David Hughes

To use iPlayer these days, you have to log into it and tick a box saying "I have a TV license". I don't know whether they use this for TV license enforcement, though - although I'd be surprised if they don't.

You are aware, I take it, that the BBC broadcasts unencrypted television over the airwaves, and that you'd deny a load of people access to television if you did that?

Other than that, perfectly reasonable suggestion.

Several things can be true at once.
(a) An increase of £5.50 a year isn't a lot.
(b) The TV license fee is just under £3.50 a week.
(c) It is, however, a massively regressive way of paying for the BBC. It would be fairer to just abolish the license fee and increase income tax.

I don't know why I'm digitising old episodes of The Archers that have been recorded on these tapes by accident given that I really don't care for it.

You listen to any episode of The Archers made between 1979 and the present day and it sounds exactly the same.

You have impeccable taste.

Ooh. The assassination of Airey Neave and the pending execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. So. 1979.

I'm hoping that there'll be a news bulletin on the tape after this, because that's always fascinating.

They're talking about Dutch elm disease. That was very much a going concern in the 80s.

Doing digital back-ups of a box of cassettes that my dad gave me. I am currently listening to an episode of Gardener's Question Time which sounds like it might have been from the 70s or 80s.

("And if we happen to make bank on it then that's just an unfortunate and regrettable consequence of our commitment to freedom of expression.")

“I just want to make it clear that we don’t like Nazis either – we wish no one held those views. But some people do hold those and other extreme views. Given that, we don’t think that censorship (including through demonetising publications) makes the problem go away – in fact, it makes it worse."

I just finished watching Sapphire & Steel's first assignment. The show defies categorisation, really, but it's quite brilliant!
youtu.be/HdY4iD8oet8?...

Actually, now that I think of it, ITV have never really gone in for repeating the classics.

I'm very glad to see that it's being made more widely available. It seems crazy to me that they've never repeated it on television, given that it's one of the most highly acclaimed telefantasy series that they've ever made.

I would take an even harder line: anyone found to be engaging in electoral malpractice ought to be disqualified.

The problem, though, is that (as far as I know) the worst thing that is likely to happen is that they get a fine. And they'll just take the financial hit and carry on; there's not sufficient deterrent to not engage in such dirty tricks.

Oh my - that's typical me - the obvious answer staring me in the face and yet I failed to see it. haha.

What is AM in the context? (I'm guessing it's not "amplitude modulation".)

I mean, yeah: I've just come across an article he wrote for the Torygraph saying that we should be building tactical nukes to deter the Russians, and that strikes me as quite, quite mad. So fair enough on that score!

Strongly suspect that you could tell him about the safety angle and he'd dismiss it as "woke", or something.

I'd almost rather that you pick on him for him having a silly posh name; him being an expert on chemical weapons doesn't mean he's in favour of their use. Only a handful of countries are thought to have chemical weapons, and the UK isn't one of them.

You make a reasonably good joke* on Facebook about Your Party standing two candidates - one pro-Corbyn and one pro-Sultana - in the upcoming by-election and it doesn't take long before the more humourless bits of the left get on your back.

* If I say so myself.

She definitely did; but, while at the same time, calling for "flexing our muscles in Wales". She seems a bit confused.

But when has that ever happened? They have always been extremely rare events - because of the cost involved to their participants - even at times when participation in organised labour movements was high.

I got an RTL-SDR dongle for Christmas. I've always wanted a shortwave radio, so I'm made up. With my modest set-up I mostly find myself picking up China Radio International and Radio Romania International, both of which are extremely strong signals (here in the UK).

I don't know if this is intentional, but that Bonnie Blue opinion piece ("I Stand with Nigel Farage") in the Spectator is pretty much a collection of disparate random thoughts with little connection between them.

(Which, I would say, is not a completely unproblematic point, but not for the reasons that she's claiming.)

I was expecting her article to make some substantive points, but she just droned on about the boob hypnotism thing, and - I think - wilfully misunderstood a point Polanski made about unenviable jobs often being done by immigrants.

And I'm not convinced that hypnotherapy isn't something akin to applied use of the placebo effect. This person tells me that I will stop drinking (or whatever). I feel empowered to stop drinking. Therefore I stop drinking.