Chatterbox Thursday

I'll miss Scubar.

Wait, is Scubar the Super Tennis, two dogs, two sheds, Greta-hating one? In that case I won't miss him at all.

To be fair it turns out Captain Sir Tom was mostly raising funds so his family could pay themselves from the charity.

Or Bonfire of the Vanities; in order to pursue their political ideologies and failed economic theories they are prepared to sacrifice anything in order to appease big business. They are throwing the poorest, the weakest and the most vulnerable into the fire that feeds Shell's and Centrica's profits. It's a sacrifice, but they are happy to make it. Fuck 'em.

Whichever becomes the unelected Prime Minister only offers a difference in degree, not in kind.

Morning.

Been busy today with stuff that's not entirely pleasant. No time for games, Commonwealth or otherwise. Better do some shopping as well. Supplies are running low.

What has been much more fun is the little project that I did with my YouTube friend Andrew. What happened was that I had been supporting Andrew on his Patreon for some time. I didn't really care about it, but he kept reminding me that the reward for a whole year of support was making a video of my choice, and that we had already skipped last year because I couldn't think of anything. It could have been playing a game (his recent stream of Persona 5 Royal was a Patreon reward for someone else, for example) or reviewing a film or anything. But everything I could think of seemed a bit lame. Naturally I also wanted to make sure that he would actually enjoy making the video.

And then through a chain of circumstances an idea began to form in my mind. There's a popular type of YouTube "reaction" video where Americans are in some shape or form for the first time confronted with the Eurovision Song Contest. Because that's something that most Americans have never heard of. And whatever your opinion on Eurovision, there's no denying that their reactions are quite entertaining to watch.

And these reaction videos are really easy to produce. All you need is an innocent American.

Andrew likes music, singing (some years ago he used to be a quarter of a barbershop quartet) and theatre and he's American. So basically the ideal candidate.

Since I like to be thorough when it comes to history I decided to send him a link to a video that's a montage of short clips of all the winning entries from the beginning of the contest in 1956 to the present day. It's not ideal as an introduction but nothing short of watching the whole show is. I was also mindful of another problem, namely that a lot of Eurovision stuff on YouTube is geoblocked in the US and that I can't check what he can and cannot see on his side of the pond. (I gave him some alternatives in case he was worried about the copyright implications or anything else.) I also sent an email with some information (competition rules and stuff like that) to pre-empt questions that would otherwise have got in the way of his reaction. All I can say is that I'm now ready to get my PhD in Eurovision Studies.

Anyway, here's the result. The video is a whopping 70 minutes long. You can tell by that that he had fun. (Oh, and if you didn't know, my YouTube nom de plume is lu šulmu. It means "hello" in Babylonian.)

Getting eaten alive by midges waiting on a train. Been a while.

The midges I mean, not the train.

I think there is a market for a utube channel where “An American reacts to the Chatterbox Jukebox”

Let’s face it, there are some absolute shite  bangers posted there.

*drops imaginary mic*

Wordle 404 6/6

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟨⬜🟩🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩⬜⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Squeaky bum wordle, by golly. Could have been one of (at least) two at the end, saved my streak

Played my first VR last night - half an hour of star wars squadrons (brilliant) and ten minutes of Gran Turismo sport (needlessly complicated, with menus apparently designed by an autistic beaurocrat). All good so far, but played a demo earlier today of a Sony game called 'Astro Bot', which was an absolute, genuine delight - really shows the promise of what the tech could achieve. Charming and innovative, ordered the full game straight after. Would play through it again now, it was that good, but I'm part arseholed on half a dozen 50ml samplers of flavoured gin my teetotal wife's friend brought round from a distillery tour. I can't imagine a gutful of spirits and a lengthy turn on a VR headset would end that welll for my carpet. Slightly too pissed to safely get up and get a biscuit tbh

*methinks

There speaks the voice of experience.