I thought it was a good idea.

And then it was early for my appointment and I was getting my shit together and I had my social security card and an old W-2 with my address and social security number and my old license with my address on it and for some reason I thought I could use my checkbook but that's not what they mean by a cancelled check but whatever. I had just a random pile of shit. And

where was my passport

where is my passport?

i'd had it in my pocket but i was sure i'd removed it from the pocket and put it into my purse. but it wasn't in my purse. "did you see it inside the house," asks dude patiently, who also is prone to losing shit and who knows me very well. "I don't know," I have to answer. "I remember putting it in my purse and it isn't there." I search the place I put my purse a thousand times, I go through the desk where I was sitting to collect the other proofs but i knew, I knew I had not brought it in there. Time is slipping away, I will miss my appointment. God time is slipping away and I can't find the thing. I ransack the house. I finally run out to the car, did I leave it on the seat in the car? It is not in the car.

In desperation, as it is fully time to leave the house and I will be late if I don't, I gather up all my other papers and go out to the car. "I will just go," I say, "and ask them, did they find it, because that is the last place I am absolutely sure I had it." Because the woman had looked at it to see if I had my social security card between the pages. And she'd handed it back to me. But my memory is such that the rest of what I did is not certain; I remember taking it, I remember putting it into my pocket, but this might be a story I am telling myself. This is the way in which I am a very good liar, because I do not remember things very well, and my well-honed abilities as a storyteller mean I am very, very good at instantly constructing what it would make the most sense to have done, and telling that story even to myself. But. here's the horrible truth: i don't know if it really happened that way. Many things I have witnessed, important things, I remember the story of but I'm not entirely certain they happened that way. Any story I tell may be fictionalized, and I usually dont' know it.

So anyway.

Got out to my car and there on the ground in the road (I am parked in the street) there is my passport lying next to the driver's side door of the car. When I had checked the car earlier, I had only gone to the near side, the passenger side, and looked in the window. It had never occurred to me that my memory of putting it into my purse might have been me just setting it on my purse and it not going in, which is clearly one hundred percent what happened.

So that was. A fucking wild ride, and I did not cry but only because I was too overwhelmed. I made it to the appointment and I could not hear the very nice clerk very well so I kept nodding at her in blank incomprehension and then not doing what she'd asked me to do. But this is the thing-- if you think of the most brutally competent people on the entire face of the planet Earth you might be tempted to imagine like, IDK, Marines or something, but that would be wrong, it is the clerks at the DMV. They will Get It Done, whatever the fuck it is, and they will NOT put up with your shit, but they will also not be mean to you. They will not usually waste time in smiles or gratuitous displays of humanity, but they are never cruel, they are implacable and pitiless but they are fair and they will help you and they will not smile about it but they will tell you which option to tick off on the form so that you don't have to pay a bunch of extra money, and they will be understatedly kind if you are frightened, and they will calmly and impassively repeat their instructions until they penetrate your uncomprehending skull, and you will get what you need to get because this is deadly serious and they are the kind of bureaucrat that actually make the world go round. It is not sunshine and rainbows but it will absolutely get done even if it takes months and years.

Anyway there's some kind of divinity in low-level bureaucrats who actually have to talk to frightened people, I tell you what.

The only time my clerk smiled at me was when I didn't hear her and she had to repeat that the screen was asking me if I wanted to register to vote, which is an automatic part of all their transactions. "Oh, no," I said, "I'm already registered," and she said "then press no," and I said "I do really appreciate the reminder though," and she smiled at that.

(They also ask you to enroll as an organ donor. NYS is an opt-in state, and many people just don't opt in; opt-out states have much higher enrollment for obvious reasons. Please opt in unless your religion or beliefs proscribe it! There are never enough organs and your grieving family will almost never remember to opt you in at the moment of extremity. You could save so many lives, and improve so many others. This PSA brought to you by someone who spent the pandemic lockdown in the home of a member of the local hospital's liver transplant team, who was so busy because all the New York hospitals had shut down their transplant facilities in order to turn the ventilators over to Covid patients, so everyone in New York who was getting a liver was getting it in Rochester. From my guy's team. So it was a stressful time. But I am successully re-enrolled as an organ donor. I am quite sure I already was one but the only two options were Yes or No so I checked Yes.)

