comment | Steve Woods

Welcome to Birmingham

29/03/2025 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities, Politics

The Reform UK Party Ltd., the private company/cult of personality masquerading as a political party, launched its campaign for the 2025 English local government elections with a rally at Birmingham’s Utilita Arena yesterday evening.

However, the charlatan commonly known as Nigel Farage was not the only one waiting to welcome delegates to the rally.

Our old friends from Led By Donkeys were also present, projecting their messages onto the side of the building, much to the bemusement of the local constabulary (judging from the video. Ed.).

Delegates were greeted by a large picture of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (aka Vlad the Invader. Ed.) and Mr Farage, after the political activists projected the image onto the big screen, with the caption: “Vladimir and Nigel welcome you to Birmingham”.

Led By Donkeys have plenty of experience of this kind of action: just ask the disgraced – and disgraceful – former UK prime minister, one Mary Elizabeth Truss (posts passim).
Bart Nil gets a gong

27/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

According to the city council’s website: “The Lord Mayor’s Medals are awarded to highlight the local, unpaid community work and achievement that’s helped to improve the lives of Bristol’s citizens.”

Good news was received this morning that the Barton Hill Litter Group I help organise has been awarded a Lord Mayor’s Medal after being nominated by Lawrence Hill ward councillor Yassin Mohamud. Thanks, Yassin!

Alex, Steve and Ronit with the fruits of the March 2025 litter pick. Image courtesy of Eric Green

We’ve been sent a letter to confirm the award and attend the award ceremony next month at the Lord Mayor’s official residence, the Mansion House.

The letter from the Lord Mayor’s office is quoted in full below.

Dear Barton Hill Litter Group,

Re: The Lord Mayor of Bristol’s Medal
As you may be aware, the Lord Mayor of Bristol’s medal is awarded to Bristol’s unsung heroes who serve the people of Bristol through voluntary and community work or charitable acts of work.

I am writing to inform you that Barton Hill Litter Group have been selected as a recipient.

The medal will be presented in a very special ceremony on:

Tuesday 15 April at 3.00pm and will be held at
The Mansion House, Clifton Down.

The Lord Mayor would be delighted if you and a guest could join him and other recipients. I will also be writing to the person who nominated you to attend the ceremony.

I would be grateful if you could confirm your attendance via lordmayor [at] bristol.gov.uk by Wednesday 9 April. If you are unable to attend, please let me know if there is anyone who can represent you on the day?

Bristol City Council will issue a press release and the press may wish to contact you in advance of the ceremony. Please can you confirm if you are happy to be contacted by the press and for information on your nomination to be released publicly (including social media).

Yours, etc.

Congratulations to all our regular and occasional pickers. You’ve done yourselves, us and the district proud. Give yourselves a hearty pat on the back!
In your own time, Bristol City Council!

26/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media, Politics

Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
The best part of 30 years ago,the late cycle campaigner Chris Hutt of Bristol’s Cyclebag remarked that perhaps the simplest way in which mobility within the city could be improved would be to tweak the timings of pedestrian crossings so that they switched over to the pedestrian green phase within seconds of the button being pushed.

Fifteen years after Chris’ death it looks like something similar to what he suggested is finally being implemented – albeit half-heartedly – by Bristol City Council.

Today’s Bristol Post reports that around 100 crossings – i.e. a fraction of those in the city – will be changed as suggested by Chris all that time ago.The change has been described by councillors as a “cost-effective way to get traffic-calming measures” that have already proved popular on some busy roads. The setting, known as “pre-timed max”, will also be installed on new crossings as they are provided.

In addition, the tweak will only be made to stand-alone pedestrian crossings, not those associated with junctions where they are just as badly needed and could be equally as beneficial.

Commenting on the scheme, Green Councillor Emma Edwards said: “When people realised what had happened, I got phone calls saying ‘can we have one down here and there, and it would be useful here’. Residents really love them and it’s such a cost-effective way to get traffic calming measures in and to help with things like school routes.”

What has taken you so long, Bristol City Council?

Your ‘umble scribe’s best guess is that the idea was filed away in the “not invented here” cabinet combined with the propensity of highways department staff not being able to see beyond the bonnet of their respective motorised tinned three-piece suites.

