Bellend Sebastian

Went to the Pixies in Brum last night. Must confess to not owning any of their post reunion material, which was OK but didn't grab me. Checking out reviews after the event suggests not huge amounts of love out there for the more recent albums

I wanted to go to Nottingham for the date there but I was wrong footed by how quickly it sold out - I've realised now that an act petering out even in part from lack of interest does not equal an indifferent welcome back when the inevitable reunion comes round. In a parallel universe they're Britain's favourite band and Oasis are nowhere

Do these relate to the whole series? If so I'll watch them later!

I've just watched episode 10 (so just 2 to go) and bloody hell, it's an absolute belter. There are fantastic actors in this show but there are so many reasons why it might not work that it's amazing that it got to be made with so much love and care and very little compromise - even the compression of a story that what was supposedly going to be told over several seasons into 12 episodes has been done so well you'd assume it was always meant to be that way. As with any prequel, there's a risk that it's all undermined by the fact that you know where it all ends up anyway, so it just underlines how much effort has got to go into it to make it feel like it matters. Boy, do they make you feel that it matters. I read something the other day that agreed that this is a brilliant bit of telly, regardless of whether you like SW/sci fi, but what a shame it is that it's unlikely to command an audience proportionate to how good it is. I could not agree more

Some of it's apparently in our balls, so I guess it depends on whether you consider that on the earth or not

I've asked on here a couple of times as to why wheelies are still a thing and does it mean something when someone does one, and never had an answer. This guy thought it meant something and was so furious about it he got himself done for murder: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjd37km83p9o

Well I must admit I don't have much cause to visit St Matthews very often but a very friendly Uber driver told me yesterday that he's lived there for 9 years and he thinks it's great, and much, much better than it used to be, with far fewer issues with drugs etc. He told me all this fluent English, how lucky was I? Always glad to hear about the view of a journalist parachuted in to represent what is basically the media arm of the Conservative Party though

Pretty good. Hadn't set foot in the place for probably 20 years, and it was smaller than I remember. Think I read capacity is 320 or something like that which sounds bigger than it is. The room is squarer than the Musician so it's easier to get a good view despite the low stage. Sound was OK, and it's a lot cleaner than the Charlotte ever was and the toilets certainly less of a threat to human life

It may be have been mentioned or on everyone's radar already but if you like a deep dive into all things World War II you can't go far wrong with Al Murray (yes, that one) and James Holland's We Have Ways of Making You Talk podcast. They do occasional runs of what they call 'Family Stories' which is basically them just reading out submissions from their audience of literally that, a lot of which is along the lines of what's being shared on here

Went to see Jeffrey Lewis at the International Arts Centre last night. Really good, shame the crowd wasn't a bit bigger. Seen him loads of times over the years, and couldn't remember when it started, and then mentions the first time he played in Leicester in 2002 at Sumo of all places, and of course, I was there. Feels simultaneously like a lifetime ago and about 2 years. Always amazed and slightly in awe of acts that cannot be making much of a living but just keep on ploughing on

Good luck with that one

My Grandpa was in the RAF Military Police, highlights of his I'm sure illustrious service including asking a prisoner he was escorting to "bugger off down the lane" for a bit while he had a quick chat with his girlfriend (my Gran) and drawing his service weapon once and once only (to threaten an American)

I heard the kerfuffle was pigeon based, but wasn't sure what had happened. It allowed itself to be captured? What an amateur, the other pigeons will be furious. Embarrassing

That's fantastic. We were talking about the pace the elite marathon runners go at the other day but before we even get to that, I can't get my head round how quick you go! That's 10 mins faster than my PB at 10k

It is so! Might get a membership if I can be arsed

And BOOM there goes my last game as a season ticket holder after 28 seasons. It was a bit crap but there have been far, far worse notes it could have ended on. Actual goals were scored, the referee lay on the floor for quite a while, there were lots of police for no obvious reason and our section briefly came alive because of something to do with a pigeon

Unhelpfully, Epiphone have added new models to the "Inspired by Gibson Custom Shop" range, now with rosewood fingerboards, addressing a minor moan about the ones that came out last year. I think I AM going to buy a 1960 Les Paul at some point, I don't feel like I've even got any choice in this. There's a Gold Top that's rather lovely as well although I'm not sure really my cup of tea

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