Now free for all to read (but please consider subscribing for future exclusive posts)...

Want a good travel tip - or what the funky people nowadays call a 'travel hack'? Show up early. Let me explain:

https://www.patreon.com/timrichards/posts/show-up-early-or-152107711

#travel #tip #TravelHack

I agree with all this. For someone so careful with my money, spending $10,000 or whatever on a wedding would make me faint. In fact @nprofile1q... and I had our wedding secretly in the back yard of the celebrant, with our friends Craig & Julia as witnesses. Avoided all the palaver. :)

What do you think? Have weddings vecome too extravagant?
---
"I feel wary of the spectacle that weddings have become. I don’t think it was always like this. Talk to older people and you’ll hear stories of a family dinner and then a dance in the local pub. These days – even for non-celebrities – they are often big, flashy affairs, perhaps in exotic destinations, sometimes over several days. I hear so much about arguments when people don’t get invited, even though we all know space is usually limited. I wonder why people feel it has to be like this. I wonder, too, if the opulence makes the whole thing even more emotionally charged."

What makes a good wedding these days? I say flirting and chaos, but not three days in a French castle - Rachel Connolly https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/29/good-wedding-flirting-chaos-spectacle#comment-175289324

#wedding #weddings

Feeling frustrated by the word "elevator" gradually replacing "lift" in Australia. I mean, it's not even more convenient to say - it's four syllables, for god's sake!

I imagine AI will be doing its bit to promote dementia, given that the avoidance of cognitive effort seems to be its biggest attraction.

"A healthy diet rich in leafy greens, berries, nuts and olive oil, and low in processed and ultra-processed foods, along with physical activity and daily cognitive stimulation, were among the most crucial dementia prevention strategies.

"The latter could be taking a course, learning a language, attending public lectures, reading and playing games: 'things that actually challenge your brain. It’s not just doing the same crossword every day,' said Scientia Professor Kaarin Anstey, director of the UNSW Ageing Futures Institute and the only Australian on the WHO’s dementia panel."

#AI #health https://www.smh.com.au/national/almost-50-per-cent-of-dementia-cases-could-be-prevented-this-new-advice-tells-us-how-20260719-p60gk0.html

I am interested in seeing The Odyssey – but for anything three hours long I'm going to wait until it's available on streaming. Sounds interesting though.

#movie #movies #film https://www.smh.com.au/culture/movies/the-odyssey-review-20260715-p60fg1.html

Disturbing. Boeing seems to be having a run of bad luck in recent times. #travel

https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/if-we-die-we-die-together-wife-details-ordeal-after-man-partially-sucked-out-of-plane-window-20260714-p60fbv.html

This is interesting. I kinda understand the desire to believe that you're really living in 2006 rather than 2026, Telstra firmware, I really do.

Link: https://www.theage.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/telstra-investigating-outage-affecting-thousands-of-customers-20260708-p60dho.html

#Telstra

I never queue for anything if I can avoid it. If I do want to try a popular restaurant I'll visit at a silly time, such as 3.30pm on a Tuesday.
---
"There are queues forming around the world right now that travellers are only too happy to join, mostly to get the photo of the thing that everyone else has already got a photo of, because then you can show you’ve been there and got the same photo."

Is this really how you want to spend your holiday? We’ve lost our minds https://www.theage.com.au/traveller/reviews-and-advice/is-this-really-how-you-want-to-spend-your-holiday-we-ve-lost-our-minds-20260707-p60dak.html

#restaurant #travel

Telstra really is down, it wasn't working at all for me on the tram on the way to Docklands. I'm using Wi-Fi now at a cafe. Luckily its payment system wasn't affected.

#telstra https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/v-line-train-disruptions-live-updates-telstra-outage-sparks-mass-delays-across-victoria-s-regional-train-network-20260708-p60di3.html

Interesting read. Since 2016 the EU has become even more collaborative, including incurring common debt for big projects. Would a hoping-to-rejoin UK be happy to fit in with this?
---
The EU that the UK left no longer exists - Mujtaba Rahman https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jul/06/eu-uk-andy-burnham-britain-rejoin

#EU #UK #UKpol