Middle-aged SRE, he/him. British but currently happily resident in Austria. In a love-hate relationship with amateur radio since 1985. Cat staff member. Big fan of diversity, inclusion, empathy and humanity in general. Not a fan of bigots.
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I'm scratching my head wondering if there is any formal occasion where people in the UK are expected to show reverence to a flag. Pretty sure there isn't. Closest it might be is carried flags being dipped when those present (right up to the King) bow their heads at e.g. a Remembrance Sunday service.
Never really thought of the whole relic thing as normal - all those weird skulls in mitres and chips of femur and whatever found in churches across the planet - but I didn’t grow up in a Catholic country. The only relic the Church of England venerates is the monarchy. (rimshot)
If any other organisation was putting the corpses of 15 year old children on display for people to worship and sending bits of ther cardiac tissue around the world to be prayed over they’d probably be proscribed under the Creepy Shit Act 1965. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...
But you’re not from Chicago..
“Salesforce CEO confirms 4,000 layoffs ‘because I need less heads’ with AI” Other than the fact that it’s “fewer heads”, not “less heads”, this is a surprisingly insightful and honest admission from a tech billionaire.
Yeah.. it’s not exactly PhD material to see the connection between that “makeover” and all the stuff about not-first-choice Donald proving his “toughness” to daddy by joining in with bullying and belittling Fred Jr into alcoholism when he declined to take over the family business.
Isn’t it amazing? Not just that, they’re required to give a balanced picture of exactly what he’s saying and they aren’t allowed to edit it to change its meaning. Mind. Blown.
For what it’s worth, fake vox-pops are one of the biggest sins a news outlet can commit regardless of which side of the political divide it sits on. Random Youtubers have no such qualms, however.
That is exactly how it was when I left Ireland in 2001, just with a different currency and a larger number.
I would say that he needs help, but as I understand it people like Arthur Mathews and Neil Hannon have tried to help him without success and ended up being on the receiving end of Twitter abuse themselves. Sigh.
I did enjoy the incoherent spluttering from Szijjártó about how OUTRAGEOUS it was that Ukraine was.. attacking infrastructure that contributed to the ability of an aggressor to keep waging war against them. How dare they?
Shame such a noble and high-class event wasn’t considered worthy of the full Anglia ident treatment, with the Anglia Knight riding proudly in the stirrups, accompanied by a stirring fanfare to herald the imminent arrival of a lady lighting a fag.
Society missed an opportunity there. Book Davidson while he was still relatively cheap and make sure he gets booed off after 5 minutes. Repeat daily until he gives up comedy and becomes a car salesman instead. Would have saved a lot of trouble in the long run.
That vest reminds me of the very old school “gentleman’s outfitters” in my home town that had all kinds of stuff like that in the window, all beautifully laid out. It was the place people went to if they were looking for, say, a particularly ancient style of underpants for a nonogenarian relative.
I misread that initially as “ITV Gothic look” and suddenly I feel that we were cheated out of something great.
Everybody sing along - “Howard’s Way, it’s sodding Howard’s Way..”
Definitely the wrong end of Oxford for that sort of thing. Suddenly remembering the time I got ordered to stop while riding my bike through a "buses only" bit of the city centre and told by a PCSO with the demeanour of someone who'd had their cornflakes shat in that if I argued they'd... call a PC.
My school offered Russian as a second foreign language way back in 1985 during the Cold War. I do not believe anyone who studied it went on to get recruited by the KGB or signed up to fight for the USSR in Afghanistan.
today’s grumpy opinion, apropos another conversation: Monty Python’s Flying Circus was just the Goon Show with Oxbridge degrees. Goodness Gracious Me was actually genuinely groundbreaking and, in its own way, a lot more subversive. Unfortunately, most comedy historians are very… white.
(feels a sudden longing for the flat hills of his homeland)
I have a theory that if comedy historians were less... er... white? (euphemism) then the Goodness Gracious Me cast and their additional writers would be considered as important as the Pythons. They opened up a whole new area of television comedy. In a way not even the Pythons *really* did that.
