Be Excellent To Each Other

And yet they were never the same after he left.

Wait, heroin?

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"I stand for Truth, Justice and Freedom from Tyranny and Want!"

Anyone else got a Steps joke?

You can *NEVER* have too many Steps jokes.

Well you have to stop after FIVE, SIX, SEVEN, EIGHT!

Tragedy.

Bastard Mongs only Love and Hate.

This whole thread is Better Best Forgotten.

It's the last thing on my mind.

Here's a piece on the Consitution Unit's blog about how the 'narrative' of devolution has changed in the twenty years since the first Holyrood elections.



The argument about claiming a story is an interesting one. Not sure how far it works as a way to handle the present and near future, rather than understand the past, but it's an argument I've not really thought about before. Certainly, my perception of the Union was always from an English perspective, and we never really built a story about the EU in the way the Brexit parties did.

Another Constitution Unit blog post, on the hard truths surrounding any border poll in Northern Ireland.



Useful background reading and probably one we might be referring to in the near future.

The Welsh Assembly is now the Welsh Parliament / Senedd Cymru . That one passed me by!

It's just occurred to me that it's now illegal for the English to enter Wales. Somewhere, Edward I is not particularly happy about this.

My new DIY project is to make a crossbow...

"You might be in the strategically important oranges, but everyone knows it is Mayfair that gets the cash and ruins people!"

Not for me it's not.

This is clearly wrong, I didn't know it's Mayfair that gets the cash and ruins people.

Mr Johnson is going to Scotland today to remind them of how much he loves them and wants them to stay. I'm not sure these feelings will be reciprocated.

I'm fairly sure I speak for all of the non-Rangers fans in Scotland when I say: he can go fuck himself.

https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/13 ... 9451667456

Exclusive: No.10 'Demanded UK Flag Be Printed On Oxford Vaccine Doses'https://t.co/bW0JWeMopf

— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) November 27, 2020

We've reached the crazy late-night texting stage of the breakup.

It's just pathetic, isn't it?

I actually remember the days when the Union was strong enough that we didn't need flags everywhere, all the time.

Whilst I'm thinking about the Union today, it's worth noting that the Constitution Unit at UCL have just released their report on how a border poll in Northern Ireland could happen and how it should be organised, if you fancy a preview of a future season.

Will probably peruse it as my leisure in time, but their key conclusion is at the top of the blog post:



These constitutional nerds, eh? What's wrong with a slogan on a bus?

Oh boy, these results mean the next few years are going to be fun!

Giphy "exciting constitutional tangles":
https://media4.giphy.com/media/GkEg03bKaezjG/giphy-loop.mp4

Bravo Giphy, bravo!

I was exasperated to hear Jill Mortimer on BBC Breakfast yesterday, saying the Tories were doing so well because they'd delivered on Brexit.

Yep, I'm looking forward to Johnson saying the SNPs 48% vote share doesn't give them a mandate while conveniently ignoring his own 43% vote share that was touted as "a mandate for brexit".
I still want independence, but I feel like it's really not getting any closer. (No one: .... Absolutely no one: .... Tory: NATIONALISTS NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT INDEPENDENCE!) Most interesting part to me was some of the smaller swings we saw. I was kinda expecting to see more movement away from the Tories in some areas, given the negative impacts Brexit has had on some of them. It's a little amusing to see there was basically no change in vote share - I don't think any party broke much more than a 1% country-wide voteshare difference from 2016.

I didn't expect the SNP to win a majority, but I'm definitely happy them and the greens got a few extra seats between them - it looks to me like together they achieved more than 50% of the total vote, which is definitely promising for hopes of independence! It amuses me somewhat that the Unionist voters appear to have managed to figure out tactical voting with the AMS system better than the endless "BOTH VOTES SNP" crowd. Yay, hundreds of thousands of wasted 2nd votes?

The more I think about it, the more I reckon the best thing Johnson could do right now is call Sturgeon's bluff and get it out of the way. The longer it looks like he's deliberately obstructing it, the greater the grievance, the more fuel for the SNP, and the increased likelihood of a successful poll.

As for me, emotionally the Union's over. Any argument I have against secession is now purely pragmatic rather than principled. I can't see the Tories doing anything as radical as some form of federalisation/Home Rule All Round, and the current talk of going on a Union Jack-emblazed spending spree would provide the Scots with a nice bit of infrastructure but now very unlikely to sway minds.

Yeah, I agree. It's still at best on a knife-edge, and him being all "yeah, sure!" might well nail down the stay vote. I reckon they need longer, more of the English disaffected moving, and longer fractious relations with Westminster to actually get independence. And the huge irony of it being largely the same as the Brexit farrago - a little more independence at a large financial cost - won't be lost on many, and makes voting complicated.

Just had to disappoint someone at work by pointing out that the bank holiday marked in the Outlook calendar for 2nd August is for Scotland only. I did note that I'd happily take it anyway.

Good to see Microsoft are doing more to keep the Union in tact than the Conservative & Unionist party.

Well, here's something that past me by. The government's switched the international car country sticker to "UK" from "GB" ( BBC. )

Whilst this might please the pedants that this anomaly has finally been corrected, I'm not sure that it's going to be enough to keep the country together. Smacks too much of "remember the happy times".

Those stickers are just for wankers who want to show off that they've driven on the continent, or to give the impression that they have, when they haven't.

Finding out that my number plates would be illegal in a couple of weeks is what finally made me realise how much of a victory Brexit was.

I guess that means they're now actually illegal because I haven't been and bought stickers at the post office to hide my disgusting European past.

Are they not a legal requirement when driving abroad?

Probably, but I don’t drive around with any broads in my car.

For years I thought the girl was driving the OutRun car before eventually realising it was set in a right hand drive country.

As someone who used to be given a right bollocking by my parents if I ever dared to stick my arms out of the window while in the passenger seat, the behaviour of the girl in OutRun 2 — waving her arms around with gay abandon (even at quite pedestrian driving) — used to set me on edge.

Yeah my dad always used to say that it could cause a crash because someone could mistake us for I suppose the first person since about 1953 to indicate by waving their arms out of the window.

And you could spill your beer.

Or your arm would freeze and have to be amputated.

My Dad was "done" for drink driving (or drink riding rather, he was on a motorbike) when I was a kid - so any safety lectures were always given with a healthy dash of irony.

I do get properly wound up when I see passengers sitting with their feet up on the dashboard while in motion though - they clearly don't understand what would happen to their legs if the airbag tries to force it's way through them in an accident

Knees up, Mother Brown!

I get massive amount of pain in my left knee when I sit in a car for too long.one of the best ways of alleviating that pain is for me to my put my left foot on the dash.

I do think about the airbag going off, and if It's far enough out of the way (it probably isn't), and what would happen if it wasn't.

When we had the Ford Torneo it wasn't so bad, as I could rest my foot on the wheel arch, but I've not found a comfortable position in our current car.

Do you drive, Malc?

nope

Feet on the dash is to be avoided for sure, not necessarily because of the airbag but because even in a low speed crash your arse will find it's way to the bottom of the footwell. Which is... Not Good. I've seen the pictures.

My driving instructor mostly had his feet on the dash, smoking a cigar out the window

I received the ones I ordered just this Tuesday.