Leaderboard

Down the road from me at this moment - was considering going but tragically the Covid test just came back negative

10 days.

At least someone in the Tories is prepared to call out Reform. Pity Rishi doesn't have the balls

In other news, the frequently discussed urban legend of intimate equine involvement in the death of Catherine the Great is (pardon the pun) cobblers! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legends_of_Catherine_the_Great#Death_while_having_sex_with_a_horse

Listen to the Horrible Histories Monarchs song, that's what I used to memorize them. (Although it is not complete since it starts with William the Conqueror and ignores Lady Jane Grey).

Someone in Tory HQ is leaking the daily brief to Alistair Campbell. It's like something from W1A today BREAKING: Am being leaked all the campaign director morning notes from Tory HQ now … here is today’s … we will be fielding C Heaton-Harris on the media this morning. You will know he is not standing but as with M Gove we think this helps us. These departing MPs are able to put a bit of distance from the campaign and when asked to comment eg on betting scandals, unravelling tax lies and the like, they can say it is not a matter for them. But they can then pivot to our line of the day which is that Starmer will take UK back into EU. We need to be careful however, as there is a danger this will make Starmer more popular. So we need to issue the warning gently, especially in Lib Dem areas. Please don’t leak but the Chancellor called the PM yesterday furious at his “Brexit is great”’tweet (overnight focus groups suggest JH has a point but let’s double down to show confidence in our strategy. Tomorrow Sir Gavin Williamson will be main message carrier. Unfortunately most of current cabinet now feel they are in either lost cause seats or marginals so we have to respect their refusal to go out and defend the national campaign. But as you know Gav is a great salesman and we are hoping he can do for Rishi what he once did for fireplaces. No new scandals overnight apart from us using public money to set up party website for candidates. But thankfully there are so many bigger scandals nobody is noticing. And remember … it is no longer about stopping the boats but stopping the votes. STOP THE VOTES. AVOID THE SUPERDEFEAT WE KNOW WE DESERVE. Onwards !!!

I'm no Einstein or Mozart. All my hobbies and talents are unusual or strange. I can name every Formula 1 Champion in reverse order. I have a surprising amount of knowledge on wars and battles. I'm talking everything from the Battle of Bannockburn to the Battle of Dai Do. And it's not just wars and battles, but all things military such as operations, aircraft, ships and equipment used in different wars by different countries,. I doubt many people know what a Chauchat is (Spoiler: It's what Jayapataka would be if he were a gun, cause most of the time something or the other doesn't work.). Also military awards, ranks and so on. I can also name most people and objects sent to space.

My chief parlor trick for nearly 20 years now (and reflected by my DDP team name) is being able to name all the US presidents chronologically in under a minute Learned functional Spanish for a job in an area with a large Spanish-speaking populace, tbh I still struggle with listening to others in Spanish and reading is far easier. Even though my current job doesn't need Spanish I refuse to let it rust, so I'll do a little practice each day. I've been trying to expand my skills/knowledge in recent months actually. In school the grades system ultimately made me care about getting good grades rather than learning. And sadly not uncommon when trans/autistic, I had been in a personal stasis for a long time. I've only truly felt I was living in these past 2-3 years and I'm making up for lost time by kicking the living into overdrive. There's been to-dos I've had in mind (I want to learn the keyboard, though making room for one in my apartment is a puzzle), one of my big escapades in recent months is memorizing the countries, capitals, flags, where they're located, etc, and I've made major leaps and bounds in a short period of time. I'm now irked that I didn't have this newfound knowledge when the ex leader of Tanzania died on leap day, as I so would've used "Dead as a Dodoma" as his DDP pun.

When I said the other week that I don't have hobbies, that wasn't entirely true. I don't have hobbies that are easy to explain. I have thousands of War and Peace-length notes on my phone, because I'm allergic to PCs and spreadsheets. Geography, music, language, cars, the property market, deadpooling, everything. In 2020 I bought a big map of Glasgow and decided to walk all 5,000 streets within the city boundaries, marking my progress with coloured pens. I completed it in late 2023 without being stabbed or even mildly threatened. I'm looking for the next adventure because it was great fun and I'm bored now. I'm the owner of a Casio CTK-6200 keyboard and 3 acoustic guitars which I never play. The oldest guitar is 95 years old and made by Telesforo Julve in Valencia. The previous owner, recently deceased, was a member of a travelling band during WWII. He gave me it for free when I was his paperboy. I was told it's beyond repair so I'm holding onto it until it disintegrates or summat. I'm really good at Mario Kart Wii but I developed an addiction so I had to stop gaming altogether. Identifying songs quickly is my hidden talent. I keep applying for The Hit List because I'm convinced I'd wipe the floor with the competition.

On Saturday he was hospitalized, suffered from a massive stroke.

Lyricist Agim Doci, who wrote the lyrics for Albania's entries in 2004 (The Image Of You, 7th) and 2009 (Carry Me In Your Dreams, 17th), reportedly dead: https://www.koha.net/en/rajon/423926/vdiq-poeti-agim-doci

This is brilliant. I shall print it out and display it in my windows alongside the Tactical Voting poster.

It was Gavin Williamson part which got me pausing. I thought do they want be reduced to single figures?

Its telling how bad their campaign is that I got quite far into that post before twigging it was satire!

