Stephen Day

To be fair, in A Christmas Carol, it's a turkey which Scrooge sends to the Cratchits

This Labour government is despicable.

Would anyone have an idea of how to contact the author Simon Bradley (Pevsners, Saint Pancras Station, Bradley's Railway Guide, etc.)? Google isn't being particularly helpful, not the websites of any of his publishers. Any help gratefully received!

As a vicar in the Church of England, I entirely agree.

Presumably the real problem is not the purchase, but the ongoing upkeep.

£45,000? I thought they'd missed a zero!

BAKEOFF!!

According to clear sky, I'm blocked by 18 people, with a whole bunch happening on 31st May last year. Oddly, from the bios that I can see, they're all people I would agree with on most things! Bizarre...

Well, yes. You have a point! I'm not convinced, though, that many of the more recent crop are quite so heavy on the comedy and light on the horror as those.

A rose by any other &c. &c.

That's rather uncharitable - make more space for pedestrians by narrowing the roads instead.

☹️ Caught early, and with the right treatment, it has a very good prognosis, though.

I keep seeing films describes as "comedy horror". No. Just no.

Also right-wing Evangelical church stuff in the Church of England.

I never had a real curry (nor a pizza) till I was 18. We had some horrible slop at school that they called curry, which I loathed, and which convinced me that I 'didn't like curry'. Happily I had some friends who took me to a proper curry house and made me try it!

Anyone remember Noel Stanton and his "Army"? Same vibes with added nazism...

Um, in a means and needs based tax and public services system half the people in the system *should* almost by definition get more back than they put in?

Ministry Development Review forms

That's a *phase*??

If my parishes wanted to use the vicarage garden for functions they would have to offer to do the gardening...

are fearful that by 'fighting fire with fire' they may suffer the same fate, albeit in the opposite political direction (depending on the presenting issue).
Partly also because extremists are frequently vicious, violent nutcases (or associated with them) and who wants to get self or family killed?

I wonder. I wonder whether reasonable people are afraid to call out extremist views *partly* because they've seen previously apparently reasonable people sucked up their own arses into insane extremism (through whatever combination of carelessness, echo-chambers, deliberate manipulation, etc.) and

An article from the Guardian featuring a picture of Tony Blair, with a headline "Can the old-but-new NHS league tables revive the health service?"

No, because competition in healthcare is ridiculous and stupid, and the notion of choice is considerably more complicated than it's made out to be.
Next.

The late Iain M Banks had a hugely optimistic view that "AI" could be both hugely powerful and highly benevolent. I haven't ever read anything by him explaining why his Minds were this way.

Ah, just got to this! Yes, agree totally - he could have nailed it if he'd just slowed down a fraction and been more careful.

We were sad about Kit going out. But when he talked so breezily about not needing a pattern to make the Plus Fours, I said to my wife "overconfidence" - it's what always does for them.

Can they censor thousands of middle fingers?

I felt like that visiting Florence: to be touching distance from Botticelli's Spring, Fra Angelico's Annunciation, Ghiberti's Baptistery doors, and the Palazzo Vecchio was viscerally affecting.

Something with 'f's and 'k's in it, anyway.