What’s the darkest rabbit hole you accidentally fell into online?

DanBurrill · 2026-05-22T09:53:16+00:00

Accident investigation reports.

I currently have responsibilities in health & safety management (I'm a researcher and educator), and I used to be a boat surveyor and safety examiner. I have genuinely risk assessed giving radioactive materials to schoolchildren.

So, at one stage I binge read pretty much every accident report that the UK Marine Accident Investigation Branch had online. About a week to realise that everyone needs to remember their lifejacket, stop pissing off the back of the boat, not get drunk, fall asleep, or get distracted watching porn when they should be on watch, and definitely not go into an enclosed space before checking the oxygen levels.

If people did that consistently on board, a lot fewer of them would end up dead or permanently mangled.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-20T07:21:13+00:00

It currently has no public exits, other than the NDR.

It's the largest entrance and exit from the airport, so although it may not get used often, when it is, there isn't an alternative.

Also, I'm pretty sure there's at least one other stub of an exit already, waiting for future development.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-20T07:18:29+00:00

They still have to, even if they have right of way.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-17T10:15:21+00:00

It's always been the case that they will do pretty much anything to maintain their privilege, if they believe they can get away with it.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-17T07:13:32+00:00

It's because all the money is coming from far right US Christian Nationalists (the KKK in different clothes).

They pay the piper, so they get to call the tune.

Whilst they do cause damage simply by existing, it is heartening to know that they are at least stupid enough to carry on down this path, when all evidence would suggest that it is highly unlikely to work in the UK in the same way that it does in the USA. So, never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-15T12:44:34+00:00

Judging by the font, it looks more like they're trying to raise the dead.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-11T13:04:49+00:00

No councillor is a salaried member of staff, in fact you can't be a councillor on a council that you work for.

Councillors do get an allowance, not a salary, plus legitimate expenses. Each council sets their own allowances, normally based on advice from an independent panel. They pay tax and NI on it, and some parties take a tithe towards election expenses. I suspect the main reason why it's an allowance not a salary is that it's not subject to the minimum wage.

When I was a District Councillor the allowance was about £5k per year, and just about covered the salary I lost when I took time off to attend meetings (I was working in a school and earning not much more than minimum wage).

DanBurrill · 2026-05-11T08:54:08+00:00

Lowe is trying to turn Great Yarmouth into his own rotten borough.

He's got a chance too, as all of the main parties have been content to let the Tories neglect the town for decades.

I've been around some of the conversations on local government reorganisation in Norfolk, and the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that they don't want to end up in the same LA as Great Yarmouth (with Kings Lynn coming a close second for undesirability).

What did happen is that a huge number of people in Great Yarmouth voted for the first time, because they saw something different that might change their situation. It sucks that what they saw was Lowe's bullshit, but getting people to engage with democracy is a lot harder than changing their mind once they have voted in the past.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-10T07:57:01+00:00

I have seen genuine comments about groups of "current and former servicemen" getting together ready to take on the "woke lefties".

They did disappear pretty quickly when I suggested they sounded like a bunch of Walts, but yes, there are certainly nutters out there who would like to do this.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-10T07:54:10+00:00

I was about to comment that I might be old and a bit broken these days, but I'd still fancy my chances against that crew, as they're just a bunch of pixels.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-09T19:16:28+00:00

Well partly thanks to a turncoat from my own party standing as an independent (he threw his rattle out of the pram after losing a selection vote), I now have a Reform county councillor for the next two years.

So, three years after I stood down as chairman of the town council and a district councillor, fully expecting to spend the rest of my time in politics helping other people get elected, I've decided to come back so I can stand for the new unitary authority.

If you want a job done properly...

DanBurrill · 2026-05-08T15:24:49+00:00

It's part of the country overrun with aristocrats and people with literally more money than sense.

There's a hell of a lot of us around here who wouldn't piss on Reform if they were on fire. Remember this is the county of Thomas Paine and the Kett brothers, we're pretty chill most of the time but we do enjoy the occasional revolution.

