Iz様 🌟

Oh damn

Glad that was a Cody Q, something good and relatively risky like that should be rewarded

Heh I did listen to semi 1 while driving today and instantly willed Greenfroze to qualify or else. Yehesi better too btw

blacksquare blacksquare blacksquare I deserved that ~ Thank you everyone!!!!!!

voted, left just as many great songs outside of my votes as the number I've voted for, very strong semi-final and we're undoubtedly leaving some great songs out of the final </3 let's have as many as possible through please

Damien Rice - Cannonball Gary Numan - My Name is Ruin Darin - Fantasi Roosevelt - Montreal Sam Smith - I'm Not the Only One Calvin Harris & Sam Smith - Desire HRVY - hesitate Sam Fender - Get You Down Tom Grennan - Boys Don't Cry Cannonball a beaut, a very instant and great discovery from Gary Numan, and I love what Darin's doing, he's got quite a range of fun songs which is something I hadn't really known about him before.

iamamiwhoami - t Texas - Black Eyed Boy New Order - Crystal Bananarama - Love in the First Degree Ultravox - All Stood Still Depeche Mode - Precious Years & Years - Sanctify Fontaines D.C. - Marianne Sade - By Your Side fantastic round - good to see a great one from Bananarama, one of the Texas highlights and one of the classics from the early days of iamamiwhoami when they were mysterious and revolutionising scandinavian art-pop

Holborn & St Pancras by-election result LAB 12,292 GRE 8,928 CON 1,922 REF 1,612 LDM 924 RES 692 WPG 314 Hmm. My attempt at analysis here would go something like follows: The Green Party's decline from when they won Gorton & Denton earlier this year started about the time Burnham got into Makerfield and it was clear that Starmer was on his way out. As such, the need for a party of the left to pressure Labour has lessened and it's in this result that we first see it. That said, there's still positives for the Greens here, this is still their second-best performance in a by-election. They are basically coalesced as the left-wing party now after years of that position being essentially vacant and challenged by all sorts. Polanski's been a big contributor to that. Obviously they have faced a hatchet job from the media and have made a few unforced errors that have been picked up on, I think those are somewhat less significant factors than Labour not being hostile to its left flank any more and so a safe option to vote for. I don't think Polanski will resign or be forced out as leader for a while yet. This is more of a political tides result, there's no mechanism to remove him early or challengers in the Greens that can claim to be doing better than him right now. When he goes back to the membership next year they'll likely re-elect him. If Farage can fail many times before getting elected in to parliament, no use dumping one of your most recognised politicians who can now work on moving past previous media attacks. The Greens need to work on message discipline at the moment. If anything a drive to stop the chortling about 'not being a serious party' should be one. For Labour, good that they have kept the national environment currently onside to what they'd need to win a general election, but they ought not to let themselves get complacent. Burnham's messaging has been good, but he'll need to keep that up throughout budgets and government crises. lol bye Galloway

I have so much of semi 2 as a consideration to listen again and formulate votes from. all the different types of alternative music are going to be really really hard to rank!

Oh damnit I was looking forward to more M83. So much good stuff on their albums they could do yet, I love 'Lower Your Eyelids' but perhaps there were a few better choices on Before The Dawn to say nothing of their other albums. Lewis was having a good run with me, I expected to be ranking him bottom but he was quite convincingly at least halfway up most of my votes which was surprising.

Ina :o haven't kept up with her releases but I loved 'Violet' ages ago pleased with that semi I... think