Anyway I have so much to do and am so burned-out that I'm repeatedly getting stuck staring at things in odd rooms, so. We'll see how this goes. I have five days left to get ready for this trip wish me luck.

[theinconvenientlifestyle]

Suella Braverman seeks to curb use of tents by homeless people - saying it is 'a lifestyle choice' | Politics News | Sky News

"This policy will do nothing to stop rough sleeping and will leave vulnerable people to face the harsh weather conditions without any shelter whatsoever."

The government last year said it would repeal the 1824 Vagrancy Act, which made begging and rough sleeping illegal, and promised £2bn over three years to help get people off the streets.

But the opposite appears to be happening - and a recent report said rough sleeping was up 26% on last year.

[blueiscoool]

Metal Detectorist Discovers Medieval Wedding Ring  

Every metal detectorist dreams of unearthing something valuable. For one man the English countryside yielded an incredible find when he stumbled upon a medieval diamond wedding ring in "almost perfect condition" near Thorncombe, in the South West of the country.

Now the item is expected to fetch between £30,000 and £40,000 (Sold For: £38,000) when it goes on auction later this month.

David Board, 69, found the "stunning" ring on his second attempt at becoming a metal detectorist after a stint in the 1970s in which he scoured local beaches but found nothing of much consequence, a press release from auction house Noonans said earlier this week.

Board called the ring "a once-in-a-lifetime" find.

During a recent interview, he said: "There will probably never be another one like it. Back then, each ring was individual and unique, not mass produced like today. It's stunning."

Board took up metal detecting again in 2019. During the second day of a field search, he had almost given up when he got a signal on his metal detector by a footpath.

Initially, the culprit looked like a sweet wrapper but Board soon realized that it was a gold ring.

When he dug it up all covered in mud, Board said he thought it was just "scrap metal" and popped it into his pocket.

"It was once I got home and washed it off that we realized it was a lot better than we thought," he explained.

The ring is in "almost perfect condition," Nigel Mills, a consultant in coins and antiquities at Noonans, said in the release. The jewelery has a golden hoop of two entwined bands to symbolize marital union and an inverted diamond set into it.

Inside the band is a medieval French inscription that reads, "Ieo vos tien foi tenes le moy," translating as, "I hold your faith, hold mine," according to the auction house.

Due to the location of the find and the quality of the ring, Noonans' experts surmised that it's the wedding ring of Joan Brook, given to her by her husband, Thomas Brook.

Their marriage in 1388 brought great wealth to the Brook family, the release said, as Joan was the widow of Robert Cheddar, a wealthy cloth merchant and twice mayor of Bristol -- a city in western England.

It was at a time when medieval notions of chivalry and courtly love were at their zenith, concepts which the ring reflects, Noonans said.

Now known as The Lady Brook Medieval diamond ring, the item will be auctioned on November 29.

Board goes out three times a week, weather permitting, in hope of uncovering another great relic among the musket balls and King George I coins. "It will be amazing if I did," he responded, adding "you never know what the next signal is going to bring."

The discovery adds to a list of incredible finds by detectorists in the UK.

One amateur uncovered a haul of Bronze Age objects in a Scottish field in 2020, in what experts at the time called a "nationally significant" discovery.

And last year it was reported that a huge hoard of Iron Age gold artifacts had been found by a rookie detectorist in Denmark.

By Hafsa Khalil.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

She’ll be even loonier if she gets to go to Washington and mingle

Nothing is stopping her from doing that now.

Oh, wait. Except:

That time she bungled paid parental leave by calling senators on personal private lines.

The time she sent lemons to Jill Biden and then blabbed to everyone about how she was a close confidante to the First Lady.

The time she tried to use President Biden and Air Force One as her own personal Uber.

The time she crashed Michelle Obama's event at the London O2 arena and broke a bunch of protocol rules.

The time she gaslit the world into thinking she was besties with Michelle Obama by telling us they were having lunch and eating fish tacos, when really it was an email exchange.

