• A message to Donald

    Your ‘umble scribe is unaware how many times a week – if any – the disgraced former 45th president and current disgraceful 47th president of the United States of America, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump (who is on a mission to Make America Grate Again or something similar. Ed.) catches either a number 77, 87, 196, 452 or N87 from the bus stop at London’s Nine Elms Underground station, but it will do his narcissistic personality disorder no good at all.

    The poster below has this week appeared at the bus stop in response to the USA’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of its president, Nicolás Maduro, earlier this week.

    Of course, having the US military at one’s control does mean that The Donald, as commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, is able to call on their members to indulge in the ultimate ‘look over there‘ tactics when required to distract from his embarrassing local difficulties caused by his long-term friendship with the late American financier, human trafficker, child sex offender and serial rapist Jeffrey Epstein, as the thousands of documents known as the Epstein files slowly make their redacted way into the public domain and which he and his sycophantic subordinates seem very reluctant to release, despite the existence and imperative of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, not to mention the Tango Terrorists campaign trail promise to release the files.

    Poster reads No matter how many countries you invade, you'll still be a nonce
    There’s an old adage that says you can tell a man by the company he keeps.

    Before we end, a quick translation from EN-GB for any American readers. You will not find the definition of nonce as used above in a standard American dictionary; you’ll need a British one. It’s British prison slang to denote a person who commits a crime involving sex, especially sex with a child. This definition is taken from the Cambridge online English Dictionary.

    Which country will tRump invade next as a distraction from his next scandal? Have your say in the comments.

  • A chilly morning in Barton Hill

    Yesterday the regular Barton Hill community litter pick took place on its usual day – the first Saturday of the month.

    It was a cold but fine morning with a ferocious wind chill factor, so wrapping up warm was essential.

    In addition, we had our best turn-out for a while with six hardy volunteers showing up outside the Wellspring Settlement.

    Some of the crew at the end of the pick.
    Some of the litter pickers and their haul.

    Overall, we picked for an hour and a quarter, with the areas covered including Ducie Road, Morley Street, Cobden Street, the Urban Park, Strawbridge Road and Tichbourne Road.

    A good haul of both recyclable materials and landfill were removed, 4 and 5 bags respectively, in addition to which we collected a few bulky items – suitcase, printer/scanner and broken furniture – for removal by Bristol Waste.

    Whilst working around the area, we also identified other matters that needed further attention (e.g. scruffy public open space) by either the council or Bristol Waste (e.g. properties that needed help with waste management and/or recycling).

    After finishing most of us returned to the Settlement to tea and biscuits, with 2 cuppas proving to be the minimum dose for unfreezing fingers.

    February’s pick will be on Saturday 7th February. Note it in your diaries!

    In the meantime, if you see fly-tipping, any other environmental crime or something that needs fixing, you can report it to Bristol City Council here, otherwise central government’s GOV.UK site has a handy page to find your local authority in England, Scotland and Wales and notify it of such problems.

  • The seven deadly sins in the tech age

    According to the Catholic version of Christianity, there are seven deadly sins, i.e. pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony, and sloth. Although they are not explicitly listed in the Bible, they developed within early Christian theological tradition. Furthermore, Psychology Today speculates that their origins ‘are nebulous and likely trace back to before Hellenistic Greece‘, even though if offers no source for such an assertion. All evidence of their orin tends to point to the early Christian era and more specifically Evagrius Ponticus, a monk in fourth century Egypt.

    These seven transgressions are also known as cardinal sins, although whether this alternative naming is derived from the sinning scarlet-garbed clergy committing them is not well documented. This naming is likely derived from the other definition of cardinal, i.e. fundamental, of the greatest importance (think the cardinal points of the compass. Ed.).

    Anyway, a new revision of the seven deadly sins has been posted on social media updated for the early 21st century and it bears a distinctly technological character.

    Graphic showing modern tech expressions of the seven deadly sins - Lust by Only Fans, gluttony by Uber Eats, greed by Bitcoin, sloth by Netflix wrath by x/Twitter and envy by Instagram.

    Is this an accurate rendition? Have your say below in the comments.

  • Festive fly-tipping attracts street art

    Bristol has what could be described as a bit of form when it comes to street art, with the city being the original canvas of the artist known as Banksy.

    Indeed Bristol 247 today has a piece by John Nation, described as the city’s godfather of graffiti outlining why the city continues to be defined by the art form.

    Another form of art for which the city is less recognised is fly-tipping. A couple of days ago, Bristol Live highlighted that almost 200 fly-tipping incidents are reported to the city council every day. Last year the council recorded 10,268 fly-tipping incidents, an increase from 8,556 or over 20% during the previous year.

