Sampson

Connections Puzzle #1046 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟪🟦🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪

Worse than Akinbiyi

Yeah it’s usually attributed to Stalin and is a very well known quote I thought

Wordle 1 767 3/6 🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜ 🟩⬜⬜🟨⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Purple I’ve been so saw straight away Connections Puzzle #1045 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟦

It’s because Trump’s party have become a cult of personality and he has papal infallibility where what he says *is* their party philosophy amongst his followers. Farage is the same, Reform MPs would just be saying what Farage says is our philosophy. I suspect Polanski could potentially do the same if he wanted.

Finished Operation Bounce House and really enjoyed it. Going to start Red Rising now. I borrowed the original trilogy from a friend.

Labour’s problem is their manifesto was all about what they weren’t going to do - they weren’t going to raise taxes, they weren’t going to rejoin the European single market, they weren’t going to cut pensions and sort out the real albatross round the neck in the benefits system instead of asylum hotels or disability benefits, because it was all about defending themselves against the Tory attack line. The problem is, with how we bounce from one crisis to another in the Age of Populism, 5 years in politics is a hell of a long time nowadays, much more than it was last time Labour were in government under Gordon Brown. now boxed themselves in and have now given themselves nothing to sell or any narrative to change that and they’ve boxed themselves off from many of the levers they could and should be using to respond to these crisis. I don’t see how a change of leader changes that, the fact is they’ve already trapped themselves with an extremely park-the-bus style defensive manifesto. Given Trump and the war in Ukraine, a closer relationship to Europe and rejoining Europe economically while building a military alliance would be an easy narrative to tell for example, it widely popular in polls and would probably gain them quite a lot of voters from Greens and LibDems, but they’ve ruled that out already, so they can’t do it. Given the rise in AI, proper regulation around AI to protect people’s jobs, mental health and well lives instead of this stupid growth at all costs strategy would probably be very popular, and would give an easy attack in Reform given how in bed they are with Trump and the tech oligarchs who want the safety nets around AI smashed, but they’ve already gone after this growth strategy where they were on about AI being the forefront of it. To me, I don’t see what a leadership change really changes given the party has already trapped itself with its manifesto and would require a new general election to really be able to unshackle themselves from the disastrous 2024 manifesto to be able create a narrative to sell, and well… they aren’t going to call an election for 3 years given how behind they are in the polls. They’re just ultimately going to have to hold on and hope events take over in the next 3 years (which they probably will given how we have a new once in a lifetime global crisis every 6 months nowadays).

Wordle 1 766 6/6 ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩 ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Just sneaked it through! Connections Puzzle #1044 🟪🟨🟦🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟪🟦🟦🟦 🟦🟪🟦🟦 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪

Yeah, as time has gone on, I’m convinced the social internet is the worst thing to happen to humanity. It was sold as making all our lives easier and us more prosperous but I’d bet that an average working or middle class European feel like their life is way shitter than it was in the mid-90s or even the mid-00s before social media when none of us really had internet access yet. Not necessarily their job or even personal economy, but how they feel day to day and moment to moment in the pit of their stomach. Regardless of the economic side - there’s way more mental health problems because of the constant barrage of bad news and manafactured perfect people to compare yourselves to, people are way more paranoid about saying the wrong thing or making a drunken or naive mistake and making yourself easily Googleable and therefore unemployable for life, personal data everywhere online, way more crap desk or retail jobs and nothing that gives you the satisfaction of actually making something, studies show people have way worse attention spans, way less friends and way less sex and romantic relationships these days because even dating and friendships have become fast food app culture and everyone is ****ing addicted (myself included so no judgement) because it was too profitable for tech companies to get us so addicted to the social internet (which incidentally is probably the single most addictive thing mankind have ever made and if it was a natural drug it’d be considered class A and thered be endless public health campaigns about cutting down online useage). And then to top it all off, most of us aren’t really better off than we would’ve been in the mid 90s, whilst the richest tech people have gone from being hundreds of millionaires to being trillionaires and the richest tech companies are now richer than the country of the UK. AI is going to be all this but 100 times worse too. Sadly, as the great philosopher Quasar once said: “You can’t un-lick a butthole that’s already been licked.”

