Be Excellent To Each Other

I'm playing the world's smallest violin for Llanelli.

Imported from Italy.

Oh fuck off. Half the people didn't vote for the shite and probably much less than half of the ones working for a foreign firrm who just lost their jobs.

Ha! I doubt that's true.

It wouldn't surprise me if more that fifty-whatever percent of the workers voted that way.

What makes you think that?

People are stupid.

Exhibit a: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 03921.html

Turnout in Carmarthenshire was 74.1% according to https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.wale ... 510374.amp

Just for the record and that

Well it would surprise me if most of the people working at a foreign owned firm called Schaeffler voted to leave but, whatever. We'll never know.

Either way I'm sick of hearing "fuck this place" because more people there voted leave. No. Fuck the fucking cunts who voted leave. Wherever they live.

Sorry yes I meant that specifically for the people who voted leave.

This summary was quite to the point. It’s pointless
Brexit va economic horrow brexit https://www.facebook.com/1488971416/pos ... 355129084/

There's an article in the Guardian today suggesting that the SNP have been quietly canvassing other parties about a Norway/EEA/EFTA arrangement.

I appreciate the sentiment (if we can't stop it, let's make it as soft as possible), but I think that boat sailed away two years ago. Had the Prime Minister worked to build such a consensus back when she entered office, rather than dithering then giving in to the hardest of hardliners in her party, it'd have been very hard not to begrudginly accept it as the outcome of a 52-48 vote to leave. But she didn't, and I'm firmly in the final say vote/stop it all camp.

Oh, and can we have a moritorium on anyone saying "'tech solutions" without actually suggesting what these might be, what's currently possible, or what is coming soon? Thanks.

I agree. "Tech solutions" means "I don't understand technology, and think it is magic". They do it about medicine, too - "we need to take advantage of new technology to improve our health service," as if healthcare has been wilfully ignoring technological advances through history.

Finally, Twitter has done something good, with something it's actually good at.

There are many many good things to have come out of Twitter.

Sadly it’s also a haven for nazis so I left.

The world is a haven for nazis.

That's not fair, it's also really accepting of misogynists and racists as well.

I apologise for not being thorough enough in the types and volume of utter trash goblins that hell site is happy being its user base.

I still enjoy using Twitter. With some tactical blocking and muting, I mainly read up on video games on there which suits me fine.

I think Ian Dunt needs to grow a long beard and start wearing flowing robes. His latest assessment of Brexit really is making him very much a prophet, the kind that is reached by the main youthful characters after a perilous and lengthy trek up a mountain.

Yes I read that before. On the one hand I admire his consistently brilliant writing on the subject, but on the other hand it makes me sad because the whole thing is just so fucked.

It'd be good if there were somebody equally as eloquent to present the pro-Brexit word, but they seem few and far between.

Check out @campbellclaret’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/campbellclaret/stat ... 83360?s=09

Can't help thinking that people like Alastair Campbell are a big part of the reason that politics is in its current dreadful state and that he should just fuck off.

And yet, I've just been banned from tweeting for a week, because of this (possibly NSFW):


which was quote-tweeting this:

https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1065898458559770625

Nigel Farage 'appalled' by Tommy Robinson joining Ukip as adviser https://t.co/KqIz0tGJdw

— The Guardian (@guardian) November 23, 2018

According to those enlightened souls at Twitter, my tweet "promotes violence against, threatens, or harasses other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease".

Jesus christ. I've seen actual death threats pass muster and you get temp banned for using the word cunt. Give me strength.

Jack “Twitter CEO” Dorsey is a bonafide white supremacist though so I’m not really surprised his website reflects that.

Hey kids! Get THE FACTS about Brexit from Her Majesty's Government:

https://brexitfacts.blog.gov.uk/

Brexit Facts. The Truth. Brexity.

Ah, I guess that explains the apparently lenient view they take of nazis and suchlike.

Thinking of going to this:
https://www.facebook.com/events/1022959 ... _tab=about

Wondering a) if there's any point (do these kind of protests ever help?) and b) if I'll get arrested if I wave a big banner with "Fuck Brexit" on it.

I'm a bit liberal with the old language on there, generally. I think in this case I've either hit some kind of cunts-per-tweet quota, or some UKIP/EDL shitflake has complained that I'm picking on their poor oppressed leader/ex-leader/membership/adviser/cunt.

