Lucy

Well done Harry Kane 👏 but time for my annual grumble that the Ballon d'Or is almost exclusively for strikers/attacking midfielders. Three defenders and zero goalies have won it in past fifty years. 😒

I believe the precise wording was "Shove that ballroom up your FAT ass!"

Serbia’s former president Aleksandar Vučić conceded defeat in the country’s parliamentary election on Sunday, marking a dramatic fall from power for the strongman nationalist leader www.ft.com/content/546f...

👀👀

Who needs professional translators for important safety information (and everything else) when you can just use AI? 🤔

What gets missed about rioting: it's great fun. An essay davidaaronovitch.substack.com/p/the-joy-of...

Mark Carney on Elon Musk crippling Ukraine’s Starlink: “I search for the right adjective to describe whoever took this decision… against a country that is literally fighting for the lives of its citizens against naked aggression."

This statue is rather nietzsche. 😏

I'm sorry, but this is such bollocks. Are they seriously suggesting *a quarter* of all tourists would not visit the UK because of a tax which nearly every other European country (not to mention nearly every US state) has? Give over...

It's all happening here. 👀

Read it and weep. ☹️

As someone who runs a small business and for some reason pays my taxes…. Today’s “red tape” cut to company paperwork makes no real difference to me or my ability/desire to expand. As someone who investigates small business high street tax evasion… great news for candy stores and scam dropshippers!

Towers of Milan.

Did Europe's last remaining train-on-a-boat journey. 🥰

Pleasing football pitch. 👍

From the govt's press release: "The developer estimates that Jackdaw will create 27 new direct jobs and safeguard 273 existing jobs that would otherwise be lost." Odd that so much is made about this being good for jobs. Your nearest out-of-town supermarket likely generates more jobs.

Remembering Aberfan – ‘All I saw was a mound of black’ www.channel4.com/news/remembe...

Police have dealt with three incidents in a week of cars driving the wrong way on major A-roads in the area where seven people died in a head-on crash

Been to a big opera house. 😵

Yes, and also do something about blokes driving/motorbiking with souped-up ultra-noisy engines. My preferred punishment that they get followed round their home for a year by a bagpipe player needs consideration. 👂

Such a beautiful song. 🥰🥰

As centre forward?

Blues since the international break. #bcfc

DID SOMEONE SAY THREE WINS IN A ROW 🤩 #bcfc Link: x.com/BCFC/status/...

Gotta love that the default way of looking up a train time on the Italian railways app is to search by train number. 🤔

Producer: “Who can we get to represent the views of voters in struggling working class towns?” Researcher: “How about a London born privately educated banjo player who is the son of the billionaire who owns GB News?” Producer: “Perfect!”

If you don't receive this card please let me know.

Obligatory parkrun tourism. Definitely the first I've encountered which serves Prosecco at the end. 😃 Grazie to all the volunteers!

John Shipley spent 34 years on Newcastle City Council and 16 in the Lords. Today, he ended it where he started, opening a debate on local democracy and electoral reform. Thank you, John, and happy retirement.

my cat, trying to sneak up on my other cat:

Grainger Market Newcastle - Unplugged Mercury Prize Fringe. Sat 17th Oct 11am - 5pm FREE. Showcasing acoustic sets from; FAWNS SAM BENNETT HELS PATTISON JOSH WEBB POLYVINYL BEAR PARK Supported by Creative Central NCL

The #Tashkent metro is definitely one of my favourites in the world 🚇 Many of the stations have unique designs and amazing mosaics 🇺🇿 All rides cost just €0.20 and you can even tap in with Google/Apple pay now! 💰 #Uzbekistan #NonstopEurotrip

For the story behind the intervention in Teesside, here’s @privateeyenews.bsky.social’s special Stripped Tees report from last year - www.private-eye.co.uk/special-repo...

Finally!

University big wigs almost everywhere in complete denial about this. (Except QM, obvs, where SLT universally excellent, top class, etc).

New post: "Drowning in slop" Large parts of the state are being increasingly overwhelmed with complaints, appeals, objections.... written by AI. It's gumming up every process. Britain is particularly vulnerable. How bad has it got and what can we do about it? samf.substack.com/p/drowning-i...

Couple of goals for Stanno please, and a Priske hat-trick. 👍 #bcfc #greedy

Tee hee, nice goal started by the ref there. 😄 ⚽️ #bcfc

It seems indisputable that this is fact, and that Burnham has read intelligence service documents that have details. The public question shouldn’t be ‘what effect did it have?’ Because that cant be proved or litigated. It should be ‘why did Putin think Russia’s interests would be served by this?’

Polish prime minister not pulling his punches

When Ukraine destroys Russian data centers, hoards of aggressive right-wing bots disappear & the internet becomes friendlier. So much of politics is driven by the internet & so much of the internet is driven by Russians who want to hurt us. Shouldn’t we do something about that, given that we know it

Had the cinema and then the swimming pool to myself in town today. 👌

😒 Wordle 1,939 X/6 ⬜🟩⬜⬜⬜ ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜⬜🟩 🟨🟩⬜⬜🟩 ⬜🟩⬜🟩🟩 ⬜🟩🟩🟩🟩

Things going well for Spurs, I see. 🧐

Also obvious and often forgotten: underlying maths here changed. A lot of people still analyse politics of Brexit as if the split in the public is still 52/48, with leave both an overall majority and more efficiently spread, with most seats majority Leave. None of that true now

When you finish the cross country and find Blues have just won the derby. 😁 ⚽️ 🥳 #bcfc