LinkedIn to me is just a platform where I go to get spammed by recruiters or watch middle managers passionately kiss corporate ass with motivational posts about how brilliant work is or how teamwork is so great.

It’s also a place where I add work connections that I otherwise wouldn’t send a Facebook friend request to.

Unless they pull off some kind of paramilitary overthrow of the German government (and last time I checked their co-leaders didn’t have an army of brownshirts to do their bidding) I cannot see Alternative fur Deutschland taking power in Germany. They actually lost vote share and support from other far right European parties when they spouted borderline Nazi views recently.

Reassemblement National on the other hand… Macron was stupid to call a snap parliamentary election, and if Marine Le Pen can make it to 2027 without being driven out by political scandal, she’ll probably be the next French President.

I’d have to say winter.

Spring is horrendous when it comes to pollen allergies and gets really bad around April.

Summer is similarly bad for hayfever sufferers, but also too hot and peak season for wasps and hornets.

Autumn can be nice but that’s overshadowed by being born in the same month as a lot of birthdays fall on (yes, a lot of people fuck during the Christmas holidays.) plus September is the one month that’s very restricted in terms of me taking time off because we have to prep the year-end accounts at work.

Winter on the other hand… It’s cold, it gets dark early, it can be pretty quiet, and there is nothing that beats the feeling of eating a turkey roast feast on Christmas Day, or going to a Christmas market and drinking mulled wine.

Petrol Bastard.

They call themselves ‘Tesco Value Prodigy’, yet when I see them put out tracks like these, I’m surprised they don’t have much of a following.

Wrong Impression - Natalie Imbruglia

Two Become One - Spice Girls

C’est La Vie - B*Witched

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough - Diana Ross

I have a friend who worked his ass off as a teenager and had founded a moderately successful IT business from the back of his garage. He sold his share of the firm at 21 and walked away with a seven digit bank balance.

He’s one of those self-proclaimed alpha males who did a lot of stuff like playing video games a lot, martial arts (black belt in two martial arts), gym, partying, etc. He would also still work from time to time, not out of necessity but rather boredom

Unfortunately age and a nasty case of long COVID caught up with him, so he’s mainly going back into IT.

Windows 3.1, 98SE, XP, 7, 8.1, 10 and now 11.

I did once use Ubuntu for a few weeks but this was after someone at school goaded me into acquiring a copy of Norton PartitionMagic to try and merge two awkwardly partitioned drives on my computer, which then nuked my C:\ partition. I didn’t have a backup copy of Windows XP to reinstall from so I had to go open source.

Needless to say, we didn’t remain friends after that.

75%. I have my moments, plus it’s hard to stay nice when there are so many assholes in the world.

Because stroking the bratwurst can be addictive and lead to destructive behaviours.

Homebrew seems to be fair game.

Dwayne Johnson has definitely improved as an actor. I thought he was absolutely shit in The Mummy Returns but great in the more recent Jumanji reboots.

Saw Panic! At The Disco in 2012 after they released their third album. They’re one of the few groups that borderline sound better live.

They also did a cover of I Believe In A Thing Called Love which I wish they’d release as an actual single. Kinda sucks that Bohemian Rhapsody got that treatment years later but this didn’t.

I think it depends on the person, what they’ve done, if they’ve been convicted and individual tolerance.

Many people shrug when they learn that John Lennon was an abusive asshole who used to beat his wife. Many more wilfully let Chris Brown back into the industry after how badly he beat the shit out of Rihanna. Even artists like Michael Jackson and R Kelly managed to avoid child molestation accusations for years, and likewise more people rushed to cancel 6ix9ine for snitching on the Nine Trey Gangsters than they did when he was convicted of doing inappropriate sexual things to a 13 year old girl and somehow only landing probation.

Then you have truly bad cases like Ian Watkins, former leader singer of LostProphets. The band had effectively been disavowed from the moment of his arrest.

There’s a kid I know from a few karaoke nights whose go-to song is Beggin. Now it makes more sense why he does that song a bit differently (the first “Beggin” in the chorus he doesn’t sing.)

I only grew up with the Madcon version and I didn’t know until today that it was a cover.

I also heard a local singer do a really good acoustic cover of that song, where he actually does the rap parts.

I’m just thankful I didn’t pay for her travel and room.

Ex used me for my money. She would expect me to pay for a lot of stuff and while there were times where we’d split the bill, it wasn’t that often.

Our 3 year on/off relationship wasn’t intimate at all. At first it was because she was trying to shield her parents and patients (she worked as a nurse) from COVID, but even after lockdowns were over and society began to heal things didn’t really change.

When I say on/off, I was ghosted out of the blue once and was randomly blocked by her on all socials. She never even got back in touch until over a year later and I foolishly bought her explanation about being seriously depressed and suicidal.

The last straw that made me break things off for good was when she begged and begged me to come on vacation with her and other colleagues, only to then turn incredibly toxic after I financially committed. It left me a choice of either salvaging a holiday to Santorini into a solo trip or being about £1k out of pocket from non refundable flight and accommodation fees. I chose the former…

There may be one exception. A kid in the year above me who I didn’t personally know but looked like one of the many people that bullied me was killed on a night out when he tried to break up a fight.

It made national news, but mainly because it led to an underage drinking scandal where it turned out loads of pubs weren’t checking ID. He was only 17.

They’re all very successful now. This whole notion that bullies and assholes would be bagging my groceries and asking me “you want fries with that” in adulthood is BS.

Vaguely. He’s a regular at my local but wasn’t one of those anti-vaxx, covid denier regulars I’ve met.

Star Trek also predicted Irish Reunification this year via a violent civil war.