Techpriest

We are about three Poasts™ away from Reform claiming the state is bloated because the DVLA employs more people than the East India Company did to run south Asia during company rule

This is more or less my view

I don't think mandatory "you must carry state issued papers on your personal at all times" is good

But the present "drivers & people who pretend they'll want to drive in a few years" as the de-facto ID system that fits in a wallet is absurc

The counterfactual timeline where ID cards didn't become Diehard Blairite coded may well be one where the UK actually introduced a sensible form of ID for both citizens and long term residents

The UK clings to the myth that ID cards were abolished after WW2 amidst popular discontent at the attempt to keep them in peace-time...

...whilst bring a country where people who never intend to drive apply for a provisional driving license purely to obtain government issued wallet-friendly ID

*pet project

Gonna go out on a limb and suggest that Blair now functions as a negative polariser for basically anything ID or civil liberties related, even if good implementations of the idea are feasible

A good way to turn 30-40% of people against an idea is for them to associate it as a Blair let project

"Sound of the summer"

2011: Party Rock Anthems (LMFAO)
2017: Despascito (Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee)
2024: Espresso (Sabrina Carpenter)

2025: Nothing Beats A Jet2 Holiday

"Sound of the summer"

2011: Party Rock Anthems (LMFAO)
2017: Despascito (Luis Fonsi & Daddy Yankee)
2024: Espresso (Sabrina Carpenter)

2025: Nothing Beats A Jet2 Holiday

a 20 dollar bill is laying on top of a 20 dollar bill ALT: a 20 dollar bill is laying on top of a 20 dollar bill

Removals companies every summer when thousands of UK resident doctors all need to move house the same week in July/August

It feels like we should be making a bigger deal of “we actually did in fact find a cure for AIDS”

The only way to explain it over here is cruises are embedded in the American psyche as "the annual summer week in the med/the canary Islands" is for Brits

I'll probably not truly quit microblogging for a while yet (been Posting™ since 2007) but I can see it's been a good thing to de-emphasise it in my life for a good long stretch

Enjoy summer, embrace whimsy, be more offline

Until the next time this place catches my attention

Peace Out

@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com achieving Sykes-Picot levels of cursed straight lines here

Also very notable that the no campaign managed to turn the tide in part by stirring up resentment in Durham, Sunderland etc at the notion of Newcastle being declared capital of the NE

Indeed, the North East (with a no campaign involving one Dominic Cummings....) actively rejected the attempt under New Lab to introduce a regional elected assembly with a measure of devolved powers

I STG if we lose Strange New Worlds because Fox News decides Vulcans are Woke or something...

10-15 mins?! The original pitch for Siri when Siri was an independence start-up pre apple acquisition was pitching something like this in *the 2000s* to be delivered near instantaneously

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

FFS I still flinched despite KNOWING it was a set up and what was coming 😂

Euro probably inherits exorbitant privilege and Canadian/Aus/NZ Dollars, Sterling and Yen end up as secondary currencies in a "Euro system"

"The year is 2030, and people in Beirut, Buenos Aires & Lagos are stuffing euro banknotes under the mattress to save hard currency"

I've been out of acute hospital land for the vast majority of my career since entering specialty training, and I haven't carried a duty bleep/pager in literal *years*...
...and yet I still flinch and look down when a bleep goes off in my vicinity or even in a fricking IG reel

Does this ever fade?!

And before someone reply guys that the proposed NE assembly was "toothless" or "nowhere near as powerful as Celtic devolution", the original Celtic devolution settlements were far weaker at the start. ScotGov was only "the Scottish executive" and the Sennedd could only make secondary legislation!

The North East turning down devolution after New Lab made significant effort to get it through in essence because "Sunderland and Durham resent the idea of Newcastle being declared capital of the NE" ranks as one of the biggest self owns in the history of English local gov

Get in, Käsespätzle made with an Alpine cheese with chili, side is a garden salad 🍜

I'd go further, felling the sycamore gap tree is worse than stabbing a random sheep

*It's akin to random pirates engaging in whaling for sport*

Feels like "Pedro Pascal is everywhere" is real when the man's turning up in adverts apparently paid for HM government lmfao

Umm...why is His Majesty's government now sponsored by the Marvel Cinematic Universe & Pedro Pascal?

The "Europoors" discourse has rather dropped off of late since "liberation day", tariff palooza and half the country's 401ks being (temporarily...for now) tanked by the head of state delivering a press conference....

What if substack introduced DMs-*dragged away kicking & screaming*