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Why would any reasonable normal person care about mild trivia that Remember Monday aren't responsible for? Nor the BBC, tbh. I can't recall another entry where the hate has felt so forced.

Also a story completely irrelevant in the face of today's news about the PM's crack down on migration, for which is he getting plaudits, it's just a shame they're from the right-wing who won't vote for him anyway. I mean, Christ, the anti-immigration lot have managed to get Starmer literally evoking Enoch Powell's rhetoric and they're still not fucking happy.

documenting my ranking on the eve of the semis: 01 🇬🇧 United Kingdom - Remember Monday - What The Hell Just Happened? 02 🇸🇪 Sweden - Kaj - Bara Bada Bastu 03 🇱🇹 Lithuania: Katarsis - Tavo akys 04 🇦🇱 Albania: Shkode Elektronike - Zjerm 05 🇦🇺 Australia - GO-JO - Milkshake Man 06 🇫🇮 Finland: Erika Vikman - Ich Komme 07 🇮🇸 Iceland - Vaeb - Roa 08 🇺🇦 Ukraine: Ziferblat - Bird of Pray 09 🇱🇻 Latvia: Tautumeitas - Bur men laimi 10 🇮🇹 Italy - Lucio Corsi - Volevo essere un duro 11 🇸🇲 San Marino - Gabry Ponte - Tutta L'Italia 12 🇮🇪 Ireland: Emmy - Laika Party 13 🇬🇷 Greece: Klavdia - Asteromata 14 🇲🇪 Montenegro: Nina Žižić - Dobrodošli 15 🇲🇹 Malta: Miriana Conte - Serving 16 🇵🇱 Poland: Justyna Steczkowska - Gaja 17 🇩🇪 Germany - Abor & Tynna - Baller 18 🇫🇷 France - Louane - Maman 19 🇩🇰 Denmark - Sissal - Hallucination 20 🇳🇱 Netherlands - Claude - C'est La Vie 21 🇦🇹 Austria - JJ - Wasted Love 22 🇷🇸 Serbia - Princ – Mila 23 🇨🇭 Switzerland - Zoë Më - Voyage 24 🇦🇲 Armenia - PARG – Survivor 25 🇸🇮 Slovenia: Klemen - How Much Time Do We Have Left? 26 🇨🇾 Cyprus - Theo Evan - Shh 27 🇵🇹 Portugal - NAPA - Deslocado 28 🇪🇸 Spain: Melody - Esa Diva 29 🇱🇺 Luxembourg: Laura Thorn - La poupee monte le son 30 🇪🇪 Estonia: Tommy Cash - Espresso Machiato 31 🇧🇪 Belgium: Red Sebastian - Strobe Lights 32 🇳🇴 Norway: Kyle Alessandro - Lighter 33 🇨🇿 Czechia - Adonxs - Kiss Kiss Goodbye 34 🇭🇷 Croatia: Marko Bošnjak – Poison Cake NR 🇦🇿 Azerbaijan: Mamagama - Run with U NR 🇮🇱 Israel: Yuval Raphael - New Day Will Rise NR 🇬🇪 Georgia: Mariam Shengelia - Freedom

Even the 'more reasonable' people are often making the argument of : 'Yeah they're good singers but they're saddled with a bad song' Like hell they are, the reason this thing is at the top of my rankings is the song's structure, it's the sort of structure that makes you convinced over the course of its runtime. I am really hoping that it's a surprise hit, I've seen good reactions from the rehearsals, just some uncertainty about staging.

America a more attractive place for business over the events of the last few months? Damaging China? Are we living in the same reality? Businesses don't like dealing with erratic governments, they can't plan for the future like this. The resumption of relatively normal trade is good, but it's a whole lot of screwing around with unworkable fixes just to get people okay with an otherwise higher than usual sales tax, which will cause a slower, less noticeable economic slowdown.

Big announcement of immigration crackdown today from the Labour government. Doing a lot to target net migration. Which is completely wrongheaded, no one wants them aping Reform's lines (except Reform who are loving it), the Never Happy crowd won't change their opinions, and there's the potential for a lot of unfortunate stories to come out of this. It's policies like doubling the amount of time it takes to get an ILR and discouraging applications for care workers that are going to hit the sorts of people we want coming to this country with insecurity (how can you fully integrate when you're spending a decade without security that your future is here?) and integrating (seven in ten of voters do not want reductions in migration for care workers!). If, IF this is accompanied with a good push to fix those industries by other means and it's visible enough to pull over swing voters who want to see some, any action on immigration it may have some good results, but I'm not sure those two requirements work together.

(coincidentally) my entry contains an aviation industry reference

around 2010 (aged 16) when I began getting interested in music more generally rather than as background noise stopped paying closer attention as it slowed down in 2016 and I focused more on exploring music I liked rather than what was necessarily popular, but I still value looking at it from time to time as a snapshot of at least part of music history and particularly how it relates to music as a wider cultural force.