This could have been typed by me. I have a daily routine of learning a new fact, which I then send to a bunch of people who are similarly enchanted. Yesterday's was that United Arab Emirates alternates between vowels and consonants (the longest country name to do so by some margin). I can spend over half an hour finding the perfect fact, disregarding hundreds before I found the one I'm going to use. I also had tennis lessons, and still play. I'm a fairly adept player, and have won a few medals and a really nice trophy that I proudly keep in its box (because I'm far too paranoid about it breaking!) You should definitely coin collect more!!

11th of June 2024 Hit n°12 "Tu m'admirais hier et je serai poussière, pour toujours demain" French icon, singer and model Françoise Hardy has died aged 80 on the 11th of June providing our French list with our thirteenth hit. Hardy was born in Paris in 1944 during a bomb alert. During her teenage years, she was drawn to music and began composing her first songs around 15 or 16 years old. In 1961, aged 17, Vogue hired her to produce a first solo album which should be a counterpart to Johnny Hallyday's music. Her first hit was ''Tous les Garçons et les Filles'' in 1962, sold over 500,000 copies in 6 months. In the meantime, Hardy met French photographer Jean Marie Périer who would ultimately introduce the young Françoise to fashion and make her one of the best-known ambassadors of French style and the face of a new generation of women. In the following years, Hardy composed and sang numerous hits and now classic French songs such as ''Comment te dire adieu ?'' (cover of Vera Lynn's ''It Hurts to Say Goodbye''), "L'amitié'', "La Maison où j'ai grandi"' or "Mon Amie la Rose" which now sounds like a poetic epitaph. In 1981, Hardy married another French iconic singer, Jacques Dutronc with whom she sang several songs and had a son, Thomas. She continued composing and singing melancholic songs till the end of her life and was ultimately considered one of the most talented and famous French singer-songwriters alongside such icons as Serge Gainsbourg, Véronique Sanson, Michel Berger and others… In 2004, she was first diagnosed with cancer of the lymphatic system which should eventually worsen in 2014 before being cured in 2016. However, in 2019, Hardy was diagnosed with pharyngeal cancer which should ultimately claim her life five years later. In the later years of her life and during all her health problems, Hardy made front-page news and was therefore a clear choice for our first common deathlist, jumping straight on at number 12 despite our common wish to avoid her being a hit this year…

24/6/24 06:56 hrs 49 David Bowie - Life on Mars? 46 Gerry Rafferty - Baker Street 44 Mott the Hoople - All The Young Dudes 41 Electric Light Orchestra - Don’t Bring Me Down 29 R. Dean Taylor— There’s A Ghost In My House +4 27 Suzi Quatro - 48 Crash  23 America - A Horse With No Name  22 The Jam - The Eton Rifles 20 ABBA - Money, Money, Money 18 ABBA - Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight) 18 David Bowie - Sound and Vision 12 Van McCoy & The Soul City Symphony - The Hustle 07 Donna Summer - Love’s Unkind 00 The Rolling Stones - Miss You -6

What’s wrong with the mad hatter?

As someone who may be autistic and waiting for diagnosis I can get easily obsessed about certain things and this includes trying to perfect my skills. Computer skills My dad was work from home database software manager until retiring recently (or trying to). This means i've been surrounded by computers in the house since I was a child in the 90's (until I went to secondary school I thought everyone had 2-3 desktop computers in the house). He has made sure I have learnt how to touch type from a young age. I can't tell you word per minute, but I can type something without seeing the keyboard. It also means that I know basic coding. I did an IT course at local college as well, but i'm not academic so it was a bit of a struggle. Computer graphic design Since a teenager in the early 00's where I joined forums I have loved making graphics, either for other people or for myself. I've taken a break for the moment because the software I loved doesn't work with this computer now and i'm refusing to buy Photoshop. I am learning how to use Photopea though. Photography I really want to get into photography but so much choice and cameras are expensive. I don't want to be a photographer with a phone though despite what my dad says. Creative writing I have a big creative mind and have written fanfic and original content. Also I roleplay on Tumblr and can easily write 8 paragraphs of a biography of a character in third person in half an hour. The issue with some of my creative works though is finishing or trying to write the middle section. I also can come up with 50 ideas in space of a week which is frustrating. This is my creative writing folder on my computer Knowledge of useless facts I wouldn't say it's useless. But instead of trying to...study for my GCSE's so I could get a good mark. I would learn things about history of Sci Fi or the Roman Empire etc. Who needs to know about percentages when I can research the history of Lord of the Rings. My knowledge of The Beatles is excellent. I didn't want to know at school but I am really into Tudor history now. I like to watch any TV show which involves Henry VIII. Other I used to be quite good at Tennis as a child and even had private tennis lessons. Then for reasons which I guess was Autism not wanting to do it anymore. I stopped and went on to something else. I am still obsessed over the sport though. I'm also a bit of a hoarder of things. So I get sentimental about objects and because there has been mentions of coin collecting on the forum recently. I now want to coin collect more. Things like that.

Like the fitba team tomorrow.

The John Newman track is probably my least favourite of those remaining, but there seems little point in downvoting it at this juncture.

What a complete clattering anus. Cunt Tweeted (and swiftly deleted) a pic of his wife marking her ballot paper which, of course, is illegal.

I have perfect pitch. Can’t play any instruments though (other than drums). I also have a racing license (ARDS Nat B level). I’ve done plenty of track days but only one actual competitive race. I’m basically a master of wasting any talents I do have.

Assuming he can move enough to do that. Or is physically capable of moving outside of his house.