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Voidstar
News feeds

Latest news

24-Aug-26 18:10
# · Mastodon View the site
# · Mastodon View the site

Labour want closer ties with EU. Without breaking Labour's red lines on EU.

So, cherry picking deals as a close outsider in the outer ring of the EU. Classic UK Exceptionalism. They seriously think the EU will go along with that?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/aug/09/uk-eu-reset-talks-brexit-burnham-hamish-falconer

The country actually wants free movement, single market and customs union. But Labour can't be seen to be trying to achieve that. Because ... what?

21-Aug-26 07:10
# · Mastodon View the site

Long essay about NEETs (16-24, not in employment, education, or training)

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v48/n14/william-davies/young-people-are-different

What about the late 30, early 40 NEETs? I worry about them too.

# · Mastodon View the site

EU Copernicus July Summary

https://climate.copernicus.eu/copernicus-highest-july-global-ocean-surface-temperatures-exceptionally-hot-dry-conditions-fuel

> Global air temp, joint 2nd warmest July on record, 1.47°C above pre-industrial.

> Hottest and driest Western Europe on record

> Ocean SST (60°S–60°N) highest on record for the month, at 20.96°C, Beating previous 20.89°C of July-23. Close to all time daily records from 2024 at end of month.

> Nino3.4 region highest for July, El Nino continues to grow.

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=nino3.4
https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=world2
https://pulse.climate.copernicus.eu/

# · Mastodon View the site

I've been wondering for a while about the crews of the ships stuck in the Strait of Hormuz.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/09/ordinary-seafarers-trapped-strait-of-hormuz-iran-strikes-killed

> 20,000 seafarers.
> Most vessels – at least those with responsible owners – are receiving regular supplies of fresh water, food and other goods ferried by small boats from shore, yet most crews have no way of getting out of a perilous situation.

20-Aug-26 18:25
# · Mastodon View the site

So farewell then, William Orbit.

Your passing got me digging out One Dove and Madonna's best album.

There were bits about the late 90s that weren't so bad. Despite the pre-millenial tension.

# · Mastodon View the site

Feels like the swifts have gone. A couple of weeks early.

So it goes.

09-Aug-26 18:55
One Dove - Morning Dove White - Transient Truth · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
20-Aug-26 15:55
One Dove - Morning Dove White - My Friend · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
# · Mastodon View the site

# Cocktail - Cora Middleton

50ml Jamaican Rum, 15ml Dry Vermouth, 15ml Lemon, 10ml Dbl Syrup, optional 15ml egg white , 3 Raspberries muddled, shake, double strain, raspberry & mint

A Rum Clover Club. 60/20/20/10 also works. And a dash of absinthe.

Al Wootton/Irene Bianco - Rope - Whispers · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Al Wootton/Irene Bianco - Rope - Hara · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Al Wootton/Irene Bianco - Rope - Horses · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Al Wootton/Irene Bianco - Rope - Spring · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Al Wootton/Irene Bianco - Rope - Handle · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Al Wootton/Irene Bianco - Rope - Rope · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Al Wootton/Irene Bianco - Rope - A/B · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
One Dove - Breakdown - Breakdown (William Orbit Stereo Odyssey) · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
# · Mastodon View the site

The 24th week of the Israel-US-Iran war begins

A couple more weeks and it will be 6 months.

Does anyone know what's going on? Is the Strait of Hormuz fully open? Is Lebanon, Gaza, West Bank, Iran, Oman, still being bombed? No, No, Yes.

Get Your War On

# · Mastodon View the site

Made the mistake of copy-posting a rant. So I've done the unthinkable and deleted it.

I see it is now doing the rounds all over. Just turned up in my facebook feed as well.

Just enough truthiness to appeal to a broad spectrum of people. Likely to be quickly followed by "Britain is Broken. Only xxx can fix it."

There's no denying though that post Brexit/Austerity Britain is not what it was.

09-Aug-26 09:25
# · Mastodon View the site

The tax burden is heading for its highest sustained level since the 1940s. The service level is the worst in living memory.

You are not overtaxed or underserved. You are actually BOTH, simultaneously, and the gap between the two is where your standard of living went.

The state has become a subscription you cannot cancel and cannot use.

---

It's all shit and I hate it. And it's shit.

# · Mastodon View the site

Social housing sits on the most valuable land in Britain, allocated by need rather than proximity to work, 48% of zone 1 social housing is occupied by foreigners mostly welfare dependent - while the nurses, teachers and other workers who keep zone 1 running commute ninety minutes each way from Kent because we stopped building anything in 1979.

Every one of these is a service you have already bought. The receipt is your payslip.

# · Mastodon View the site

You pay National Insurance for fifty years and they move the pension age.

You pay the adult social care precept every year and then sell your mother’s house to pay for adult social care.

Leaseholders pay for a “waking watch” because the state signed off the cladding and then billed the residents to fix it.

# · Mastodon View the site

Passport and DVLA backlogs are chronic, so the state sells you a fast track service to escape the queue the state created.

The trains are late whoever owns them, so you drive on the roads with the potholes.
Public toilets are shut, so you buy a coffee you don’t want.

The library is staffed by pensioners working for free.

Street lights are switched off at midnight to save money in a country with a burglary charge rate near zero.

# · Mastodon View the site

Shoplifting under £200 is functionally legal, so Tesco hires guards - who crucially don’t even try to stop it - and you pay for them in the price of the milk.

999 takes an hour, so you buy the Ring doorbell, gather the evidence, file the report and get a crime number for the insurance you also pay for.

