bickster

A few of the flowers have started to bloom now

You absolute pocket billiardists, man-bag, man-bag is the answer

It wasn't even that cheap in the 80s

I think you might be surprised at how many countries stick with Russia

Wordle 1,053 4/6*

Unlike the Tory Party

Well, I suspect that was a stunt. Typical Johnson

It’s true. The whole voter ID thing was designed so that it was easier for older people to vote with ID than younger people. Guess which demographic votes Tory. It was an attempt to suppress the votes of the demographic that largely doesn’t vote Tory. But guess what, it backfired because young people tend to have ID, passports, driving licences etc, because they have to show them regularly to get into clubs, get served alcohol etc. Young people are also by and large less forgetful. Its so far completely backfired on them

This could have gone in the unpopular opinions thread I think but…. 6Music had a whole day dedicated to a “deep dive” into the the 35 year anniversary of the released of The Cure's seminal album Disintegration and a lot the the music I heard day took me right back, a lot of it is in my collection from my DJ days and I suddenly thought, I don’t think I’ve ever heard he album, it completely passed me by. Listening to all the people talking about it and how important an album it was to them etc made me go and listen to it, I was prepared to hunt down a vinyl copy if I liked it, after all I'm a big fan of the first 4 albums and do indeed own others besides Thank the vinyl gods I didn’t bother, what a load of turgid bollocks. That drum sound, it’s like they went into the studio and diligently recorded the drums and then said make them sound like we recorded it at a festival, that intense drumming really worked on Pornography it was the very definition of the album but it still sounded like a studio album, Disintegration sounds like the drums were mixed by someone quite high on either cannabis or LSD, it’s that weird 80s drum production with loads of echo dumped on top. There is a great album in there but chucking all the delicate bits like strings and such in there with booming drums just ruins the whole thing. Great album trying to escape from a drug haze imo, it’s really not what people say it is. Anyway, if you like it that’s great but it’s really not for me

Oh Aldi's cheapo version of Tunnocks wafers are pretty much on the nose if they are a copy

If we.re talking staples like own brand baked beans, yep doesn’t matter where you buy them from, they are pretty much the same apart from the big brands If someone was to tell me the big bags of crisps in M&S were the same as Lidl, I'd show that person they had no taste buds or critical faculties Chorizo ring, the cheaper you get them, the saltier they are bleach, yep I'll buy that, bleach is bleach Sultana cookies, not a chance in hell the Lidl ones are the same as M&S Im just riffing here on the products I know But I’ve said it before, grass fed steaks in Lidl are superb but most of their meat and fish is inferior in quality to the high end, not sure about the likes of Tesco as I stopped buying meat from there decades ago after the maggot incident sometimes you get what you pay for, sometimes cheapest is best Chocolate bars, Aldi beats Lidl, they both beat the rest (milk chocolate) not so much on the dark, I prefer M&S

Yep, I don’t see even the slightest shred of evidence for the claim. It just isn’t there. I think it’s a tactic to try and get their “voters on strike” out to vote and to pull votes back from Reform. They seem to think that voter apathy only affected them and that simply isn’t true, some areas of Liverpool had a turnout of around 20% for the mayoral election and they definitely weren’t stay at home Tories. Turnout was low everywhere. Their stay at home voters are just as likely to be voting Labour / Reform / LibDem at the General Election as they are genuine stay at home Tories. They are also very likely to make up a large proportion of he don’t know cohort in the polls. The longer this goes on now, the lower their vote share will be

Very few wars are religious. Religion is the tool to get the people onside.

Great advert for smoking

The BBC has been pushing all kinds of demonstrably untrue agendas since election results were starting to be announced. There has been a lot of shouting at the telly in our house and most of it was the missus The ludicrous projected share of the vote stat has been at the heart of some of it etc.

They have but I don’t think it’s a very big factor at all tbh. The LibDems aren’t gaining votes in areas where that stance would be a factor.

Actually, there’s very little work to do there. It’s an absolutely nothing job, they have very little power and a minuscule budget

Told by whom?

You want a party to elect people that will annoy the leader of the party in the run up to an election? An election where the country clearly wants rid of the ruinous 14 year reign of the Tory Party. It’s just a very strange tangent you’re on You've started off talking about individuals, I think there are plenty of those in elected positions in the Labour Party but somehow that has translated individuals into being antagonistic by definition Your thought process is somewhat odd, in fact it seems at odds with itself No individuals, name someone who demonstrably fits that definition, no one's I like. That may not be it, but it certainly comes across that way.

She probably holds the world record for resigning on principal, who mentioned antagonistic?

Only yesterday, the Labour Party were happy to put Jess Phillips up as their spokesbod at the count in Birmingham for the BBC In case you didn’t know, Jess Phillips resigned (again) from the Shadow Cabinet over Gaza, yet Labour were happy for her to speak on their behalf As far as I'm aware, Starmer only got rid of people who had absolutely no place in the Labour Party in the first place, the cranks and the tankies, the trots and the like. They were mainly members and organisers of proscribed organisations. if by getting rid of them you mean he made them electable, then yes he did. If you want to see what a political party with a really broad church actually looks like, then have a look at the Tories and the SNP. But the no dissent at all bit? No I really don’t think that is true. There’s plenty of evidence to the contrary, as others have pointed out, Burnham, Rotherham, Khan… even as far back as October 25% of the MPs had publicly called for a Gaza ceasefire, yet they haven’t been deselected or removed from the party I also presume being as this is the Labour Party that Richard Parker went through a democratic selection process amongst the membership

Game over, I'm drowning my sorrows by having a bath The Orb…

Do you have a copy of it?

Police and Thieves = Junior Murvin Bonafide reggae classic. Lee Scratch Perry at the controls. The Clash were listening.