I don’t know when I last sat down to watch a Scotland-England football match. Indeed, I don’t know when there last was a Scotland-England match. It used to be every year with the Home Internationals, but that was long ago. Quite looking forward to this, though.

So it’s quite clear: UKIP/Brexit Party on much the same as five years ago. Many switching from Tories and Labour to Lib Dems and Greens. Change UK have, at best, split the remain vote.

Not the big swing some are making out. #EuropeElects

Based on the stats they just put up on the BBC, the pro- and anti-Brexit groupings have 35% of the vote each. That’s not counting Labour or the Tories, of course, because their votes don’t give a clear picture. #EuropeElects

If the Brexit Party are “up 3″ seats, and UKIP down 3 seats: that’s no change, in reality. #EuropeElects

Hey broadcasters: add up the remain totals and compare that with the Brexit party’s numbers. #EuropeElects

Europe Elects

I hope you’ve been watching Russel T Davies’s new series, Years and Years. It’s really good. But he’s showing British politics going to some dark, dark places.

Tomorrow — today, as I write — we have a chance to show we don’t want that kind of politics. We have the chance to vote for a more positive, inclusive way of life. Inclusive of all of Europe, indeed.

I hope you’ll get out and vote for a party that believes in Europe, that believes in the European Union. Send people to the European Parliament who think that it’s a worthwhile body, that the act of being there has value. Not people who only want to pocket the salary and cause trouble.

Me, I’ll be voting Green. Unless I decide to go for the Liberal Democrats at the last minute. But almost certainly Green.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (Books 2019, 6)

A copy of 'Good Omens' on a wooden floor, next to an Amazon Fire Stick remote control

A re-read of Pratchett & Gaiman’s comedy-horror masterpiece, prior to the forthcoming TV series.

I remembered little, and/but enjoyed it immensely. Probably more this time than whenever it was I last read it. You don’t have to have read The Omen to enjoy this, just in case you thought that.

Oh, turns out it was in 2007: the twelfth book I read that year. I’m starting to repeat myself.

Planetary by Warren Ellis and John Cassady (Books 2019, 5)

An iPad showing the cover of the first 'Planetary' collection, on a wooden floor, alongside an ocarina

You’ve probably wondered what’s happened to my reading lately. Truth is, I have several things on the go, some or all of which I’ll finish eventually.

Meanwhile, here’s the latest of my reading of Warren’s superhero-type things. It’s pretty good: better than Stormwatch, which I wrote about last year, or The Authority, which for some reason I didn’t. The latter group make a guest appearance here. Multiverse-crossing, and all that.

Not the best thing I’ve read, but not bad.

Five years ago I tweeted this:

Five fucking years. Back when the F-word national disgrace was just a bad joke.

Note that I’m deliberately avoiding using his name.

Two Wheels Good

Back when the internet was young — or at least the commercial, available-at-home internet — I sent an email with the subject line, “Bicycle on the Superhighway”. It was about me having a publicly-accessible email address for the first time since uni (as opposed to one that was only usable within the company where I worked at the time).

This was back when people — inspired, if I recall correctly, by Al Gore — were calling the net the “Information Superhighway.”

This post is not about all that, though; this is about literal cycling on a literal superhighway: specifically London’s “Cycle Superhighways.”

Since the building where I now work has showers, I decided it was time to get back on the bike. And since it’s in Westminster, it turns out there’s a really easy route, that uses CS6 and CS3: down Farringdon Road and west along Embankment, by the river.

These are fantastic cycling facilities, especially the Embankment one. Properly separated from the motor traffic, plenty of room to move and overtake, great sequencing of traffic lights so you hardly have to stop. It’s hard to fault it. Especially compared to nearly every other pathetic painted cycle lane in the city.

It gets a bit hairy where it all ends, in Parliament Square: the traffic there is unfeasibly heavy. Who drives near parliament?

If there’s a downside to it all, it’s this: I suspect that the motorised traffic is busier and faster, exactly because it’s not tempered by having bikes in the mix. I can’t be sure — I’ve never used Embankment before, and it’s years since I used to cycle regularly on Farringdon Road — but it feels to me that there’s a crazy amount of traffic and that it’s going faster than ever.

The latter can’t really be true — there are still speed limits, and they either won’t have changed or might have dropped to 20 mph in sections. But I still get this sense that, freed from interacting with the fragile two-wheeled minority, the armoured legions behave more like they’re on a motorway.