The time she made public comments that the Obamas were personally advising her and Harry during Megxit and the Obamas had to put out a press release saying "no we are not."

The time she tried to access secure spaces in the United Nations headquarters without authorization and with private camera crews in tow.

The time she booked it to Uvalde with a private camera crew in tow to merch her grief as a mother while even the President knew to stay away from the community to let them grieve privately.

The time she, and her husband, used their British titles for a motivational commercial about voting.

Plus a few others like:

All the times she lied about the BRF, the family of the UK's head of state. (US government officials will prioritize the US/UK special relationship over the whines of one single woman.)

The time she was NFI to the US/UK state dinner, held at Buckingham Palace. (It was explained as maternity leave but yeah, she wasn't invited. If she was frothing at the mouth to wear a tiara in Fiji, she would've done the Trump State Visit for a tiara.)

All the times she hasn't been invited to the White House for state dinners or advocacy since 2021 since she has COVID vaccinations, motherhood, and supporting military veterans/families in common with Jill Biden.

The times the White House sent the Secretary of Transportation, the NASA Administrator, and other not-well-known government officials to represent them at 2022 and 2023 Invictus Games.

The time Nancy Pelosi's office laughed when a reporter asked them about Meghan's political prospects.

The time she aligned with the unimportant side of the Kennedy family (versus the "real" Kennedy).

And that's just the stuff that's been confirmed. We haven't even scratched the surface of the alleged gossip (like her work to lobby Newsome for Feinstein's recess appointment or her manipulations of Gloria Steinem).

So all that considered...makes one think that the establishment doesn't like Meghan and won't engage with her. Which says a lot about her standing in political Washington.

She loves the idea of Washington IG in theory, but she's gonna hate it once she's here. And that's just the dignitaries attending the ceremonies. We haven't even started to talk about the weather and what the humidity is going to do to her appearance (since the brief sounds like it's going to be a spring/early summer event).

[mastersoftheair]

"Masters of the Air details: Part 1-Graphics

"[...]I had the pleasure of working with the graphics department on many topics from navigation to mission planning, forms, manuals, research and just plain answering questions.

"Dan Burke was the department head but I mostly worked with Megan Jones and her wonderful pup Indy.

"When on set, like in one of the offices that you have seen in the first two episodes or anywhere else in the series, you will see bulletin boards, clip boards, file folders and in/out trays and typewriters filled with paperwork. If you were able to pick up one of these documents you will find actual 100th BG documents faithfully recreated and they are also pertinent to the specific time of the scene. And I am not just talking a page on top but all the way through the stack!

"The mission orders came in to the bomb groups via teletype machines and were printed out on special sized roll paper. Meg found a guy who had working WWII teletypes and then she found the exact paper. She printed up the correct mission reports and they were coming out of the machines and looked great!

"One of the things that Meg asked me about was the navigation paperwork. Crosby had several scenes where he was navigating and just what kind of paperwork would he have had?

"Charts, maps and navigators logs was the answer to begin with and I had brought examples of those with me to teach the actors how to look like they could navigate. I even had some of my Dad's paperwork and nav kit along. Meg recreated his bare nav log to use with Crosby's scenes.

"We then looked in to the mission routes so we could fill out the nav logs and mark the charts and big briefing wall map accurately. I dove in to the archives mission files that they had procured from sources in the US but since this was deep in the middle of COVID the archives were closed down and getting additional research information was problematic. The National Archives in the UK opened up and I was there on the weekend doing research. Instead of the multi generation degraded copies that production received from the US these files were all original and in perfect condition. Incredible stuff for sure with all of the photos complete with Air Ministry water marks on the back of the paper.

"In the mission files were the planned route of the mission and also the actual route flown which were often quite different. I dug in to the files and was able to plot out the planned and actual mission routes on charts that Meg had reproduced. For the pilot types reading this I also plotted all of the routes on ForeFlight to help with quick calculations for the headings as we actually put in the winds that were encountered and reported in the mission file. Meg ended up getting Foreflight so we could share the plots and work out the future missions.