Given these shortcomings, your correspondent is only prepared to give the council one extremely grudging cheer.
A tidier BS5

25/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

It’s been a good day for a tidier and hopefully more pleasant and liveable BS5.

For the second week in a row, Bristol City Council had arranged for skips to be dropped at four sites in Lawrence Hill ward for residents to fill with the rubbish that couldn’t be collected by normal waste rounds. The sites are shown on the following map.

Before providing the skips in Easton last week and this week, St Paul’s residents had previously benefited from their presence on the streets.

Yesterday morning your ‘umble scribe received an email from a council contact: could I possibly help out at one of the sites?

I duly did, turning out at 9.00 am for skip delivery. It didn’t actually turn up until nearly 10 am. By 10.45 it was full and your correspondent regretfully had to turn people away or direct them to the other skip sites.

I was very pleased to be relieved by a proper council officer at 11 am.

While babysitting the skip, I also had one Bristol Waste‘s community engagement officers stop for a chat. She had organised a community litter pick on Stapleton Road for later that morning. I saw them on my way for a late breakfast; they were hard at work and doing a good job near the junction with Easton Way.

Anyway, well done to Bristol City Council and Bristol Waste for arranging some extra resources for tidying BS5 and the community litter picking team. Your efforts are appreciated. One repeated remark which was made about the skips was can we please have them again, possibly regularly?
Mermaids, volcanism and… Google Translate!

18/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities, Social Media, Tech

Google Translate, the Mountain View behemoth’s translation service is noted for not being very good on technical terminology, even of the most basic kind. Furthermore, it also struggles with a little thin called context, i.e. the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea and in terms of which it can be fully understood.

When Google Translate gets the context wrong and confuses protecting the public with ancient Greek mythological figures, the result is at the very least amusing and at must alarming and downright dangerous, as revealed by the following social media post by Prof. Jenni Barclay of the University of Bristol.

Prof. Barclay’s research is the reduction of risk and prevention of disaster in volcanic settings, with a particular focus both on volcanic processes and the social processes that amplify volcanic risk.

My question for Prof. Barclay is are mermaids a social process?

Mis-translations definitely are!
New street art in Brick Lane E1

16/03/2025 Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Social Media

A new piece of artwork – a sort of fascist Who’s Who for 2025 – has turned on a wall in Brick Lane in London’s East End according to my social media feed.

Spot the genuine human being – if any.

With the characters all wearing German military uniforms from the Nazi era, the artwork features (from left to right) millionaire, public school-educated man of the people Nigel Paul Farage, South African-born naturalised American businessman (usually shorthand for crook. Ed.) Elon Reeve Musk, Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, president of the gangster regime in Russia, Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, purveyor of genocide in Gaza and corruption at home and, last but not least, the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, who is now trying to turn the United States economy into his 7th business bankruptcy from the comfort of the Oval Office.
All of them are a waste of food and oxygen and could not form a single decent human even if their best parts were used.
No further comment is necessary.
All day?

06/03/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Social Media

A crime against the English language appeared in my social media feed today. It loomed out of a photograph of part of the menu from an unidentified McDonald’s drive through somewhere in the United States.

Dies irae* if you roll up at 1.01 pm?

It centres on the use of the word day whose meaning for this context is provided by Merriam-Webster:

“the time of light between one night and the next”.

When combined with the words all and breakfast one would expect the fare proffered to be provided throughout the hours of daylight between sunrise and sunset; or at the very least to be available between the business’ opening and closing times.
Not “ONLY UNTIL 1PM” as the menu shouts loudly.

The picture seems to have been taken some while ago, as the price of eggs in the USA has rocketed due to avian influenza and Walmart is rationing egg purchases. The egg shortage has not gone unnoticed under the golden arches either: Newsweek reports a customer of a McDonald’s in Fairfield, Connecticut was charged $7.29 per Egg McMuffin and complained about it on social media.

