Mark 🔶

Never again can Europe trust the USA.

Never again.

New LIFE AFTER CARS live show outfit just dropped.

I should do horse racing tips
#ReformUk

While I have been generally very pleased with the results of different AI services while researching a variety of topics, this morning I asked @anthropic.com Claude to compile a short walking tour that would illustrate AT infrastructure.

The results were dire and the directions simply wrong. Odd.

Joey Barton in court *again*?!

Isn’t it time the Ministry of Justice starts charging him rent?

At the sacred centre of Ireland, thousands gather as Manchán Magan’s ashes are scattered Month’s memorial hears world will be a less kind, generous, curious and gentle place with the writer’s passing

One would be blessed to receive a fraction of the affection shown to the wonderful Manchán Magan as his ashes were scattered in the rain.

Slán leat.

www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025...

RIP Prunella Scales

I met her and Tim one evening at the Wigmore Hall while we queued for drinks at the interval. Absolutely charming.

We have lost such a wonderful actress.

The car industry has spent hundreds of millions of pounds/dollars on using advertising to promote cars.
Unfortunately it has been very very successful and today the majority believe the adverts and do love their cars.
This is despite the huge problems that cars cause - crashes, deaths, pollution..

Microsoft is “reimagining” Outlook with integrated AI.

I look forward to being able to say “Yeh bro. A pint sounds good” in 17,000 words, including quotes from Plato and Descartes and explaining the relevance of the Poincaré conjecture to the event.

One of the political dilemmas of our time is the politicians promise less and less tax, less and less spend.

While people want a quality of life that is inconsistent with rock bottom taxes.

We want good infrastructure, safe places, public health, justice, emergency services, and education.

I shared a stage with Dame Jane Goodall 20 yrs ago. She was a star; I was embarrassed to even be in her shadow, but so honoured.

But she was gracious, treated me as an equal and behind the scenes was kind, friendly, interested.

Humanity and the world’s environment have both lost a superstar. ❤️

Binge-listening to the Talking Headways podcasts of @usa.streetsblog.org.

Very American but still much of relevance to the rest of the world.

Saddened to hear of the death of Manchán Magan.
Ireland has lost a passionate and dedicated chronicler and lexicographer.

Never tire of watching Rick Stein’s programmes. Such emotion, such joy.

Just watched a YouTube podcast in which @jeffspeck.bsky.social heroically and with the utmost patience refutes the absurd arguments of pro-AV Musk bros.

They pitted their “trust me bro” evidence against Speck’s *decades* of real-world experience and real data.

Why in the name of God is @microsoft.com Word so staggeringly difficult to format properly?!

A task is taking 4 times as long to format because every single fucking time - despite setting an indent as a default for the document - it ignores it.

I cannot overstate how much I despise this product.

You can’t even escape people playing TV programmes loudly in the open on Trenitalia Frecciarossa trains by paying an extra €200 to go in Executive class.

Wtf is wrong with people?
Buy some fucking headphones.

ffs.

Genuinely surprised how many Sicilian vineyards/wineries have website that are simply broken.

Three out of three now which say they have English versions and don’t. And then the Italian site doesn’t work anyway.

The level of seatbelt use in Italy (Sicily specifically) is astonishingly low.

I thought it was about 1 in 20 drivers, but standing at a bus stop for 30 minutes, I now believe it’s no more than 1 in 50.

😳🤦🏼‍♂️🤷🏼‍♂️

Interesting graphic of the Ferrovia Circumetnea (FCE) system, looping round Mount Etna.
The map shows then rail route but also the parallel bus route.

Does this suggest that long-term the railway will disappear? Its’s already lost 20km at the Catania end.

#sicily #rail #FCE #circumetnea

Setting off on my holiday this morning.
3 weeks in Sicily. Travelling by train to Catania from Hampshire.
Well first a bus, then the ferry to Le Havre.

Guide book at my side.
#rail #nofly #sustainabletravel

To lady on 1503 Waterloo to Windsor train: wearing headphones does not silence your fart.

To reiterate.

People calling for peace are being designated as terrorists by the UK government.

Remember that authoritarians ALWAYS claim to speak for the silent majority.

Every time.

Once again, a technical problem has caused incredible transport disruption with 14 of the 24 platforms at Waterloo out of action.

It would seem that resilience is almost totally absent in the UK.

Where did it all go so wrong? How (specifically)? Why?

Cardiff driver jailed for 16 months for killing teenager Christopher West hit Keely Morgan on 1 May 2023 and she died at the scene.

Absurdly lenient sentence.

16 months in prison.

It’s been said before: if you want to kill someone, do it with a car.

The utter madness of sentencing is one of many elements driving people to more extreme political parties.

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Thrilled to see Iga Świątek winning yesterday.

A huge thing for Poland.

My digital Interrail pass (Poland only) has worked only in 1 of the first 7 trains.
I rely on the goodwill of 6 conductors/guards so far.

I hate how the iPhone is virtually unusable in bright sunshine.

It seems a huge flaw that has been problematic on iPhones for a decade.

Why though? Isn’t it occasionally sunny in California?

Travelling around rural western Poland by train.

So many single track lines with a train maybe only every 2 or 3 hours (but often with occasional intercity train too).
It’s a real investment decarbonised future travel.
Every single station seems to have money being actively spent.