dog-days

Remember at my last place the day after I broke up with my partner there was a sudden plague of houseflies. They were all over the place in the kitchen and living room. It was alarming to start with, like suddenly finding yourself caught up in a B-horror movie. To my relief, they were quite willing to fly out of the window without much encouragement. Some good news: actress Siân Phillips turns 90 today. I think of her as the Empress Livia in I Claudius ("There is nothing in this world that occurs to you that does not occur to me first. That is the affliction I live with"), as the Second Voice in the BBC's 2003 radio adaptation of Under Milk Wood, and as Gwyn's Nain in the TV version of The Snow Spider. Her voice is one of the most beautiful I've heard – up there with the late Alan Rickman imo. Siân Phillips on Wikipedia.

Just another of those small-scale stories of incompetence and probable corruption that regularly emerge from local government. Pembrokeshire Council gives £1.9 million to holiday resort; gets fuck-all back. I felt that there was already a cloud hanging over this particular council, and yes, it's the one from which Andrew "all white men should have a black slave" Edwards was recently suspended. The Pembrokeshire Herald came to his defence by blaming AI deep fakes for that one, so I guess that's something else to look forward to. Now when a politician or celebrity comes out with something so malignant that even they won't try and justify it in public, they can say that it was the AI that did it.

Cornflakes with whiskey sounds like a terrible waste of whiskey and cornflakes. However, around ten years ago staying on a Scottish island, I was served porridge with cream, brown sugar and whiskey. That kind of breakfast might even help a police commissioner get through his day and bugger the headlines.

It's early and my brain isn't working. In what scenarios is it a good idea to taser someone standing on the edge of a balcony? I'm struggling to imagine a positive outcome.

I think you did the right thing by taking her aside to talk to her, and it sounds really good that she trusted you enough to admit that she's worried about her beliefs causing a rift between her and her friends. If it helps, I think the refusal to engage is quite a natural response from a young person in her position feeling a strong loyalty to her family and struggling to reconcile that with her current context and classroom demands. As well as feeling perhaps defensive and insecure? I'm not sure how old exactly your students are, but the lessons sound quite high-concept. If she doesn't come from the background where exposure to that kind of discussion is normal, she could not have the instinct for how to engage or the ability to recognise what a more dispassionate kind of engagement looks like. I wonder what her interests are outside of class, and if any of them could tie in with the subject of a future lesson?

I was fond of that aspect of BG1 – I liked walking my gang through the big meadow and forest areas. The atmosphere created by the music and isometric art was really relaxing. To me that aspect of it wasn't worse than BG2, but it was offering a different kind of experience. Haven't played either game now for around sixteen years; I played them both to death when I was young. ETA: And yes, BG bards suck. The ones in NWN2 were underpowered as well, though not as badly. Playing Witcher 3 at the moment every day for weeks after picking it up for a song from a GoG sale. At the moment it's fine, but also feels like more of a cheap time sink than something I necessarily look forward to bar a couple of good quests. The writing often seems quite blah or irritating, the bosom camera feels skeevy, and the two old friends who are meant to be loveable rogues come across more as eternal child-men. So far I just like Dijkstra and Vernon Roche. Still, Geralt is level 21 and hasn't sailed to the Skellige Isles yet. There is a lot of game and world to go.

For the full classic experience, you need to make sure your Charname gets eaten by a wolf in the first ten minutes of post-Candlekeep play.

Beating up a Tory increasingly feels as if it should be prescribed by the NHS.

Not a fan? I've heard of him, never read him.

Re Turkey. At this point, thinking that anyone who's not Erdogan could get elected seems like a very distant hope. Still, 44% inflation sounds brutal. 10% has been bad enough in the UK. Perhaps if that united more of the public against him... And then then there's the military. Not sure how much they're under his thumb following the 2016 coup.

I'm sorry you've been going through that – anxiety is awful. I know I got very frustrated with myself about it when it was bad for me last year because in theory, I was healthy and yet at the same time I was physically ill. Hope it sods off to wherever anxiety goes when it's not taking any excuse to mess things up for people. The primrose retirement home for arsehole mind-body encumbrances.

