magine someone in Karachi paying to the British government (directly or indirectly), then stating upon paying, “hey! I have lots of money to spend to try to convince you that some critics of mine in the UK need to be arrested along with their spouses! I HAVE MONEY TO SPEND. PLEASE DO THIS!” This is what someone in the US did this year. Now he comes to grip with the fact that it didn’t work, it makes him look bad, and it’s hard to spin that as something justifiable.

If you have an evil plan, and if you carry on regardless (despite being forewarned that it would fail), it’ll only ever backfire.

Incoming:

believe that of all months, at least here in the UK, August is the hottest (I could check to be sure). This year heatwaves began in May and even in April we had some hot days.

This is global warming. Maybe it’s “fun in the sun” sometimes, but what about the impact on agriculture, the price of water, and the safety of animals?

August in the UK seems like Spain several decades ago.

YAN has lost his cat, Leeloo. He did anything he could (and could afford) to save her. Now she is gone. He sent along this decade-old photo of her.

think we’ve hit record-high traffic in the Linuxy sites over the weekend. Yesterday Tuxmachines (TM) served over 1.5m hits, with Techights (TR) trailing at 0.66m (TM:1563656, TR:662268) and earlier it was better for TR, as it had published more articles (TM:1335694, TR:882453). The totals are about 2.2m for both.

I’m trying to offload more personal stories to my personal blog these days.

ATER today there will be a new interview with Enzo, the new manager, published days ahead of his first “big test” (Sunday against Arsenal). The preview says: “The Italian believes those experiences having shaped him as a man and manager.”

His answers after yesterday’s match were OK, his English seems better than Pep’s.

s adults, our perspective varies. To kids, summer means time off school. Everyone is the same in that respect. It means the liberty to do extracurricular things or nothing at all, maybe even just watching TV all day. In some jobs, summer is not different from the rest of the year because shops or services must be available all year long, except maybe Xmas Day and Boxing Day. This means that one’s holidays or days off depend on one’s choice of “dates to book”.

This year we decided to start the long break after the first week of August and in order to avoid boredom I read and I write a lot, I do more exercise, and I try to enjoy the warm(er) weather.

Two days in, this feels like the best break in my adult life. No impending deadlines, no “back to school”, and more time spent with animals.

Antoine Semenyo did the hard work

have just watched this short highlights video after a fine City game, which it deserved to win. We’re now a week away from the “real test”.

Antoine Semenyo is responsible for most goals, the scorer is just a tap-in finisher.