I'd really love to know what Mr McIntyre's impressions were of life in pre-Windrush London. Such a shame (albeit technically it was inevitable) that not a single frame of pre-war BBCtv survived.
They're pretty easy to get hold of. I haven't lived in the UK for a while but they're even available here in utterly spicephobic _Austria_ for heavens' sake. Amazon have them. On the other hand Amazon also deliver 500 gram tubs of Marmite to Austria so I'm not sure curry bouillon is that notable :)
I have been told by Americans who became acquainted with Goodness Gracious Me that it's all horribly racist and that the cast should be ashamed of themselves for pandering to South Asian stereotypes for the entertainment of white people. I think I gave up on the conversation at that point.
Ah yes American Chinese food, home of many such authentic dishes as chow mein, fortune cookies, General Tso's chicken, that bright orange sticky popcorn chicken stuff.. I don't blame Chinese chefs in the US for adapting their food to suit American palates, though. That's just good business sense.
"I've dialled the first two 9s, should I dial the third?"
I've seen shelves like that, but the books had the titles written on their spines and they were either proof copies or stripped/remaindered paperbacks acquired through Informal Means(tm). These people are just monsters.
Memo to Angela Rayner: today is a good day to release a statement saying that since you are apparently also living rent-free in the heads of half the shadow cabinet and the editors of at least three newspapers you will be seeking advice as to whether you should be paying council tax there as well.
“We already re-recorded that five-note fanfare twice since 1967, you think we’re made of money? Those four lads from t’brass band say they want a tenner each to do it again! A tenner!”
Sounds like it to me. This was almost always used as a bed for an announcement, so it wasn’t usually heard front and centre and definitely never on the network.
They’re banned in Ireland because the pope said so.
Band III would have all all kinds of problems, ranging from no space on existing masts for an extra set of antennas and feeders to the fact that every viewing household would have required an extra antenna and maybe even a new TV. The strategic decision to close VHF had been made decades earlier.
I don’t see the problem. All the goths I know are polite, considerate people. The local pub won’t be able to serve absinthe and snakebite and black fast enough.
While I am loathe to suggest anything that would involve giving money to any Elon Musk enterprise, maybe they should just sign up for Starlink. Or LTE/5G if available.
“This is a historic moment.”?
We have a Kärcher steam cleaner. All their stuff seems pretty good.
Lovely bit of Wikipedia trivia: “Rollins .. had earned a reputation for fighting in shows. He later said, "I was like nineteen and a young man all full of steam and loved to get in the dust-ups." By this time, Rollins had become the assistant manager of the Georgetown Häagen-Dazs ice cream store.”
You can imagine the sharp intakes of breath all around when some unfortunate goes in and asks if they have anything that’s not casserole.
It’s one solution, but transmitters have to get fed from somewhere and often have no backup power. Satellites only require one uplink and in an emergency that uplink can be moved to an alternative ground station pretty much anywhere within the footprint.
Deeply tired by another argument that it’s somehow “airbrushing history” for broadcasters not to air a fantastically racist piece of old television without any attempt at contextualising it or building a documentary around it because if they did they’d get in trouble with Ofcom.
There is nothing stopping “offensive” old TV being made available. But what it absolutely shouldn’t be is broadcast without context in a way which would rightly cause a lot of complaints to Ofcom from people who missed any attempt at an opening disclaimer. Broadcasters have responsibilities.
Well, they could broadcast it provided it was put in appropriate context, such as a documentary that would actually explain the attitudes of the times. Of course they shouldn’t just shovel it out as part of a series, and it’s pretty disingenuous to suggest that that is somehow a bad thing.
Satellite distribution is by far the most resilient way of distributing programmes, and people need to remember this when making plans for disaster response because frankly the last thing you want when a volcano erupts in Shropshire is people defaulting to Facebook for their information.
