Meenzer

Just finished Deutschland 86. Didn't think it worked quite as well as 83 - the wider scope felt a bit unfocused and the earlier episodes more about showing off the fact they had a budget and could make things go boom, but the crumbling and contradictory DDR side of things was largely great, so still a decent watch.

Will sign up for that out of curiosity as much as anything else. From looking at the 2014 figures I think my most sensible vote in terms of achieving what they're talking about is Lib Dem, so will be interesting to see if their algorithms agree. Change UK will be the curveball I suppose.

And aye, it's a nice enough place but a bit much of a muchness as far as the resorts go - hoping to get the bus into the middle of the island one day to do a bit of hiking for something a bit different.

I'm actually flying back to Manchester because "even" the London flights on the Sunday weren't at great times (and the least bad one was proper money). Gets me the whole of the last day on site, but it does mean I'm on a National Express coach from Manchester Airport at 3:20am. Wish me luck.

Recorded La La Land a while back and finally got round to watching it last night. What a load of shite.

Took a late decision (once it became evident Brexit wasn't happening just yet) to join friends at the villa they'd already booked in Gran Canaria for Eurovision week. Been to the town itself a few times before but the property is right on the front next to the steps down to the beach, so it'll be a bit different to the usual hotel and pool at least.

"Corbyn" "admit"

It definitely feels like there's a degree of brand detoxification/"least worst" thinking going on, but it should also be a lot easier for Labour to hang on to voters like that.

Turns out enabling the Tories gets you a kicking at the ballot box. They could have asked the Lib Dems about that one... In cheerier news, there's this:

As one of the first replies says - two cheeks of the same arse.

And aye, it's inherently flawed as (precisely because some people don't understand the system) you almost always get more votes for the candidates from each party who come earlier in the alphabet. Plus doing it this way means you're stuck with the exact same make-up of the council for four years instead of being able to reflect local developments in your area by voting for someone else next year. The end result is less accountability because, round here at least, the councillors tend to be conspicuous by their absence for three and a half years only to turn up and do a bit of campaigning ahead of election day, whereas at least when you have elections most years, they have to be seen to be doing something along the way even if it's not their turn to be up for re-election, as otherwise the candidate from their party is less likely to get in. On the other hand, it costs £ to hold elections and Lewisham is broke, so there we are.

The former. Nope - one big ballot paper with all the candidates on, and you mark up to three candidates. This kind of thing:

Unless you mean using STV at ward level, in which case you'd end up with essentially the same result anyway.

I'm all for forms of proportional representation, but it seems least relevant of all when it comes to electing someone to deal with dogshit and potholes in your immediate neighbourhood.

Thrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee.

There are three vacancies. You have three votes. Each of the main parties typically puts up three candidates. The three candidates that get the most votes are elected as the three councillors. In this way, the three vacancies are filled. Three. It's a funny word when you look at it for long enough, isn't it? Three.

Ah, got you. What Renton said, then. Although some councils (like the London ones) elect all three councillors at once, so you only get local elections every four years but you have three votes. Seems daft to me, other than cutting down on election costs I suppose, but then I grew up with the other system so I suppose I would think that.

We vote and the one with most votes wins.

We've solved our unemployment crisis by putting people on nonexistent jobs, so at least it'd be consistent.

Also you're fucking mental.

https://newsthump.com/2019/05/01/are-you-an-anti-semite-take-our-interactive-test-to-find-out/ HTH

You can hear it starting just in the background both times they score here, especially the second one: https://www.skysports.com/efl/championship/video/11708112/fleetwood-2-1-sunderland

At the risk of doing a Quiff, I've had this saved for a couple of days and can't remember if I got it off here or Twitter, so I'm posting it (again?) here just in case: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p077fzfd

Ballista, there's a word I haven't thought about since Roland In Time.

Eeeeerm, Quiff mate?