I think green and blue are gettable today but purple and yellow are absolutely brutal Have no idea how that is a yellow category.

Wordle 1 765 4/6 ⬜⬜🟩🟩⬜ ⬜⬜🟩🟩🟨 🟨⬜🟩🟩⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Damnit. Saw most of the categories but wasted too many guesses on Rex herrings Connections Puzzle #1043 🟦🟩🟦🟦 🟩🟦🟦🟪 🟪🟦🟩🟦 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟨🟩🟩🟩

Switch it off, ignore the sunk cost fallacy of already paying got your ticket. Go out a meal with your parents or your partner or children, or have a drink or play pool or darts or some board or card games with friends, or go swimming or out on a run or to the gym on your own, go to the library and read a good book, go to a museum or art gallery, Don’t give any money to the club, don’t follow the score, just check the result at 10 o’clock and the inevitable defeat. You’ll have a much better evening. Life is too short to subject yourself to this rubbish

I think the summer of 2021 after the FA Cup win was a big one. We had big signs before that after bottling the CL, but we still had a good spending summer where we spent enough that we easily should’ve bought some good players in to revitalise us with that money. Instead we had the worst transfer window in our history and spent £70mil on Patson Daka, Jannik Vestegaard, Soumare Ryan Bertrand and decided we didn’t need to replace Schmeichel because Danny Ward (who we’d spent a further £12mil on a year or two before) was good enough. I mean £82mil for 5 players I’m not convinced are even good enough for League One.

Wordle 1 764 4/6 ⬜⬜🟩⬜⬜ ⬜⬜🟩⬜🟩 ⬜🟩🟩🟨🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Got a perfect in reverse order from purple to yellow today. I think this is my best result Connections Puzzle #1042 🟪🟪🟪🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟨🟨🟨🟨

Wordle 1 763 5/6 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩 ⬜⬜⬜🟩⬜ 🟨⬜⬜🟩🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Connections Puzzle #1041 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟩🟩🟩🟩 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟪🟪🟪

Yeah, but conversely, David Cameron was probably the most economically right-wing and least socialist PM the country has ever had (or at least post-WW2), even over Thatcher, with his brutal period of austerity and cuts to public spending. And I think generally at least in Europe we mean economically when talking about right and left. It’s the Americanisation of politics that has meant social policy has started to creep into what people mean by what’s left of right over the last 15 years or so (I always think the massive amount of coverage Sarah Palin and her views got was the beginning of the Americanisation of European politics). To give splinterdream the benefit of the doubt, which his posts probably don’t warrant, I think he’s mixing up social policy and economic policy there by saying the Tories went to the left and bemoaning socialism - socially, if you’re using an American definition of right and left, sure, they had more liberal social policy, but that Tory government between 2010-2024 was the most economically right-wing post-WW2 government the uk has had. I mean saying they moved the Tories to the left economically compared to someone like Ted Heath who was significantly to the left of Blair, Brown or Starmer (and even moreso than Cameron, May, Johnson or Sunak) economically obviously doesn’t track.

Been trying to cut down on online activities in the past few months and actively finding analogue and non-digital things to do when I’m not working. Been reading books, going swimming or cooking meals for me and my partner in the evenings instead of sitting at the computer or watching tv. Been arranging more card and board game sessions with friends or games of darts/pool at the pub (mostly only drinking soft drinks) too. I’m not going to say I’m still not addicted or it’s a cure all, but it’s definitely helping my mental health. Really showing me what a negative affect screentime has on my brain chemistry.

So many red herrings today. It’s gettable but tough. Connections Puzzle #1040 🟨🟩🟨🟨 🟦🟨🟨🟨 🟨🟨🟨🟨 🟦🟦🟦🟪 🟦🟦🟦🟦 🟪🟩🟪🟪

Good luck with everything buddy! Hope having the paperwork and official diagnose makes managing it and life in general easier.

Wordle 1 761 5/6 ⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨 ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬜⬜🟨🟨⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