I live relatively close to an offshore wind farm as well as a number of onshore turbines. I like them and don’t feel they detract from the view - at night the red warning lights look amazing.

When the offshore ones were being planned a neighbour objected and had an artist’s impression made of the view of them from his house. It made the papers and we solidly took the piss out of him because that view would only be possible if you built a crow’s nest on a long poll right on top of his house and used binoculars.

I presume things like Partygate have eroded people’s faith in politicians and there has been quite a few attempts at voter suppression. I’d also bet that it being a sure thing for Labour, plus Starmer not exactly stoking enthusiasm, made people less likely to turn out.

The sad thing is that, with postal voting, you can box it off at your convenience well before so you need out no effort or planning into it.

I have an alibi.

That’s great to hear.

Or a bag.

Can it? i imagine it’s just differently awful.

As had been said - practice. It’s how native speakers of a language get good at it.

You can improve your vocabulary, comprehension and accent by watching TV shows and movies (I remember meeting Dutch kids on holiday who I thought were American as they learn so much from the screen), and grammar and the like can come from reading. However, that ease of conversation and the speed of your recall of words just comes from talking a lot. Try finding an intermediate to advanced language class where they insist on people talking in that language all the time.

Then on the other we’ve got Suella Braverman who is wanting to reclaim the Reform vote by becoming a more European style populist party.

She’s said how she’d like to welcome Farage into the Tory Party. I’m not sure that is still viable after some of his statements during the election but if she is intent in doubling down in the nasty party angle it might. So if she wins, and the membership tends to skew towards the awful.end of the spectrum, I wouldn’t be surprised at merger negotiations which I bet Farage would jump at as it gives him his road to greater power.

I think he’d have done better in the election if he had.

I use Calibre.

So no-one else to blame BoJo 🤡? Perhaps someone who spent their time in office dicking about causing the deaths of thousands and eroding trust in politics for a generation?

Some time around the Iraq War he passed a kind of morality event horizon.

It’s why I’ve never been allowed to meet him, despite him being a friend of the family. I might say I’d be diplomatic as I don’t wish to upset any relatives but I know I may not be able to stick to that and so does my family.

Blair needs to stop sticking his oar in and give the new government time and space to crack on with fixing the mess left by the Tories. I’m sure ministers have better things to do than shoot down his bad ideas.

As she also favours bringing Farage into the Tory party…

It’s handy because it also covers Star Wars and Warhammer 40k.

Good to see she has learnt all the wrong lessons from that and her pitch for leadership is “we need to be more awful”.

That almost makes him sound cool, they should have mentioned this more. Especially the bit about his father’s career.

The key green issue on people’s minds at the moment is the water quality scandal.

Unrelated. Given the fact that I am a big fan of Star Wars, people often assume it’s that but it’s actually a reference to Flash Gordon. The nickname predates the Web and so, when it came to pick a username for things I went with that.