Daniel Owen
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danieljowen.bsky.social
Daniel Owen
@danieljowen.bsky.social
440 followers 320 following 1.9K posts
Yes, I know you didn't specifically ask for my opinion. But here I am anyway. He/him North Devon, UK 🧡
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Reposted by Daniel Owen
Reposted by Daniel Owen
Reposted by Daniel Owen
I still love pointing this out every so often.
To be clear, Montblanc fountain pens are also ridiculously overpriced, but at least with a fountain pen you get a gold nib and pretty special writing experience. A ballpoint is just a ballpoint. A £3,460 ballpoint writes much the same as a £20 ballpoint.
That's the one. And the same number of (also ridiculously overpriced) fountain pens.
Montblanc say they have made a limited edition of 1,975 of these pens, so they clearly think there are that many people with the necessary combination of wealth and embarrassing levels of stupidity to buy them.
On its own, a traumatic brain injury is more likely than a lottery win, but on its own a traumatic brain injury would only allow me to want a £3,460 ballpoint pen, not actually buy one.

Unless being rich actually makes you stupid. There is some evidence for this, I think.
I might one day win the lottery, which is the only way I'd ever be rich enough to afford a £3,460 ballpoint pen. But I'd then also have to experience a traumatic brain injury to ensure I was stupid enough to want a £3,460 ballpoint pen.
As a fountain pen enthusiast, I am on the mailing list of companies like Montblanc who I will never be rich enough to buy from but it's fun sometimes to see what they come up with. This week: a ballpoint pen that costs £3,460. Just how stupid are rich people, really?
Reposted by Daniel Owen
There are five birds with the word "rainbow" in their names.

Let's meet them.

🪶
I think Reeves could get more acceptance of tax rises if she stopped being so coy and evasive about them. Instead of the garbled word salad, full of coded messages to soften the ground with bond markets, just explain to voters what's going to happen and why.
Reposted by Daniel Owen
Interesting analysis of press coverage of random violence a generation ago compared with now.
It’s fascinating comparing the front page coverage of the Huntingdon train attack (below) with how the British press treated another case 30 years ago.

I’m referring to the 1995 Netto supermarket attack in Birmingham in which a man stabbed 10 people, killing one of them.
Very much from the "you can do a logo in MS Word" school of graphic design.
Reposted by Daniel Owen
You laugh, but this is how the exododus went extinct
Reposted by Daniel Owen
Will the RW media remember the driver and conductor of the Huntingdon attack, and how many lives they saved, the next time train companies try to eliminate staff and they strike, citing passenger safety?
Reposted by Daniel Owen
There’s no screening for ovarian cancer and it’s really difficult to spot: you can’t squidge your ovaries in the shower to check for lumps. Also it’s very good at masquerading at other things, like IBS and diverticulitis.

Please take a look at this list of symptoms - and share if you can.
Reposted by Daniel Owen
Ha ha in the UK we turned our clocks back last weekend but the Americans only just got around to it! And they pronounce "tomato" as "elevator" and their word for "trousers" is "sidewalk"! It's like we're two totally different countries. And their president is a fascist.
This isn't a Halloween thing, though, is it? She does this most days.
Reposted by Daniel Owen
Anyone on a LNER train today from Scotland to Newcastle - my mum took the wrong suitcase off the train. Her case is somewhere heading southbound. #Newcastle #LNER
Don't force voters to guess how best to vote tactically, when it's impossible to do so. Have the conversations, do the deals, persuade your activists - put principle, and people, ahead of party. Save the country from its descent into darkness.
I'm begging you, @eddavey.libdems.org.uk @zackpolanski.bsky.social @jeremycorbyn.bsky.social @zarahsultana.bsky.social @johnswinney.bsky.social @rhunapiorwerth.bsky.social to not send Farage to Downing Street by splitting the progressive vote. So many will suffer if you let that happen.
With the Tories and now Labour seeking to compete with Reform for the xenophobic anti-immigration vote, there is an opportunity - for a united progressive movement to out-manoeuvre a divided far-right. But there has to be cooperation to make it happen. And so this is my plea.
Out of 649 MPs (Speaker excluded), just 4 won their seats with over 50% of the vote. On just over a third of the popular vote nationally, Labour got nearly two-thirds of the seats in the Commons. A fragmented anti-far-right vote risks allowing Reform to do the same next time around.
And even though we have seen for decades how this plays out even in just a 3 or (ex-England) 4 party system - a progressive majority dividing its support and so handing victory to a united right-wing minority - parties remain too proud, stubborn and, frankly, stupid to cooperate for the greater good