This might be relevant in the next few weeks, an amendment to the Border and Security Bill is going up, aimed at targeting right-to-work checks in the gig economy. Text of amendment Impact assessment If that passes and is properly enforced, that would be great (and indeed would be one of the more visible actions on immigration). It is, as a rarity, one area of the immigration issue where I'm pretty much fully in agreement with anti-immigration people on, gig economy companies, many of whom are making the industries they inhabit measurably worse (they're not even a low-cost version most of the time anymore), are exploiting people and getting around our employment rights laws to IMO illegally employ foreign workers. Which is excused because the onus is on the 'self-employed' person who sublets their food delivery account or similar - making Uber, Deliveroo etc. actually responsible for checking the right-to-work of everyone working for them is a gaping loophole that needs to be plugged.

Maybe I could sum up by saying this, I don't see a future where Reform gets 400+ seats. Labour could, because no one was threatened by Starmer's Labour. Plenty of people are going to be very radicalised against the possibility of PM Farage.

I said it was April 2025, so slightly out of date, but it makes more sense than the other one on a grander scale - if we're doing the extrapolating from local elections thing, look at Wiltshire and rural Northamptonshire, where the Tories are still holding strong. And it theoretically makes more sense, because it uses a more advanced and accurate polling method (MRP) that I mentioned. You can look at the data tables on EC's website and it's consistent with a total Reform share of 25% with the others on 23%. If Reform are taking Tory votes more generally, then yes, the first map would be more accurate, but this is the thing, I don't think they have the ability to wrangle the votes in 'leafy' Southern England on a wider scale with their current political strategy, we're fast building to a Reform vs all the other parties and in some of these areas, like real deep blue Conservative strongholds, the other party is going to win (irregardless of if some individual seats on that MRP poll are Lib Dem now and won't go with that strategy). 'Red Wall', as in Labour seats that were lost in Tory to 2019, are prime Reform pick-up territory on these numbers so I would expect many of those to go to them on the back of a similar vote to that which elected the Tories in those seats in 2019, so yeah, just taking Tory votes. Other parts of the country, particularly Labour held seats in 2019, against a similar right-wing threat with the left-wing party on the back foot, is a bit more questionable (though I reserve the right to change my opinion after the 2026 local elections). That's interesting data on a council by-election in rural Yorkshire, but rural Yorkshire is only one type of 'middle class' area and it's more proximate to Reform-friendly areas more generally.

Part of why I have defended the government more than I expected to is that I have noticed a large amount of people fixating on the few negatives and ignoring the many positives, which is something you don't get with the wild media on this island. Good thread linked there for reference for the good stuff this government has done so far. remember, listing the good stuff does not absolve them of their mistakes or the bad stuff, but neither does the latter nullify the improvements they have been making. quoting what's listed in that thread below, some of it is Labour comms stuff about policies that are yet to bear full fruit but some of it is genuinely good improvements in this country over the last 10 months: Most important thing is until people start feeling stuff from this list, then they won't deem the government a success, though that also won't happen until a deeply concerning right-wing media push against the Labour government subsides. Which it won't.

One thing I think is important to notice is that in these polls, as in the local elections, Reform's gains are more at the expense of the Conservatives than they are from Labour, though they are taking some points from Labour. If you simplistically divide the parties into left-right blocs, there has been movement of roughly 8-10% since the election towards the right bloc, but over the last few months, that divide has stayed largely static, it's just Reform are eating the Conservatives as they become more solidly entrenched as a party. So yes, Labour would be mad to continue the disability cuts, but more so that they can get themselves enough back from LDems and Greens (and because of geographic spread they don't need as much as Cons do from Reform), rather than a wholesale stopping the bleed to Reform. Which is still a factor, but only in certain parts of the country. Also noting that these polls predict a Reform majority which is still premature - simple non-MRP seat projection polls have them taking parts of the country (like the prosperous South and inner city seats), where they haven't done well in the locals and aren't predicted to take on MRP polls. compare this (simply modelled from that BMGResearch poll) to this April 2025 MRP poll from Electoral Calculus (227 REF, 180 LAB, 133 CON, 49 LDEM) I'm not saying it can't happen but it would be a strange next few years if we ended up with an election result anywhere near the first image.

I subscribe to the theory that at least in part (in part because God himself knows the Church has far more important things than America on its mind) this provides a good counterbalance. He's not a supporter of the current American administration, and along with his deep connections to South America, can act as an American that the many Catholics around the world will listen to ahead of Trump. Previously they might have avoided a pope from a superpower because it's too much power concentrated in one country, but this seems to be an admission that that doesn't really matter.

Congratulations Addy! Really great to have my top score win in one of these, incredible result. Really pleased that I managed to score another top 10, I seem to have gotten quite a streak with these with how rarely it's come about, I swear for the last few I've smashed it. Thanks to everyone who liked my beautiful shoegazey track. thank you cody for hosting too!

