‘ve just found this 15-year-old performance by 10cc. I particularly like how ~40 years later they still sound mostly the same (I assume they’re not smokers) and can play reasonably well, recreating their work from the mid-70s. The fact all of them are alive and mentally well (enough to go on stage) is a sign of good health and happiness.

Many musicians (both new and old) don’t last long. They perish (die) or become unable to perform within a short period of time. It’s a form of burnout.

Lo and behold, Wikipedia says: “On July 2nd, the record label Breaking Wave announced that it had signed 10cc to release a new album later in 2026″ (that’s last month).

O tomorrow morning we leave for the day (or half-day) and enjoy the birthday, followed by a week of rest. We’re not getting younger, so we might as well make the most of life and making the most of it does not mean being online or wasting any moment in social control media garnering “likes” and digital greetings.

We still do greetings the old, traditional way. 20 years later it’s a lot easier to revisit things.

People who are too dependent on some “Facebook account” will have nothing analogue to show.

“He will win who, prepared himself, waits to take the enemy unprepared.” — Sun Tzu

T is 12 hours away from the Bournemouth match, the first league match for the coach (as coach of this particular team) and first official home game (even the friendlies were all away games thus far).

I am still watching closely some data related to adoption of GNU/Linux. It seems to be “winning” and this is the sort of moment we’ve waited for since decades ago.

When nations as large as China dump Microsoft/Windows the wind is in our sails.

T seems like Apple is the latest in GAFAM to openly admit a round of mass layoffs. It went too far, lost billion on a misguided project, and now people will have to go.

“Bring back the corporate death penalty”, an article published 3 days ago by Salon.com, said: “I’m a huge fan of the corporate death penalty, a legal process in which a corporation is forced to dissolve or stop existing…”

If you want to do good, then start a trophy hunt for corruption-filled corporations. Expose their bad deeds, receive recognition for it.

Companies are not people. Killing them is not murder. If those companies kill people, then killing those companies will save people.

If you think Apple is an innocent company, start looking into its sweatshops and the conditions there. Apple pays about 1% of the revenue of an iPhone to the people who actually make the darn thing.

Enshittification as standards lowered.

wrote about 10cc last night. It was a local band that reached international fame and had very creative number-one hits.

By 1974, they had a large enough portfolio to put on a good show on BBC. Despite it being 52 years old, the music has aged well and the talent extends from instruments to vocals (they have both). Earlier today my father agreed with me that music has gotten a lot worse and simpler – and not in the flattering sense of the word “simpler”. He too misses some of the old music.

This music is still available – for those who wish to access it.

We also spoke about the hospitality sector and how competitive it has become (again, not in the good sense of the word “competitive”). He told me that the health club he once managed had in it a member who was the mother of the owner of a local (nearby) hotel and a wide array of similar hotels worldwide. It’s now hard to compete with those “giants”. Back in the 90s the consolidation and ripoff that follows wasn’t so bad.

Prices of things will continue to soar, global warming will make life harder for many, and the media hardly even mentions climate change anymore.

The media too has been subjected to “consolidation”. A lot is now owners by the biggest polluters. Human civilisation does not matter to these people.

N 2024 there was actionable abuse of process against me and against my wife, more so in October of that year.

I understand why the abuser (in actionable abuse of process) would not want us talking about it, but explaining actionable abuse of process is not defamatory, it’s a necessary public service.

Moreover, if further legal action is taken which backfires or does not work as expected, then writing about it does not in any way misrepresent what happened.

It’s quite clear we’ve struck a nerve.

2026-08-10 How to staycation better

T is not the first time I stay in Town during summer. We’ll travel around for a bit, but not go far as there’s no point. Staycations are good for people who like being where they are, vacations away (or abroad) tend to be for people who escape the job, the home, the routine, the culture, and maybe the local weather.

Thankfully for Rianne’s birthday the weather will be almost perfect. Sunny, not too hot, and exactly one week before Bank Holiday.