... The Daily Torygraph is predicting:

Labour: 516
Tories: 53
Lib-Dem: 50
SNP: 8
Reform: 0 (Yes!)

With Sunak to lose his seat. *snigger*

I know a lot of the Tories secretly dream of emulating Liz Truss and slashing taxes no matter what it does to the economy.

I just didn't expect the Chancellor to come out and say it.

On the plus side, the IPSOS MRP assessment is out, and they're predicting Labour 453, Tories 115. When the previous worst (well, since 1906) Tory result was 167 in the Tony Blair landslide win in 1997. And it could get worse, 56 seats with a Tory lead are considered too close to call.

On the FFS side of things, they're predicting Farage will get in. I suppose we can hope for an expenses scandal.

Lady Rosamund Hawkhurst is having a bad day. Not only has her plea to the queen for help with her skeevy liege lord had an equivocal answer, but she's come out of it charged with a diplomatic mission to the other side in the ongoing war, which has already killed her husband (opening her up to the advances of said skeevy liege lord). Rosy is actually a logical choice for the mission, not only was she born on the other side of the border, but her sister is married to the new king. But given that, why has she only been given one man as an escort? Is she being set up?

Meanwhile Caroline Lindley is having problems with her new romance novel, because her heroine refuses to tamely follow the lovely enemies to lovers plot she had laid out for her.

I liked the original shorts, but I was a bit worried as to whether she could carry off the writing. The first half dozen pages are a little ropy but after that it settles down. One thing she did have to do was to expand on the Caroline side of the plot, well, actually, to give the Caroline side of things an actual plot, but she managed that. The Rosamund side is still clearly the focus of the book, but there is an actual B-plot now. Obviously there's a whole meta level to things and if you just want a straightforward fantasy romance then you might have come to the wrong place, but if you don't mind literary meta games it's perfectly readable.

The Untold Story (Invisible Library Book 8), Genevieve Cogman

Book 8 of the series, and things are coming to a head. Librarian Irene Winters, her not-boyfriend Kai the dragon prince, great detective Vale, and her new apprentice and teenage Fae bookworm Catherine are facing up to the likelihood that series big-bad Alberich is probably going to try and take out Irene in the near future, never mind that he's her father, and they should probably get their retribution in first. Complicating things, the Library is increasingly playing politics to keep the Dragons and Fae in balance, rather than keeping the Dragons and Fae in balance by stealing unique books from all the worlds of the multiverse, while the rumour-mill is whispering that entire worlds are disappearing. Something must be done, and it's probably going to have to be Irene doing the doing.

As an end to the series I rather liked this, the plot-logic makes sense and the story goes where the storytelling needs it. But honestly, I think I always preferred the simple book heists we and Irene started out with.
 

Currently Playing:

I'm waiting for the 1.0 release of Seven Days To Die, due later this month, after which I'll start a new playthrough of that, but in the meantime:

Marvel, Midnight Suns

The XCOM II engine meets the Marvel Multiverse, meets a deckbuilding combat mechanic. I picked this up because it's this week's free game on Epic (until 4pm tomorrow). It's spawned out of the Midnight Sons, a Marvel team I'd never even heard of, even if some of the members are more familiar (Blade!). The plot is Hydra has awakened Lilith, some sort of demon queen, who wants to bring about general lamentation. It's happened before, and that time she was stopped by her sister Sara/The Caretaker, and Lilith's child, the Hunter, a new hero, recently resurrected, who you get to customise as you go. Along for the ride are the usual bunch of Marvel misfits:

On the team so far: Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Scarlet Witch, Blade, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes), Magik, and Nico Minoru.

Just passing through: Spiderman, Ghost Rider (Johnnie Blaze)

Batting for the wrong team: Fallen Venom, Doctor Faustus

I've only played the tutorial and the first mission, so I haven't progressed very far or met everyone yet. I'm not a total fan of the deckbuilder mechanic, you end up with fewer options than the XCOM engine normally gave you, but it's interesting and AIUI you get better control of the decks as you progress. It is slightly annoying that even major powers like Doctor Strange and Captain Marvel start off almost evenly matched against Hydra grunts, but I guess that's the normal problem of trying to serve up fan favourites in a scenario that also needs to include less overpowered characters.

Overall: worth it at the price.

Subnautica

Survival on an alien ocean world that starts to develop definite horror overtones as you explore further, "We shouldn't have gone so deep!"

I've played this before without actually getting very far, this time I'll see if I can be a bit more systematic about making progress into the underlying plot. Rather gorgeous graphics matched with the normal survival game build this to discover that to go on and build the next thing mechanics.

 

Starmer: We'll give 16 and 17yo's the vote

Sunak: So what, we'll re-introduce conscription at 18.
 

Think the Tories just guaranteed every 18yo voting Labour. 

 ... that No Mow May* and a grass pollen allergy may not be entirely compatible.

I had lunch on the patio, which is right next to a patch of knee high grass at the 'flowering' stage. I enjoyed lunch, but it's four hours later and even after a bath and a complete change of clothes my skin is still crawling.

I suspect the bottom half of the lawn is getting mown tomorrow

* The idea is not to mow your lawn in May to encourage biodiversity, and it works, I had a couple of rare orchids show up last year, but no sign of them this year. They were in the top half of the lawn, which I'm planning to leave unmown.

The Scottish Parliament is considering a bill to legalise assisted suicide.

Bill's author: "It only covers people with terminal illnesses, not disability"

Hidden in the small print: 

"For the purposes of this Act, a person is terminally ill if they have an advanced and progressive disease, illness or condition from which they are unable to recover and that can reasonably be expected to cause their premature death."

A huge percentage of disabilities come with a reduced life-expectancy for one reason for another, so the bill that supposedly doesn't include people with disability covers:

Anyone with an intellectual disability

Anyone with a spinal injury

Anyone with epilepsy

Anyone with continence issues

Anyone with swallowing issues

Anyone whose disability, or medication, results in weight gain.

And for a really disturbing twist, it's potentially going to be affected by socio-economic status, both individually and regionally. 

 Lunch with friends yesterday, for I think the first time since pre-Covid. And just by chance we got an absolutely beautiful day for it - blue skies and warm. We've had a couple of other days with blue skies, but they've been bloody freezing. Definitely the best day of the year.

We were trying out a pub that's been refurbished. I've drunk there before, but not in ages, certainly 10 years, possibly 20, it's not as if there's any shortage of pubs on Rochester High Street and this one, formerly The Norman Conquest, but now (and apparently historically) the Royal Crown is at the absolute end of the high street, another hundred feet and you're in the river. It's definitely moved upmarket, one of my friends had hake in lobster sauce with samphire, another had mussels, this is not normal pub grub. Unfortunately the haddock from my haddock and chips had been a bit overdone, so the fish was too chewy and the batter too crunchy. OTOH it still tasted very nice, as did the chips.

I ended up parked where I normally do, which made it a little bit of a push to get to, "Oh," said the friend who'd suggested it, "I thought you'd park on the esplanade", at which point I did a slight head-desk, having completely forgotten there is parking on the esplanade, literally outside.

I waddled home three-ish and spent the entirety of the afternoon and evening trying not to fall asleep.

Could do with a few more days like that.

(But could do without feeling quite so shattered as I did this morning, need to do a bit of work on post-hibernation stamina).