I don’t want to alarm you but Amazon in Germany seems to have renamed it to “The Trial”, meaning you’re going toe to toe with Kafka on this one. Just started reading, and I’ll be very disappointed if nobody gets mysteriously transformed into a giant cockroach.
I am really hoping that the Nine O’Cock News was not a typo.
“But rail is so expensive! It always ends up way over budget!” say the lobbyists as the #CDU mayor of Berlin proudly opens a 3.2km section of autobahn that cost €721 million and took 12 years to build.
I trust you have a cheese roll to hand.
The “Surrey With a Fringe On Top” scene is one of my favourites ever. The crash gear change when Harry spots Helen, the comic beat when Sally says “Helen?” and it booms out through the speakers, then the Awkward Conversation with the karaoke track acting as backing music.. just great film-making.
Watching “When Harry Met Sally” for the first time in years and it’s still the greatest romcom in film history. I vividly remember watching it in an almost empty cinema in Nottingham when I was 16, on work experience at BBC Radio Nottingham and it blew me away. It’s aged a lot better than I feared.
And will people listen to these warnings? Will they bollocks.
Having had a stammer all my life my verdict is that this is a slightly overblown portrayal of a person with a serious stammer, but many stammerers don't stammer at all when engaging in public speaking or when acting.
Did he never even watch Crown Court at lunchtime while he was off sick from school?
How does the law stand on prison rape jokes?
Yep, but the interview wasn't recorded. For all anyone knows, there was no caution at all and the cops are just making this stuff up.
"Assistant floor manager Katherine Sykes, of 56a Ranelagh Road, Ealing..." You get the director's home address too. I guess they only didn't include Pat Troughton's address because he didn't live in the local paper's patch. :)
You are being deeply dishonest by linking your caption to a video which has nothing to do with the breakthrough you're talking about other than they're both Parkinson's-related.
It's worth noting that this is a fairly old video of a technology called Deep Brain Stimulation, which has been around for a while. Surprised more people didn't ask "If this is an amazing new German discovery, which is everyone speaking English?".
There's a special picture book edition with ten non-chewable cardboard pages.
I see it as more "Fortified Belfast police station".
Angela Rayner: drinks a glass of wine Mail, Telegraph, Express, Reform, Tories: RAYNER IS A TRAITOROUS DRINK WHO OWNS FIFTEEN HOMES PAID FOR BY STEALING FROM OLD AGE PENSIONS AND IS PLANNING TO SELL BABIES TO FUND SHARIA COURTS They really don’t like her. I wonder why that could be? It’s a mystery!
Fully expecting that given the latest right-wing histrionics about Angela Rayner‘s domestic arrangements the next round will be a furious series of exclusives about how Angela Rayner not only has a flat in Hove but is also living rent-free in the heads of the editors of the Mail and the Express.
Turbines don't necessarily automatically spoil views anyway, they just change them. They're pretty much the definition of "starkly beautiful" when they're installed somewhere there's not very much else to look at, such as... oh, maybe on some otherside featureless upland moor?
What, you mean Welsh language television?
Lady's whats? 😳
* note that I'd be willing to bet money that 75% of the spaces in the bike boxes were immediately rented out by people who only take their bike out twice a year
I can't decide - is APILN giving me an unfairly distorted view of the people of Brighton and Hove or is it really the country's epicentre for those who enjoy a life of smug superciliousness? Nothing seems to be good enough for this lot. Like, sorry you can't get a space to park your bike in a box.
The more I read about the way in which whole villages in Wales and the West Country are now made up almost entirely of holiday homes owned by people who either only visit a couple of times a year or use them as short term lets the more nostalgic I feel for the early 1980s. youtu.be/4O79Glps-DY?...
Shame they didn’t move to Wales. “The locals are simple people but so welcoming - they made sure a roaring fire was ready to welcome us to the village.”
In one of the BBCtv Hancocks (The Train Journey) there’s a guy in the studio audience who always laughs slightly earlier than everyone else with a plummy “HAA HAA HAA!”. Every studio audience should have someone like that to prove it’s genuine laughter. Hancock was close to corpseing one or twice.