"One of the things that I hadn't realized but was revealed in the reports was just how much time was spent in forming up the whole attacking armada. Each bomb group would all take off and form up over their own air field. Then they would go to specific assembly areas and form up the wings and full task force. It took two, three or more hours of flying just to do this over the UK before they headed toward fortress Europe. Amazing really and it explains why so many aircrew died during this from collisions climbing through the ugly weather. Hundreds and then thousands of aircraft all coming up through the heavy cloud layer on instruments trying not to hit each other. A lot of them did and a near miss sequence is depicted in the series.

"So when you see the paperwork, posters, maps, teletypes and amazing other details you can appreciate the efforts of Megan and the graphics department. And all of the other departments, Some of which I will try to highlight in future posts if this is of interest." - (Taigh Ramey on Facebook)

[turtlesandfrogs]

So I was scrolling and saw this image in an article about the European heat wave,

And was like, uh, are you missing something there, buddy? Like all that red in northern Africa? Because that's a lot of red.

And I was going to give them the benefit of doubt, since I don't know much about the climate in Northern Africa, aside from Morroco and Egypt, which seem like really hot places, so you know, maybe it's normal there?

But nope, that's not the case:

"While the planet broke multiple records for average worldwide temperatures last week, a heat wave gripped northern Africa.

The region has been experiencing some of the most intense heat waves in recent years, but in many cases they’ve been under-reported due to misconceptions about Africans’ ability to withstand them.

“Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” said Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”

North Africa, the Sahara desert and the Sahel, a semi-arid belt north of the Sudanian savanna, are some of the most vulnerable areas because they have larger land masses relative to the rest of the continent, meaning they tend to heat up faster. Scientists have attributed the unprecedented temperatures to a combination of human-induced climate change and the return of El Niño, a natural phenomenon that alters weather patterns.

The Sahel, for instance, has been heating at a faster pace than the global average despite being hot already. Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if the world continues on its current trajectory, a UK university study found. Its people are especially vulnerable due to shrinking resources, such as water, and poor amenities, and a dearth of trees and parks means there are few options for places to cool off.

“People talk of climate change as if it’s a thing of the future,” said Gaye. “Climate change is already here and we see its implications in people, livelihoods, economies and even in cultures.”

While studies on heat impacts on health are limited in Africa, research published last year found that children younger than 5 years old are particularly vulnerable to the hotter weather as they are less able that adults to self-regulate their bodies’ temperatures. The authors estimated that heat-related child mortality was rising in sub-Saharan Africa due to climate change. Other researchers have named the elderly, pregnant women and people who work outdoors, as groups at risk of heat strokes or heat-related infectious diseases.

Elsewhere on the continent, the crisis is also being felt. In the Horn of Africa, at least 43,000 people died in Somalia alone last year as a result of the worst drought in four decades. A study found that global warming is changing rain patterns and bringing more heat to Somalia and some of its neighbors, for longer stretches of time. Further south, unusually destructive cyclones in 2019 claimed more than a thousand lives in Mozambique and Zimbabwe alone.

“If we continue business-as-usual, the heat is not just going to get worse, it will get much worse,” said Mouhamadou Bamba Sylla, research chair in climate change science at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda. “We are going to see more frequent, longer and more intense heat waves.”

Much of the continent, responsible for just 4% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions generated from burning fossil fuels, is ill-prepared for a hotter world. Meanwhile, Group of 20 nations, with air conditioning and access to functioning healthcare facilities, account for 80% of the world’s emissions.

Hundreds of millions of Africans lack electricity to even power a fan. One in three people in Africa is affected by water scarcity, according to the World Health Organization, so hydration can’t be taken for granted. Even shade is harder to come by due to widespread deforestation and land degradation. And only 40% of people on the continent are covered by early warning systems for extreme weather.

“More funds have to be allocated to climate adaptation and they need to be made more easily accessible to the most vulnerable countries,” Sylla said.

The UN climate talks later this year aspire to come up with a plan for richer nations to pay for loss and damages. But they’ve collectively fallen short of their commitment to spend $100 billion each year on projects in developing nations to cut emissions and to help them adapt.

“That’s where the issue of climate justice comes in,” said Gaye. “It’s not just that people are uncomfortable, climate change is killing them.”