While the Online Services Act is clearly flawed, I think there is a growing recognition that allowing the Wild West that is the internet to completely take over every facet of our lives, entirely unregulated, within a generation, may have been a bad idea.

Planning a holiday is hard enough as it is these days with all the SEO'd to oblivion holiday bloggers. It's hard to tell if half of them have even been to the place you're researching, or if they've re-upped a years old article that's now full of outdated info. I've gone back to Lonely Planet et al

Fair. I've still got a T450s with the megachonk battery from before the laptop overlords decided everything had to be thin and light. Also doubles as an offensive weapon if things kick off in the cafe queue. Doesn't get much use nowadays mind. Thin and light has its benefits!

I always think that ex corporate laptops - Lenovo ThinkPad, Dell Latitude, or the current pick, HP EliteBook are fantastic bang-for-buck. Higher build quality, often come with warranty, and can be upgradeable/repairable. Though the latter point is less common these days.

More seriously though. Why do I have to subscribe to all of the output of several people on substack? Why can't I pay substack for 10 articles and they pass on the fees to those authors whose articles I go on to read?

I want to pay for content, but the current model is making it hard.

Get this though, right. How about taking it a step further and printing it out on nice glossy paper, so it's nicer to read.

You could even give some of the pages over to ads, so that it's a bit cheaper for me, without cutting into the fee for the writers and artists that contributed.

Thanks for your hard work supporting our local area, Olly. It's satisfying seeing something that you and I discussed while you were campaigning - the issue of infrastructure alongside housing - being raised in the Commons. But even more satisfying seeing the GWP surgery progressing at long last.

Forgot nduja for savoury

An important issue, glad to see it getting some coverage. You could do with proofreading those first 2 paras again though.

Tapping the Admiral towards Kentish Town is great if you're a real ale lover

See reflections on the water
More than darkness in the depths
See him surface in every shadow
On the wind I feel his breath

Londoneye, I found his weakness
Londoneye, he'll do what I please
Londoneye, no time for sweetness
But a bitter kiss will bring him to his knees

With apologies to Tina Turner

Milk and cookies for Santa, carrot for the reindeer

Also sad to see the beeb's reporting standards drop - "Around 3.4 million people in England use buses" seems to be a complete hash of the official statistic of 3.4 BILLION passenger journeys in the year to March 2023

www.gov.uk/government/s...

While I don't doubt there's an element of NIMBYism, I think it's important to recognise that Thames Water are a lying bunch of bastards and have completely destroyed public trust in their company. They may say that this is the best/only option - but is it just the cheapest/best for shareholders?