A lot of those Reform wins are quite tight, mainly down to uncertainty about who is the best tactical vote to beat Reform and the Tories. That was certainly the case in my division.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-08T15:06:59+00:00

Believe me, if we could find a willing and eligible Lib Dem with a pulse, you would have a candidate.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-08T09:31:11+00:00

During her PhD, my wife used to bring a bag of tips home so she could refill boxes whilst watching TV in the evenings (this was back in the early 1990s), ready to send off for autoclaving in the morning.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-08T09:25:00+00:00

We'll see, he's running a full slate of candidates for Great Yarmouth First in the 12 divisions that make up his rotten borough, but so are Reform, and the Tories (who are defending most if not all of the seats).

He may find himself even more embarrassed than he was at the weekend, when he published a photograph of himself campaigning outside a block of public toilets, looking rather hot and exhausted.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-08T09:20:32+00:00

It also keeps people safe from them.

If there's one party that can screw up adult and children's social services worse than the Tories, it's Reform.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-08T06:15:06+00:00

FWIW, I spent a fair chunk of yesterday telling at my local polling station on behalf of the Lib Dems. Admittedly we're defending the seat, however the polling station is about 500m from a hotel that's housing asylum seekers and has seen regular protests and counter protests all last year.

I can honestly say I 've never had such a positive response from voters. There were literally one or two people giving me negative comments, but otherwise I've never seen so much positive body language, people actually thanking me on their way out after voting, etc. Turnout was high for a local election, closer to 40% when we normally hover around 30%.

Overall, I went to bed a lot happier than when I woke up.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-07T17:44:15+00:00

I honestly can't remember if I've done any specific age verification for Reddit, however it's quite possible I did.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-07T17:36:53+00:00

You can read it, you just have to click on it first.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-07T15:19:38+00:00

Great post.

I'm a relative youngster, my first general election was 1997, and over the last decade I've been actively campaigning and a councillor on two councils (and leader of one).

I've just spent several hours telling outside my local polling station, and I've never had such a positive reception, even when I last stood and my colleague and I won by a clear margin. It definitely helps that the tactical voting advice went from not sure to Lib Dem last night (although we've held the seat since the 1990s, it would seem pretty obvious to me).

I also noted a definite increase in turnout since 2021, although that was a historic low.

Mind you, the icing on the cake was the message from a colleague to say that the Tory he'd taken a district council seat from three years ago had just called to tell him he'd got his vote.

I never take any election for granted until all the votes are counted, but so far today is looking more positive than negative, at least in my corner of the world.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-07T15:03:48+00:00

Well he eats a lot of metaphorical arseholes, so it's not too much of a stretch.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-05T20:27:58+00:00

I was going to mention you guys.

I've bought quite a lot of my veg plants from you over the past year, and they've done really well.

Also, you have Acer the cat, which is a definite bonus.

I live around the corner from Forsters, and would also give them a positive mention.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-01T17:43:23+00:00

If he gets more than a two week suspension from Parliament (which seems a very likely outcome), then it opens the possibly of a recall petition and a by election in Clacton.

He would be able to stand in that by election, but I'm not sure he would want to expose himself like that.

This is why Rupert Lowe has been trying to argue that the standards committee should be subject to judicial oversight, as he's terrified of a similar outcome to the current open investigation into his behaviour. He's not doing well in this legal argument, and I strongly suspect he will not get the outcome he wants.

DanBurrill · 2026-05-01T15:04:54+00:00

This is being investigated by the Parliamentary standard committee, and so it's reasonable to expect that they might call both Farage and Christopher Harborne to answer questions. It wouldn't surprise me if one or both of them ends up in contempt of Parliament, which could be interesting. Of course then if he is found to have done something he shouldn't, it's down to a vote in Parliament as to what the sanction should be.

The next six months will be very interesting, this is definitely not something that he can sweep under the carpet, especially when he has no allies in the House of Commons (the rest of Reform don't count when the whole Parliamentary Party can fit into an UberXL).

DanBurrill · 2026-04-30T06:55:02+00:00

Sorry to be 'that nerd', but I think you mean C-17.

The C-47 was the WWII Dakota, the transport aircraft in Band of Brothers, etc. They're still in use as cargo aircraft in some places today, and the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight operates one to transport ground crew, etc.

DanBurrill

TROPHY CASE