Bellend Sebastian

Lovely pints of Tribute in a pub in South Devon, seemingly proving the old cliche that beer doesn't travel well as whenever I've had it in the Midlands it's been thoroughly unremarkable

I own a few Ozzy and Black Sabbath albums (Shot in the Dark is one of my all time favourite songs) but I'll readily admit my fondness for him mainly stems from watching The Osbornes on MTV. Used to joke with my wife that it didn't matter that we didn't have a valid will because as she's a Brummie our orphaned children would automatically become the property/responsibility of Ozzy, which I was fine with

Talking of senior moments, I think I might have posted this before but I'm always drawn to stuff that attempts to explain why people increasingly seem to believe any old shite: https://bylinetimes.com/2025/07/10/the-cost-of-lies-why-we-identify-with-deadly-misinformation/

If I get the chance I'm going to put this to my father in law later and see what he thinks. Might lie a bit and suggest that this is a credible rumour. I'll need to take care though, I don't want to give him ANOTHER aneurysm

He's not said it for months but during a bit on the news about the rebel Labour MPs losing the whip, my father-in-law muttered the immortal words 'bring back Boris'. I'm not sure how that would work and I'm confident he doesn't know either, but this sort of blue sky thinking is perhaps what is needed

I mean it looks like gaslighting on a massive scale but although some of his supporters seem cross I gave up long ago trying to work out where the lines were that you could cross and actually be damaged as a politician

I'm intrigued and excited by Trump's new strategy for dealing with the Epstein Files issue which is basically: why are you making such a fuss you twats

I mean, no other colour should even be allowed on that car. You made the right choice

Well I suppose they might exist, but in vanishingly small numbers, I'd have thought I've said on here before that I'm not really sure what "British Culture" actually is, mainly because the things that I would call culture - tradition, history, the arts, institutions seem to leave most people cold and be seen as being of little or no value. It feels like we're left in this rather odd place where we struggle to define what it actually is (or care) but are absolutely certain that it's being undermined and taken away from us at every turn. The danger with this, and I think this is already happening, is that this becomes culture itself - we're perpetual victims, everything is shite, everything is broken, appreciating nothing. I've always been incredibly proud to be British and consider myself to be VERY fortunate to be so, but this is just horrible and a trend we'd do very well to fight against

There's a vague statement on the school's website about something having gone on but I'm struggling to believe that this is completely accurate - it's also claimed another pupil was sent home for dressing as a farmer. I find it very hard to believe that anybody in education in 2025 would not think that this would create a culture war shit-storm, a social media pile-on and their switchboard being jammed by calls from nutters. Perhaps I'm being naive https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/schoolgirl-12-punished-for-wearing-union-flag-dress-to-school-culture-day/

In other car related stuff, I do love me a fast charger. Obviously the downside is the cost, but I got 65% in 19 minutes at Exeter Services yesterday. This was great after having had my first ever experience of a public charger not working at Gloucester services on the same journey

What colour car would you have if the whole palette of colours were available? I always liked a dark British Racing type green, but pretty much all car makers abandoned that about 20 years ago and it's rarely been seen since. My current car is green, but not really as it looks grey from some angles and is clearly a very unpopular colour choice given the number of them I've seen. To my surprise it's still an option but not as surprising as that the weird gold option is still available, of which I've seen one, ever. Colour options seem generally very dull these days and manufacturers rarely go out on a limb - remember when Ford brought brown back about 15 years ago? Lasted about two years - whilst I found the idea of owning a brown Focus or Mondeo very appealing, the motor buying public clearly did not

My neighbour was cleaning her Dad's old but still nice Mercedes with an old school stiff bristled broom that you'd sweep the patio with, and then he came out and enthusiastically carried on the job himself so I guess that's fine

Another Ballad of Wallis Island fan here. It's been a more emotionally intense time than usual and that and possibly having had a drink made me weak for such a carefully made piece of work. I basically loved everyone in it, must pull myself together

Always the ones you most suspect etc

I did a 5k this evening that included running up Old John, so naturally it was very, very slow. First run in ages so made perfect sense to ease myself back in with a run including a massive hill

Pretty much clean sweep of 5 star reviews including by the often sniffy Guardian, who have also helpfully summarised some of them here: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/jul/05/magically-exhaustingly-uplifting-what-the-papers-say-about-oasis

Just remembered Change UK

Fairly harrowing article, the main takeaway being that if you ever have the opportunity to use full autopilot in a Tesla (if it even gets passed for use in the UK) then don't. Includes the fairly meaty allegation that autopilot automatically disengages immediately before an accident so it can't be blamed for it. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/05/the-vehicle-suddenly-accelerated-with-our-baby-in-it-the-terrifying-truth-about-why-teslas-cars-keep-crashing

Despite their best intentions, the first bit soon had to be dropped

Surely Noel Edmonds has it in him to start a political party? It just feels sort of inevitable

Ahhahhahhaha! I'd forgotten about that. I nearly said them, but it was more HIM wasn't it? Veritas, truth in Latin, oh Bob, that's brilliant. Tell me your truth, Robert Kilroy-Silk

If there's one thing that gets people excited and hopeful it's a new political party

If you can't trust Darren Grimes, who can you trust?!? More of the old certainties fall away. Old Grimey. Grimey-wimey. Grimester. Grimbot

Reform voters won't give a toss as they won't see this or know what a surgery is