Weird thing about this, every news outlet is running with the 'Zionism is racism' headline, but the Green Party press releases don't use that wording at all, it's just an 'anti-Zionist policy', based on the opposition to an ethnonationalist political project. Was something different said at the conference? Because otherwise I don't understand that. Similarly, some are mischaracterising the state Greens would like to see, the BBC calls it, in quote marks a "single democratic Palestinian State", but the Greens' press release calls it 'a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine'. These are different things! And not only because under some definitions historic Palestine includes Jordan. To be clear, this motion done in this way is not a good idea, mostly from an optics perspective, taking away focus from Green domestic and environmental policies. Also would have been a lot more defensible, if less noticeable, if it included a more general opposition to ethnonationalism - most of the states surrounding Israel are also ethnonationalist and have as bad or worse governments. The point of foreign policy for prospective parties should be to indicate a moral leaning, as it's all hypothetical, and this shouldn't be the only foreign policy issue talked about, even though it is an important one. But as the Greens release puts it, it's a fine if idealistic idea to have as their foreign policy. As the media are reporting it, less so. Especially when you include the Green's definition of Zionism as the ethnonationalist project that is the current position of Israel, whose government policy is one state under Israeli rule. Hamas' policy is one state under Palestinian rule. International observers plus the Palestinian authority generally support two-state, but there is room for what the Greens describe as something to aim for, distinct from any of those.

Far-right Flavio Bolsonaro (son of Jair) leads Brazil's 1st round of presidential election, up against Lula. Not optimistic for the second round here, I feel Lula's going to get defeated and Brazil gets their very own Don Jr, because they saw how well America was doing with that path of course. Meanwhile Pedro Sanchez has called a snap election in Spain and I'm excited to see if he can pull off the gamble again - even though it looks a lot less likely this time with right-wingers knocking on the door.

Is one unified democratic state in the region with equal rights for all an indefensible prospect?

Ideologically aligned with Hamas? Listen to yourself. It doesn't seem to be a disciplinary motion at all, rather a statement of intent for future policy, as it should be given it's almost entirely foreign-leaning. Got it from their website so we understand exactly what we're talking about here - https://greenparty.org.uk/2026/10/04/green-party-adopts-anti-zionist-policy/: That's entirely reasonable and fits some mainstream Left positions - mainstream Left parties can differ on two-state vs one-state but the bad implication of a one-state here is explicitly not what they're calling for with a single democratic, not explicitly religious state. Fits with the only long-term peace ideal that I think would stop violence too, sharing power in a Bosnia-style agreement, but not workable in the short-term for obvious reasons. All the Green MPs have distanced themselves from any of the worst implications which neuters attacks on them during interviews. They'll face lots of questions over it no doubt and this isn't good for Polanski's chances in the by-election but I think saying it's a moment where the Green Party has gone beyond the point of no return is quite sensationalist. Though I agree their methods for choosing policy could use some work.

Presuming this references the 'Zionism is racism' vote at their conference? I don't think this changes minds towards the Green Party at all, been pretty well-known that they are pro-Palestinian for a while and it's not big enough of a swing issue with regards to getting actual votes, as much as the media wants to draw up battle lines.

M83 - Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun iamamiwhoami - shadowshow Texas - Like Lovers (Holding On) Sade - Pearls Fontaines D.C. - Sundowner New Order - Love Vigilantes Ultravox - Accent on Youth Depeche Mode - Photographic Years & Years - Ties Bananarama - Bad For Me as I already alluded to Before The Dawn Heals Us is my favourite M83 album and where my love for them producing atmospheric electronic soundscapes mostly stems from good round, nice to see some really good stuff from Texas and Sade this time.

MARINA - Teen Idle Robyn - Time Machine Sophie Ellis-Bextor - New York City Lights Jessie Ware - The Kill Kate Bush - Reaching Out Dido - Mary’s in India Zara Larsson - Blue Moon Agnes - Loaded Adele - Can I Get It Leona Lewis - Outta My Head one slight bias as Teen Idle is one of my biggest Marina faves but everything else was new to me, very much liked Robyn's turn here.

Ah, sad to see Amol as the first murder as I think he had the makings of an excellent traitor hunter, will have to get my fix of him on Uni Challenge. Related, scared for Hannah now she has a 50/50 (and probably more than that) chance of being the next murder. Hate it when they go after all the (outwardly) smart people. Interesting cliffhanger, I have been enjoying Richard from an entertainment perspective so I don't mind him bumbling about for a few more episodes but he's almost certainly gone here, surely? Lots of those who I initially thought would be a delight to see with a potentially short shelf life, though Bella and the 2 James' I am a fan of and Joe Lycett has enough of my sort of humour to enjoy him.

