It can be, if you get know someone and find out what gets them off. It can also be a bit rubbish. I wouldn’t worry about it and you’ll find the right person eventually, if you want to that is.

That’s what a dog would say.

From February:

GB News has paid Conservative MPs more than £660,000 in appearance fees and salaries since it launched, against just £1,100 to Labour MPs, Guardian analysis shows.

It’s basically the UK’s Fox News but perhaps even less impartial as it let’s politicians host shows - it definitely feels like an attempt to shift the Overton Window to the right. Quite why it hasn’t been sanctioned by Ofcom is unclear.

There’s a good overview here.

edit: this is the key part for me:

Around this time, the charity Hope not Hate published an investigation reporting that Paul Marshall, the founder of news and commentary website UnHerd and co-owner of what it called the “right-wing channel GB News”, had used his X account in a way that suggests “he holds a deeply disturbing view of modern Britain.”

The holding company that owns GB News is called All Perspectives Ltd. It has two major shareholders: Legatum Ltd and Sir Paul, who own 41.2 per cent of the company each. Marshall’s fortune is put at an estimated £800m from his career as a hedge fund manager. He does not post on X much. He does, however, retweet and “like” what Hope not Hate described as “notorious hate accounts such as the Britain First deputy leader Ashlea Simon, American anti-Muslim campaigner Amy Mek and the shady Italian anti-migration account Radio Genoa.”

Marshall, who is also bidding for ownership of the Telegraph and the Spectator, “has repeatedly liked and retweeted extremist content from an array of far-right and conspiracy theorist accounts,” the charity found. A representative for Marshall issued a statement noting that “as most X/Twitter users know, it can be a fountain of ideas, but some of it is of uncertain quality and all his posts have now been deleted to avoid any further misunderstanding.” What was “misunderstood” was not explained, but if the head honcho likes and retweets views like this, then the cast of eccentrics and Looney Tunes characters given airtime on his channel begins to make more sense.

Here is the Hope Not Hate article that draws from.

They don’t put them off, just makes the bites less inflamed. You need to team them with insect repellent.

I always get eaten alive, luckily my antihistamines stop most bites punching through (but when they do… Oh boy!). I always find the only solution is insect repellent.

Well that’s a good way to get Brits riled up. Next, you’ll be saying that biscuits are French. 😱

!tea@feddit.uk

Plums and a sausage!

I usually grab a couple of falafel and a small handful of nuts. I have recently thrown a few grapes into the mix. Which, when typed out, does suggest my life is just a series of double entendres.

I am very laid back (my Dad always said I was nearly horizontal) and I never get angry, I rarely even get flustered or impatient. My Dad was a very good man and I try to follow his example as much as possible. As his health declined and I started caring for him (a real privilege as he helped so many it was only just that he got help in return when he needed it, even if it couldn’t possibly fully pay him back) and, as I picked up some of his slack I did wonder where he found the time or energy. Since he died, I have felt like a sheepdog without a flock and have found myself adopting various people - I helped a friend through her cancer journey and her son start university, I took another friend to hospital sufficiently often that she just told the staff I was her “hospital husband” (which did stop them asking questions, usually with a roll of the eyes) and, as I don’t drink, I ferry people home from the pub.

However, I can be… thoughtless and this can be really annoying, especially to the easily angered - I’ve lost a friend over it and my brother isn’t exactly my greatest fan (the other year, my niece asked if I wanted to know all the nasty things my brother said about me and I declined - if we knew what people thought about us, we’d tear each other apart). I can also be rude to people but just where it’s funny, you just have to know your audience (it can appal any bystanders though). I’m also not very emotionally expressive and I suspect at least one friend thinks I’m a sociopath.

So am I nice? Although it might depend on who you ask, I’d say no. However, I try to do as much good as possible - if anyone needs help, I’ll drop what I’m doing and pitch in.

What I do when I have spare time: write. I just don’t seem to have had any spare time recently.

For the bitters, yes.

The international foot or the Imperial foot?

They Live.

The Thing but not The Thing From Another World.

Most things based on the work of PKD.

A lot of Lovecraft adaptations have to be a bit loose (because his stories tend not to lend themselves to films and he wasn’t a good person) and are all the better for it - Re-animator, From Beyond, The Color Out of Space, Dagon, etc. plus quite a few fan films.

Flash Gordon film.

The first two Blade films - they struggle to make great Blade comics.

The Legion TV series.

It wasn’t even a book, more a sketch, a joke even. A lot (most?) of the adaptations of PKD’s writing are better than the original. And yet, the core concepts, about the nature of humanity and reality, break through and inspire some truly great work.

Asda Shades So Soft. I tried Aldi but it just seemed to run out quicker.

There’s crisps and a massive gherkin too. We don’t even know what flavour of crisps they are. Was the thickness of the slices of tomato a deliberate choice? So many questions.

It’s okay to generalise about people who generalise about people.

That’s me.