bovril

A lot of NW European cities are probably easier and cheaper to get to by train from London than northern England or Scotland. I've done Paris as a day trip or overnight stay before, gone to one or two galleries and a typical restaurant. I can't abide people who just want to tick off countries, have met a lot of Anglo backpackers like that in the Balkans, but if you just want a quick break, soak up the atmosphere a but and take some photos then great. As others have said you're not really going to properly understand a place unless you live there so 2 or 5 days makes not much difference. Just don't use Airbnb.

#WhenTaken #377 (10.03.2025) I scored 914/1000 (💡x1) 👑 1️⃣📍685 km - 🗓️6 yrs - 🥈172/200 2️⃣📍1.4K km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥈150/200 3️⃣📍8.2 km - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥇196/200 4️⃣📍313 m - 🗓️4 yrs - 🥇196/200 5️⃣📍💡2.0 km - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200 https://whentaken.com

Nice combo today

American right wingers view of Russian society is very far from the reality

Hope he makes it just so we can make "Baby you can Riley Carr" a terrace anthem.

We usually stay at Familia hotel in 5th Arrondissement. Pretty cheap, nice enough rooms, and good location. But the rooms are quite small so maybe not great for a family (despite the name). There are a few good hotels round there though. I like the location very much. Quite calm and far enough from the throngs, but close to some nice parts (le Marais is just over the river, and the Pantheon is just up the road) Has a good vibe with it being the Latin Quarter, there are some good bars and restaurants and quite a few students about. Some nice places to eat near there. And good access to the Metro and Gare du Nord. I absolutely love Paris and you can definitely do 4/5 days there.

It seems a lot of people have bought in to the idea of smol bean Europe powerless in the face of Russia, a country that has a smaller GDP than Italy.

#WhenTaken #375 (08.03.2025) I scored 800/1000 (💡x1) 🏅 1️⃣📍213 km - 🗓️14 yrs - 🥈165/200 2️⃣📍💡830 km - 🗓️12 yrs - 🥈154/200 3️⃣📍379 m - 🗓️7 yrs - 🥇191/200 4️⃣📍4.9K km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥉118/200 5️⃣📍16.4 km - 🗓️14 yrs - 🥈172/200 https://whentaken.com

I find it difficult to distinguish those games in my mind, especially as they were often about the same time of year and usually on TV. We won pretty much every one home and away I think, apart from the terrible run in spring 2013. I just can't remember which goal was scored in which game....

They were the number one team I wanted us to beat when I started going in the 90s and early 2000s. We were pretty close in league position and derby matches were usually really well contested and exciting. That started to fade after we were both relegated and now I think about them much less than Cov and Forest. To be honest not being from Leicestershire the only Midlands team I really hate now is Forest.

I'm commenting on the news

I thought Lowe was a little more impressive than Farage as he seemed to actually have some policy ideas, although whether that would have translated well with their voter base is debatable I guess.

Georgia Meloni is quite hot.

Christ, big news day for Great Yarmouth

There'll be books written in the future I'm sure about how Britain and America, after pioneering globalisation, then decided in the late 2010s that this was something being forced upon them by shady European elites. https://www.euronews.com/business/2025/03/07/trump-claims-us-is-being-ripped-off-by-europeans-and-globalists-as-markets-dip

#WhenTaken #374 (07.03.2025) I scored 745/1000 (💡x1) 🎗️ 1️⃣📍1.1 km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥇187/200 2️⃣📍12.0K km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥉87/200 3️⃣📍1.0 km - 🗓️0 yrs - 🥇200/200 4️⃣📍💡430 km - 🗓️44 yrs - 🥉87/200 5️⃣📍417 km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥇184/200 https://whentaken.com

In my limited understanding of both I would perhaps say the opposite. Maybe in the past we were more classical liberal but modern Britain is a bit weird to me, it feels like a country that uses state control and supresses individual liberty in order to guarantee equal opportunities. I find it hard to put into words but it's like 'fairness' as a state ideology. One thing for sure is that Britain has changed a lot. Obviously from the 50s and 60s, but even from the 2000s. Even from 2015 probably. I don't think we're the bunch of pragmatic, reflexively anti-authoritarian, do-as-you-wish-as-long-as-you-don't-harm others liberals we perhaps were, or at least we like to think we were. I think modern Britain is quite fertile ground for a Trump type to emerge.

I still dream of that Franco-British Union that never was.

We like to tell ourselves this but I don't think it's true. Certainly not the "break the rules" part. I suspect the real reason authoritarianism has never taken off here is that we are one of the big winners of the last 200 years, and so there were fewer historical grievances for authoritarians to exploit. We are certainly very individualistic, though not necessarily 'liberal', and we lack consciousness of ourselves as a single people compared to other countries, in my experience. So that also has helped. However I don't think it's that unlikely that Britain finds itself with a Trump-esque or even Putin-esque authoritarian government in the near future. You wouldn't have thought it'd happen in America, who certainly value individual liberty more than we do. There are quite a few similarities also between modern Britain and Russia. So who knows, I don't think it's impossible. I actually think it's odds on, to be perfectly honest.

I do the same thing now. If I were a conspiracy theorist I'd say we are deliberately bombarded with news precisely so people block it out and are less informed than in the past...

People argue over how important Pearson, Ranieri, King Power, the clappers and Richard III were for our title win when we know in reality it was all Milan Mandaric.

No matter ones opinions on half time shows, a MAGA flavoured World Cup is going to be less than fun.

Goddamnit missed the flag in the last one #WhenTaken #373 (06.03.2025) I scored 760/1000 (💡x1) 🏅 1️⃣📍💡4.2K km - 🗓️3 yrs - 🥈125/200 2️⃣📍1.4K km - 🗓️7 yrs - 🥈153/200 3️⃣📍1.1 km - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥇199/200 4️⃣📍296 km - 🗓️9 yrs - 🥇177/200 5️⃣📍8.3K km - 🗓️1 yrs - 🥉106/200 https://whentaken.com

uh oh