The supreme court has ruled that Boris Johnson's advice to the Queen that parliament should be prorogued for five weeks at the height of the Brexit crisis was unlawful.
Source The Grauniad
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Category Archives: Random Randomness
Another Blow for de Pfeffel
Scottish appeal court judges have declared Boris Johnson’s decision to suspend parliament in the run-up to the October Brexit deadline is unlawful.
The three judges, chaired by Lord Carloway, Scotland’s most senior judge, overturned an earlier ruling that the courts did not have the power to interfere in the prime minister’s political decision to prorogue parliament./p>
From The Grauniad
I admit, the following images I stole from a politics forum. But it's too good not to share!
Continue readingNot a Good Start, de Pfeffel!
Haha, hahaha! I predicted he could be the beginning of the end of the Nasty Party! Oh this is brilliant! I've had a pretty crappy few weeks, but watching the blond buffoon crashing and burning never fails to make smile!
Source: @mrchrisjohn (twitter)
First week not even over yet, but he's already had one MP cross over to the opposition benches during his speech; he booted out 21 rebels, leaving him with a majority of minus 43; he lost all 3 votes in the Commons; was made mincemeat out of in his first PMQs; his own brother left his cabinet; and now his closest friend in the cabinet has resigned from the cabinet AND the party (majority: -45!). He's the gift that keeps on giving!
Continue reading Presidente, I Believe Some of Your People May be Calling for an Election This Year…
I don't usually talk politics on this blog, but today should really be a day of national mourning in the UK. Racist, islamophobic, mendacious, disingenuous bumbling buffoon de Pfeffel Johnson has been selected as the nation's Chief Clown.
My only hope is he loses a vote of no confidence, we get a general election with the remain parties forming an alliance and this whole sorry mess can be over and done with. Of course, despite the open goal, our Red Brexiteer Corbyn could well throw the election. Britain is a sorry mess.
On the other hand, if this is what it takes to end Bozo and the Tories once and for all, then maybe it's all been worth it. The tory majority is already hanging by a very fine thread, backbench rebels are going to be a massive headache for our Glorious Leader and the whole thing could be entertaining to watch. If it destroys Nigel Farrij's political career at the same time, even better.
Don’t Dig Your Garden!
Something I've been reading about recently is no-dig gardening. So you've probably been told by every book, TV show, grandparent or gardener that digging is absolutely essential for gardening. But this is not true! Digging actually damages the soil. Have a look at these links:
Having healthy plants is more about having healthy soil. Look after the soil, and the plants will look after themselves.
Don't believe me? Who's digging up the forest soil for all that growth?
Speaking of which, I finally got round to green manuring a patch of the garden. I didn't have much luck with winter rye last time round, so this time I tried field beans. I had a germination rate of 100%, plus I got a decent amount of growth from November to February. I had a vague memory of reading an article saying to cut the plants down, then cover with cardboard (even though every other article I've seen does the digging spiel). So that's what I've done. It will take about a month to decompose, and we'll see how the soil is after. But yes, cut and drop. Leave the roots buried, and let the foliage sit on the soil. The worms will do all the work.
I didn't plant them densely enough, plus I should have planted them earlier. So next year I'm hoping I can do the whole border, starting early October and I'll plant them way more densely. Oh another problem I had was the blasted squirrel kept digging them up. For why, I have no idea. Probably just to annoy me. Blessed squirrel also broke my squirrel-proof feeder. Damn you, écu, damn you.
How Many Things am I Allergic to?
After over four years of waiting, I finally got hold of some eggs from Stepney Farm! I gave up eggs shortly after giving up dairy, because I love baby chicks and knowing that every time I ate an egg, a baby chick was going to be killed was enough to make me stop. Stepney Farm takes in rescue hens, and they have cockerels too. I've visited a few times, and they are open six days a week, so anyone can go and see how they treat their animals. I'm satisfied they are taking good care of their chickens, and they spread awareness about the cruelty that's still legal in the EU.
I was planning on using some of their eggs to make a vanilla cake, because, let's face it, vegan vanilla cakes suck. Instead I ended up having egg and chips for three days.
And I really wish I didn't.
Continue readingRandom Thought No.682: The Word “Name”
Isn't it strange how the word "name" is so similar in many languages?
All the languages I've studied to a greater or lesser extent:
- English: NAME
- French: NOM
- Portuguese: NOME
- Irish: AINM
- Italian: NOME
- Gujarati: NAAM
- Japanese: NAMAE
- Finnish: NIMENI
I mean, Japanese and Finnish aren't even related to any of the other languages on this list (nor to each other, of course). But you still have the pattern of an N sound followed by an M sound.
These are what I looked up on bing translate:
- Spanish: NOMBRE
- Swedish: NAMN
- Romanian: NUME
- Indonesian: NAMA
- Greek: Όνομα (onoma?)
- German: NAMEN
Of course, while looking these up, I found quite a few that didn't follow the pattern. Even so, I've always found this pattern to be very interesting! Are there any other words you know that are similar across multiple, even unconnected, languages?
Blast from the Past: Piranha Hints and Soundtrack!
