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  So i have a message from one of my pension providers. When I have tried to log into my account, (and looking though my emails, I have found that I asked about this before), they have no record of my email address. So apparently I have a pension where they know my phone number, and probably know my home address, but I have no means of doing anything about it. They want me to change to online documents. Which will be a challenge given that I don't appear to have an email address. Sigh.

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  I think I also should say, given my audience here, that the two cultural places we went to in Newcastle - the Baltic and the Biscuit Factory had really good bookshops. Not jut the usual coffee-table-40-quid-poser books, although there were some of them. Not even the academic-book-on-an-artist-you-would-never-read-even-if-you-wanted-to. But they have books like enshittification, which I should have bought but didn't. Just quality, challenging books.

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  This is the tomb of Durham Prince Bishop Thomas Hatfield. Who said "There will be another Prince Bishop Over My Dead Body". So they buried him under the bishops seat. (Pictures are not uploading for me, but I was trying to)

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  So yesterday we went to Sing-along-a-Gareth At The Movies, with Gareth Malone. I know, I was not picking it, it was Mrs who booked it. But it was a really good evening. The music was all good songs that I knew, even though I don't usually watch movies with songs. I mean, we had Total Eclipse and Moon River, so I couldn't complain. Think of it as a great Karoke night, but the only people on the mike can actually sing.

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  So today Bishop Auckland. We visited Auckland Castle - the traditional Bishops house. So this was for one person and his family and retinue. (These days the Bishop actually lives elsewhere, but this is still their workplace). It is magnificient. This is the land of the Prince Bishops. They had a lot of power. So they needed to have somewhere to demonstrate their power. (Images still not working for me. Sorry).

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  So we went to the beach at Seaham the other day. There were lots of people all by the edge of the sea - given that it was cold and started raining, this wis more than might have been expected. I overheard someone saying they were looking for "Seagull ass" or similar. seems even odder................ (Sorry. You just have to bear with me.)

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  So - back from Durham, and I will have more general comments to post over the next days and weeks. But my starting comment is: Fuck me it is gorgeous up there! I mean, the parts of the countryside we saw - the trees were just perfect. But also, the cities - Durham and Newcastle - are fabulous. If you have been wondering about visiting there - and yes it is along way. From anywhere. Then do - it has been such a good week.

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  I know this is very blunt, but it strikes me that middle class people assume the police (and the establishment) is working for them and to help them; the working class assume that the police and the establishment are working against them.

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  #totp - in the opening rundown, I though I didn't recognise the name Danny Mirror. Now I know why. Also - Smokey had another song? Who knew.

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  There is a question - or rather three questions. They come out of the growth of AI. And I don't expect answers, I just think we should ask them. 1. What is intelligence? How would we know if software is intelligent? Turing Test is (of course) obsolete. So how do we check it now? 2. What is sentience? Again, how would we know if an AI (a real one) was sentient? 3. What is a spiritual being - a soul, or whatever we call it? How would we know if a non-human sentient being has a soul?

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  I know people talk about it a lot - but we go on long drives occasionally (not often). And we usually arrive with a clean windscreen. Maybe a couple of bugs. But I remember when I was young, we would go on a similar drive and the windscreen would be covered in bugs. That is in my lifetime - in some 50 years, the number of bugs identified on the Windscreen Index has gone from 200 to 1 (estimates). It is a very clear visible sign of the devastation we have caused in our country*. I was thinkin...

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  @alexadeswift@lgbtqia.space Yes - precisely. This is what I was thinking of. I just found it interesting that this was so clear and explicit in this case. It is rarely spoken so obviously.

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  Watching a show about Ibiza. An interesting comment was made that, while they try to crack down on drugs, if they stopped them altogether, that would kill the tourism industry totally. So they do a little and don't have money for any more - it is accepted that they need this illegal activity to keep the islands entire economy. And somehow, it feels like this is the case across a lot of the western world - at least. That is the nature of capitalism. You cannot erase the corruption entirely,...

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  Oh look, another police officer who was a KNOWN RAPIST but stayed in his job. Lucky him. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3v0rq66q3no

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  RE: https://wandering.shop/@troublewithwords/116969334951166624 I would concur with this.

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  #WritersCoffeeClub July 23: "How much erotic content can a work have without being considered erotica?" Some of this is about intent. Is the intent of the work to be erotic, sexually exciting - really, do you want people to have a wank over it? If so, probably erotic. If not, they your focus should not be on the erotic nature of the erotic moments - it should be on a story. As a general rule, I think, the main purpose of your writing should be clear to you. For mine, it is t...

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  Cats are amazing. They can be gorgeous bundles of lovely soft furriness, and then suddenly turn into an explosion of razor blades.

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  #totp so that Andreas Johnson song is a great piece. I had forgotten it. I am not sure it deserves to be forgotten.

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  #totp Oh no, not the eternal number one.

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  #totp Well I knew Bros were terrible, I had forgotten exactly how terrible. (Apologies to Bros fans)

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  #totp - Billy Bragg was young once then. I saw him 5 or so years ago, and he has aged well. but he has aged.

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  #totp - play Divinyls. And pretend you don't know what it is about.

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  #totp - the miming standards of some of these performers leaves a lot to be desired. But is this song a precursor to "Ride on Time" by Black Box?

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  #totp - There are some really good songs in this chart - even some I don't necessarily want to admit to. And some terrible songs. Quite a few, I am pleased to say, I have never heard of, and never will.

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  Something that strikes me about America 250 - well the whole celebration of them being 250 years old - it could have been a great, global celebration. It could have been a time for many countries to have acknowledged what the US has done positively. I remember the 200th anniversary, and in the UK, some people celebrated it - I think we acknowledged it in school. It was seem as a time of celebration. And what it has become is another Trump failure. Nobody cares, and the US is making itself look...

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  @burek@metalhead.club It certainly appears that way. But (to take the question seriously for a moment) I think we are more just rejecting smartness. We are promoting in our society people who are very stupid. And demoting people who thing and people who can argue and discuss things properly with a view to facts and information. It means that as a big-picture society, we appear to be getting dumber. Because being unbelievably stupid is not a barrier to making a lot of money or having a lot of po...

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  I had seen this earlier, and so want to repost it here. It is important to remember that - despite the results from this week - the picture of local councils across the country is not as bad as some people make it sound. Note that Greens still have more seats than Reform. And the three main parties still dominate. Reform - scum though they are - only have 3.8% of seats.

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  OK people - any Netflix suggestions for me? I have signed up for a short period to catch up with Wednesday, so need other things to watch there. Bear in mind, I have worked through a whole lot of the normal stuff. I need unexpected things.

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  @f_o_tistic@autistics.life I have a superb tattoo artist, who also does a lot of the working of the design to work as a tattoo (that can be very important). Look at their portfolio, more for the skills that you need - can they do realistic images, can they handle colour properly (if either of these are relevant). But I also know I was fortunate. I found one of the best in our area. It is especially hard for a first one, because you will not know the people or what sort of thing is right for yo...

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  So often when I hear about - well almost anything. politics, AI, the state of the world, of my industry, of the future, and I want to go outside and scream at the top of my voice - or, in fact, a whole lot louder than that: JUST FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING SCUM. To the fascists, the grifters, the wealthy white men whose only contribution ot the world is to fuck things up. All of you: FUCK OFF.