Allan Faulds

A very mundane but oddly compelling thint about going from renting to owning on the same estate is that I now feel like I am looped into a world of petty dramas via factors letters I didn't get previously. This week, a big tree was slated for removal, but "a number of strong objections" saved it

Not intended to like contradict Mags here but also like it's surprisingly possible *even in the west Central Belt* to grow up largely oblivious. As an adult I know my very Rangers-supporting dad nixed baby names my mum liked because they were, ahem, associated with a more Celtic persuasion...

And I also know that I can't offhandedly mention that when I was a wean "the Lodge" my grandpa was part of always gave out cheap pressies to the (grand)weans of members without adding "OH, ERR, MASONIC, NOT ORANGE!", but as a wean, genuinely, I was totally oblivious to this whole thing!

The instinct here might be to view Burnham as uniquely successful and gifted, but we should all remember it is instead that Starmer was uniquely shit and incapable and but for Truss he would easily be the worst PM of my lifetime (And also that GPEW have spent 6 months devouring their own feet)

My body still cannot quite sleep all the way until normal wakeup time, but at least I got to wake up to another stunning victory over the fash, maybe more places should do stunning victories over the fash

Hungary and now Serbia: Kinda bored of this whole despotism thing, maybe we should try something new? The rest of Europe for some reason:

Tee hee, I am the NDP Premier of British Columbia with a tiny majority, two years left on my term, and consistently lagging my opponents in the polls, HOWEVER, their leader just resigned so I'm going to call a snap election whilst they are in disarray and it'll all work out great for me 🤭 Uh whoops

Hell hath no fury like a British Electoral Reform advocate being told that STV is not in fact the Wonder System they believe it to be

It's genuinely incredible how - and I know this is quite common on the internet for all topics - I have never once encountered someone who made one of the exaggerated claims about STV's benefits, had the flaw pointed out, and gone "oh, fair enough, I still support it though"

Voters: We hate pylons! Also, we really hate energy bills going up! Political parties, for some reason: Yeah okay we hear you, pylons suck, so we're going to reduce/get rid of them in favour of more expensive options! Can, uh, can you just never look at your energy bills again though? As a favour?

Sorry this is so on my brand but I do kind of feel when the UK Government takes a decision about oil and gas in Scotland maybe we could hear from the Scottish Green Party instead of just the "Green Party Leader" who is in fact only responsible for England and Wales?

This is consistently my position: it's annoying when someone jumps ship for no good reason, but it's impossible to craft a rule that auto-expels only those people and cannot be used by parties to exert control over internal critics and dissenters.

Oh how am I taking a spate of cancellations and delays to the trains on the last, 10 minute section of my journey home? As we approach the completion of hour 44 of travelling? Extremely well, the most well, I don't want to pull all my skin off and scream in exhausted frustration

Tonight in "Allan uses in flight entertainment to catch up on critically acclaimed films": Sinners Nice, light, chill, upbeat viewing for the middle of the night...

If you want an indication of how unhinged I am becoming at 22 hours of being awake so far and that only being halfway to home and bed, I have messaged at least 5 friends to tell them how good I think circling the big plughole in the Jewel's fountain would feel

Also very unnerved by how easy it was for me to get back into Changi having went landside for the tour - walked in off the street, scanned my boarding pass, and that was it. No security (though I had left my bag in the airport anyway) check or anything. Wild!