hTTi

Check out https://www.meetup.com

There seem to be quite a few knitting events in and around Berlin.

https://www.meetup.com/find/?keywords=k ... rce=EVENTS

Upgrade from DSL to Glasfaser ordered from Telekom mid April, connection date should have been today (window of 10.00-14.00), however email arrived at 12.47 announcing a cancellation. No apology, just this flannel... :( Um den Glasfaser-Ausbau in Ihrer Region abzuschließen, arbeiten wir mit einem ne...

In March 2025, I made voluntary back payments to UK National Insurance Contributions (NICs) in order to fill gaps in my UK pension record. The total amount was just under £3K and was paid before the deadline to HMRC. The payment covered multiple years retrospectively, from 2006 to 2024, and was sole...

Summary here https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/50-prozent-weniger-fluge-von-und-nach-berlin-ryanair-zieht-sich-wegen-hoher-kosten-vom-ber-zuruck-15518636.html Probably because of Lufthansa's de facto monopoly? Some on social media are describing this as a "catastrophe" :shock: but this ma...

Last weekend I went on a countryside walk with a friend. I took the liberty to move this topic to "Berlin", as the tipping etiquette in Germany is not the same everywhere. Berlin is special, it ain't the Germany standard... FWIW "countryside walk" could easily mean Brandenburg, ...

Fair enough — scepticism about politicians promising ‘clean government’ is entirely justified. That’s a constant, not a Hungarian speciality. But that cuts both ways. If you don’t believe Magyar when he talks about reducing corruption, it’s a bit odd to treat the setup under Orbán as some kind of kn...

That’s actually a more interesting take than most of what you’ve been saying — but it cuts a different way than you think. If Magyar can attract Orbán voters without changing core positions, that suggests the issue isn’t some grand ideological battle being ‘won’, but that Orbán’s system has become t...

Yeah yeah, nice try, but that’s not the argument. The point isn’t ‘buy Russian gas via someone else’ — it’s diversify away from Russia altogether. LNG ≠ Russian by default. The whole strategy since 2022 has been to replace Russian pipeline gas with global supply (US, Qatar, Norway, etc.) routed thro...

Orban is just looking out for the interests of Hungary, which is exactly what he should be doing. Well, it looks like a very large percentage of Hungarians didn't share your analysis. Unfortunately, Hungary has no access to LNG ports, but who cares? Strange how ‘we have no LNG ports’ keeps appearin...

What the official pages don’t quite say explicitly—but what you’ve already sensed—is that the real constraint isn’t the rules, it’s the physics of Berlin rush hour. You can take a bike on both S-Bahn and U-Bahn with a ticket, but only in the designated areas and only if there’s space. There’s no gua...

This debate flares up every few years often driven by concerns about fairness or labour incentives, but actual change tends to be incremental, slow, or blocked altogether. Whilst certain figures in the SPD — notably Lars Klingbeil — have suggested ending the current system “in its present form” for ...

Eric is normally on the money with most subjects! ***hero***

On this we can whole-heartedly agree.

Learn from Eric!

Orbán is bravely defending Hungary by keeping it hooked on Russian energy, blocking help for a country Russia invaded, and repeating the line that everyone else should absorb the strategic cost instead. Very sovereign. Very patriotic. Very conveniently aligned with the Kremlin. Of course leaders sho...

(I apparently support VVP, KJU & the chancer Farage! :D ) but you can't always expect your debating partner to stick to reality. Snidey is as snidey does! The point I was making was that these are the logical consequence of following your "strong patriotic leader" line. I sincerely ho...

Ah yes, the ‘I deleted it because it might sound patronising’ move — a neat way of sounding patronising while claiming moral restraint. Yes, I'm learning so much from you. Just for the record, I wasn’t nominating Macron for sainthood. I was saying that in this one specific area — trying to balance n...

Fair enough — let me actually answer you then. If we’re talking about leaders trying (imperfectly) to balance national interest with wider responsibilities, I’d point to people like Emmanuel Macron, or Donald Tusk — not because they got everything right (far from it), but because they’ve broadly tri...

Ok, I'll bite... Which leaders you do think have promoted stability? Which ones have balanced the interests of their own countries against the wider agenda? Depends what we mean by ‘stability’. If it’s the kind that involves weakening institutions, sidelining independent media, and keeping relation...

So they’re misunderstood champions of stability who just happen to echo Kremlin talking points from time to time...

Yeah. Right.

Strange how ‘not making a mess’ seems to involve cosying up to Putin while undermining Ukraine’s right to exist.

If that’s the benchmark, the bar’s on the floor.

Hmmmmm.