Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@social.cleverlibre.org
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
A 'cri de cœur' to manufacturers of fridges and freezers please, PLEASE make the doors of these appliances self-closing.
and by the way just for the sake of clarity, I'm not a member of any LGBTQ+ minority, myself, I just hold this bizarre point of view that other people's sexuality is none of my fucking business and that they should be allowed to express their sexual desires in any way that doesn't damage children or non-consenting adults!
In my view, diplomatic relations with Uganda should be severed completely, all MPs who voted for this measure should be sanctioned and denied entry to the UK/EU. All trade with Uganda should be suspended and Uganda expelled from the Commonwealth (if it's a member)
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Right about now Donald #Trump is thinking, "All my rapes, the underage girls I molested, all the people I cheated out of payment -- I'm going to jail for the adult who said yes and I *did* pay."
It's very likely he gets the wrong lesson from this.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Jeremy Hunt: "13 years ago, we inherited an economy which had crashed"
13 years ago the Tories inherited a AAA+ national credit rating. In the last 13 years of Tory government, it’s been downgraded 7 times. It is now rated AA.
National debt was £1.03 trillion in 2010, it’s £2.49 trillion today.
If anybody has “crashed” the economy it’s the spivs and chancers that have been running the country for nearly 13 years.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
A crook in No10, had a Green Card for the USA when a Minister, fined for partying whilst he told the House & the Country he didn't, not to mention the Non Dom wife who owns almost a £Billion in shares in INFOSYS that still trades with Russia.... tells us all Brexit is delivering!!!
UK wide days of action and protest is the only answer now!
1st butterfly of the year in the garden here in Luxembourg and it was:
A brimstone
but I couldn't get a pic!
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
‘Fat-cat’ rail execs slammed for self-serving pay hikes while telling workers to show ‘wage restraint’ | Morning Star
#FatCatExecs
#Pay
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/fat-cat-rail-execs-slammed-for-self-serving-pay-hikes-while-telling-workers-to-show-wage-restraint
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
But again, it's mostly made up. Patriarchy was made up. White supremacy was made up.
It's not human nature, per se, to go "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" on people.
There was a time when human beings lived in relatively egalitarian social groups, albeit often homogenous due to geographic isolation, but still capable of trading with other groups and getting along.
These pointless rivalries are largely a cultural invention by people who want to be on top of their own invented hierarchy.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
When I was a child, I never imagined my life as an adult would be
wake up, see video after video from people scared they will be "eradicated", feed my cat, hear about torture and suicide related to said eradication, head off to customers and pretend I'm an entirely different personality who lives in a world that revolves around fixing some trivial bullshit, and then get paid a fraction of what customers paid for my time.
The fuck kind of life is this?! This is what humans built?!
A driver was stuck in a traffic jam on the M25. Nothing was moving.
Suddenly, a man knocks on the window.
The driver rolls down the window and asks, "What's going on?"
"Terrorists have kidnapped all of our MP’s during a
sitting of parliament, and they're asking for a £100 million ransom.
Otherwise, they are going to douse them all in petrol and set them on
fire.
We are going from car to car collecting donations."
"How much is everyone giving, on average?" the driver asks.
The man replies, "Roughly a gallon."
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
My attempts at buying a 2nd hand car have been...
Whilst I had a car on Friday and Saturday, I drove over to Belgium where a second-hand car dealer had a Nissan Juke that I quite liked the look of; amongst other things, it was white and I like white cars! When I started it up, there was a distinct shuddering wobble from the engine. Thinking that this might be simply due to the fact that it hadn't been started lately, I turned it off and started it again - same wobble! Just to be absolutely sure I did it a third time exactly the same wobble. This made me suspect the engine mountings were worn out; a suspicion largely confirmed by the enormous amount of engine noise that was apparent when I drove it (amongst their other duties, the engine mountings make a major contribution to damping the noise of the engine itself).
That rather put me off the Nissan Juke but, on the way, back home I noticed another dealer on an industrial estate that runs parallel to the main road back towards Luxembourg. I stopped there and had a look round, but the weather was so appalling; it was blowing a gale, pissing down with rain and most of the cars were outside so I made a mental note to come back the next day in the hope that the weather would not be quite so inclement.
Returning the next day, I found a couple of cars that I was interested in so I went into the showroom found the salesman and asked him if he could show me these two cars. One was a Nissan and the other a Seat; they were both sort of VW Golf sized vehicles. Salesman hunted down the keys to the two cars I wanted to see and accompanied me to the parking lot out front. I pointed out to him the Nissan had a smashed front valance and fog light to which he responded “oh that's nothing; it’s just a bit of plastic”. When I mentioned that bit of plastic or not it made the car undrivable, he mumbled something that I didn't quite catch so I said to him OK let's forget the Nissan for the moment I'd like to drive the Seat, to which he replied “ah, we don't do test drives, you see all these cars are unregistered so they cannot be taken onto the public roads without trade plates and we don't have any trade plates” to which I replied “what????”, and he repeated what he had just said. I thought maybe I had misunderstood what he said the first time but there was no doubt whatever what he said the second time. There is absolutely no way in a million years that I would ever buy a second-hand car without having driven it so I simply turned on my heel, walked back to my car, got in and drove off without saying another word to the salesman.
Has anyone else had this sort of experience with a garage in Belgium or Luxembourg?
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