I never pay attention to PFSC, interesting to see it was dream pop last time! I should check some of those out. I've been looking for a place to send 'Mikael' for a few months now and had been scared of putting such a shoegazey ballady track in BJSC, but very pleased to see it's been doing really well as I do love it. thank you for all the votes so far, especially uhsting for the 20! hoping Addy's dishes can catch the top 2 x

I didn't know too much about Leo XIII aside from that he had a long reign, but the other awareness I had was that in comparison to the popes called Pius around him he was somewhat more in touch with the social issues of the day. Hopefully this is what Leo XIV was thinking upon choosing that. That he's an American is interesting, but also given that he's an American who left it years ago and has spent so much of his ministry in Peru gives me the idea that he will aim to continue Francis' role in making the Church in the image of what the whole world needs. Gives off a very internationalist image (particularly in comparison to other American cardinals) which IMO is what the church needs now. good luck to the Catholic Church

so that I can be wrong in the next half hour, predicting the name John XXIV (assuming moderate-to-liberal but short-serving successor)

Successful trade deal after successful trade deal, Starmer's Britain is booming. In seriousness this initially also looks probably good. Again, Brexit sorta requires us to sign up to these, but once it's there, trade will flow and it's generally better for everyone, The US one saves jobs in the automotive and steel industries, we're the first of many countries to work with Trump's agenda, so on paper a little bit more insulated from his future insanities. Possibility for US food to hit our markets which wouldn't be good, but it doesn't look like we're lowering any of our own standards on it, so it shouldn't be the worst stuff. Depends on how Trump's international strategy continues but while morally it's a bit stomach-churning, getting preferential access to the USA while it's like... this... is a good step for our economy.

Black smoke as expected for the first night but that was a long first vote to the point there has been a lot of speculation as to why there was such a lengthy vote.

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One year is the default. There are over 50 countries already signed up to deals that grant similar exemptions. https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/uk-dismisses-idea-that-british-workers-being-sold-out-india-trade-deal-2025-05-07/ This analysis article is a good read on the advantages and drawbacks of the deal and I would highly recommend everyone read through it before making any further comments about the deal: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/07/has-the-uk-india-trade-deal-sold-out-british-workers-as-farage-and-badenoch-claim To summarise, though: NICs are a concession the government has made, but financially it's good for us (we make up the cost in taxation). There are no extra visas under this deal, as the article says, it's a Labour claim that the Conservatives had put visas on the table so, but in any case, claiming 1.5 billion Indians are about to descend on us is ludicrous hyperbole and also kinda lowkey racist. To be honest, this is the sort of deal we need to make if we are to survive outside the EU long term.

I had forgotten how much of this was the world news complex staring at a smoke chimney. Couldn't call who it's going to be, Pizzaballa or Tagle sound like good options amongst the mentioned papabile.

Doesn't sound like it's going to affect you or your company then. If it's not an Indian company, then it won't apply at all. Even if it is, it's only going to apply for workers that the company rotates here on a short-term basis, and that sort of worker is going to be well-paid (nobody's rotating a low-paid IT worker) and probably won't bring their family as the benefits end after 3 years. There was already an exemption exactly like this in place for 12 months, now it is extended to 3 years. Just like an agreement we have with 50 other countries already. As ever, the fanciful 'country needs a massive change' (what change, exactly? would that be a change that South Asian British people share in?) and imagining civil war is nonsense. Actually, that whole post is an absolute classic of the 'I'm not a racist, but...' genre.

I can't have a well-reasoned balanced discussion with someone who's unironic response to 'read the impact assessment and detail of the agreement we're talking about' is 'no one needs the details'. It's like this with everything Liam talks utter shite about, reverting to what he thinks the effects of this trade deal are based on his priors, that he has no real good evidence for. Time was, this was the sort of deal that anyone who voted Leave would be pointing to as a great Brexit benefit. And even though that is most Reform voters, they've been lied to again and are flipping bricks over us sorting our future prosperity. Brexit thought leaders who aren't in the Reform-chasing Tory parliamentary party like, to name a few, Rees-Mogg, Daniel Hannan and Steve Baker have publicly defended the deal. And before they're called out-of-touch globalists, let's look at what Hannan had to say on the deal. A Tory peer. And in case you don't read that, that's the NI thing simply being a principle against double taxation, reducing tariffs on Indian goods being a good thing... for us (generally true), opening up our good services industry to a HUGE Indian market and becoming very closely invested in an economy that is going to have huge growth itself over the next few decades. It's also very much in line with our deals with other countries, and £4.8 billion worth of value is pretty good from just connecting our economy to one other that's not even that close to us. What on earth sort of trade deal would Reform be doing with India? If the answer is 'no migration', then you already have that with this deal.