February | 2026 | Steve Woods

Dishonourable member plays the victim

22/02/2026 Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media

The dishonourable member for Clacton, a racist, grifting charlatan known as Nigel Paul Farage, is so proud of representing the seaside town that and its environs he tries to spend as little time there as humanly possible.

However, during the current parliamentary recess, Nigel has turned up at the seaside, but on the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, not on the Essex shore of the North Sea (will the Indian Ocean succeed Monte Carlo as the new sunny place for shady people? Ed.). The trip is believed to have been paid for by an unknown ~~sucker~~ donor. One will have to wait until or if Farage updates his registered financial interests to discover the gullible party’s identity.

Ever the attention-seeker, Farage has posted details of his whereabouts on social media and used the opportunity to play the victim yet again.

Ah, diddums!

The first paragraph of the context added by users is taken verbatim from the Foreign Office’s entry requirements advice which Mr Farage clearly decided to ignore before embarking on his latest trouble-making jaunt.

At the end of the parliamentary recess, do us all a favour Mr Farage and stay in the Maldives like a good little boy. 😀
Bigotry blasted by Bedford BC

19/02/2026 Steve WoodsPolitics, Social Media, Tech

The world’s 3 Semitic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, frequently have festivals or periods of observance that overlap, coincide or occur very close together,

One of those periods is happening right now towards the end of the second week of February. Islam’s holy month of Ramadan, a period of fasting and prayer, started yesterday, whilst Lent, the Christian period of repentance and fasting leading up to Easter, began today.

The starts of the two periods of religious observance were duly announced on its Facebook account by Bedford Borough Council, a procedure no doubt emulated by their Bedford’s counterparts around the land.

However, one bigoted respondent took the council to task for allegedly showing favouritism to Islam and claiming that the country is apparently first and foremost a Christian country, as shown by the following thread.

Imagine the ignominy of being corrected and taken down a peg or two so comprehensively by an English local authority since these are organisations not universally renowned for their competence, let alone deep knowledge of religious matters.

One final point. If Bedford Borough Council – or any other local authority – had had some authority over the decisions of the (first) Council of Nicaea, then perhaps the date of Easter would be founded on a basis that did not play havoc with council bin collection dates. 😀
Saturday in Barton Hill

16/02/2026 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Saturday last was St Valentine’s Day and the residents of BS5 decided it was time to show some love to Barton Hill in east Bristol.

Organised as part of the ‘Love Your Community‘ event, shortly before noon eight of us volunteers gathered outside the Wellspring Settlement on Ducie Road to get kitted up with gloves, fluorescent tabards, litter pickers, etc. before heading down to give Gaunts Ham Park and the adjoining streets some attention. it was a real tonic for the soul to see the early signs of spring emerging, including beds of daffodils planted by the local community.

After Gaunts Ham Park was sparkling, we retraced our steps to the fly-tipping and litter hotspot of Ducie Road car park to continue the work our regular monthly Saturday litter crew had done the weekend before (posts passim). Whilst on site we retrieved some of the heavier, bulky fly-tipping (note the shopping trolley and toilet pan in the photograph. Ed.). The rest of the fly-tipping has been reported to Bristol City Council.

Photo courtesy of Harriet Wylie

As you can see, we gathered quite a lot of grot, 5 bags each of stuff for landfill and recyclables, in addition to the bulky waste items. Riding past on the bus earlier today, your ‘umble scribe is pleased to report that Bristol Waste has collected the fruits of our labours.

Many thanks to Harriet for organising the clean-up, plus my fellow volunteers for showing up and working so hard.

Before leaving Barton Hill after the pick, your correspondent went on a walk organised by Barton Hill History Group on women who have shaped Barton Hill, a broad and fascinating topic.
Racist: it’s your fault you’re offended

13/02/2026 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics, Social Media

Ratcliffe the racist. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
After the revelations in the news this week, it’s a fair comment to say that ‘Sir’ Jim Ratcliffe has more money than brain cells. Indeed he has so much money that he is no longer resident in the Untied Kingdom and has moved to Monte Carlo, the historic sunny place for shady people, to spend time with substantially more of his money due to the micro-state’s generosity to the super rich in matters fiscal.

However, having a view of the Côte d’Azur has not prevented him from having some vile, bigoted views of what’s happening north of the English Channel.