I'd be surprised if there were any serious challenges to Sunak now. The drubbing the Tory party took in the local elections was so bad, and even if the MPs won't say so openly, they'll know it's because they've reached the end of the line in this electoral cycle; the public is sick of them and changing the PM won't change that. Sunak will at least bring things to a close with a modicum of style and a slight aroma of thousand-pound-a-bottle aftershave; a good-mannered Charon. Mordaunt is unlikely to want to be PM for a few months just so that she can oversee her party losing power. However, she's well placed to be the next Tory Leader of the Opposition. For now, I'd guess there'll be some more corruption scandals as MPs stuff their pockets while they can.

Sometimes plodding along is the best we can do. I hope things improve for you anon. I enjoy seeing your name pop up on the board because it's always attached to a post worth reading!

There are a lot of rough sleepers and people with obvious drug and/or alcohol problems where I live. On the main street on Friday, someone approached me to ask for change for a sandwich. I didn't have any change, but did offer to buy him a sandwich. So he led me to Costa and I got him a blueberry shake thing (blergh – his request), toasted sandwich and protein bar. He also asked me for money to help him get space for a B&B that night, and I said I was sorry, I couldn't. Awkwardly, I had already mentioned that I was saving for a deposit, which I know is a really stupid and in some ways mean thing to do. In my defence, I was in a low mood and had lost whatever ability I had to compartmentalise or make polite small talk, so what slipped out was my monomania of the last couple of years. Just one of those endless selfish decisions that have to be made when you want something badly for yourself. Guess if you scale it up large enough, you get to be a Tory MP. @Poobah, I haven't seen you around much on the forum recently. Are things going alright?

I haven't been following the coronation discussions here and elsewhere closely, but at least based on the Twitter reactions I've been seeing, the talk has been mainly about the rather striking dress. Think there's also a narrow but deep gulf between 'that person looks really elegant'* and typical 'totally fuckable/eight out of ten/I'd tell her to sit on my face if I was Sunak' locker-room talk. Re: the article. I did like the way that at the end the breakdown was: 50% good people, 25% excellent, 25% walking problems that should never have been recruited in the first place. I've had relatives in the police, and do feel for the ones trying to do a decent job while the horrors go around stamping on whatever good will has been created by the others. * In the context of an event focused on appearance and pageantry

This extract from a book by former Special Constable Matt Lloyd-Rose makes pretty good reading. Not as completely down on the Met as it initially seems, though still critical.

Now I'm kind of imagining you living in the village from Hot Fuzz except with a Conservative Association on every corner. And the local hunt riding down hippies in the street to celebrate Boxing Day.

I've seen Chuk Iwuji a couple of times on stage. He was really good, very charismatic. Not a huge Guardians fan, but I'll probably watch the latest instalment just because of him.

My big event of 2023, the muesli trials, continue. This morning I mixed a small can of blackcurrants in with the oats and hot soy milk. Although I like blackcurrants, their flavour is so intense that it tends to take over everything instead of acting as a complement. Blackcurrant muesli ends up tasting like wet blackcurrant concrete. Don't think I'll repeat that one. Note to self: blackcurrants should be eaten raw, in jam, or as the filling in a cheesecake, and otherwise not. On the other hand, tinned peaches and ginger worked very well.

I've never eaten grass because I thought it would taste like grass. On balance, I think my instincts must have moved me to think that this would be a bad thing. I hope the flowers improve your next attempt, unless you liked the initial one, in which case I hope the flowers intensify the grassy depth of flavour until it tastes even more like grass.

Interesting. What did it taste like? Do you use the leaves or flowers?

Google doth call... ETA: Looks like a serious-minded film with things to say about generational change. What a disappointment!

There is nothing fun about job applications. They're all just shit in different ways. I think one of the big reasons I've only applied to public sector/education-adjacent jobs for the last nine years is that the rigid structure appeals to how my mind works. But given your qualifications, you'll stand out amongst the 'send in a CV' hopefuls. Most of them must get eliminated from the process quite fast.

Good luck and much sympathy re networking. How on earth did you manage to write 29 job applications in a week? Mine take me ages, and normally involve responding to a person specification point by point.