I really enjoyed Dept. Q. The main guy is likeably unpleasant - he’d be horrible to work with, but he’s great fun as a TV detective.
There are a couple of wrong notes right at the end, imho, but it doesn’t spoil it.
I’d recommend it if you liked Line of Duty
#TodayILearned that to exclude stuff from a github code search you can use a NOT keyword:
org:someorg "-password" NOT "--password" NOT " -password" NOT "--vault-password"
“What with all this daylight-saving stuff, we had hit the great open spaces at a moment when twilight had not yet begun to cheese it in favour of the shades of night. There was a fag-end of sunset still functioning. Stars were beginning to peep out, bats were fooling round, the garden was full of the aroma of those niffy white flowers which only start to put in their heavy work at the end of the day–in short, the glimmering landscape was fading on the sight and all the air held a solemn stillness” - PGW
I posted a punk song by the Outcasts for #JukeboxFridayNight on Mastodon. I hadn't seen the video for 40 years and, in my ignorance I was a bit curious about, or maybe worried by, something that looked a bit sectarian
I searched a bit and found this
Petesey Burns, from punk band The Outcasts, added to the research, explaining that before joining the punk scene, he would have never met Protestants.
“Didn’t happen, there were none near me, didn’t go to my school - we were in our ghetto,” he said.
“And you knew what they were, and they were supposed to be the enemy and that, but you know, whatever, you never met a real one.
“Until I started playing in the bands, and you came into the centre of Belfast, and I was meeting guys from the Newtownards Road, meeting guys from other parts of Belfast.
“And how could we support things like Rock Against Racism if you’re having sectarian thoughts? You can’t say, ‘well racism is wrong but sectarianism is OK’, you can’t do that. So it was really refreshing.”
Northern Ireland Troubles: How punk music created its own riot - BBC News
Here’s the video
There’s a new political party in the UK and it doesn’t have a name yet
I’m tempted to sign up and vote for it to be called Party McPartyface
Crucial Track for 23 July 2025 - The Wild Rover by the Pogues
What's your favorite song about second chances?
I was thinking about this song In a different context this week.
I listened to an excellent Lost Notes podcast on 'the True Story of Tainted Love'.
The show features a recording of Gloria Jones' version of the song being played in a Northern Soul club. You can hear the crowd's handclaps, which morphed into the blasts of synth on Soft Cell's hit.
This made me think, again, about things that have been added into songs by an audience.
So, there are extra handclaps for Whisky in The Jar, a rude chant in Living Next Door to Alice, clapping and a shout of 'Chelsea' for the Liquidator, and four claps, or at Pogues shows, 'God Bless the Pogues' for this song.
In each case it's a surprise the first time you hear the crowd-sourced addition, but it sounds integral thereafter
Anyway, coming back to the point, this song is a classic of second, or third, or umpteenth chances
"The Wild Rover" by The Pogues.I'll go home to my parents, confess what I've done
And I'll ask them to pardon their prodigal son
And when they've caressed me as oft' times before
Then I never will play the wild rover no more
Crucial Track for 23 July 2025 - The Walls of Jericho - The Virgin Prunes
What song makes you want to stay up all night?
At my age, nothing makes me want to stay up all night. Back in the olden days, though, I used to go to London for a show and get the mail train back, which was practically all night. This is one of the bands I saw at that time
Dripping with disdain, and as Alan Shearer would say, rightly so
“Out of respect for the office of the presidency, our office does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response, but these claims are outrageous enough to merit one. These bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”
Fun at work #506
“When the first you hear of something is when you’re asked why you haven’t done it”
I’m a bit disappointed to discover that Donald Trump “writes pictures” better than I do
( The attached is by me, and it’s supposed to be a cow. I think )
Our local Wadworth’s pub hasn’t had any of their stout recently. I think it’s the finest beer in the world, but I assumed they’d stopped doing it
I was in the Town Mills in Andover yesterday, and it’s still there and it’s been re-branded
Joy was unconfined but today I wish I had drunk less of it
I did a company / volunteer litter picking yesterday
It was a great thing to do….but the downside is that I’m now noticing every bit of litter on the street, whereas I wasn’t before
I enjoyed this week’s Dave Squires cartoon, on the World Cup
David Squires on … trophy-loving Trump crashing Chelsea’s Club World Cup party
One morning the President (FDR) entered his guest’s suite to see Churchill emerge pink, glowing and completely naked from the bath. Embarrassed, Roosevelt started to leave but Churchill beckoned him into the room. Churchill declared, “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States.”
My favourite Winston Churchill quote #503
Prime Ministers and Presidents: special relationships
There are some nice clips on the TMS (Test Match Special [the BBC’s cricket radio commentary]) page
This is the ‘leg over’ bit where Agnew and Johnson lose their composure after an unintended double entendre
The text of this should surely be part of the UK Citizenship Test?
Interesting bit in the lunchtime discussion of the cricket yesterday.
Aggers asked the panel of journalists what they thought of the argy-bargy and general bad temper of the latest Test.
They all said it was good for the Test Match. I think what they meant was that it was good for clicks.
There’s a gallery of 50 photos from our World Cup win on the official Chelsea app
Not one of them features either Donald Trump or Gianni Infantino….which is quite good
⚽ #ChelseaFC #cfc
I’m going through my old tweets, loading them into a micro.blog and found this favourite, forgotten piece of music trivia
Steel Pulse were named after a racehorse
(From BBC Master tapes - Steel Pulse )
I finished both Beserker and Saint Denis Medical today.
Enjoyed them both very much.
Saint Denis is very much like the American Office moved into a hospital.
Ade Edmondson’s biography is funny and sad. The break up with Rik Mayall is heart -breaking.
I don’t normally link to Substack, because it’s the most annoying thing on the internet, but David Aaronovitch on the 7/7 bombings is worth reading
“ON THE fringes of Central London the news of a bombing doesn’t break, it seeps. The first clue is the crowd at a bus stop which, on a normal day, has just a small queue. Then, a few hundred yards away at a different stop, another crowd, and this means that the Tube station is closed. Up the hill, close to another station on another line altogether there are more people at more bus stops, so something bigger is wrong. Two ambulances and a police car chase each other in the direction of town."
I’d left London by the time of 7/7, but that really gets how it was during the IRA bombing campaign.
