Bellend Sebastian

Police helicopter was hovering over our house yesterday (I've done nothing, guvnor!). Typical! They're usually too late to do anything so for a change they turned up too early. Broken Britain etc

We think it moved its kill to behind my neighbour's car, as the fuss continued even though we couldn't see it. It has at last gone quiet, mercifully. Was just reading how magpies sometimes team up with other corvids, and there a WERE a couple of crows getting involved but very much on the fringes so I doubt their efforts will be particularly appreciated

This is still going on. Bloody hell

A Peregrine Falcon has just killed a Magpie on my neighbour's driveway and about ten other Magpies are going absolutely mental at it. I've never heard such a racket, I'm trying to sleep here, lads

Bleak isn't it? I'm always interested in how much influence they have on public perceptions in reality. Whenever the media is under any scrutiny itself it tends to downplay the extent to which people pay it any mind but in some demographics (I'm thinking of my parents' generation here, mostly well into their 80s) tabloid newspapers are still their go-to for pretty much everything

I suppose I should be pleased that Farage has got The Mail on Sunday on top of the Times after him now and his popularity taking an actual hit for once but you cannot ignore that they could have done this years ago but chose not to

Like Reform Home Affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf, for example

I'll add this to my library of things to respond with when the bleeding doom-mongers that cross my path too often tell me that "the country's not what it used to be" etc etc. I've just seen this story on Threads and the most common response is that it isn't true, which I guess just underlines that not many people go on the internet to say things like "that's good then" and "nice to hear that progress is being made"

Spoke too soon. Just found one with a lot of glowing comments about his balls. The strange times comment still stands though

I have absolutely no idea what to read into this but as a keen consumer of absolute shite Facebook content, there's recently been what looks like a massive influx of actual people commenting on posts about Farage, the vast majority of them being extremely negative. I struggle to believe that loads of people have suddenly decided to go on the attack and am instead idly wondering if the literally thousands of the usual "only man I can trust to be PM" and "this will make the lefties cry" utterings that pad out the comment sections have mysteriously disappeared. Even if I'm right, what does this even mean? Strange times

Nostradamus walks among us!

Farage statement due at 2 pm on his "future in public life". I know what it might be but let's see

Tentative signs that the UK is at last deciding that maybe it does not want to be your Auntie Jean who has inexplicably started going out with a blowhard crooked financial adviser that drives a Vauxhall Vectra which he claims is "the greatest car ever made", was done for PAYE fraud in 1997 and lost his original job as a teacher in a girl's school for something you're not allowed to ask about and all your cousins hate

Gave up on a 10k about two thirds in. The heat wasn't helping but I think I'm just absolutely knackered

You've got to admire the balls of that people smuggler guy to set up in Blaby, a place where the people decided to pretend a random woman who had moved in was Maxine Carr, just for the LOLZ

I'm not sure that's how you Unite the Kingdom, but innocent until proven guilty and all that https://metro.co.uk/2026/06/30/raise-colours-figure-accused-making-indecent-images-children-28990224/

I didn't get it! Darn it

There's a meeting for parents at my kid's new school tonight at 5.15 this evening. It's going to be just me there and some pissed off looking teachers isn't it?

Yeah, there's a lot of that about. Someone was telling me the other day about how they're "trying to get Sharia Law through Parliament" and when I gently asked where they saw this fairly significant news, confidently told me "The BBC"

My first thought is that that's a made up FCA number (I've checked, it is) and whatever that link is to is well dodgy

Yeah, we had what I think was probably a drunk driver undermining ours the other night

Fans of going on about things being "two tier" are going to love the findings of the review into maternity care in Nottingham, and yes, it's pretty bleak

The over 60 bit is relatively significant but the tax on cash in a non-cash ISA is a bit of a storm in a tea cup, to my mind. Stocks and shares ISAs were never intended to hold cash, that's what Cash ISAs are for. Like you say, they're closing a loophole, but as usual all the headlines make it sound like a massive and cynical tax grab

Is anyone who's had air conditioning put in able to say how much it cools areas beyond the room the unit is in? I think it's inevitable I'll have it in the next couple of years but I'm wondering if it's worth starting with one on the landing (fairly standard pre war semi - that's a house by the way, not a military fetish). Would that make a difference to the whole top floor or do you really need one in each room?

https://bylinetimes.com/2026/06/23/as-extreme-heat-hits-london-fossil-fuel-interests-and-global-far-right-politicians-gather-for-a-glastonbury-of-climate-science-deniers/ I mean like they even care, but perhaps an unfortunate day for this gaggle of climate change denying loons to be getting together