Mike Knell

@blat

Middle-aged 🇬🇧🇦🇹 SRE, he/him. Wiener. In a love-hate relationship with amateur radio since 1985. Drummer. Cat staff member. Big fan of diversity, inclusion, empathy and humanity in general. Not a fan of bigots.

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Mike Knell@blat· 22d

For the first time since 1976 the UK has a Prime Minister who speaks with a Northern accent. And just for good measure he's appointed Healey as Chancellor.

A black and white photo of Denis Healey, Chancellor of the Exchequer under the 1974-1979 governments of Wilson and Callaghan. He has impressive eyebrows and is for some reason holding up two fingers in what appears to be the V-sign.

Mike Knell@blat· 22d

Getting strong "Smashie and Nicey press conference" vibes from all the completely voluntary ministerial resignations today. "They're sa..." "WE RESIGN! WE RESIGN!"

Mike Knell@blat· 23d

Ernst-Happel-Stadion, Vienna. Basically no parking but it's got a massive U-Bahn station with an extra platform and direct links to the depot which with the crowd control in place can get 900 people onto a train every 2 minutes or so after major events. Want to drive? Use the park&ride system.

Mike Knell@blat· 25d

This was one of Johann Strauss's less successful waltzes. Although the Vienna Oboe and the Vienna Horn had become part of local culture Strauss was disappointed to find that conservative Austrian audiences were simply not yet ready for the Vienna Kazoo.

A Vienna street sign from the 21st district, for a road called "An der oberen Alten Donau".

Mike Knell@blat· 27d

Richard Grant, eh?

The Withnail and I "We've gone on holiday by mistake" meme, except it's "We've bought a car by mistake". Not all that funny really now I look at it.

Mike Knell@blat· 28d

Peoples' kinks seem to be getting more and more specific these days.

Mike Knell@blat· Jul 12

oh my, I only just noticed the #Tintin reference in the Last Night of the Proms last year - the bill included the Jewel Song from Gounod's "Faust" ("Ah my beauty past compare, these jewels bright I wear!"), also known as Bianca Castafiore's signature aria (which she sings at every opportunity).

Bianca Castafiore from the Tintin stories - a cartoon rendering of a middle-aged white woman with a blonde bouffant, in a red dress with a sapphire brooch. She is in full song.

Mike Knell@blat· Jul 9

(🇦🇹) Postie: Got a package for you but do you have €15.81 in exact change to pay the duty? If not you can collect it tomorrow from the post office. Me: Sorry, I don't. Can you tell me who the package is from? Postie: (looks at package and gets a panicked look in her eyes) "Uh... brine.. er..?"

A return address label, listing as the sender's address and postcode:
QUOIT MEDIA LIMITED
BRYNMAWR
LLANFAIR CAEREINION
WELSHPOOL
POWYS

Mike Knell@blat· Jul 9

"Heeeeeere's Bono!"

Mike Knell@blat· Jul 9

I am speechless. Created a brand new empty Music (.app) library on my Mac without syncing iTunes Match uploads and oh my giddy aunt look what appeared in the library 10 seconds later - the #U2 album they forced everyone to download in 2014. What legacy code from hell made this happen, #Apple?

Screenshot of an Apple Music(.app) library screen holding just one album. The album is "Songs of Innocence" by U2. There is a shot of the album cover on the right in which Bono has once again taken his shirt off because good lord he can't keep it on can he?

Mike Knell@blat· Jul 8

Labour are dealing with the Farage tantrum so well. If there's one thing guaranteed to *really* get under his skin it's being mocked and ridiculed. As he's shown many times in the past, he's a classic bully - happy to mock and ridicule others but very, very thin-skinned when he's the subject of it.

A tweet from Andy Burnham containing a picture of himself shaking hands with Count Binface at the Makerfield byelection count. it's captioned "Always worth knowing when bin day is."

Mike Knell@blat· Jul 8

Hungary's primary public service TV channel M1 is currently showing the greatest apology caption in history, saying that public broadcasters should not lie and that they're sorry for doing so for so long under Orbán. Full translation in alt (not by me, Hungarian is all Greek to me)

A monitor showing a black screen with a caption reading "Public media should not lie. We are sorry for doing it for so long. Public media now will be reformed so it will be independent and trustworthy. Our news programme is currently suspended. Stay tuned!"

Or in Hungarian.. "A közmédia nem hazudhat. Bocsánatot kérünk, amiért hosszú éveken át mégis ezt tettük! A közmédia most átalakul, hogy a jövőben független és hiteles legyen. A hírszolgáltatás átmenetileg szünetel. Maradjanak velünk!"

