AG

@troyella.bsky.social

3053 Followers 1116 Following

Not a real saint.

A young David McCallum. Or is it R-Patz?
A picture of Rupert Lowe, looking neither young nor remotely photogenic.
Photo of two men. On the left, out-going German coach Julian Nagelsmann. On the right, that bloke from the Trivago ads.. no sorry, it’s actually Jurgen Klopp. Widely tipped to be the in-coming German coach.
A vintage advert for Maypole margarine, featuring a cartoon of a small girl in short dress, socks and sandals, eating a piece of bread and - presumably - margarine.
Budapest parliament building on the Danube, seen through a tram window
Fountains on Margaret Island dancing, while people cool their feet.
A clock/thermometer in Budapest at nearly 2pm today, showing a temperature of 40C. In fact, it went up to 42C, shortly after.
Graphic showing the four main types of climate change denier: 1) it’s too late 2) other people should do something 3) we can sort it out without actually doing anything disruptive 4) any change will be too disruptive/unfair/expensive
In his youth, Gibb and his brother Nick were recruited and trained by the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists, a right-wing Russian anticommunist organisation. They pretended to be tourists in Russian cities in order to smuggle letters to and from dissidents.
Screenshot of Bitcoin’s price plummeting (possibly to its death) since the start of the year.
We’ve been expecting you, Mr Bond.
"..voters will literally stand outside the gates of their children’s’ new state of the art school or the new hospital wing that has saved their partner’s life and tell the TV cameras that Labour has done nothing for them and all politicians are the same. Well they are not, some want to find the money to properly fund the NHS, and some don’t."
"..govt-financed healthcare (in 2025) was £280bn, a real-terms increase of 4.2% from 2024.. 11.4% of GDP, up from 11.1% in 2024."
The inimitable Joan Collins as Alexis Colby in Dynasty.
A section of our bookshelves, showing a couple of dozen Deighton titles.
A black and white photo of Mussolini’s headquarters in Rome, featuring a huge 3D face emerging out of the wall. Not sinister at all.
Two British Shorthair cats (one blue, one lilac). United in their unshakeable conviction that dinner is late and somebody will pay.
Screenshot from today’s Guardian, quoting Robert Jenrick moaning about the Tories being the party of posh people. He says the divide in British politics has become Reform’s worker’s party versus the Tory posh party.
Mrs Merton, right before she says, “What was it about the multi-millionaire former chancellor that attracted you, Mr Farage?”
University of Sheffield Students' Union building, pretty much how it looked in 1986. Couldn't find a picture of the actual Lower Refectory.
Screenshot showing a picture of Donald Trump and quoting his speech about taking Greenland, either the easy way or the hard way.
Christmas light on Christmas Eve.
The Royal Exchange theatre, just before the start of Singin’ in the Rain. Don Lockwood’s hat and coat, hanging on a mic stand, waiting for him to show up.
A newly-decorated Christmas tree in my living room. Currently without cats. But not for long.
Video clip of several clockwork Santas under a television, accompanied by Moomins, trolls, animals and assorted painted pine cones.
Picture of the peerless Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds as Anne Elliott and Captain Wentworth in Persuasion.
Poster for ‘Godzilla - Attack on Tokyo’
Photo of the DFDS ferry from Karlshamn to Klaipeda as it enters the Coronia Lagoon.
Homer Simpson’s dad yells at cloud.
A picture of Comte cheese.
Screenshot of a television, showing the GER/ESP score line.
Picture of my grey British Short Hair cat, curled up in the cuboid space at the bottom of a scratching post.
Mount Fuji against a blue sky, taken from the bullet train from Osaka to Tokyo.
MPs have received £1mn in gifts over the last 12 months. 10% of which have gone to Nigel Farage.
The Blues Brothers. Who are very unlikely to be able to rescue me.
Painting of a Sad Boy ‘entertaining’ a group of women who were perfectly happy without him by singing his songs at them whilst playing his guitar.
The AEG logo.
Head shot of a grizzled Texan man, with a moustache. Height unclear.
Tesla’s share price dropping like a big ol’ stone, for the last hour or so. This may be a response to the recall of 46,000 faulty Teslas.
