On the other hand, videos/games on loudspeaker in public should be punishable with a spot fine. Or perhaps death.

TBF, in the unlikely circumstances of me owning a cocktail and karaoke bar in a northern town I might bar 'cocaine fuelled solo blokes on the pull' too and this seems a relatively efficient way of doing it, albeit with some collateral damage.

There definitely seems to have been a booming market in dog maintenance.

The successful dog barber along the road from me is my go-to, completely unscientific anecdote for why the middle classes have room to pay more tax.

Ah, OK. I'm not up-enough on his backstory.

I don’t want be one of those blokes off the internet, but since we’re putting the boot in… if the Starmers “didn’t have much” when Keir was a kid in the mid 70s (ish), would they even have a phone?

Nice shumper/jacket combination.

I reckon DOGE: Department Of Granny Evictions has legs.

I set the age verification to avoid getting swamped with DMs from my legions of young fans.

There will be a paper submitted for review *imminently*, or by Christmas, which I can share when it’s done. In that same timeframe I also intend to write something shorter that someone might actually read.

Mind, since @frannystash.bsky.social has seen this, me and him paid the fabled nearly 8 quid a pint the night before in Marylebone when diving into somewhere in the lashing rain.

Or he did, anyway.

TBF on the DMA thing, Durham Miners Hall has just been done up with lottery money with a view that it would be used for things like this and (regardless of what any of us think of YP) it’s a decent choice of venue for any left leaning party.

I’d guess there’s a local organiser.

I power read it in 90 seconds...still, though.

Thanks, I'm not getting that time back.

If they stretched it to maybe 20, I'd fancy my chances of making the cut - me and Dr Mitchell - north east England post 92 university power couple.

The same sort of beer in a nice place in Newcastle would probably be around four-fifty.

Don't @ me that it's cheaper in wetherspoons or I could get John Smith's for two eighty in the Golden Gumshield on the high street. I know.

Also, I assume they still have wetherspoons in London.

I like to think of it as headlining

Yes it's an unhelpfully broad term with a tight definition. See also people providing unpaid care - they're also an important part of the economy.

Lego worlds is the Minecraft-like one? I don’t recall it getting played to death. I think they went back to Minecraft – but tastes differ. You can probably get it for 10 or 15 quid though.

Disclaimer - time flies and my youths are now 16 and 13, meaning my advice probably 4 to 5 years out of date

It’s not a showstopper but if you can get Lego City Undercover for cheap (often you can), my kids had fun with it – they loved that you can commandeer any vehicle and drive around crashing into things.

These things feel very Labour policies: 30-something years later, my mate probably stupidly bought a flat with holes in the roof and got a Housing Market Renewal Initiative grant to mend it, which in retrospect seems a bit of a moral hazard problem.

I think outside toilets were still surprisingly common right through to the 1980s

My claim to heroism is that my parents got a grant from (as far as I can work out) a 1970s Urban Aid Programme to put a bathroom on their first house.