Universal Model Show 2024
I got footage of every display table at the recent Universal Model Show, if not every model. This is the full length video of the whole lot. Shorter cuts by subject will follow as they’re edited.
Monthly archives: February 2024
James Cleverley doesn’t live up to his name (part 3452)
The Home Secretary wants to make it harder to hold a demonstration, calling for longer notice periods for larger marches. He wants a quick response to government failure or international outrage to be impossible.
He also said that he didn’t think there should be any more marches against the genocide in Gaza, as they’ve ‘made their point’. Which is a stupid argument. As long as civilians are being bombed and starved- and this country isn’t doing anything to stop it- the point hasn’t got through, and needs to be made over and over again.
On yer Ebike
If I was in a permanent job, rather than working as agency staff, I would long ago have got myself an ebike through the Cycle to Work scheme. I may have ridden through most of the winter, too, rather than putting of getting back in the saddle for far too long.
Schemes like Cycle to Work may be relatively expensive as ways to cut carbon emissions, but they have many other benefits that more than make up for that. The authors of the article below have considered some of them and looked at ways to increase uptake further.
The age of the electric bubble car
It’s all well and good seeing more electric cars, but when they’re all as overweight as their internal combustion counterparts, the gridlock on the roads won’t go away. What we need are fewer, and smaller, cars on the street.
Which is where cuties like the Micolino and its new, even dinkier, Lite sibling come in. Microcars for the usually short drives that are most common in cities.
More designs like this please. They’ll free up so much space on the streets, and have the added advantage of making everywhere look like an anime.
https://www.theverge.com/24083014/microlino-lite-microcar-moped-license-price-specs
Rainy day 30 Minute Mission build
The weather has been getting in the way of priming my two works in progress. So I dug out a mecha to build.
Are there leopards roaming around Cumbria?
Probably not, according to the experts, though there a few dedicated big cat hunters who remain convinced.
Carbon Removal Credits to fight climate change
As the article says, it’s not enough to stop pumping out carbon dioxide, there need to be schemes for soaking it up and locking it away again. I’m filling my concrete covered back yard with plants as my bit, but industry has the options for larger and more complex schemes.
https://www.wired.com/story/carbon-removal-cur8-gabrielle-walker-credits-offsets-greenwashing/
Let’s destroy the Tories
Okay, it’s not people like me who are going to cause the death of the Tory party. They’re going to do it themselves, with a little help from splitters who are somehow even more vile than them. But it can’t come soon enough, frankly.
Their complete obliteration, a la Canada ’93, is unlikely. But wouldn’t it be nice to see them reduced to single figures of MPs.
Spongy cities are the future
Los Angeles is an unlikely champion of a new wave of water savvy urban planning. A city most of us think of as all about cars and concrete has introduced more permeable surfaces to soak up water rather than turning it into run off. The change has been so successful that not only was severe flooding avoided during recent extreme rainfall but it will help solve the city’s water supply issues.
https://www.wired.com/story/los-angeles-just-proved-how-spongy-a-city-can-be/
Time for the Tories to go
For a while, I thought Rishi Sunak was only as useless as David Cameron- in other words, actually an improvement on the incompetents he succeeded. I’m a big enough man to admit I was wrong. He’s at least as hopeless as Truss, even if he has managed to cling on a bit longer.
Things are looking awful for the Tories after two by-election losses. Here’s hoping they get worse.
Of course, they’ll be replaced by a Starmer Labour party, who’ll be both a massive improvement and blandly useless at the same time. But we’ll deal with that problem after the Conservative party is burnt down.
An open letter to ‘Gender Critical’ Greens
For a few months, I’ve been arguing on Facebook with ‘Gender Critical’ Green Party members. It’s hard to fit my thoughts into the restricted space of a Facebook post (and I’ll probably still miss stuff out in this extended format), what follows is addressed to them, in an attempt to explain my position-
I’m a middle aged, white, cis man, from a middle class background. I’m a little bit bi, so I do have some skin in the game, but most of my opposition to your stance comes from basic empathy and having read enough history to know where this could go.
Your language and logic is full of tropes lifted from right wing talking points and the moral panics of previous generations. You’ve thrown out unexplained (likely unexplainable) references to postmodernism, critical theory and the like, as well as that boogeyman beloved of the empty headed reactionary- Cultural Marxism. All to try to justify your opposition to the terror of ‘trans ideology’- something with even less substance than all your other words.
Being trans is lived reality for millions around the world. It’s not an ideology, it’s a fact. Proportionally, the trans population is tiny, but over the last few years, prejudice against them has ramped up. They’re almost up there with immigrants now as the most popular scapegoats of Tories and Republicans.
Something that is an ideology is your beloved protected Gender Critical belief. It’s the ideology the Tories and Republicans use to justify proposed and actual laws designed to persecute trans people. It’s been the driver of at least one murder in the UK, and doubtless many more worldwide. GC ideologues have talked about how their world would be so much better if they could just get rid of trans people. They have drawn the support of neo-nazis.
You’re going to tell me that you don’t agree with those people, that you’re not like them. But you’re lying. You’ve cited Linehan to support your points. You stand with JK Rowling. You’ve demanded support for the LGB Alliance. And those are just the examples I can think of off the top of my head.
I was going to be generous, and say that the line between Gender Critical belief and rabid transphobia is so fine it’s basically invisible. But I’m not even sure there is a line. You hold a belief that makes you think less of a group of people because of how they were born. That belief makes you think it would be acceptable to place restrictions on their freedoms. You may not say the quiet part out loud- even to yourself- but you occupy ideological space with the absolute worst of our politicians.
That is why I think you don’t belong in the Green Party. We’re a progressive organisation, and you’re trying to force regressive beliefs on us.
I plan to waste less of my time on you from now on. I’ll still call you out when you deserve it and I’m feeling feisty, but I’m going to spend more time on positive actions. Be proud for yourselves for that at least- you’ve inspired me.
There’s still a version of my trans kids and allies vs the terfs novel that needs to be written. I may try to break the writer’s block on what I’ve got so far, or it could need a whole new start, but I will keep trying.
More immediately, I have signed up to do Miles for Mermaids in March. I’ve committed to put in at least 100 miles on my bike whilst raising money for a charity that supports trans kids and their families. Thanks for getting me off my arse and back to improving my health and bank balance by cycling to work. Click here to chip in and do your bit as well.
The misinformation war
A quick overview of the disinformation based propaganda being created around the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
https://theconversation.com/gaza-is-now-the-frontline-of-a-global-information-war-221356
Tokyo’s (Off) Street Shrines
I’m definitely going to hunt out (and hopefully just stumble across) some of Tokyo’s Shinto shrines when I’m there. Little pieces of history hidden behind the everyday are just the sort of thing I always try to find.