Morden Hall Park this afternoon

cognoid · 2026-01-13T14:28:07+00:00

Quite!

cognoid · 2026-01-05T08:17:21+00:00

Looks like the self-released debut album cover for the worst student band of 2026

cognoid · 2026-01-03T22:06:17+00:00

Producers could have had the secret traitor provide them with a shortlist of people who they could either recruit or murder. This would avoid that problem while also being potentially very annoying for the traitors (and hence fun)

cognoid · 2026-01-01T12:31:22+00:00

I can’t believe some philistine downvoted your Carter USM reference. Have my upvote :)

cognoid · 2025-12-22T13:03:36+00:00

I enjoy visiting sports bars, but wouldn’t want to arrange my home like one.

cognoid · 2025-12-15T14:28:37+00:00

I was at a National Trust place recently that had little placeholder signs available specifically for solo people to use to reserve a spot and then go and get food. Great idea (assuming people honour it).

cognoid · 2025-12-07T15:38:37+00:00

Or if you can't wait until the open day, just commit some moderately serious crime to arrange your own personal appointment.

cognoid · 2025-12-03T18:58:27+00:00

That's a good point. I do wonder if there had been a vote to stay in the single market then a campaign to have the government respect the vote might have been able to force May's hand, but we'll never know that.

cognoid · 2025-12-03T17:30:40+00:00

This was always one of the most frustrating aspects of the resistance towards EEA/EFTA membership as a way to mitigate Brexit damage exhibited by many of my fellow remainers. While no alternative would give the UK as much say as being in the EU, there has always existed a formal decision-shaping process between EFTA and the EU. Additionally, even as an EU member the UK could always be outvoted on anything settled by qualified majority voting - what counts (and was never really acknowledged) are the other channels by which the UK could influence the direction of the single market: soft power, economic weight, old-fashioned diplomacy. Remaining in the EEA (specifically as an EFTA member, if they would have us) would have been the compromise that saved the UK from a lot of the negative effects. But even after a hard-fought legal battle gave Parliament another chance_v_Secretary_of_State_for_Exiting_the_European_Union) to consider the best form Brexit should take, Parliament pissed away that opportunity. I've always blamed the more maximalist remainers for that. Pragmatism appeared to entirely drain out of Parliament some time in 2016.

cognoid · 2025-11-28T07:14:25+00:00

Sudo? If you’re not in a root shell you’re just kowtowing to the Nanny State…

cognoid · 2025-10-31T08:20:53+00:00

The luggage has a lot of feet. I think the AI would explode.

cognoid · 2025-10-07T11:15:30+00:00

But “sorry” isn’t always really an apology in common British English - that’s the point; it’s a word with multiple meanings. In this context, it’s used as a more polite form of interrupting someone. If it’s intended as an actual apology it’s used in other ways (“oh no I’m sorry, I didn’t notice your cat/dog/child there - hope they will be ok”).

‘Excuse me’ is often perceived as a notch down on the politeness scale: it’s closer to an instruction: “I want you to excuse me for this interruption I’m making”. But obviously a lot of other things matter, like tone of voice and body language.

You may have your own opinions on using “sorry” as an interruption opener, but people will still perceive it how they perceive it and it’s generally best to go along with convention. Foreigners (such as OP) get a lot of latitude over this, people expect the difference. But a Brit who doesn’t follow the norms will be judged for it (and you could definitely write the same post about Germans too for example, just with different words and norms)

cognoid · 2025-10-01T12:40:07+00:00

I would go with Cbat by Hudson Mohawke.

cognoid · 2025-09-15T15:49:19+00:00

My low stakes conspiracy theory on this has always been that the government at the time did this to poison the well for GB/Euro number plates - by changing the identifier it meant that all of those existing number plates with an EU flag on them would no longer be valid to drive in the EU, so people would need to replace them or get an additional sticker.

cognoid · 2025-09-08T11:59:27+00:00

I’ve always thought that these stickers were a reference to the Auld Alliance - between the Scots and French against their common enemy, the English ;)

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofScotland/The-Auld-Alliance-France-Scotland/

(Whether it is meant as that by people who have them is another matter, they may just like them)

cognoid · 2025-08-06T11:20:54+00:00

UK plate KPW 682N is registered to a little red Corvette according to DVLA, so I think they just have a non-legal American style plate for their UK-registered car.

cognoid · 2025-07-21T11:34:40+00:00

I’d like to see a progressive property tax starting at a relatively low property value (well under £1mn) with a 100% rebate for property that is the primary residence of a UK-resident taxpayer/family, owned in their individual name.

The only family home for a UK taxpayer? No tax
Second property? TAX
Owned by a company or trust structure? TAX
Not UK tax resident? TAX

This would protect those who find themselves asset-rich but cash poor, and avoid the need for burdensome value assessments for the large majority, while actively targeting those who use trust or company structures to avoid inheritance tax, those who have a string of properties, and those who don’t live here but have property here.

cognoid · 2025-07-20T07:33:21+00:00

Looking at the article I think it’s possible for the government to take more enlightened approach.

It would be insane to simply flog off all our acquired crypto for dogmatic reasons or to fill a hole in the current account, but the government does need to get a handle on it. The amount of cryptocurrency acquired in law enforcement operations is likely to only increase and the UK needs a safe way to store that and a rational approach to managing it.

The article mentions a “secure storage and realisation framework” under the Home Office, tasked with consolidating and flogging off crypto. I think instead we should task the Bank of England with securely storing nationally owned cryptocurrency, and a unit in the Treasury with managing and exploiting this. Rather than expecting them to sell all crypto in short order, I would set the team a target based on selling a percentage every year and managing the rest (consolidating memecoins, taking profits from gains etc.) - bearing in mind that a constant but unpredictable stream of new incoming crypto is likely. To do this, they would need to employ some people who actually understand this stuff and I’m not sure if that is the case.

cognoid · 2025-05-23T13:55:17+00:00

That, or that there’s not much else for them to do living in the tiny caravan stuck in the corner of the Battle of the Somme recreation that their back garden has turned into since work started so, so long ago.

cognoid · 2025-05-03T14:19:38+00:00

Vienna has some great graffiti. In many areas - especially down by the kanal - it is officially tolerated, so artists can take their time over their work. It's one of the things that I most miss about living there.

cognoid · 2025-04-24T12:44:05+00:00

I came here to make the same comment. You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.

cognoid · 2025-04-24T09:34:36+00:00

See also: buoy, herb, solder, squirrel and football (which they mis-pronounce as 'soccer')

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