This message is discussing the upcoming **Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP)** report, which is a key economic indicator released every month in the United States. The NFP report shows the number of jobs added to the U.S. economy (excluding agriculture). - **Consensus at 160K**: The general expectation is that 160,000 jobs will have been added in the report. - **Whisper at 125K**: This is the "whisper number," which refers to a less publicized, unofficial estimate from insiders or analysts. It suggests a lower number of 125,000 jobs added. The rest of the message is about how the report is expected to play out: - **Unlikely to see a big miss**: This means it’s unlikely the actual job numbers will significantly differ from the consensus (e.g., a big drop or increase that would cause major surprise). - **Second-order impact of DOGE cuts or economic slowdown**: This refers to indirect effects that could influence the market. "DOGE cuts" might refer to the impact of changes in speculative markets or digital currency volatility (like Dogecoin). Economic slowdown could also impact job growth, but neither is expected to cause a big disruption in the NFP results this month. - **Chaos print over 200K**: If the NFP report comes in at over 200,000 jobs (a number higher than expected), it would likely cause significant market reactions, often described as "chaos" because of how much the market might move in response. - **$ goes 🚀🚀🚀**: The "$" refers to the U.S. dollar. If the report shows over 200K jobs, the dollar is expected to rise significantly in value, as strong job growth often signals a healthier economy and can lead to interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. In summary, the message is predicting that while the consensus for the NFP report is 160K jobs, if the report exceeds 200K, it could cause the U.S. dollar to soar.
Assuming that the past six weeks are predictive of what's coming next, expect an age of anxiety, expect the elimination of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of jobs, expect the decimation of liberal institutions to go on for all four years of Trump's second term, expect government services to deteriorate, expect reduced funding of the safety net, expect more homelessness, hunger and disease. Expect poverty, expect the financial starvation of universities and of nongovernmental organizations, expect unannounced raids, unreliable data, an America increasingly aligned with authoritarians worldwide, expect a pervasive climate of suspicion and a preoccupation with revenge. Expect more suffering, more fear, less security and less happiness. In other words, expect the worst.
My two cats, staring the fuck out of you.
Black and white ‘Homemaker’ pattern plate. Probably from the 1970s, so at least 50 years old.
Bridge over the river Thames. Child throwing pebbles from the shore in the foreground. St Paul’s Cathdral in the background.
Quote from Douglas Adams, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.
A misty morning. A dozen tiny goldfinches perch on the top branches of a straggly hawthorn tree.
Pictures of a Private Eye article from December which describes how near-bankrupt DCC spent half a million quid employing two private consultants who were supposed to improve their children’s services. But the CQC found ‘widespread and systemic failings’ learning to ‘significant concerns’ for young people in the county.
Picture of the Buxton Advertiser column in which the leader of DCC, Barry Lewis, muses on the possibility of extra-terrestrial life rather than explaining what he’s going to do about the parlous state of DCC’s finances or why he seems to be trying to evade council elections in May.
North Face’s Rolling Thunder rolling gear bag.
Wheelie shopper with a cheerful pink floral design on a black background. Rather nice, actually.
Clumsily-iced Christmas cake, topped with a pine cone Christmas tree and wrapped around by an ancient red and green Masonic ribbon.
Picture of the very bottom of my holly tree plus a bevy of daffodil shoots just poking through the earth.
A rather squat Yule log, decorated with a large sprig of holly.
Kemi Badenoch in The Spectator, banging on about steak being a working lunch.
The stunning Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest. Which does bear more than a passing resemblance to our own Houses of Parliament.
Buxton looking gorgeous under six inches of snow.
Buxton looking gorgeous under six inches of snow.
Laptop screenshot: “Tickets for Glastonbury Festival 2025 are now SOLD OUT.”
Picture of my laptop screen, showing us at the end of an unknowably-long queue.