Bellend Sebastian

Impressive. Have you identified it?

I don't, but I took a terrible photo of it. There are moth recorders! That's pretty much my dream job in many ways and I'm very sad to learn it's a voluntary position. I will pass details of this sighting on

Those that know me well will be well aware that I've a lot of affection for massive moths so I was absolutely delighted when my wife told me she was being bothered by this absolute lad: https://www.ukmoths.org.uk/species/catocala-fraxini/ 95 mm across! Ours is at least that big, almost big enough to cuddle. My second rare moth encounter in my garden this year. Crap year for wasps, great year for moths

I disagree with Stewart Lee when he said that Afterlife is the worst thing ever created by a human, it's surely Galway Girl

Literally the first thing my boss did when I got mine was to tell me how ugly it was. I think it's cool, but not beautiful. They're insanely expensive, but don't you get taxed a lot more on a hybrid than a pure EV as a company car? Mine costs me next to nothing, which I have to say is the best thing about it by a mile, much as a like it

I don't know where I read this and I don't know if it's from someone of consequence or just some Twitter random, and I'm sure I'm not quoting it correctly but it struck a chord with me: It turned out that there was a real, massive conspiracy and it was to get people to believe in conspiracy theories

Always impressed by the dignity of folks like this: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna170525

I'm 6'4" and there's acres of space for me in an Ioniq 5

I think these are all crying out for a John Lewis advert breathy young female vocalist with sparse acoustic arrangement style cover. Has anyone else done that Cinderella Rockefella track? I know the song but I don't remember it being quite such a difficult listen

I'd forgotten about that, and yes, I hate it. It was made worse by a weird media thing that made out the bloke was some sort of modern day musical genius. A bit like how they always go on about that bloke in the La's

Mr Brightside was infuriatingly shite from the word go, and as is so often the case became the biggest song from an act that can do much, much better. Sex on Fire I don't think would be so terrible if it weren't overplayed so much. I've always hated "Hippy Hippy Shake". I hate the start of "Lola" by The Kinks with a passion but once it gets going it's pretty good. The first of the last two Stone Roses singles (All For One?) I thought was astoundingly bad, to the point where I couldn't believe there wasn't someone involved in the process who would say 'are you sure about this?'. A bit like with The Phantom Menace

The only thing you can say with any certainty is that at any point in history there were lots of people saying that point was exponentially worse than a point a few years prior. Lots of data in this, for those that like that kind of thing, proving the picture as far as knife crime is concerned is pretty complex: https://youthendowmentfund.org.uk/is-knife-crime-at-record-highs/#:~:text=Based on this measure%2C knife,higher than in 2012%2F13. While staying broadly on topic, we were talking about that horrible case at work the other day and the whole 'the world has gone to absolute shit and all people are evil' thing came out so I had a quick look to see what the murder stats were in the UK, just to get an idea of how common this sort of thing is. Now I know how many murders there are in the UK, I've been asking folk what they think the number is. Interestingly, the closest guess was still double the actual figure, with most people overestimating it by between about 10 to 20 times

This needs sorting out and quickly

So it WAS you! I knew it

Well I suppose I SHOULD be listening to the English Teacher album as 1) It's just won the Mercury Music prize 2) I bought the CD ages ago (remains unopened)

My opinions are all incredibly popular so it's surely not me????

I expect this is exactly the right thing to do, but after two decades of running I still have a mental block for expending any energy before running. I can easily run a 10K but when I see folk run to Parkrun (5K) I just cannot imagine doing that

He was telling his psychiatrist only this morning that he's finally come to terms with Leicester City's promotion in 2003, and now this. Oh Neil!

Likely point of impact

That's EXACTLY what happens to me, not all the time but too blooming often. Always winds me up most when the roundabout is marked with lanes that actually direct you to the left lane on exit when turning right (like the one on Glenfield Road/New Parks Way). If you're not sure how the roundabout works, surely you cut out the risk by letting the traffic already on it go past first? Think I'll have to start going for the right hand one as well, probably easier

Changing the subject, if you're in the green car below, which of the two (both correct) options would you choose when leaving the roundabout? The left or right lane?

That's interesting. It wouldn't be my own instinct to trust it to that extent, but it's quite likely that's it's at least as reliable as me and probably more so. It has helped me on a couple of occasions so I was very pleased when I found my new car had it as well

My last two cars have this (including my ancient Mazda) and yeah, I still always look. To me, at the moment at least, all this tech is just augments what the driver is doing. Even if you're doing exactly what you should, you can still miss stuff however careful you are, so the tech is another layer on top of that for emergencies

Well, you know, it was a manoeuvre I've probably done, I dunno, 1500 times in the years I've lived in this house, and technology I didn't actually know the car had (I've not had it that long) kicked in when I was found wanting, and isn't that exactly what you'd want it to do? Now I know the car will do that I suppose I could absolve myself of all responsibility and gaily reverse into the carriageway without looking ever again, but I don't trust the technology to that extent, and I managed to do it right without help on the other 1,499 (est) occasions. I'd also have liked the car that was bombing part past my house to have had its speed limited to the 20 mph permitted on our road but that's a couple of years away and one for another day

Not sure I follow, old chap. Technology has prevented two accidents where the human has been found wanting? Hasn't it prevented accidents increasing more than they would've done? Fun fact for those of us that bemoan the chaos on the roads. Worst year in peacetime for road deaths in the UK? 1966