Court backlogs run to years, so anyone with money settles privately and everyone else gets nothing.

Legal aid is gone. Represent yourself.

# · Mastodon View the site

Schools teach in portable cabins bolted to the playground because the actual building is held up by aerated concrete and hope.
Half of them are technically insolvent.

Parents fund the reading books, the glue sticks, the photocopier, the roof and increasingly the teachers wages - all via a PTA raffle and local fundraisers.

The state offers “free” childcare hours that don’t cover the nursery’s costs, so the nursery bills you a “top up fee” for the free thing.

# · Mastodon View the site

Your GP surgery is an 8am phone lottery, so you pay £40 to an app to speak to a doctor in a different time zone.

CAMHS has a two year waiting list, so parents remortgage for private assessments.

Your child’s SEN provision is a legal entitlement, so you hire a solicitor to sue the council for it. The council spends more fighting you than the support would have cost.

Physio is a forty week wait. Your back does not have forty weeks.

# · Mastodon View the site

Our roads are littered with potholes nobody fills. Your privately funded tyres and suspension are the collateral.

You are forced under threat of criminal prosecution to fund the BBC, and it’s so bad you pay for streaming to get news or entertainment anyway.

Your bins are collected fortnightly, so you drive to the tip. The tip now requires a booking, a permit and proof you live in the county.

Garden waste is a separate annual subscription. On top of the council tax that used to cover it.

# · Mastodon View the site

Seen on x-fka-twitter

THE SLOW DEATH OF BRITAIN:

We have shit water companies so we buy bottled water.

We have rubbish police so we hire private security.

We have terrible healthcare so we pay private hospitals instead.

Airbnbs in Cornwall pay council tax but get no rubbish collection, so they pay Biffa on top.

An awful lot of firemen are now volunteers.

NHS dentists don’t really work anymore, so you go private or you pull it out yourself.

20-Aug-26 15:55
One Dove - Morning Dove White - White Love (Guitar Paradise mix) · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
08-Aug-26 19:10
Madonna - Ray of Light - Ray of Light · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
19-Aug-26 16:40
# · Mastodon View the site

- Trader Vic's Grog

60ml Jamaican, 20ml Lemon, 20ml Passionfruit, 20ml Pineapple, dash Angostura, short hard shake, rocks, Mint sprig

08-Aug-26 17:40
One Dove - Breakdown - Breakdown (William Orbit Stereo Odyssey) · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
20-Aug-26 15:55
Kettama - Archangel - Yosemite (feat. Interplanetary Criminal) · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Mall Grab - What I Breathe - I Can Remember It So Vividly · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
18-Aug-26 19:55
# · Mastodon View the site

Inspired by this.

17-Aug-26 16:10
# · Mastodon View the site

Old enough to remember the Vietnam war, Afghan invasions, Berlin wall and all the rest. But it still seems strange for both the USA and Russia to be stuck in unwinnable wars, simultaneously.

16-Aug-26 07:40
# · Mastodon View the site

MAGA assault on *some* science.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/07/trump-scientific-research-universities

If you think scientists are conspiring against you, then no iPhone, GPS, TV, A/C, etc etc for you. Would you rather be Amish?

# · Mastodon View the site

Last night there was a really strong smell of smoke outside. Scanned the horizon and no sign of blaze or sirens. So probably just a firepit in someone's garden.

Too many big field fires around here lately. So it scares the hell out of me.

Meanwhile my local flytip, rubbish, fire, illegal landfill is still gently smouldering underground. Running out of people to complain to. The council told the landowner to fix it but he claims to have sold it on.

07-Aug-26 13:55
Alex Virgo - Don't Buy The Sun - Gale Force · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
11-Aug-26 06:55
# · Mastodon View the site

This increase in UK terrorism reporting. Is it LASIT[1] or Extreme Right Wing driving it?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/06/record-high-referrals-prevent-anti-terror-scheme-rise-rightwing-extremism

[1] LASIT = extreme Left-Wing, Anarchist, Single-issue, Terrorism.

# · Mastodon View the site

While we wait for the EU Copernicus summary of July weather.

NOAA OISST V2.1 Sea surface temperature, daily average, 60S-60N just hit a record high of 21.2C above the previous record of 21.17C 24-Apr-24 0.99C above the 1989-2010 average.

El Nino continues to climb.

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=world2

https://climatereanalyzer.org/clim/sst_daily/?dm_id=nino3.4

https://climate.copernicus.eu/press-releases

10-Aug-26 19:25
# · Mastodon View the site

- Canadian Daisy
50ml Jamaican Rum, 20ml Lemon, 20ml Curacao, 15ml soda float, lemon twist.

So a rum Sidecar, lengthened with a soda float. Not sure why it's Canadian. Should be Canada Club, no?

19-Aug-26 16:10
James Blake - Trying Times - Didn’t Come To Argue (feat. Monica Martin) · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
SlothBoogie - 15 Years of SlothBoogie - Demuir - Fool In the Mirror · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
18-Aug-26 19:25
Tom Esselle - Evolutions & Revolutions - One Of These Days · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Haŵs - Club Unity Vol. 2 - Janeret - Shaw · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
06-Aug-26 17:25
Haŵs - Club Unity Vol. 2 - Janeret - Shaw · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
Ali Berger - Serious - Rhythm & Simplicity · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
18-Aug-26 11:25
Felipe Gordon - Wait on Me - El Meloncito · jbond's Recently Played Tracks View the site
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