And some might not. I still have unpleasant dreams about a Board conference in the late 90s my team had to set up comms for, at which the CEO threatened to downgrade our annual reports because we couldn't provide the internet he wanted.
Pointing out that his insisting the conference be hosted at a stately home in the middle of nowhere (which just happened to host his favourite 18-hole golf course AND WE NEVER MENTION THAT HARRY OKAY?) did not go down well.
]]>MegaTokyo started out as two US gamers taking a spontaneous trip to Japan and rapidly descended into one of the strangest metagames ever. It's very occasionally updated because of Fred Gallagher's health / family issues, but it's still going on.
Yet Another Fantasy Game Comic is another long running strip that's intermittently published. Rich Morris had me at "Bob the Beholder".
Punderworld is a fun take on the legend of Persephone and Hades, beautifully written and drawn by Linda Sejic. If you like dogs, I dare you not to fall in love with Cerberus.
And finally, Ari North's Always Human is a beautiful tale of two women working out if they love each other. There are body mods (an integral part to the story), off-world colonies, and an Orbital Beanstalk.
]]>To which the only sane comment is, "And thank fuck for that!"
]]>It won't, precisely because she's been fanatically single-minded about staying out of day-to-day politics. It's one of the few British institutions that nobody can ascribe any blame to for the current mess.
Charles got into a mess about 15 years ago over the "black spider letters" to then PM Tony Blair. There were regarded, and rightly IMHO, as attempts to intervene in the Government of the day.
If the monarchy's going to survive post-Liz, he'd better have learned the lessons from that. Whether it should survive is a matter for another thread, and possibly not on this blog.
]]>Got into a barney with a good friend over this op-ed: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/election-result-trump-biden-president-pardon-b1600867.html. I can understand the desire to draw a line under the last four years, hold out a hand in friendship, and try to move on. The trouble is, those to whom the hand is extended are likely to slap it aside, take magnamity for weakness, and double down on getting the younger, smarter, Trump 2.0 back in the White House in 2024. Moscow Mitch still leads the Senate and, run-offs in Georgia notwithstanding, his SOP will be to block everything Biden does just as he did with Obama.
If Biden is going to pardon Trump, there has to be a legally enforcable quid pro quo and the will to follow through when, not if, he breaks it. I'd go for making it clear that unless he openly, completely co-operates with all the investigations into his Government's conduct, there are detailed files on everything Meliana did while she was on her H1-B visa; and that children of those found to be illegal immigrants get deported too. Trump may not give a hoot about Meliana, but Barron...?
Oh well, that's not likely to happen, so I'll just enjoy the sheer pants-wetting terror of Boris et al coming to grips with Biden being wholly on the side of the Irish re. the border with the Republic. The EU now have a loaded six-gun on the table along with the Royal Flush they've been holding for a long time, and our side haven't yet twigged that Mr. Bun the Baker and a creased Pickachu won't cut it.
]]>Biden will get a clear majority of the popular vote.
Trump will do anything to make sure the votes aren't properly counted, and make sure the electoral College delivers for him.
Irrespective of who wins, there will be fallout. Expect increased "civil unrest" aided and abetted by the Blue Lives Matter uniformed brigade.
And of course Borisconi won't do a damn thing to make things better over here until he knows which ass he's going to kick.
]]>Recent events, as noted in the satirical headline "NRA Accidentally Forgets To Rise Up Against Tyrannical Government", make me think this plot needs to be added to the kill list. Or be mercilessly mocked...
]]>Meanwhile, Cummings' paymasters in the Taxpayers' Alliance continue to carve up government and pocket all the profitable bits.
If anyone has any better ideas on what to do about this other than just keep notes for future historians (I've given up on the idea that there will one day be a Committee for Truth and Reconciliation, and really don't want a Committee for Public Safety - see Iain Banks comment on "Fuck any cause...") I'd love to hear about it.
]]>And Labour is led by Jeremy Corbyn, who regards the EU as a neo-liberal Thatcherite scheme to disenfranchise the workers, trample on the working class, etc.
Those of us who voted remain, along with others who weren't allowed to vote such as then under-18s and non-British EU citizens resident in the UK, are faced with the best possibility of a second referendum to either go for the deal with May's name crossed out and Johnson's written in in crayon, or to remain in the EU.
Cambridge Analytica may be gone, but its successors are geared up to make sure that Remain doesn't happen, and they have the advantage on Facebook whose users if the care at all are overwhelmingly Leave, feeding off each others' ideas and the occasional nudge from carefully targeted ads. Facebook has more users than Twitter, which is more evenly split between Leave and Remain, but it's still too close. Plus as OGH has noted the mainstream media is overwhelmingly Leave
So be prepared for something resembling a deal to pass, then years if not decades of listening to the winners moan about why is Brexit going on after we left because we've still got to do all the trade deals to try to replace what we lost so we don't starve or die for lack of medicine...
And there I was looking towards a comfy retirement.
]]>I didn't even mention the "B" word.
]]>The odds are on that we will crash out on Friday week. Having been told that she could ask for an extension to sort things out until before the European elections on May 23rd, or for 12 months likewise, Supreme Generallisimo May has written a petulant demand to the EY for an extension to the end of June on the lines of "it's all everyone else's fault".
At this point, the EU must now regard us as a failed dictatorship whose leadership, such as it is, is inimically hostile to the EU and will if allowed to stay further Putin's dream of breaking the EU up. No matter how they may like us as individuals, they won't grant any extensions.
I hope to be proved wrong on that, but I expect that's what will happen.
On April 1st, Russia cuts itself off from the internet as an "exercise" in controlling its people from reading and broadcasting fake news. This would also protect Russia's infrastructure from any pre-planned nasties currently waiting patiently on the Internet to activate. As always, yesterday is the right time to back up your important stuff, but today will do in a pinch.
Within a few weeks, there will be food shortages. Not all foods, but a country used to everything on the shelves all year round at affordable prices will understand with their guts what the recipients of the bags of porridge oats and cheap soup they occasionally tossed into the foodbank at Tescos feel like.
There will also be shortages of some medicines and other things such as short life radioactives used to keep people alive and reasonably healthy rather than chronically ill and dead. Some of that group (or their family/friends), faced with an imminent and avoidable demise, may consider the old WWII slogan. (Not "Keep Calm and Carry On", but "You can always take one with you".)
Oh, and for some nightmare fuel, imagine what could be done using the same Arsebook / Cambridge Analytica method that brought us the referendum result being used to target that group and "team" them up with a target list...
The good news is that the sun will continue to rise and set, and that most of us have the capacity to be kind, most of the time, whatever happens.
]]>I'm currently poring over the slim volume "Getting ready together" at https://www.byline.com/column/67/article/2206 - it's written by an ex-copper with an axe to grind, but he's open about it.
NeilW @112 - community is a good thing on the whole, especially when you make at least a token effort towards it.
]]>The stand against the (highly likely, alas) disinformation campaign you posit has got to link all these and the rest together, with special notes as to their increasing frequency and intensity, with the phrase "irrespective of what's causing them, they're happening" used frequently.
Anyone appealing to Baby Cheeses Rice needs to be pointed here - IF $DEITY_MODE = YHWH, THEN UN|JUST = "fucked".
]]>