Whether that’s the case or not, the number of people cycling — especially in the recent bright spring weather — is huge. The only time I’ve seen more cyclists together was when I did the London to Brighton ride many years ago.

And also in the mix now are electric scooters and electric skateboards, which makes it all the more interesting. There’s even the odd cycle rickshaw.

It’ll be interesting to see how the volume changes with the seasons, but you can’t beat it for a way to commute: it’s faster than the tube, it saves you money, and you get some exercise. I recommend it for anyone who’s able.

New Job Obtained

Yesterday I started my new job. It all came about very quickly in the end: it’s not even a month since I finished at SAHSU. And I didn’t really start hunting in earnest until then. In fact I had two offers to choose from, which was nice. I turned down Capgemini, a massive consultancy, in the hope that the smaller one, whose offer I did accept, would feel more comfortable, more human-scale.

Though they do have some massive clients.

You’ll note that I’m not naming the company. That’s because the staff handbook makes it quite clear that they don’t want us to do so. I guess they don’t want the company name linked with arbitrary random sites on the web. I mean, we all know I’d be fine, but you never know what someone might say.

Here’s how good they are though: in a company full of PCs, when I said I preferred to work on a Mac, they said, “No problem,” and ordered one in for me. I’ve just been setting it up today. 15-inch MacBook Pro, 2018 model. Lovely. Much like my own one, though mine’s a 2017 model and Space Grey, rather than silver.

Not much more to report yet. I’m looking forward to getting my teeth into some projects.

People in the UK should watch out for dodgy emails pretending to be from “TV Licensing”. I got one from an email of support@servereurcom.com, telling me to “update your account” at tv-license.tk/redirect.php.

Mark as spam, delete. On no circumstances click the link or reply.

Words Matter. Phrasing Matters

On the BBC Radio 3 news this morning:

As part of the Brexit extension process, Britain is obliged to take part in the EU elections.

Instead of making it sound like a burden is being placed upon us, how about saying something like:

As part of the European Union’s democratic processes, Britain, like all member states, enjoys the right to hold elections for members of the European Parliament.

How you express things affects how people think about them.

Job Changing

I started at SAHSU in Imperial College London in March of last year. I finished there today. Well, yesterday: today was my last day of employment, but I had holiday entitlement to use up. It was a fixed-term contract for a year initially, and they were able to extend it by a month or so, but there was no more funding, and without funding, no job.

So I’m job-hunting again. I had an interview yesterday, and they’ve asked me back for another one next week. I have one with another company next week too, so there are jobs out there. I just need to find the right one.

So if you happen to know of anyone who’s looking for an experienced Java developer with a side-order of Python, and various other skills, point them my way.

Not to make a political point from today’s black-hole news — I would never do a thing like that — but isn’t it great what humans can accomplish when we collaborate between nations?

Far better than, say, building walls between nations, or breaking international treaties.

Congratulations to the Event Horizon Telescope team. The first ever picture of a black hole. In this case, the supermassive one at the centre of the M87 galaxy.

M87's supermassive black hole

Parrots! In Hackney!

There were four parrots in the tree across the road. You can see three of them here. Not great photo quality, unfortunately.

My daughter tells me there was a story about them escaping from the zoo recently. I couldn’t find that, but here’s a story with much better pictures about London’s feral parrots.

I hope everyone’s not petitioned out, because we need this: To establish a Public Inquiry into the conduct of the 2016 EU Referendum.

There will be a public enquiry about Brexit and how it was mishandled, eventually. But it could be years from now. Sooner is better.

EU Citizens

It’s sad when even pro-European organisations get things wrong about us.

Last week I signed up for, and tweeted about, a programme designed to encourage people to vote in the EU parliamentary elections:

Today I got an email from “This Time I’m Voting,” containing the following text:

If you are one of the 3.5 million EU nationals still living here in the UK
…
Therefore, whether you are British or an EU citizen
…

Last time I looked there are around 67 million EU nationals living in the UK. At least until next week, and hopefully for a long time after that. I mean, that’s kind of the point of this whole struggle we’re having, isn’t it?

The fact that (some) people in the UK fail to identify as EU citizens is partly what has got us into this mess.

Marina's on Fire Again

Marina Hyde may have written her greatest line (so far):

the Commons decision to take the prime minister into special measures

The whole piece is, as ever, glorious.