AM just glad that it’s official. Andy the Mancunian leader is becoming our national leader and his deputy too is Mancunian. Yes, Lucy. “She defeated Bridget Phillipson on 25 October 2025,” Wikipedia notes, “holding the position of Deputy Leader for the remainder of Starmer’s leadership and subsequently under Andy Burnham.”

Lucy tried to help me and my colleagues after we had been defrauded by an employer down south. She is also helping my wife now.

I hope that Andy will maintain the momentum of anti-SLAPP legislation even after David Lindon Lammy steps aside. Lammy played a role in this legislation along with Sarah Sackman, who remains Minister of State for Courts and Legal Services.

N 2022 I quit my job for ethical reasons, as explained at the time. This plan was foretold earlier in this blog (about half a year earlier). I was planning to leave as some of our clients were distasteful, notably one company that was selling payday loans to people. Keeping their systems running felt like an affront and offence against society.

“I think I might have found an offer,” someone told me today about job-seeking. “But it involves pitching credit cards to people.”

It is a “common dilemma,” I told him. Sometimes people do evil things and then pretend to themselves they are detached from the evil because they’re desperate to make an income. More principled people will quit, irrespective of the financial fallout.

have much respect for England’s goalkeeper, Pickford, who has very good reflexes. The goalposts saved him several times last night, as did John Stones. At one point he stopped a short-range header with his hands (fists).

But Argentina’s first goal should not have gone in. Pickford was poorly positioned and he did not properly cover the goal. He could not reach the ball, even when the kick was long-distanced, not exceptionally powerful or curved, because he was ill-placed.

Looking back, had Pickford stood nearer to the centre of the goal, then certainly he would be able to parry away the ball. Maybe England could win the match. In the whole first half (and until England’s goal) Pickford had to save nothing. Neither team had a shot on target in the first half.

2 days ago: In Defence of Physical Tickets

any people actually think or genuinely believe that “going paperless” (i.e. no more paper receipts, bills etc.) makes them look smart. In reality, they typically surrender to brainwash from greedy companies that try to avoid manual labour, shipping costs, and materials. There’s a good reason to have (both get and keep) a paper trail. It’s not surveillance, it is for you to control, even shred if so you wish.

Last week I was almost completely away from the computer for three days and I didn’t miss the computer, the Internet, my inbox etc. Not at all. I didn’t check E-mail for half a week and didn’t miss anything critical. I did not use a phone either. In some sense, I guess that I became anti-computers in many contexts; I’ve noticed that some of the more senior judges seem to be like that as well, as some work 100% on paper (markers, sticky notes, handwritten notes, bookmarks and so on). It is a case of “the right tool for the job” and all that, a friend has explained to me, as “computers make sense in a lot of places but should not be shoehorned into workflows where they do not belong.”

In modern times the idea of “disconnecting” (from computers, not just the Net) became known as “Detox”, recognising the fact that digital things can be “Toxic”.

am disappointed but not surprised at all.

At one point it seemed like Spain was going to be next, but then Argentina’s momentum turned into solid goals, so this coming weekend England will play the team I consider best in the tournament: France.

In France, GNU/Linux is growing (in the UK also) and it’ll be astounding if England can beat France. The final will be all Spanish-speaking and Spain seems likely to be the winner, just like in the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Spain has been very strong. Argentina’s team is weaker.

AM travelling to London (again) tonight, as does my wife. This will hopefully be the last time.

The last time we voluntarily went to London it was to meet my sister, who gave birth a few days ago. It was her first child and that’s important because I am close to my sister and the delivery went OK; it’s a boy, like me. It might even be my sister’s only child.

Life goes on and next week I intend to alter my workflow to be able to produce more articles and better articles.

don’t typically write about pets here, I tend to cover that in another site.

The shells will soon mark 8 weeks in their dedicated water tank. So far I’ve found no dead shells, so it probably went well.

Earlier today I did partial water change of the shells and they seem happy with that so far. It’s hard to interpret their “feelings” about this, harder than it is to assess the emotion of fish
e.g. stress.