Ian

Meanwhile, in Bristol.............

Amazing

youraislopbores.me

But this is from Dubai - the genius Kevin is talking about digging it from Abu Dhabi which is at least double the distance

Every Christmas, the one on the left has impressively over-the-top decorations

Northern Ireland*

£2.5m for this, god knows how much for that garden bridge, Boris airport, that bridge to Northern Island. There's some real cash to be made in just indulging politicians' wacky ideas, you don't even need to actually start making anything

What do you mean by liberal in this sense? Left-wing, socially-
progressive, something else? Here teaching is very left-wing with no grammar schools and very very few private schools, and children retake years. Let me know if I've misunderstood

I don't know what you mean by liberal teaching methods, but it amazes me that you can't "fail" a year and have to retake it in the UK. If the kid is not ready for the next year, they just get moved up regardless to continue struggling

Headline generator saying: The public will never forgive the establishment for the disaster of I'm blue, da-ba-dee, da-ba-di, da-ba-dee, da-ba-di, da-ba-dee, da-ba-di

Headline saying: The creeping normalisation of Allister Heath is a tragedy for the British way of life

It really doesn't help that the official Home Office guidance is: airline carriers could, “at their own discretion” accept an “expired British passport as alternative document”.

So we might get turned back at the airport, or we might get turned back at the border, who knows!

But if you know you have British citizenship, you have to lie on the ETA form, otherwise you can't fill it in. So the system might accept you then, but you're shifting the risk to when you arrive in the UK.

For 2 kids it's £200 every 5 years,which is not nothing, especially considering that until today there was no need to have one to visit UK for short periods.

But the main issue is the lack of communications.Saying that we should have known because it's been written on gov.uk for a year is just bad

It says you can use your smartphone, but in my experience the passport website rejects almost all of them. Easy to do yourself over-and-over again, less easy for uncooperative kids! (last time I gave up and went to a professional...)

It's 2026 and we all live in our little media bubbles. Will they figure this stuff out?

Image of a map of Brussels with a path in the forest named "Drowned Children's Drive"

Ah what a nice Brussels picnic spot in the forest

Chart showing that in 2017 readers of the Times voted 58% for Tories and just 24% for Labour. Couldn't find more recent data

Like most Labour comms these days, it's not aimed at their actual voters

It's 200 quid for 2 kid passports and they only last 5 years. My wife doesn't have British nationality so we all travel on our EU passports & all use the same lanes in airports. Before the rule change, what was the purpose of having UK passport if all we're doing is visiting grandparents for a week?

Also, it's 200 quid for two new 5-year kids passports. Which they haven't ever needed before Wednesday. If they weren't dual nationals we could have got ETAs straight away for cheaper

Dual national here. I heard about this new rule exactly 10 days ago via social media, and it takes around 5 weeks to send an old passport to HMPO and receive a new one. So as mentioned above, it's not the rule change per se but the absolute lack of communication

Bon courage ! Il y a quelques semaines, j'ai essayé d'expliquer le "rah" à mon prof de français... C'était impossible, finalement on a décidé que la plus proche est BCBG, mais il est vraiment beaucoup plus compliqué....

This is a blast from the past! Kate's daughter lived in the same house as my wife back in our student days

But that would mean school in the hottest months of July and August. The 5 x 7-8 week term system works well though, with just the long Easter weekend bank holiday instead of 2 weeks off: the french-speaking schools in Belgium moved to this system a few years ago and I think most people prefer it

Just please not the Belgian system, where all the dutch-speaking schools and all the french-speaking schools have different sets of holidays, even in Brussels where there are schools of both languages

I see what you did there

I don't even know if she's talking about barbecues or grills. Not sure she does either tbf

Keys and earphones in one pocket, phone in the other?

What, he's doing Eurovision?!

True, but at least we've chosen them to do it, and can choose someone else next time!

*Jimmy Kimmel enters the chat*