I normally go walking in bog standard cotton/poly socks, never have any issues with them but I don’t normally walk very long distances. Did some research and the jury definitely says to wear two layers. I’m not at all keen on those thick wooly hiking socks, so I looked into mad high tech ones and bought a couple of pairs of double layer ones that are only slightly thicker than my usual ones. Tried them out walking the dog today, and I had a slight sore spot on the pad (weirdly) of my heel after about forty minutes. I just took them off to have a look and there’s no damage or redness, but I do have a bit of a callus there, so maybe that’s the problem? I’ll crack on with them and see.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/07/30/no-sydney-sweeney-is-not-a-genocidal-goose-stepper/ Way back in the mists of time, before TikTok, before Bluesky, before pussy hats and the #Resistance, there used to be this thing whereby large companies would hire beautiful young women with bodies you could bounce pennies off and for large sums of money, said women would prance about showing off whatever products the company was selling – plus their own natural assets. […] The funniest thing about this non-story is that, by eighties and nineties standards, Sweeney is not a traffic-stopper. She’s obviously lovely in her own way, but compared with the glamazons who sold us stuff back in my youth, she’s practically homely. She’s a normal looking young woman with a fantastic rack and a very expensive make-up artist. And yet she’s provoking thinly veiled jealous rage all over the internet. That is how far the culture has shifted in just a few years.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-online-safety-act-is-plumbing-new-depths-of-stupidity/ The result? Not a safer internet, but a smaller, duller, more paranoid one. A place where freedom shrinks, innovation flees, and everything begins to sound eerily and deadeningly pre-approved, like Russian poetry under Stalin. It is already noticeable that the OSA is not being used to shut down Pornhub or xHamster for adolescents, but to silence discussion – or even basic news – about those topics most awkward for the world’s worst government: Pakistani rape gangs, illegal immigration, protests about asylum hotels, and all that dreadful jazz that soundtracks Britain’s decline. What’s more, the OSA threatens to destroy Britain’s AI industry – one of the few areas where we might actually be exploiting our post-Brexit freedoms. […] For example, next year the OSA will allow Ofcom to require companies to hand over any information about their algorithms as well as internal documents, data and software source code as part of its ‘regulatory functions’. https://archive.ph/uZO58

I weeded the drive half an hour or so ago, and foolishly didn’t bother to go back and get my big leather anti-nettle gloves rather than my normal gardening ones. I’m not sure what’s caused this to suddenly come up, but I’ve had a thorough scrub and an antihistamine….

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/07/26/elite-police-unit-to-monitor-online-critics-of-migrants/ An elite team of police officers is to monitor social media for anti-migrant sentiment amid fears of summer riots. Detectives will be drawn from forces across the country to take part in a new investigations unit that will flag up early signs of potential civil unrest. […] Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, said: “Two-tier Keir can’t police the streets, so he’s trying to police opinions instead. They’re setting up a central team to monitor what you post, what you share, what you think, because deep down they know the public don’t buy what they’re selling. “Labour have stopped pretending to fix Britain and started trying to mute it. This is a Prime Minister who’s happy to turn Britain into a surveillance state, but won’t deport foreign criminals, won’t patrol high streets, won’t fund frontline policing. “Labour are scared of the public, Labour don’t trust the public, Labour don’t even know the public.” https://archive.ph/lgkq1

Bit of a drive for you up to Buxton, I’m afraid!

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jul/28/russia-aeroflot-cancels-flights-pro-ukraine-hackers-cyber-attack The Russian airline Aeroflot was forced to cancel dozens of flights on Monday after a pro-Ukraine hacking group with a track record of claiming responsibility for hacking targets in Russia said it had carried out a cyber-attack. Aeroflot did not provide further details about the cause of the problem or how long it would take to resolve, but departure boards at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport turned red as flights were cancelled at a time when many Russians take their holidays.

Nearly gave me a heart attack: it appears that the lingonberries are ripe!

Male plants Male flowers. You get both on the same plant. Wait, now I’m also feeling like that!

Sent this picture to my mother. Her response: “They’re a bit mucky.”

God said so.

He went mad for them. Not so much now he’s older, but when he was full of beans he would eat all kinds of weird stuff, especially if it was crunchy. About the only things he wasn’t keen on were citrus and mushrooms.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-trump-prefer-starmers-wife-to-him/ As soon as the Prime Minister and his wife arrived, Mr Trump turned his attention to Mrs Starmer, over whom he practically slobbered. ‘She’s a respected person over all the United States’, the President said, in one of his trademark mad reveries. This conjured the image of the Prime Minister’s wife being afforded that same respect across the United States. All Hollywood is a-chatter with tales of Sir Keir’s Missus. New York cab drivers affix a miniature of Lady Starmer on the wing mirrors. Drifters across the great truck routes of Appalachia tell tales of her beneath the stars. On the remaining reservations of the Rosebud Sioux in South Dakota when they rise to beard the new dawn, they do so by saluting Victoria, the Lady Starmer. https://archive.ph/uxAWy

One thing I don’t miss about my old garden is the way the dog would scoff as many as he could find. He has a dodgy tummy anyway, and the results were horrific.

After a rodent hiatus, when they seemed to have learnt that the traps were only dangerous at night, I decided to move them to a manhole cover in the duck-free part of the garden. I’ve been baiting them for a few days, and set them last night. Nothing first thing, but I’ve just gone to put the washing out and needed to empty both!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14943745/TikTok-cashes-gangs-post-videos-dangerous-crossings.html Traffickers launching migrants across the Channel on small boats were promoting the crossings on TikTok – and being paid by the tech giant. […] Migrants subscribed to live video calls with the smuggler. One account had 3,550 followers and another 22,300, so traffickers could be earning thousands of pounds. The subscription service is a widely used feature for TikTok which makes clear on its website that after app store fees, ‘TikTok splits the revenue up to 50/50 with you’.The Mail on Sunday contacted two subscription service users who promoted a new life in Britain on their profile.

We had a real cloudburst yesterday afternoon — 15mm in under half an hour — so I wasn’t especially surprised when Dog later came in with muddy feet. Just been and had a look, though, and the path is covered in sediment and what I assume are bits of left-over render. Given that I had the rendering done nearly two years ago, I assume all this crap has been sitting in my drainpipes since and finally got flushed out by the shear amount of rain. I’ve swept it up as well as I could, but the path is so filthy that I’m somewhat glad Dog didn’t want a wee this morning.

says it’s awful.