I guess I don't give my PC enough credit. Not only did I get Piranha to run, I also managed to record the soundtrack without any (well very little and easily fixable) skipping. While I wait for the mp3s to upload, here are some PROTIPS for you:
Piranha Pro-Tips
Continue readingRob Blanc! ROB BLANC! And Childhood Gaming Nostalgia
I downloaded the Rob Blanc games and some others by Yahtzee a year or two ago, but alas, modern technology and all that. And while I do still have a Windoze 98 box, it's a lot of trouble to get out, so these games have been gathering metaphorical dust on my D drive, until I was like, oh yeah! DOS Box! Duhhhhh.
Continue reading Photobucket Disables Hotlinking
Just noticed my Photobucket images have been replaced with a ransomware! Okay, well an extortion to pay up if I want to see my images on this blog and my storybooks again.
My response to you, Photobucket: Arkell vs Pressdram.
Rather than watching the money come rolling in, Photobucket is going to see its users leave in droves! Nice one, PB! Are you taking lessons from EA?
More info:
- PhotoBucket now charges $399 for third-party hosted images
- Photobucket alternatives for third-party hosted images
- Info for Bloggers
Update
Looks like someone got a clue. Photobucket has a new CEO, who is making an effort to fix things:
https://your.photobucket.com/lp-101618/link dead
Photobucket Introduces New Management Team and Pricing Plan
Photobucket still has your photos, and it wants you to come back
So our images are no longer ransomwared, but we have to put up with a massive (despite what they say) watermark. I can live with that, I guess. At least it's a step in the right direction. I mean $400 a year, as if!
Update 2021
I'm getting emails most days telling me my account is above the limit, as it seems you can only host 250 images now without paying. I don't use Photobucket for anything other than my Sims stories and some of my Dreamsong pics, so no thanks, but there are several hundred photos on there (my stories were long!). Let it die. There are better alternatives out there.
Lenovo Tab3 7 Review
No, I'm not reviewing the same product twice. My last review was for the Tab3 7 Essential, which had major battery problems. I purchased that one from Argos, who kept me waiting almost 6 weeks, until I got fed up and went in person to ask what was going on, only to be told that there had been "complications" in getting it to the repair service, which my sister said was code for "one of the staff nicked it". Well good luck to whoever did, if that is the case. May the tablet die on you at the most inconvenient times.
Continue readingLearning to Let Go
A Short Story
It was a little over two years ago that I returned to my home town after many years' absence. Walking down my old street, I stopped outside my childhood home, noticing the For Sale sign.
On the outside, at least, it was mostly the same. Money had been tight when we lived there, and the paintwork wanted redoing, the pebble-dash had chipped off, exposing the brickwork. Now, the new owners had restored the old Victorian terrace to its former glory, no longer the shame of the street.
I gazed up at all three floors, remembering. I felt a longing, a pining, to spend a few minutes in my place, to experience a small taste of my former happiness, to feel, just for a moment, that simple childhood innocence.
Continue readingLenovo Tab3 7 Essential Review
Yes, I finally got round to buying a tablet, as this computer (see the review) is so painfully slow. I really just wanted something to browse the net with, access my emails without having to load up my PC or the inevitable crash if using this fossil of a phone my parents donated to me.
Now what I will say is that the Tab3 is more powerful than my PC. It can actually handle Youtube and web-browsing without crying. I installed a few language-learning apps on it, the more functional tablet-version of Telegram, and they work fine. The screen res is nice, the display is crisp and clear. The cameras probably suck, though I never used them much.
Now I have to qualify all that by saying the battery causes all sorts of problems. It frequently Continue reading
Free Scrapbook Printables
Here are some printable graphics I made for a couple of scrapbooks I'm making. Some of them are completely original, some are recreations of elements I saw in other people's work. If anything looks too similar to a graphic you are the copyright holder of, just let me know, and I'll take it down. Some graphics use shapes/textures from openclipart.org, morguefile.com, webtreats.mysitemyway.com and another free graphics site, but I can't remember which one 🙁
These are thumbnails. Click to see full-size. Right-click > Save Link As... to save the image. You can use these for digital scrapbooks, too, but you might want to add a drop-shadow. These were really designed for my physical scrapbooks. You might need to play around with your printer settings. I recommend creating a test-sheet first so you can see how colours translate from the screen to paper. I find that a gsm of between 100 and 130 is best for scrapbook graphics.
TOU: Non-commercial use only. Feel free to create derivative works for sharing, just don't claim credit as entirely your own. You don't have to link here, just don't pretend you made it from scratch.
Continue readingDuolingo Review plus Supplemental Notes for Irish!
(Clicky here to go straight to the supplemental Irish notes)
I've been studying Irish using Duolingo for 72 days now and I will say that I quite like it. Having said that, it has plenty of flaws. I started off on the app version, as going to the website on mobile was all ZOMG APP!!111 so I didn't even realise there was a web version at first.
The first thing I noticed was the lessons were not even lessons: they're just drills. The first few "lessons" were okay, but once it got to the more complex concepts, like lenition and eclipsis, there was no way on Earth I could have got the concept relying on the app alone. There was talk of a "Tips and Notes" section in the lesson discussions, only it turns out the most useful part of a language programme (i.e. the actual teaching bit) is completely omitted from the app and only available on the web version, which to me is a really, really big flaw.
Continue reading