FlyTheNest

Morning all.

Just had a 20min storm and it's brought the temp down a bit. Stopped just in time for me to catch my bus.

Windows still open here, 24 outside 26 in downstairs and more upstairs !

Off to do some strimming, gumboot on left foot to receive the still wet grass, oversize open type on the right foot to spare the swollen foot ... 'lymphatic drainage' is all the rage but try finding that in the sticks...

Whoops, as I write it's 27 outside, already higher than forecast ....

refitman wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 6:31 am Just had a 20min storm and it's brought the temp down a bit. Stopped just in time for me to catch my bus.

Went on for over an hour here, noisy. 18c when I got up, it was really dark, about 21 now and the sun's coming out, will be hot soon and the forecast says more storms later.

I didn't know this about the tube, every day's a school day.

Very Business Friendly , it's FDI don't you know ? $Billions of chips with a few people to guard their warehousing --

Ten miles (16km) west of Heathrow, Slough has become one of the largest datacentre hubs in the world, hosting an estimated 30 to 40 huge facilities, many of them on a campus in the centre of town. These – owned and maintained by companies like Equinix and Digital Realty – serve dozens of clients, including the world’s biggest tech companies: Amazon, Google, Oracle and Microsoft.

More are still to be built in a planned development on the edge of the same campus.

Emerging research – including a preprint of a paper led by researchers at Cambridge earlier this year – suggests datacentres create a heat island effect, pushing up temperatures in their immediate vicinity by an average of 2C, and as much as 9C.

gilsey wrote: Fri Jun 26, 2026 9:41 am I didn't know this about the tube, every day's a school day.

With Dan Conway every day's a schoolday --

A short history of how Britain chose the wrong heating system a century ago, and why we are unnecessarily sweating our way through a heatwave in 2026

https://edconway.substack.com/p/the-missing-pipe
I very much skimmed it ,but it looks like fun, the comments too .... one using his car battery asa solar PV energy store !

Had the storm here as well this morning but now the temperature's rising rapidly, 2 degrees in the last hour!

I see they're doing a QT special tonight, I might give it a go after the France v Denmark match, it depends on how hot it is in here, if it hits around 30° again I'll be going to the pub.

After a day of mourning I'm just about over Scotland's excruciatingly awful World Cup shitshow. Yeah we played 2 of the best teams in the world but we feebly gifted them 3 goals between them so they didn't even have to try.

Well, all the water that fell out of the sky earlier is now just hanging in the air. It's so bloody humid now.

A bit more Burnhamology --

Finally: Someone who wants to reform Westminster ? …

https://iandunt.substack.com/p/finally- ... 0/comments

4PM BBC R4 's Last Word -- the obituary programme, first death --

A giant of American economics, former US Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, was an economic pioneer who shaped the modern American economy and believed in free markets and light touch regulation. A world financial crisis after he left the job, however, forced him to question some of his economic assumptions. We hear from Bloomberg's Stephanie Flanders.

According to Flanders Greenspan had believed that senior bankers et al being grownup people couldn't be so fuckin dumb as to fall for financial engineering invented by whizzkids ...

( ME -- which they did not understand at all , except their juniors showed they were making $$$'s on them ... at least theoretically ... )

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002y24x

This was the peak today, hottest it's been in the flat so far (by 0.2 degrees).



Fortunately now the sun's gone down it's dropped down into the 26's so...

QT tonight came from Kettering, where apparently half the Reform voters refused to raise their hand when asked, presumably because they don't want their friends and family to find out. They're a brave lot.

For Reform we had Zia Yusuf. Before getting to the smug little prick I'll just say I won't be watching or reviewing any QT he appears on again. It's always the same, he's allowed to chunter on endlessly and talk over anybody whenever he pleases. Regardless of his politics it's profoundly dull because he has all the charisma of mashed potato. His finest moment came tonight when he admitted, after being challenged, that he had put himself forward to stand in elections and by-elections but had been turned down on each occasion, presumably by Farage. Which resulted in some chuckling. Then he tried to claim the BBC was lying about the number of Reform voters in the audience before Bruce pointed out to him that the audience are surveyed and have their social media checked so maybe they were just embarrassed to admit it on camera, which finally shut him up.

For Labour we had Emily Thornberry. Despite being on a bit of a sticky wicket tonight, what with not really knowing much more than us about the immediate future of her party, she did a decent job. She tried to sound even handed and magnanimous about Starmer's downfall but I think we all know she'll be delighted given how he treated her, which makes her one amongst many. Most of what she said was generic stuff about giving the country hope and direction and such like which under the circumstances was unsurprising, but the audience seemed to like it, so job done.

For the Tories we had Kevin Hollinrake. Kevin spent half the evening trying to claim that taking benefits away from people with 'mild anxiety' would save the country over 20 billion pounds. Absolute bollocks of course, and when Bruce tried to get him to back it up with facts and details he singularly failed*. The rest of the evening he spent attacking Yusuf and even at one point defended Andy Burnham for having the courage to stand for election again, which only goes to show where the Tories mindset is right now, I don't think he had a go at Labour or Thornberry once. Which only made the question that was asked about the Tories and Reform forming a pact all the more hilarious.

For The Economist we had Stephanie Flanders. On the one hand Stephanie seemed quite positive about Burnham turning round Labour's fortunes, on the other she encouraged him to make 'tough choices' about welfare cuts even if it meant relying on Tory support, which would doom his leadership of the Labour Party in an instant.



*As for this thousands of people getting benefits for 'mild anxiety' bollocks, it's been debunked time and time again using the DWP's own data. Yes there are a lot of people with mild anxiety listed as a symptom, but it's not the primary health reason for their claim. If someone has an illness or disability surely it would seem odd if they weren't mildly anxious about it. This has been pointed out repeatedly by disability advocates and charities to no avail because it doesn't fit the right's narrative, I include Starmer's Labour in that because both Kendall and McFadden have repeated it. Now we get to wait and see if anything changes.

Gah. Not sure why the photo is so massive.

Cheers for the QT review Sky. I fully back you decision to preserve your sanity by avoiding future Yusuf episodes.