Notices by iona 🐝 (iona@social.coop), page 3

@officialcjunior There's also a US-funded Russian-language station, Radio Svoboda (which translates roughly to Freedom) transmitting on AM, beaming east into Russia from Lithuania.

@officialcjunior There's also a US-funded Russian-language station, Radio Svoboda (which translates roughly to Freedom)

@officialcjunior AM radio is still a thing and if you're in Europe, most nights you can still pick up stations from other countries.

Russia doesn't have any AM stations anymore, but they do still broadcast their propaganda via a high power transmitter in the unrecognised territory of Transnistria.

It is all still going on over the airwaves!

Wired: Working at home listening to a good selection of radio stations from Manchester etc
Tired: Getting in my car and being stuck with Yorkshire Blah Bullshit FM

@ghost_bird Are the two things linked? Overheating IT systems etc?

@woozle If you take a trip to Manchester, you can see how much money is going into Manchester City football club from the Abu Dhabi owners.

The whole area around their ground (now the "Etihad Campus") has been built up as training pitches, a football academy, two more actual stadiums just for their youth and second teams to play in.

It's cost hundreds of millions, but they won the league by a country mile last season, so to the owner it's evidently worth it.

@woozle I don't think a lot of people in the US grasp the sheer amount of money that flies around in European football. There are owners who've sunk actual billions into the clubs they own to try and win trophies and leagues.

It's like a status thing for them - among the ultra-rich, owning a Premier League, Ligue 1, La Liga etc winning team is the ultimate status symbol.

@woozle Most football clubs lose money. There's an old joke:

"How do you make a small fortune?
Start with a large fortune and buy a football club."

They are mainly vehicles for dodgy owners - these days largely from Russia, the Gulf and the Far East - to launder ill-gotten gains and as status symbols for the super rich.

@woozle But footballers in the top two levels at least are mostly multi-millionaires many times over. £70,000 a *week* is normal at Premier League level (some are on £200,000+), while £10-20,000 is average at second league level.

If you can't take a bank account with eight or nine figures in it, and invest that into some kind of business to earn a meaningful long-term income, then perhaps you should go broke.

@woozle I am a native of a county that is plagued with rich footballers in fast cars behaving like they own the world. It's nice to see someone tell them what real life is like.

@woozle Not really. These footballers are on thousands of pounds a week even at the second-tier level that Leeds play in, and most have been on that sort of money since their late teens.

They have no concept of work and money and the lengths an average person has to go to in order to survive.

The new football manager at Leeds United had the players picking litter around their Elland Road stadium recently, for three hours or so.

The reason? "This is how long an average Leeds worker has to work to buy a ticket to watch you lot play, so think about that when you're deciding how much effort to put in."

@thamesynne Hermes is fucking awful - I used them briefly when I first started my business because they were a few pence cheaper for larger items than Royal Mail.

When I dropped stuff off at the "parcel shop" (aka Bargain Booze) it took 2-3 days for it to even be *collected*. I had nothing but complaints.

Since switching to RM for everything except massive stuff (I use ParcelForce for that) I have had 5* reviews on delivery and no complaints. Skimping on delivery is a short-term view.

@porsupah The main problem with getting rid of the 'balance' rules in broadcast media is that we'd end up with something like the US media landscape. They got rid of their political balance in the 80s and instead of lots of valid opinions being debated on air they got thousands of shitty little AM radio stations blasting Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage et al 24/7.

We would have the same - LBC in London already skirts close with shows by Farage and Rees-Mogg etc.

@porsupah Couldn't agree more with that bloke. The BBC radio coverage leading up to the Brexit referendum was confused and incoherent. Facts weren't given prominence - instead it was "he said, she said".

Thing is, if your morning listen is the Today programme, chances are you already have a grounding in politics and would be okay without the constant reminders that "these other people think this other thing".

@Greg Bloody hell, I am sorry to hear that. How on earth do people manage that kind of bill for getting sick?

My grandad was in hospital for months on end over the winter with various infections and general old-people dropping-to-bits stuff. His bill was £0 which is how it should work because we all pay tax to make sure everyone gets to go to hospital when they need it.

I will however never stop ranting about the utter shit I am subjected to by the radio every day. Never! Mediocre local radio presenters, you have no respite from me. 📻 🔫

Mastodon! Why do you endlessly favourite and boost drivel I post about technology shit that doesn't matter much in the great scheme of things, but not much more important stuff about identity and gender and people being able to live as themselves?

Makes me feel slightly sad. I am going to stop posting about tech, because it really doesn't matter a great deal, it's transitory ephemeral "news!" and I feel like it's drowning out other things I have to say.

@Alda I am sorry, I really don't want to have an argument about this right now.

This has also been my experience. I started taking HRT for around five months last year - obtained through a now-closed online pharmacy site rather than via the NHS.

I felt breast tenderness and growth, and some of the changes felt positive, but I also felt frightened - like it was happening too fast for me to deal with, like I didn't really want this.