Damien Rice - Amie Roosevelt - Forget Darin - Om du var min Gary Numan - M.E. HRVY - Never Be Us Lewis Capaldi - Heavenly Kind of State of Mind Tom Grennan - If Only Sam Fender - The Treadmill Calvin Harris feat. Tinashe - Dollar Signs Sam Smith - Lose You good shouts from lewis capaldi and HRVY this round, very glad to see nice tunes from Roosevelt, Darin and Gary Numan, loved Damien Rice's turn here. as a round where I didn't know anything before, definitely looking for things with a bit of oomph and fun/emotions from this category as I'm often a bit apprehensive about male pop. Though of course this depends on artist strengths, regardless of genre, though it's great that we're a little loose here (especially as artist discographies I know well are less likely to be straight-up pop).

Meghan Trainor is one of the worst artists to have had a major label put their weight behind them in recent times, and even though it's awful, All About That Bass is probably the best song she did. So there's that. Would have put it lower. I suppose you would expect a song like that to sound alluring, but it's just so soulless. also another dreck-y one as 'Stay With Me' was very dull. Again sure that 2014 had several good ones, but also clearly quite a lot of very bad ones.

Not a huge fan of 'Money On My Mind' either, this was where the shine of Sam Smith wore off for me too, though they'd have worse to come from that album campaign, I find it falls into many of the traps for inexperienced singer-songwriters who write message songs, critiques of one's economic world are generally welcomed but this one just isn't written very well and the way it is written, it gives off the impression that they don't have a whole lot to say beyond the surface of what has happened to them. Though speaking of bad songwriting, very pleased to have 'Rude!' gone so early, hated the song and consumed numerous video essays around the time essentially all making the same point, that the singer clearly respects the marriage tradition of asking the father, yet doesn't respect his answer - and this is the perspective we're being asked to support. Also just awful awful cod-reggae. Agree it's radio-friendly, but only in a very cursed fashion. (good riddance to those two charity covers but very little to say about them because of how little impact they ever made on actual pop culture)

Wishcasting outcomes now expulsion seems quite possibly on the table assuming the rest of the Prem vote for it: Man City may still get deducted points, but that only punishes them for one season, likely relegated to the Championship, unless it's spread over multiple seasons. Not big enough a punishment considering the scale and time of the cheating and the way statements and such have been worded. Any proportional deduction would just be an automatic relegation, so there's little point IMO. Also there is a difference between points deduction and voting for expulsion, because the latter will then require a lower league to let them back in as it goes outside the normal promotion and relegation processes. So say they're expelled from the PL, possibly before the end of this current season, with points against them in games already played not counting. Can't see them wanting to drag this punishment out further, could come very quickly, especially as all leagues in the pyramid will want to finalise their promotion/relegation numbers based on if the ultimate resolution affects them. Two teams are relegated from the remaining 19 in the PL, season has an asterisk, Spurs finish 17th. The EFL probably won't take them in, certainly not at Championship level. Possibly at League 2 but I don't think clubs will agree to that. The National League might well, particularly as their clubs could prioritise the payday, but then Man City enters at the 5th or 6th level of the pyramid. All their current players will trigger clauses in contracts and leave, the owners may sell the club, either voluntarily for economic reasons or because they are forced to. If they survive to start climbing up the league like Rangers did, they'll have to rely on greatly diminished finances, still outspending teams in their divisions, though this time within the boundaries of what's legal. Takes them half a decade at least to get themselves back in the conversation of England's biggest clubs, though if they get back up there it would be on merit. At any point in this process the club could be dissolved as it becomes financially unviable to maintain their present assets. Could easily see that happening too.

Isn't it fantastic 😍

Brave to signal the end of the triple lock, though I'm sceptical about the wage growth being the one to have been removed, I'd have rather removed either of the others to keep pensioner wealth tied to the wealth of working people. Doesn't save too much but it's a needed first step. Interested to see how Labour putting electoral reform in their next manifesto will shake out, could be a good ploy to make the next election all about both that and Europe, both areas in which progressives have been beaten down on over the last decade and need some reversion to the mean. good speech overall, no complaints on the water, care and leasehold signals