* = Day of wrath (usually divine. Ed.).
Telling the truth costs NZ diplomat his job

06/03/2025 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

The BBC reports that New Zealand’s right wing new Zealand First party foreign minister Winston Peters has dismissed his country’s high commissioner (that’s Commonwealth speak for ambassador. Ed.) to London after the latter told a few home truths about the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

According to the BBC:
At an event in London on Tuesday, High Commissioner Phil Goff compared efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine to the 1938 Munich Agreement, which allowed Adolf Hitler to annex part of Czechoslovakia without any involvement of the Czechoslovak government.

The Munich Agreement was signed on 30th September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom (represented by prime minister Neville Chamberlain. Ed.), France and Fascist Italy and provided for the German annexation of part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived.

Neville Chamberlain returned triumphantly to Britain proclaiming he’d achieved “peace in our time” and waving a piece of paper allegedly including Hitler’s signature above his head.

One of the critics of Chamberlain was Winston Churchill, who was to succeed Chamberlain as the UK’s second wartime prime minister. Churchill remarked:

You had the choice between war and dishonour. You chose dishonour, yet you will have war.

Mr Goff noted that, “President Trump has restored the bust of Churchill to the Oval Office. But do you think he really understands history?”

In support of Mr Goff, Trump’s woeful knowledge of history is a matter of public record. In July 2019 claimed in a speech Continental Army “manned the air” and “took over the airports” during the Revolutionary War, despite the fact that the Wright brothers’ first flight did not take place in 1903, one hundred and twenty years after the end of the American revolution.

The BBC piece describes Mr Goff as “a veteran politician who had been high commissioner since January 2023. Before that, he served for two terms as mayor of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city, and was leader of the Labour Party from 2008 to 2011. He had also held several ministerial portfolios, including justice, foreign affairs and defence“.
March litter pick

02/03/2025 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Yesterday saw the regular monthly community litter pick in Bristol’s Barton Hill, which takes place on the first Saturday of each month.

On a sunny but initially cool morning four of us turned up and spent an hour and a quarter clearing up Ducie Road and its council-owned car park, a regular dumping ground for fly-tippers, as well as a convenient repository for spent catering size nitrous oxide canisters.

The team dismantled one fly tip and bagged it up for collection by Bristol Waste along with our ‘swag‘, which will be collected – hopefully speedily – by Bristol Waste.

Alex, Steve and Ronit with the fruits of our litter pick.
Image courtesy of Eric Green

Afterwards we retired to the Wellspring Settlement for light refreshments.

Thanks to my fellow pickers for tidying BS5.

See you next month on the 5th!
Muskrat less popular by the day

25/02/2025 Steve WoodsOddities, Politics, Social Media, Tech

With the inauguration of the disgraced 47th and 45th president of the United States, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump, it has been noticed that a certain level of authoritarianism – or even fascism – has entered American politics in The Felon’s desire to Make America Grate Again (or something like that. Ed.).

Of course, The Felon is not implementing his far-right agenda in isolation.

One of his biggest aides and pro-tem best buddy is the fascist known as Elon Reeve Musk, a man of capable of wielding vast wealth but very few brain cells. He is currently leading the charge to destroy US federal government departments in the drive for alleged efficiency; and is messing up badly, on account of which his approval rating in the USA is rapidly declining, but has yet to reach the levels seen in the UK.

The Muskrat is of course best known for being the man who invested in Tesla cars, which was incorporated by Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning in 2003. The Muskrat was only involved in the company’s first funding round, i.e. he just provided the money, not the technical expertise.

Partly as a result of The Muskrat’s overt fascist sympathies, The Muskrat’s popularity has been adversely affected.

Tesla car sales have also been affected by The Muskrat’s links to The Felon and his fascist sympathies too. As The Guardian reports, sales of Tesla in Europe in January 2025 were half what they were the previous year.

In addition to this, the Tesla factory on the outskirts of Berlin has been used as a screen for another action by Led By Donkeys (posts passim), whilst showrooms have been targeted by demonstrators and even defaced.

In London, fake Tesla advertisements showing a saluting Muskrat and claiming the vehicles – renamed Swasticars – go from zero to 1939 in 3 seconds have started appearing.

Finally, in other news, The Muskrat, who also hold Canadian citizenship via his mother, is the subject of a federal petition seeking to revoke his citizenship. At the time of writing it has over 237,000 signatures.

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