Bellend Sebastian

Fair play for getting that far! That the BBC is a hotbed of all sorts of Trotskyite wrongness is a popular and strongly held belief, but not backed up by monitoring and research which as far as I can tell generally confirms a marginal right wing bias if anything. I think this is probably because so much of the UK media (well that with any reach anyway) IS pretty right wing (which its consumers are more than happy about) which makes anything even vaguely centrist look like Pravda

There was a thing on The Rest is Politics (the spiritual home of Centrist Dads like myself) this week about how Labour's interests are probably better served by targeting Lib Dem and Green voters and that the idea that a lot of Reform support is from disaffected Labour voters is overplayed. They're doing a pretty good job of turning off anybody with a remotely progressive attitude to politics, aren't they?

I did 5k just after 5pm and it went at least as well as any of my other runs recently

Every so often I like to throw in a George Monbiot Guardian opinion piece safe in the knowledge that all FT users will rush to read it in full and reflect with an open mind on its content at length. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/01/consistently-appeasing-platforming-right-bbc-undermines-own-survival In all seriousness though I do find what's happened to the BBC over the last few years more than a little tragic. Part of a general pattern of us not really appreciating the value of what we have and letting actors of dubious intent encourage us to allow it to be undermined and even destroyed

It was probably in the first term when he was taking credit for stock market gains and I remember thinking that I'd never, ever heard a president or PM say that before. I wondered why that was for about 5 seconds before realising that it makes it a bit awkward if the market goes down on your watch but I doubt old Don thought about it even that much

Is the Kona a petrol one? I was given a brand new Bayon as a courtesy car when my Ioniq 5 went in for some work. It absolutely blows my mind that to buy the Bayon new would cost about the same as the used price of my 2 year old car. There is no reason on earth why anyone would choose the new car if they'd driven them both

Those two lads on trial for cutting down the Sycamore Gap tree seem a bit....I don't know, unusual in their outlook? Or just good old fashioned thick, it's hard to tell

The police took less than 24 hours to let me know they weren't going to do anything with this. I'm guessing they weren't summoned to the incident itself

I wasn't annoyed but I saw someone accidentally cut up a lorry earlier, the driver of which was so incensed that he chased after him and actually crashed into his car, so that's that sorted out

Have you sat in one? Interior space is enormous (I'm 6' 4" and plenty of room for whoever sits behind me) and boot supposedly bigger than iX3. It's hatchback shape but don't let that make you think it's a small car. It's far more generous inside than a lot of SUVs I've been in

The iX3 is being discontinued isn't it? Presumably cars still available from stock and good deals too. I've got an Ioniq 5 which I can heartily recommend (despite the 12v battery issue, which in fairness I've had I think on literally every car I've ever owned) except perhaps to people that are looking for a true premium car experience as it doesn't particularly feel like one despite costing loads, like all EVs

Watched the first three available episodes of Andor Season 2 as I have very little self control. These are supposedly the weakest of the 12 but they were still very, very good

I've not done it for ages but I think you're recorded as you come in and it doesn't matter what order barcodes are scanned, as that's basically just linking individuals to the positions they came in, if that makes sense

I've ran that distance probably 30 times and you're still quicker than my last couple!

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Did another 10k this morning, 1 second slower than Sunday, so at least I'm consistent

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I am a man of science, how dare you

Now that the mission has been completed, Did Katy Perry put the ass back into astronaut, as she claimed she would? I'm sure data will be released soon to prove it either way

57:25 according to my watch, not official yet. Not unhappy with that given that I've not really trained for it and feel like I've got a cold coming. Probably should have done a bit better as managed a strong sprint finish which I'm sure looked absolutely ridiculous so far back in the pack and suggests you've not planned your race well

Well I've managed to complete the walk to Abbey Park. Going great so far

Anyone else in the Big 10k tomorrow? An event I only entered because I was disappointed at my performance last year, and this time round have trained for a lot less so I'm sure will go amazingly well as a result

If you think you saw him then I don't know if that's a good thing

Got car back, thank f***. New 12v battery (confirmed that's all it was in the end) but some new software updates/reprogramming were done as part of a recall that was done while they were at it was part of a recall that I didn't even know was needed. Not sad to see the courtesy car go, that felt like hard work