There’s no loo roll at the library. Do you: a) Talk to the library staff or b) Call the local paper and ask to “remain anonymous” as if you’re the Deep Throat of the South Downs.
I don’t think enough people are aware that next month Russia is holding its own version of Eurovision, only this one is for dictatorships. The judging will be by a jury made up of one person from each country, presumably meeting in a top floor room with a very rickety balcony. intervision.world/en/
I was thinking “Russia”, which is probably most appropriate in this case.
Could they by any chance be related? #MonkeyIsland #Hegseth
From Wikipedia: “According to the Times, Miller "has strongly held opinions about even minor matters, like men's fashion".”
Narrator: You could, in fact, make it up.
oh no translation: “FPÖ fears a “queer, leftie, woke” Eurovision spectacle next year in Vienna”
HALP www.ebu.ch/news/2025/08...
Actually, slightly too tremendous protein value. Not sure I want to know the exact composition of the fish-related processed protein product fingers, at that price.
Tremendous protein value right there!
James Cook was responsible for any number of weird place names, of which the weirdest were probably visiting a tropical island with a beautiful palm-fringed lagoon and coral reefs and thinking "This is just like Scotland", or deciding that a huge ancient red continent reminded him of Cardiff.
I aten't no investigative journalist but it took about 5 minutes to find out that the company is based out of a forwarding address, communicates entirely by Facebook and all three directors are registered as living in Sri Lanka. Not necessarily a show-stopper in itself, but worth knowing.
I hate to promote stereotypes, but I’m not convinced that given the blue dress, the cardie and the pearls it was wholly necessary to state that she is a Conservative councillor.
Ook?
Dear Norway, I would like to nominate Tom Nook for the Nobel Peace Prize because he told me that if I didn’t he’d have my legs broken. Thank you for your consideration. #AnimalCrossing #ACNH
Israel’s public broadcaster (before Netanyahu and his cronies got their claws into the country) used to be the IBA.
Especially when people start talking about putting money into their IRA (Individual Retirement Account).
I am currently in the middle of an argument with the DIY shop, who refuse to accept Bells despite my presenting a purchase order signed by Tom Nook.
Nice beer in Nuremberg, anyway. And they have these little tiny bratwurst that you can buy from street vendors, four of them at a time in a roll with mustard. There are worse places to be carted off to.
"I see that a dark force will arise from within, and it will consume all that is around it, and it will be terrible, and none shall dare stand against it save those that live in the frozen wastes of the north..."
The #BBC apologising for Thought for the Day condemning racism is shite. Go back 30 years and I doubt e.g. Rabbi Lionel Blue would have let racism and xenophobia slide either. The actual scandal is that the speech they referred to came from a senior member of HM Opposition, not some fringe BNP thug.
The whole thing reads as if they’re describing the effects of poverty, not the effects of being born in a certain year. Having big plans derailed by economic circumstances and bodies damaged by unsafe work before dying in pain is the lived experience of tens of millions of people to this day.
Alternatively - somebody who suddenly found themselves doing a lot of videoconferences a few years ago for... ooh, reasons, remember?, used what came to hand back then to build a slightly more interesting backdrop than either "a wall" or "a bookshelf" and then just rolled with it.
People shouldn’t be allowed to comment here without having read the article.
That is such a weird flex. What is he saying, that some of them have had prints of their horrible work sold on QVC?
“Back in a bit, going to the supernarket”
Ah yes, clearly the most important aspect of this story is pedantry over whether a supermarket chain with its headquarters in Wales can be called Welsh..
And then back to the slide, then black. and then suddenly the film that was supposed to start six minutes earlier kicked in. Oof. This is why it’s important to not just have playout, but continuity.
ORF1 is having a moment. Several minutes of holding slide and silence, which has now been replaced with a completely white screen.. #Austria #ORF
They mean production assistants, right? The ones who keep everything on time and count backwards a lot? The ones whose absence would stop work completely in the gallery because nobody would know what was going on? Ah yes. “The girls”.
