I enjoyed the chuckle this gave me.

My mail provider isn’t that big. We got blocked by both outlook and gmail, but I duckduckwent a workaround which worked. Something about editing some mail record somewhere. Can’t remember what, I’m afraid.

Wow. I think if I lived in that sort of climate I might not be driving an electric car. But I also think the likelihood of me moving to a climate that hostile is low. Keep safe out there!

Looks pretty uncomfortable to me, but at least it has a flared base. The internet has been very clear on that being important.

True, but I don’t need to charge at -30C, and this thing charges FAST.

Even some commercial less well known mail providers are sometimes blocked by big players like gmail and outlook for anti-spam reasons.

Soooooo racist, soooooooo stupid. Very Trump.

There’s more to a country than is in front of your nose, and for the third time, learning Welsh is compulsory in schools. You’re acting incredibly ignorant and you sound like you’re trying to be offensive deliberately.

I was going to guess that it was one of Trump’s idiot corrupt collaborators or AI, and here it is, Elon Musk’s idiot collaborators.

Thank you for your service. Please continue engage in weird, wonderful, time-absorbing hobbies in my honour.

No it isn’t!

Like I said,

Away from the south and the more touristy areas, you’re likely to find people speaking Welsh in everyday life (education, shopping, workplace), rather than just at home.

If the furthest north you went was Methryr Tydfil, you were never more than 15-20 miles from the M4 corridor, which is where the most strongly English speaking areas are, (apart from South Pembrokeshire and some more touristy bits).

I’m not surprised that you found mostly English speaking in the mostly English speaking parts of Wales. If you had stayed in East Anglia you might have concluded that England possessed no hills at all, but it might be worth admitting that there’s more to know than that.

So,

I just said that you could grow up in Wales never learning Welsh,

(apart from it being compulsory in Welsh schools)

because English is just as much (if not more) the language used in every-day dealings

in the South and more touristy areas, whereas Welsh is the main spoken language in much of the country further North.

My central point is just that Welsh is one of the languages of Wales and so can be third on your bullet points.
I think it’s at the very least rather undiplomatic to argue that it shouldn’t be called a national language of Wales.

I’ve had people swear blind to me that they visited Wales on holiday and Welsh people are rude because they speak English in the shop until an English person turns up and then they switch to Welsh to exclude the English. I think they were mistaken that English was being spoken before they went in (how would they know?) and just assumed they were speaking English until they started paying attention, when they realised it was Welsh. I’m willing to bet £10 that any such people cannot accurately tell me the content of the English that was being spoken until they “switched to Welsh”.

Culturally, ignoring Welsh or downplaying its relevance to real people’s lives is similar in offence to telling British people that they don’t speak American properly, that they spell words like colour incorrectly, and that they should stop putting on their absurd British accent and just speak normally.

Yes, but it isn’t just saying “no it isn’t”.

If you are born in Wales and never moved away, it might look like this:

• English
• English
• English
• Welsh

If you are born in Wales and never moved away, it might look like this:

• English
• English
• Welsh
• Welsh

Welsh is an official language of the UK and most things in Wales are in Welsh first and English second.

Away from the south and the more touristy areas, you’re likely to find people speaking Welsh in everyday life (education, shopping, workplace), rather than just at home.

Oh, and Wales, England and Scotland are countries. The UK is a state made up of 3 countries and a region, whereas the USA is a country made up of 50 states and some territories and districts etc.

Now EAL, English as an additional language.

I can’t upvote this enough. You have good comic timing.

No it isn’t. Look, this isn’t an argument, it’s just contradiction.

When you try to watch a video on YouTube, you’re immediately confronted with an advertisement - a mandatory interruption designed to extract value from your attention. These ads are part of a calculated system where Google, YouTube’s parent company, turns every moment of your online experience into a monetizable commodity.

The process is frustratingly simple: an ad starts playing, and you’re given two unsatisfying choices. You can either sit through the entire advertisement or press the skip button after a few seconds, both of which serve Google’s ultimate goal of generating revenue. It’s a digital toll booth where you’re forced to pay with your time and personal data.

YouTube’s tracking algorithms scrutinize your online behavior, collecting vast amounts of personal information to serve ads that are supposedly “tailored” to your interests. In reality, this is just sophisticated surveillance masquerading as convenience. Every click, every viewed video, every moment of your online activity becomes a data point for their massive advertising machine.

When Google purchased YouTube in 2006 for $1.65 billion, they acquired more than just a video platform - they gained a powerful tool for data collection and targeted advertising. Content creators are essentially trapped in a system where they must play by Google’s rules, accepting whatever revenue scraps are thrown their way while the tech giant profits enormously.

The platform presents itself as a free service, but the real cost is your privacy and attention. Millions of users are funneled through an advertising pipeline, their viewing experiences constantly interrupted by corporate messaging. What was once a revolutionary platform for sharing videos has transformed into a highly sophisticated advertising delivery system.

Every ad you’re forced to watch represents a small victory for Google’s relentless monetization strategy. You’re not a viewer - you’re a product being sold to advertisers, your attention carved up and packaged into marketable segments. The “free” video you want to watch comes with strings attached - strings pulled tightly by one of the world’s most powerful tech corporations.

Just press skip.

Paying taxes isn’t the bad bit of this. That’s a Republican lie itself.