Noit

Sorry to get you excited. If it’s any help, they do absolutely leave it open to return after the book time skip, they included a load of stuff that only makes sense in context of the last books.

I’d definitely give it a try! The concept is strong enough to be that I’d even consider a full reboot, although my dream is another soft reboot where the canon is left intact and we just follow a new set of main characters, and our old favourites might pop up occasionally. Having seen Amazon do great stuff with the tail end of The Expanse I think they have the chops to make it work.

Can’t believe the only strategy they have left is to buy pensioner votes at all cost.

Manifestos aren’t due out for a week or two yet.

Institute for Government has you covered.

This is death spiral shit. I probably look on national service more favourably than the average person and I know you cannot just throw it out as a desperate Hail Mary without building a huge amount of consensus.

Where would one go to get a custom made backpack with double stitching?

Bit late to the party, but something to be aware of if you're buying Solovair. I have a pair of astronaut boots, had them for about 20 months, worn them almost daily and I need to get them resoled now. I went to my local cobblers and they said they don't do Solovair, they just do glue jobs. I went to Solovair (I'm local to their factory) and they said that they're currently doing so much business that they're not able to offer resoling. They provided details of two webshops (keycobbler.co.uk and bootrepaircompany.co.uk) who do offer this service, but that involves sending them off for weeks and weeks. So I'm going to need to buy a second pair of boots to wear while my first pair are out for repair. And the resole is a significant chunk of the original boot cost: I spent under £170 on the boots, and they're going to cost £70 to resole plus shipping.

I'm still going to do it, I love them and I'd have spent a similar amount on trainers in the same period just through wear and tear, but it's not particularly a money saver or a convenience.

I guess that when I do have two pairs I'll be able to rotate them daily so this will be something that comes up every four years rather than every two.

I’d heard lava tubes pitched as one of the more straightforward ways of building a moon base, fascinating to learn that this would actually be a return to form for human dwellings.

Humans: we just like living in lava tubes.

Yup. Have put it down to the kids being at nursery and bringing back every cough and sniffle. It’s wrecked my wife’s sleeping because we’ve a baby who wants to feed when he’s feeling under the weather and he’s had a cold for what feels like weeks.

Master Chef has been on telly for 34 years, this is disgusting Loyd Grossman erasure.

If anyone wants to do some play-money betting on who wins, I’ve got a prediction market here.

I thought it was a nice first episode, watching Sophie try to hop across a lake was a highlight.

Did anyone else think that Gary was going to turn out to be the scarecrow and the boat gorilla would be a deliberate bluff?