In an interview earlier this week with Sky News, the ‘businessman‘ and minority shareholder in Manchester United remarked that the UK has been “colonised by immigrants“, as well as having a swipe at those unfortunate enough to be forced to claim Blighty’s less than generous state benefits.

His racism drew criticism not only from just from the country’s political elite, but also from his club Manchester United’s own football fans.

Outside Old Trafford itself, the following billboard subvertisement has appeared according to your ‘umble scribe’s social media timeline, with a billboard outside Old TRafford being subvertised with the slogan: “Immigrants have done more for this city than billionaire tax dodgers ever will“.

One day later, Ratcliffe issued the by now standard non-apology, stating “sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern“, i.e. if you were offended by my choice of language, that’s entirely your own fault and not mine.

Commenting on Ratcliffe’s remarks, today’s Guardian editorial states: “Normalising inflammatory language which presents migrants as hostile invaders does not enhance the possibility of civilised discussion. It contributes to the rise of everyday racism and xenophobia on the UK’s streets.”
Gwen John in Caerdydd

12/02/2026 Steve WoodsMedia, Oddities

To mark the 150th anniversary of her birth, Amgueddfa Cymru/National Museum of Wales in Caerdydd is currently putting on an exhibition of the work of the Welsh artist Gwen John, under the title Gwen John – Strange Beauties.

The Guardian recently gave the exhibition preview a five star review, calling it a “superb, daunting retrospective of the woman who is now, perhaps, the most famous Welsh artist.” It continues: “It is not a blow-by-blow biographical story of how she was born in Haverfordwest in 1876, how she and her brother Augustus both loved art as children, how she insisted on going to the Slade School of Fine Art like him then made her life in bohemian France“.

Nation Cymru also penned a glowing review, stating, “It is the constant return to the same subjects that makes John and her Strange Beauties so alluring. It is the use of everyday materials: packaging cut up to use as a miniature canvas, brown paper, a Keats poetry book adorned with sketches.“

Click on the image for the full size version.

In addition to John’s paintings, sketches and the like, the exhibition also features such items as her exercise books and letters, plus contributions from other artists who figured largely in her life, such as her brother Augustus and the sculptor Auguste Rodin, for whom she modelled and with whom she also shared a bed at one time.

Plaster cast of Rodin’s head of Gwen John. Click on the image for the full-size version.

One fascinating feature were the exhibits from Gwen John’s early artistic career (e.g. the portrait and sketch of her sister Winifred) before she went to the Slade School of Fine Art from 1895 to 1898, which the exhibition tells us fundamentally changed her approach to art, as well as her technique.

Your ‘umble scribe decided to desert Bristol for a day to pay a visit and was not disappointed, spending a good hour and a half exploring the five rooms full of exhibits, although he agrees with a member of the museum staff to whom he spoke that it merited a second visit.

Amgueddfa Cymru acquired a substantial portion of John’s archive after her early death in 1939, but the works on display also include items from various museums and galleries both in Europe and over the Atlantic, as well as from private collections.

Gwen John – Strange Beauties will be on until 28th June. See it if you can.
Additional Barton Hill litter pick this Saturday

09/02/2026 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Last Saturday our community litter pick team in Barton Hill held its regular monthly event. removing 6 bags of waste and recyclable materials – plus a load of bulky grot – from Ducie Road car park.

Eric, Ronit and Alex pose with the rubbish removed from Ducie Road car park

However, that was not the only litter pick planned for Barton Hill this month

Next Saturday is St Valentine’s Day and Barton Hill residents are being invited to ‘love their community‘ in a series of events planned by Barton Hill Activity Club, Bristol Somali Resource Centre, Travelling Light Theatre and Wellspring Settlement.

One of the off-site events planned is a litter pick of both Gaunts Ham Park and the Urban Park. Those wishing to help are asked to assemble at the Wellspring Settlement at 12 noon for an hour of spring cleaning before retiring for tea and cake.

Organiser Harriet has asked people to bring along their own picker if they have one. Hi-vis clothing, gloves and bags will be provided.

See you there!
Can’t tell Kernewek from Cymraeg? You must be Tesco

05/02/2026 Steve WoodsLanguage

There must have been red faces all round in Tesco’s boardroom yesterday.

