bickster

So I started the morning with some post-Portishead motorik tunes from Beak>'s second album Beak>>

This really isn't what happened. Labour got more votes in Wellingborough than they did in the 2019 election on a massively reduced turnout

End term by-elections turnouts for constituencies that will not exist in their current form at the next election and for the most unpopular government since polling began is not a guide to Tory apathy, that's the narrative the Tories themselves put about Tory apathy is rarely a thing, the Tories are the ones that traditionally do vote, its the Labour vote that is more likely apathetic (historically) hence the old idea that Labour needed good weather to have a bumper vote etc. Hardcore nutters clearly voted, if any party got the most of their voters out it was Reform. Former Tory voters may well have been apathetic, possibly because they didn't know which way to go, come the general election, I don't think the percentages for Tory and Labour in those seats will change much

Wordle 977 4/6*

Anyway, I was just looking around Wikipedia after the above discussion and discovered that the countryside and free access campaigner John Bainbridge was brought up in Great Barr, he lived at 15 Ray Hall Lane when he was a kid and went to the same schools as me, which means he was in the very first intake at Grove Vale Primary School, which in turn means there was a very good chance he was taught by my mother, as she joined the school at its inception. Anyway, a very interesting man and serial trespasser, look him up especially if you like walking and Devon.

Also why have they referred the Nottingham knife attack case to the court of appeal because the sentence was too lenient? He'll be in a mental institution for the rest of his natural life. Are they really saying the three psychologists whose reports the CPS commissioned got it wrong, that the man is actually sane? Yet more headline grabbing distraction bollocks

So Cleverley has just sacked the Borders Watchdog via a Zoom call. Fell out after some reports were critical, the reports are unpublished. Well I'm sure there'll be a clamour from journalists and the opposition to have them published now you dumb bastard He was due to step down in a month anyway

See postcodes, your address has nothing to do with your local authority. Pear Tree Rd, great Barr, Birmingham, B43 is a postal address, it’s in Sandwell

Doubt it, I'm not a fan of sterile boring International football

No, like I said up thread, postcodes have absolutely nothing to do with councils. B postcodes just mean the mail delivery comes from the Birmingham Postal District. Postcodes are entirely an invention of the Post Office (Prior to Royal Mail split) and they only reflect their organisation. Other than that they mean nothing

A cynic would say that Birmingham didn't want the mental hospital so thought it more appropriate for it to be in Walsall (but it had closed before the 1974 Local government reorganisation that changed the boundaries)

I'm convinced they moved that border because part of the ground used to be in Brum and not just the car park In Liverpool the council move what they consider to be a suburb all the time to improve the house prices. They can never explain why West Allerton Station is now in Mossley Hill Lots of examples of that here

Sandwell goes both sides of the Scott Arms all the way up to the Whitecrest Estate, Pheasey and that new(ish) estate on the old St Margarets Hospital is the part of traditional GB that's in Walsall I've never announced that I'm from Great Barr Sandwell either, nor do I know anyone that ever has. The postal address is Birmingham for all of those places

See Great Barr above, not even that unusual

Great Barr can be in Birmingham, Sandwell or Walsall, all got B43 postcodes. Postcodes have absolutely nothing to do with local authorities, just to which postal district delivers the mail

Barr Beacon is Walsall

As if the Bob Marley one wasn't annoying enough

Musk isn't that cash rich either though is he?

Things I know about this Salty Bay person He can't cook steak He covers it in shit loads of salt He covers it in gold Charges a fortune And now that he cant even cut meat. I have no idea what he/she/it/they looks like, I don't intend to find out. All this information has been gleaned from VT, I've never encountered him anywhere else

Yeah there's a Liverpool Post one too, its been going a couple of years now. Pretty similar set up story

Blackpool South by-election incoming. Scot Benton lost his appeal against his 35 day suspension from the HoC for lobbying irregularities.

There will be a lot of Tory MPs looking for work in the not to distant future

Only pedants like me discuss such things, most people will concentrate on wokery gone mad / stupid name for a railway line etc. The only thing I dislike them for is the breaking of the naming conventions but they already did that with the Jubilee and Elizabeth lines anyway. The naming and map variations did need to be done though I think Though I did rather like the unofficial name for the Suffragette line - the Goblin Line (Gospel Oak to Barking Line)

Fun Fact about the new Overground line names The Suffragette line AKA the Goblin line (Gospel Oak to Barking Line) has a statue of Millicent Fawcett as its symbol She was a suffragist, not a suffragette.

Yeah I know all that. It's still turgid noodling