    The back streets of BS5 have once again provided ample evidence of the combination of street art and fly-tipping over the festive period, with festive fly-tipping attracting the spray can school of art. Look at what your ‘umble scribe found up St Mark’s Grove this morning.

    Mattress spray painted with Merry Christmas and a Christmas tree

    This is not the first time that fly-tipped materials have attracted the spray can crew in that particular street (posts passim).

    In the meantime, if you see fly-tipping, any other environmental crime or something that needs fixing, you can report it to Bristol City Council here, otherwise central government’s GOV.UK site has a handy page to find your local authority in England, Scotland and Wales and report fly-tipping.

  • Bristol annexes seaside town in Cymru

    Bristol ‘Live’, the city’s newspaper of (warped) record, has an unenviable reputation for finding a local Bristolian angle to news stories, whether that be by finding some vaguely connected person who just happens to have a BS postcode or by expanding the city’s boundaries into nearby or more distant local authorities or countries, whether there is any such angle or not.

    A prime example of the latter came to light today concerning the sudden appearance of lots of Victorian footwear on the beach at Aberogwr (otherwise known as Ogmore-by-Sea. Ed.) in Morannwg / Glamorgan.

    How the story was announced and tagged on the paper’s main page is shown below.

    Hundreds of shoes wash up on beach from Victorian shipwreck

    Depending on one’s mode of travel, Bristol is over 100 km from Aberogwr and takes over an hour or even two. There is no way the latter falls within the civic boundaries of the City and County of Bristol, whose closest municipal boundary to Aberogwr extends as far as the low water mark on Ynys Echni / Flat Holm in the middle of the Severn Sea.

    Looking at the facts of the story itself, the founder of the beach clean-up group that removed the shoes said the following:

    “The strongest theory is that the shoes come from a shipwreck called the Frolic, that hit Tusker Rock about 150 years ago. It was carrying shoes and cargo from Italy. They were washed up the Ogmore River and every now and then they appear, especially when there has been erosion of the riverbank.”

    It’s only when one gets to the mention of Tusker Rock (Cymraeg: Ynys Tysgr. Ed.) that the slightness of the connection becomes apparent: it’s a rock in the Bristol Channel 3.2km west of Aberogwr that’s only visible at low tide, but one that has been the end of many vessels over the centuries.

  • Hell redefined

    Does hell exist?

    Most dictionaries – including Merriam-Webster – provide several definitions, including the following two which describe places that can be either real or imaginary:

    1. a nether world in which the dead continue to exist;
    2. a place or state of misery, torment, or wickedness.

    The second definition may or may not be connected with the first.

    These to have now been joined by a third – the current United States of America – courtesy of social media. Someone known as Vee posted the following on the federated Mastodon network yesterday.

    1am 76 years old. | have lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the JFK assassination, the Vietnam War, the Turmoil of 1968, Watergate, the Hostage Crisis, two oil crisis [sic], disco, Reaganomics, 9/11. The covid pandemic....These past 11 months have been easily the most miserable era in America in my lifetime. The hatred, the bigotry, the lies, the racketeering and pedophilia are beyond anything I have ever seen. We are not going to hell as a nation. We are IN hell.
    The burning coals background is a neat touch.

    Yes, you read that correctly, Vee believes hell on earth has been created by the second term regime (not administration. Ed.) of the disgraceful 47th and disgraced 45th president of the United States, insurrectionist, convicted felon, adjudicated sexual predator, business fraudster, congenital liar and golf cheat commonly known as Donald John Trump.

    That is an exhaustive list of calamities that have occurred in the world in the life of your average seventy-something. However, is the perceptive Vee being too hard on disco? Have your say in the comments below.

  • Meta must grant EU users full access to their data

    New logo as Facebook morphs into MetaAustria’s Der Standard reports that Meta, the parent company of both Facebook and Instagram, must grant European Union users full access to all their personal data within 14 days. The Austrian Supreme Court (OGH) ruled so on Thursday 19th December, according to the Vienna-Based data protection organisation noyb. The lawsuit was filed in 2014 by noyb founder Max Schrems.

    Schrems, an Austrian lawyer and data protection activist, started attempting to gain full access to his personal data stored by Meta in 2011. According to a press release from noyb, the company merely referred those affected to a “download tool” and its general privacy policy.

    14 days term

    According to a press release from the data protection authorities, the OGH has now ruled that Meta must disclose all personal data and provide information about this data, such as the source, recipients and purpose of the processing, within 14 days – i.e. by 31st December 2025.

    The court also found that Meta had unlawfully collected data from third-party apps and websites, according to a press release. Personalised advertising may only be shown with the explicit consent of the individuals concerned. Meta must also ensure that sensitive data is not processed together with other data.