Ahh, Tommy Robinson. Reminds me of the time they leaked that list of cash donors on the internet and I removed 12 Facebook friends. I must admit though, I wasn't really surprised. They were always quite lacking in the brain department when I grew up with them.

A sure fire cunt, so good call Nick.

Having admired him from afar throughout the brexit shambles, I was surprised to learn I used to sit opposite him at one of my old jobs. He was an intern so I didn't pay any attention to him. Trufax.

Oh well, don't be mean about UKIPs then.

Being a 'Kipper is of course not any one of the protected classes they list in that message.

I see Dominic Raab has admitted that we would be better off staying in the EU rather than leaving under the terms he negotiated.

Indeed, hence the subtly bitter edge to my response, but what are you gonna do? I’ve not paid Twitter, they’re not a public service, so, annoying as it is, I figure I’ve got a week of Twitter cold turkey.

I also saw a video of JRM saying it would be a good idea to have a second referendum

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 77686.html

Just seen it now, but apparently it was circulating in August

Looks like TM is throwing Gibraltar to the whim of the Spanish!

I finally got a reply from my MP last week. After having it linger in my inbox for a few days I got my blood-alcohol level to a suitable level and opened it.
It started off well. She apologised for the delay in replying, saying she had been overwhelmed with correspondence on this issue. Then followed a long selection of excerpts from various constituents covering the whole range of views.

There was then the obligatory bit about how over 400 MPs voted for the Article 50 bill last year. She then started going on about how people who voted leave wanted to take back control of our laws and borders, and how the deal offers that, but offers some compromises on trade.

She ended by noting there was no time for a second referendum to take place before the Big Day, and that nobody has any idea what question should be asked. A reasonable enough point but I had suggested using the NZ flag two-round knockout as a model, and I'm pretty sure if Parliament put its mind to it the relevant legislaiton could be drawn up with the EU agreeing a stay of execution.

At this point I started bashing out a reply explaining how she hadn't actually explained how not being able to travel/live/study/etc in 27 other countries was better than the alternative, or how the 'deal' was better than the existing agreements, or actually addressed any points in the original letter. I got half-way through my missive before I paused, thought 'oh, fuck this', and deleted the entire correspondence.

Still, based on her salutation apparently we're on first name terms now so my next letter (perhaps on some more pressing issue such as the Oxford-Cambridge Superhighway) can close with 'hugs' rather than 'yours sincerely'.

I re-read the Prime Minister's Address to the Nation. After getting frustrated by its patronising tone and clear deliberate misunderstandings, I realised it wasn't actually aimed at me.

I suppose it's a failing on my part to not have sufficient empathy to understand why people think we don't have control of our borders, or how hearing different languages on the bus is somehow a sign of the country losing its identity or something to be feared. Perhaps I should be listening to these people and communities more. But for me, the sense of decline has to do with decades of underinvestment in infrastructure and services by successive governments rather than the existence of 'foreigners'. Xenophobia is just something I don't understand.

I always thought the UK was an open, welcoming country, and that this was worth celebrating. I don't like feeling I was wrong.

I’ve stopped paying attention to the news over the last few months and it’s helped my mental health considerably.

Yeah, I've really cut down my daily consumption and taken to reading the weeklies over a pint instead of broadcast stuff. But I still need to have a general gist of what's going on, especially outside of this troubled island, and sometimes it's unavoidable.

I had a particularly paranoid delusion about this over the weekend - maybe this is actually, quietly from behind the curtains and closed doors, doing the best for the country on the long term now that irreparable climate collapse is near-unavoidable; close off the borders, force the populace to get better at farming and industry again; the best defense against the homeless hordes is the English channel. Crank up coal and oil again now we're approaching saturation on new solar and wind.

What we're so baffled and worried by is all pantomime and propaganda that the political class are so well bred for.

Maybe Mortal Engines is real, is what I'm saying.

(Not long after that I got home with a new lightswitch and went back to playing with all the Hue lighting I bought during Black Friday week - I was clearly going a bit mad, it's nonsense, and either way I'm much better served flicking switches on and off)

Nah, I have 39 Hue bulbs now, it's good.

I am very tempted to get myself some Hue bulbs for the bedroom, so I can turn off the missus's bedside light after she dozes off with it on. I hate having to get up and walk ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BED just to be able to reach.