2025-11-08 02:55:00
Over on the Socials, Laura shared the above image and pointed out that Russia is big.
Now, I've seen maps and Russia does look bloody massive but also Mercator distortion (where landmasses close to the poles are exaggerated in size) is a thing.
So, is Russia actually big?
It turns out, yes. It fucken massive.
Laura's map shows a 10,000km road trip cross-country. LA to London is a little over 8700km. There's room inside Russia for the whole of the USA and most of Europe.
It big. 17 million km² big. That's Canada plus Australia big! Seventy United Kingdoms big!
2025-11-07 19:15:17
I very much wanted to like "From the Pyre" as I think The Last Dinner Party showcased something really special on their debut. I remain, at time of writing, on the fence. "This Is The Killer Speaking" is a stand-out track; no surprises it was a single.
"Death and Glitz" kicks off with the sleaziest riff full of disconcerting bends. From 2025's, "Don't Go In The Forest", this track is classic Avatar — groovy, bluesy, tongue-in-cheek. Metal is usually such a serious genre with some notable "comedy" bands so it's refreshing to find a band that aren't "novelty" but have that lightness and sense of humour.
Dave Mustaine from Megadeth dropped his old bandmates from Metallica in it this week when he claimed the riff for Enter Sandman had been nicked from Excel's 1989 "hit", "Tapping into the Emtional Void" and, having given it a listen, I think Mustaine has a point!
Not to be confused with the carpet shop, "A Floorshow in Hull" by Yorkshire definitely-not-Goth darlings, Sisters of Mercy, is a live show from Dingwalls in Hull from 1983 that hit YouTube Music this week. A handful of banging classics from the Gary Marx era received, in venue at least, to a smattering of lethargic applause befitting of nihilistic 80s Goths. "We are here but we will not enjoy ourselves." Eldritch's echoey vocals on personal favourite "Alice" are chef's kiss exemplary of the genre. Bloody love Sisters of Mercy!
"Strong Feelings" by Dry Cleaning came on in the background of The Listeners and I really liked it. I made a note to listen to more the following day so imagine my surprise when I saw that exact song was in my previous history! I listened to it once in 2023 (thanks, last.fm!). It's a down-tempo indie gem that reminds me of Pulp, Half Man Half Biscuit, and Yard Act. Rolling along on a lovely bass line, minimal guitar, and scittery drums the track is a minimalist frame for a near-spoken-word poem of odd observations.
Spent £17 on mushrooms for you 'cause I'm silly
"Soak" is the latest album from Brighton four-piece, Black Honey. Short n sweet sleazy indie rock with saccharine vocals sugar-coating acidic content.
Florence + The Machine are back with a bang! "Everybody Scream" is an orchestral bombastic pop masterpiece. It feels like what I wished "From the Pyre" was going to be. It's dark, hopeful, exciting. For a sixth album, this is cohesive but fresh.
2025-11-07 05:01:47
If you've lived in Manchester, you've probably walked past the Cenotaph in St Peter's Square.
Situated just outside Central Library, it is an enormous white stone monument to those who lost their lives in service of the country.
Completed in time for the Allied Victory Parade in 1919 and designed by Edwin Lutyens, who also designed many other monuments around the country, the tower is build of Portland stone and is beautifully geometric — until you look right at the very top where there appears to be some carved fabric.
Today I leaned this is a carving of an Unknown Soldier draped in his own greatcoat. A poignant reminder of the horrors of war.
2025-11-05 21:24:58
A friend of the family shared the wonderful news they have a new baby today. The news was accompanied, as many of these notifications are, with a photograph of said newborn wrapped in the loving embrace of their parent.
In the bottom left hand corner, in small but brilliant white letters, it said "Galaxy A16".
And that's how I learned that Samsung feel it's OK to slap their branding on even the most intimate moments of a human's life. I shouldn't be surprised.
Removing watermarks from photographs and other images is generally seen as a bad thing — a practice actively harming the creative industry and, sadly, something that is getting easier to do with the power of Generative AI. But it seems like I've found an edge case where watermark removal is perfectly valid!
Samsung have a toggle in the settings to remove watermarks or customised them but turning them on by default to promote your own branding? Seems pretty wrong to me. Especially as it seems they can't be removed from images that already have them; proving they believe they have more claim to your images than you do.
🎶 Wow, capitalism! 🎵
2025-11-05 18:46:55
Revisiting a bandwagon from 2023 courtesy of Maique and Canion (which still sounds like a 70s cop show). I still use an Android phone so here's what I use on Google Pixel, not Apple.
All-in-all very little change here; I am a creature of habit, content with my set-up for the most part.
The main differences are switching to using Symfonium with pCloud for listening to music I own instead of streaming.
Continuing with the heavy use of Obsidian, Fastmail, and Google Tasks — despite its many faults it meets the brief of "easy to use, accessible by me and my wife both inside and outside of the house".
2025-11-05 14:19:12
When Ben Whishaw played Pingu in Nathan Barley he was a delicate and precious soul. I have imbued this on Whishaw himself and, by extension, every character he has played since.
Black Doves does its best to apply pressure to this by casting him as a psychopathic hitman.
The scenes with both Whishaw and co-protagonist Keira Knightley are engaging; both are acting their arses off and make a good team.
Sarah Lancashire shines as the enigmatic spy master of ambiguous morality.
However, for me personally, Ella Lily Hyland and Gabrielle Creevy as Williams and Eleanor are outstanding. A pair of assassins dragged into the main plot; partly against their will, partly for the lolz.
What Joe Barton manages to do successfully here is in the framing — the Bad Guys are large and brutish white men for the most part. Big, scary men with guns.
Whereas the Good Guys (an ambiguous term, to say the very least), the main four characters run 75% female and 75% queer. All of them are softly spoken, unassuming, personable, and ruthless.
Queerness runs throughout but, in my opinion, is simply portrayed as normal. Whishaw's relationship and the plot points it drives could have been between two (or more) people of any, or no, gender — it's about love, not genitalia.
Arguably the plot gets a little convoluted and, dare I say silly, towards the end but that's the price you pay for a show about espionage!
Exciting action sequences and snappy dialogue make this feel more like Poundland John Wick than, previous BBC spy nonsense, Spooks.