Mike Knell@blat· Jul 7

Meanwhile in Belgium..

Office Space meme, with the two Bobs sitting behind a desk captioned "So we fixed the glitch."

Mike Knell@blat· Jul 4

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 30

"You're walking along a street when all of a sudden you see a delivery robot coming towards you..."

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 28

Picked up this bad boy - 1992 vintage, unused, perfect working order - for €50 or so and it was an absolute bargain. Weighs about half a kilo and sounds very good indeed through an onboard amp that packs a decent punch (4/10 is quite loud enough through my 30Ω headphones). Proper old school Sony.

A Sony D-33 Discman, a black plastic box about 15x18x3cm with controls on the front along with an LCD display. A disc can be seen through a transparent window in the lid.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 22

"We therefore emphatically announce that heretoforth from this date, the 22nd of Jun 2026, we do most humbly resign from the aforementioned government." "And I'd just like to add that I'm absolutely flabbergasted at being resigned..."

Mike Smash and Dave Nice holding their "resignation" press conference at Radio Fab FM, in a still from "Smashie and Nicey: End of an Era".

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 19

BBCCD 6001, released in 1988 and probably the closest a commercial release of HHGTTG can get to the original tx (music rights aside). Not long after this they started with the endless round of re-editing / remastering / restoration / updating and rebranding as the Primary / Secondary Phases.

A box set of six CDs on a desk. The discs themselves have metallic foil index cards, while the black, sturdy slip-case is black and has the words "DON'T PANIC!" inscribed in large friendly letters on the side. On top in smaller letters are the title - "The Hitch-Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy".

The first CD in the set. It's printed in a single colour (red) and is titled "Fit the First and Second". (C) 1988 BBC Enterprises Ltd.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 19

“We haven’t had a fire in here for the 15 years I’ve been here."

Steve Coogan as the pool security guard in The Day Today about to tell us that for many years, no-one died except in that one year when someone died.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 17

That, exactly that!

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 16

"Governor Walz, thank you for introducing me to this new political term, "weirdos". I shall be sure to tell Herbert Kickl about it next time I see him."

In a room with red wallpaper with the Austrian and European flags flying at the back wall, Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen talks to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 14

I think I know who most sane people are rooting for when it comes to tonight's Freedom Thugfest in DC. Come on, cold front! You can do it! * image is snipped from the 12:00 UTC NWS surface chart

A portion of a weather map showing a portion of the midwest-to-eastern-seaboard US. A notable feature is a prominent cold front pushing east towards Washington DC, with cooler, low pressure air meeting warm, humid air creating what are perfect conditions for forming thunderstorms and gale force winds.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 5

In Frankfurt, two Lufthansa ground crew are facing disciplinary action after being caught loading the front galley with more than the regulation amount of bratwurst. (with apologies to NTNOCN)

A Lufthansa Boeing 787 at Frankfurt airport. The front landing gear has collapsed leaving the aircraft nose resting on its fuselage.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 5

This is a cat check point. Relinquish your most recent cat picture on your phone #ProofOfCat

A mostly white cat sits in a basket with a cuddly raccoon toy.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 4

Make a Doctor Who title less scary.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 4

Looking through the parts of my CD connection that made it through a decade or so of moves and *this* is one great album.

A CD box sitting on a desk. It's "A Secret Wish, the 1985 album by Propaganda that was more or less their entire recorded output.

Mike Knell@blat· Jun 2

Turbines! And deviants! Did you tell them about the turbines yet? Turbines! YES! Good. We're from the Isle of Man. YES!

Caroline Aherne and Mark Williams standing outside an old caravan in a sandy, windswept car park. A still from the Fast Show's "Isle of Man" sketch.

Mike Knell@blat· May 31

Still from "The Fast Show". A man in a suit is talking over the garden fence to a shirtless man smoking a pipe whose lower half is not visible.

Mike Knell@blat· May 30

The Brenner pass autobahn today. People who live in Austrian mountain villages are not natural demonstrators, but three times as many trucks rumble past their homes than use all of Switzerland's pass roads combined, and nobody seems serious about fixing this, and this made even them say "enough".

A demonstration taking place on a closed motorway. People are marching happily, some holding Tirolean and Austrian flags. A large banner, white on purple, reads "Güter auf die Schiene statt Verkehrslawine!" ("Goods on the rails instead of traffic jams!").

Mike Knell@blat· May 29

I like their logo, which takes the umlaut from the Ö and rotates it through 90 degrees in a way that is very... relevant.