Schrödinger's Prat

The sun is shining, kids are running around the park, someone has their window open blasting summery music in the background...... If movies have taught me nothing else, something very, very, very bad is about to happen.

Every British TV series is, like, "It ran for 1 season of 4 episodes and 13 Christmas Specials from 1992 to 2018. The scene where Bonko encounters a fly was voted 'funniest moment ever' 22 years running in an Channel 4 poll. The 1997 revival for Comic Relief inexplicably featured Tom Cruise, playing himself. In 2002 it was remade for an American audience. The remake recieved mostly negative reviews, yet ran for 7 season, totalling 128 episodes."

One of my friends kids is giving a lot of consideration to quiting Girl Guides over their policies. I'm not sure I can ever forgive anyone in the chain of events that led to this, because I don't think an 11 year old should have to weigh up possibly not seeing certain friends ever again and losing one of their only youth club outlets.

Look, even if you don't care about queer/trans people, you're 38, Ashley. Your Hogwarts letter isn't coming. Read a second book.

I think testing a wankpanser on UK streets with a plate that looks a little like "CSAM" is a bit on the nose.

Good morning and god bless to everyone who works in hotel room servicing and poses kids stuffed toys on the bed when they're done cleaning. ❣️

"Hi Chris, no rush, but can you make this complex adjustment to the module mapping app?"

**Done 15 minutes later**

"Hi Chris, it's important that you email this academic to get information about an online course."

**Done 3-7 business months later...**

The kid is getting into Horrible Histories, which is great, but she's worried we might not be able to find the live Prom version because "it's a very, very old programme".

And I'm, like, "now listen here, you little-"

Maybe if Willy Wonka didn't dodge his taxes, hide his operation from health and safety inspectors, and used local labour instead of imported black market indentures, little Charlie Bucket's family wouldn't have been starving. *taps side of head*

I do hope these poor people are freed from the yoke of an oppressive, totalitarian regime ran by barbaric religious fundamentalists.

And also freedom to the Iranians, too.

Introducing the child to different versions of Les Misérables, though fortunately not the version labelled "when mummy and daddy's friends have had some wine and it's 11pm and someone opened the piano".

I will be fascinated to see the Venn diagram of "People who say 'You should just go without your flat screens and your coffees!' in response to things like houses being unaffordable", "People who think Donald Trump is a genius and doing the right thing" and "People who would absolutely kick the fuck off if faced with price spikes and shortages of something as literally optional as pre-packaged meat products".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpvxp4xnrwdo

Right-wing talking heads posture themselves as debate winners, using confident language aimed to persuade you that they're correct. Usually they do this by talking fast and authortively on any subject they're requested to opine on. They're often wrong, or shallow, but the rhetoric has been fine-tuned to appear intelligent, and well-thought through.

On a completely unrelated note, AI-generated content seems to be preferred on the political right for some mysterious reason...

I know my child's accent is batshit, but she's talking to a kid from LA and decided to slip into this weird Disney Channel Generican voice. Even switching to "my mom".

Further signs that this hotel I'm in may be a bit more plush than I'm used to:

A black SUV pulled up to the front and a guy stepped out wearing obvious wired earpiece.

Very fun to have spent three hours stress *and* fever dreaming about the national ⚠️Emergency Alert ⚠️ system being triggered, but it coming with absurdist riders like it having the entire country copied into the CC, not BCC, field, or someone accidentally attaching the hotel's dessert menu to it.

The reason Louis Theroux is the perfect pick for a manosphere documentary is that those goons think they're absolute geniuses. They believe they've seen through the matrix, they think they've beaten a system at its own game. When, in reality, they're actually pretty stupid.

Theroux isn't stupid. But he often acts it in documentaries (with guy curiosity of a toddler that's about to cause chaos) so, naturally, those influencers would yap away at him to try show how much cleverer they are.

While there are plenty of options for the government to nationalise our water companies, even for zero cost, I think the most entertaining one would be to note the raw sewage spillages, and seize the assets under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

I still can't believe that "The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum" is a real movie title and not a fan poster made on a cracked copy of Photoshop CS2 in the '00s.

What next? They're going to name a Star Wars series "The Return of Obi-Wan", or name a new Star Trek series "Sisko's Revenge", or do a Harry Potter spin-off called "The Secrets of Dumbledore"?

I missed who was being interviewed on the BBC, but he said "we should do this mute often!"

We should. Why do we continue to let garbage people suck up the attention and oxygen when this is possible?

I'm genuinely interested in how many Secret Service agents have thought about it and how they deal with that.

It may not bet morally praise-worthy, but it is morally obligatory to punch Sam Altman in the face of you ever meet him.

I know we all hate Nick Clegg for Reasons, but he's by no means the architect of why #UKHE funding is a messy bitch of a system.

The moment it was switched to the 'top up' system (a Blair/Brown thing) the problems started. VCs said "Oooh, infinitity money! Let's put half-billion-pound campus builds on the credit card!" and the finances started to stink. While stopping inflationary increases, which is why we're shedding staff, dates back to Theresa May.