    The case was heard three times before the OGH and twice before the European Court of Justice over the past eleven years. Schrems has been awarded €500 in compensation.

    Situation has changed

    Meta has told Reuters that it had taken note of the ruling. However, it referred to the situation as it existed at the time the lawsuit was filed. Meta stated that it no longer uses sensitive data for personalised advertising. EU users can now also use Facebook and Instagram for free with personalised or less personalised advertising or pay a subscription to prevent their data from being used for advertising purposes.

    In December 2025 the EU competition authorities approved Meta’s proposal to use less personal data under this pay-or-consent model.

  • Time to ditch Microsoft 365

    Microsoft has recently announced it is raising the price of its Microsoft 365 offering from July 2026.

    The new pricing for using Microsoft 365 will be applicable worldwide and as follows.

    Microsoft's pricing for the various MS 365 products from 1st July 2026
    Image courtesy of Microsoft

    Many people will no doubt be considering alternatives to this Microsoft subscription services to help keep business costs in check.

    Fortunately, many free and open source alternatives to the services provided by Microsoft 365 are available, work just as well and won’t cost users a penny. Email provider Tuta.com (recommended! Ed.) has kindly provided a useful summary under the deMicrosoft your life banner which is shown below should you consider ditching Redmond’s overpriced office offering and its other software.

    Free and open source alternatives to Microsoft products
    Click on the image for the full-sized version
  • ‘Tis the season to be triggered

    For some reason beyond the wit of any rational person, a religious festival celebrating the birth two millennia ago of a man who advocated peace and love seems to call forth a wave of hate and bile from those on the right of the political spectrum, who become more than usually scathing, either bleating that the traditional festival has been cancelled or railing against alleged political correctness.

    One of those who has taken to social media to vent her anger is one Susan Mary Hall, leader of the Conservative group in the Greater London Authority‘s London Assembly.

    Post reads: Look at this nonsense- NO - they are gingerbread men!!!

    Note in particular the use of not one, but three exclamation marks. As for the biscuits being of a male persuasion, I see no evidence of genitalia in their depiction on the packet, Ms Hall!

    Neverthless, have a happy Christmas, if you dare allow yourself such a luxury. 😀

  • EU Commission launches yet another investigation into a US tech giant

    EU flagAfter fining X €120 mn. last month for breaching the transparency obligations of the Digital Services Act, the European Commission has announced it has initiated a formal anti-trust investigation to assess whether Google has breached EU competition rules by using the content of web publishers and content uploaded to YouTube, for artificial intelligence (‘AI’) purposes.In particular, the investigation will examine whether Google is distorting competition by imposing unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators or by granting itself privileged access to such content, thereby disadvantaging the developers of rival AI models.

    The Commission is concerned that Google may have:

    • Used the content of web publishers to provide generative AI-powered services (‘AI Overviews’ and ‘AI Mode’) on its search results pages without appropriate compensation and without offering them the possibility to refuse such use of their content. AI Overviews shows AI-generated summaries responsive to a user’s search query above organic results, while AI Mode is a search tab similar to a chatbot answering users’ queries in a conversational style. The Commission will investigate to what extent the generation of AI Overviews and AI Mode by Google is based on web publishers’ content without appropriate compensation for that, and without the possibility for publishers to refuse without losing access to Google Search. Indeed, many publishers depend on Google Search for user traffic, and they do not want to risk losing access to it.
    • Utilised video and other content uploaded on YouTube to train Google’s generative AI models without appropriate compensation to creators and without offering them the opportunity to reject such use of their content. Content creators uploading videos to YouTube are obliged to grant Google permission to use their data for different purposes, including training generative AI models. Google does not remunerate YouTube content creators for their content, nor does allow them to upload their content on YouTube without allowing Google to use such data. At the same time, rival developers of AI models are barred by YouTube policies from using YouTube content to train their own AI models.

    If proven, the practices under investigation may breach EU competition rules that prohibit the abuse of a dominant position (Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’)) and Article 54 of the European Economic Area (‘EEA’) Agreement.

    Commenting on the launch of the investigation, Teresa Ribera, Executive Vice-President for Clean, Just and Competitive Transition remarked as follows:

    A free and democratic society depends on diverse media, open access to information, and a vibrant creative landscape. These values are central to who we are as Europeans. AI is bringing remarkable innovation and many benefits for people and businesses across Europe, but this progress cannot come at the expense of the principles at the heart of our societies. This is why we are investigating whether Google may have imposed unfair terms and conditions on publishers and content creators, while placing rival AI models developers at a disadvantage, in breach of EU competition rules.
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