In a bid to ingratiate themselves with the residents of Helston in Cornwall (and thus extract more revenue from their bank accounts. Ed), Tesco bosses decided the store needed bilingual signage.

So signage in the vernacular was duly installed, according to The Guardian.

However, the signs were in the wrong vernacular as signage in Cymraeg (Welsh) was installed, instead of in Kernewek (Cornish).

There are about 400 to 500 advanced speakers of Kernewek with between 2,500 and 5,000 people having some basic ability in the language. More than 100,000 people expressed their main national identity, ethnicity or main language as Cornish in the 2021 census.

The Cornish people are a recognised national minority under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, meaning they share the same status as the Welsh, Irish and Scots within the UK.

The company has since apologised for the cock-up and removed the signs.
French raid X offices

03/02/2026 Steve WoodsAI, Politics, Social Media, Tech
The Paris Public Prosecutor’s office has today issued the press release in English below concerning a visit by its own officers and those of other agencies to the offices of the right-wing propaganda machine masquerading as a social media platform X.com, which was known as Twitter before its acquisition by far-right man-baby Elon Musk.
A search is being carried out today at the French premises of the X platform, as part of the investigation opened in January 2025 by the cybercrime section of the Paris prosecutor’s office, with the UNCyber unit of the gendarmerie and in the presence of Europol.

In parallel, summonses for voluntary interviews on April 20, 2026, in Paris, were sent to Mr. Elon Musk and Ms. Linda Yacarino, in their capacity as de facto and de jure managers of Platform X at the time of the events. Employees of Platform X are also summoned during the week of April 20-24, 2026, to be heard as witnesses. The voluntary interviews of the managers are intended to allow them to present their position on the events and, where applicable, the compliance measures envisaged.

The conduct of this investigation is, at this stage, part of a constructive approach, with the objective of ultimately ensuring Platform X’s compliance with French law, insofar as it operates within the national territory.

As a reminder, this investigation was opened following two reports received on January 12, 2025. On July 9, 2025, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s Office entrusted the investigation to the Directorate General of the National Gendarmerie (DGGN). The investigation was expanded following further reports denouncing Grok’s operations on the X platform, which led to the dissemination of Holocaust denial content and sexually explicit deepfakes.

The investigations concern the following criminal offenses:
- complicity in the possession of child pornography images of minors a © complicity in the organized distribution, offering, or making available of child pornography images of minors
- violation of the right to privacy (sexually explicit deepfakes)
- denial of crimes against humanity (Holocaust denial)
- fraudulent extraction of data from an automated data processing system by an organized group
- falsification of the operation of an automated data processing system by an organized group
- Administration of an illegal online platform by an organized group.
Elon Musk issued a typically petulant response to the action, calling it a “political attack“. If there’s any attack, Mr Musk, it concerns your platform’s lax attitude to responsibility.

Furthermore, Musk was corrected in no uncertain terms by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs account on X, which replied as follows:

Your ‘umble scribe wonders if the French reference to “some island” is a less than subtle dig atMusk’s expression of interest in visiting paedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s child abuse island.

In contrast to the muscular approach taken by the French, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has opened a formal inquiry into X and xAI over whether Elon Musk’s companies have complied with data protection law after the Grok AI tool was used to generate sexual deepfake images without consent.
Metrology – introducing the corgi

01/02/2026 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Social Media

The United States of America has long had a system of weights and measures that make the British Imperial system seem logical even if the latter does include such oddities as the furlong, chain and barleycorn even just in the length measurements alone.

And the US metrological landscape has just been augmented by one East Coast addition to the units of measurement.
Your ‘umble scribe much prefers the symmetry and simplicity of the metric system that he was first taught and used in science and mathematics classes six decades ago and which still has to adopted wholeheartedly by a British state allegedly unwilling to upset or confuse (really? Ed.) those of his generation, although he suspects this reluctance is also heavily coloured by a large measure of English/British exceptionalism.

In addition to the officially adopted systems of weights and measures, ordinary folk have always used their own informal and somewhat odd units. In the past this site has covered the introduction – usually by the mainstream media – of units as diverse as the Stockholm (housing stock/housing crisis) and the Leaning Tower of Pisa (height).

As mentioned above, these venerable units of measurement have now been joined by another – the corgi – which is currently being used in North Carolina to assess the depth of the local snowfall. 😀