t is surprising how the match was turned around, with 50,000+ spectators attending. ManCity was a goal down at halftime. Now, as of minutes ago, it’s 3-1 for ManCity.

Very good last ‘friendly’ for the new coach. Very encouraging.

The Seoul World Cup Stadium does not look good for the local team (so far the coach does not impress) and there are 7 days left before they play “for real” (as a contender for the Community Shield). It’s not atrocious (there are bright moments in the match) and the vacation is productive in spite of not writing much (we keep busy doing other things).

One of the birds, Bot’s Friend, has not come today (not yet) and I spent a lot of time maintaining the tanks (shells and fish), seeing that the high temperatures put balance/s at risk. Why travel to Spain when Spain-like weather comes here (again) next week?

If this sort of climate is here to stay, agriculture is doomed.

I can’t help but remember my friend Harvey. In 2004 we both began blogging (using a very new project called WordPress, before it became famous). Here I am doing the same thing I did 22 years ago, even in the exact same address.

The world has changed so much since then, mostly for the worse (climate change being one example).

A man called Andrew, who is the person that used to be our main source of food (before that Lisa), seems to have an upward or upstream shortage this summer. But we’ve found a good alternative and we can get excellent, healthy food for decent prices.

In my experience, being clever about purchases can be a valuable skills, more so during shrinkflation and greedflation.

think “rehearsal” is a good term to use for this friendly match in Seoul World Cup Stadium, which sounds very important except it is more of a show match and so far there are no goals.

Although the Community Shield (next Sunday) isn’t considered very important, it’s a real title and it does count. It can be Enzo’s first “official” game and also his first “brass”.

Next Sunday will be the “real test”.

Update: While typing this a goal was conceded by Manchester City. So it’s not looking too good. Jorge Domínguez scored.

T was nearly a year ago that we went away on holiday and caught up with personal matters while hired guns in London kept harassing and obsessing over us. They vainly believed they and only they were entitled to holidays.

How can we ever forget this?

This is a profound character problem.

HIS morning or today is the first day of our 3-weeks-and-3-days break, which will end in September. I’ll write more or less as usual, but many tasks will remain aside (procrastinated) until it’s time to deal with them. We need to have fun, to relax, and to look ahead at a productive rest of the year (4 months).

Today we cemented what has become a 4-times-a-week habit of feeding birds in Mayfield, which is rapidly being improved, not just the private residential buildings there. The Depot has a ton of work done on it this year, as well as on surrounding areas.

It’s incredible how fast this city develops. Even previously ugly and neglected areas are being “modernised”.

People who get off this hype train recognise that whatever happens in social control media sites bears little impact on the (rest of the) world. It’s a bubble, a stupid popularity content.

GNU/Linux is on its way to become “top dog” in desktops and laptops. I am super-happy that now, in 2026, we’re having those sorts of debates.

However, will the philosophical battle for Freedom be won too?

This is not a given.

Because “the politics like Daniel and you are fighting will worsen for a while,” as it was put to me. “Here there is a problem because there is not a single place (AFAIK) to learn even the smallest amount of ICT anywhere in the entire nation,” someone told me. “All have been replaced by Microsoft resellers [...] The digital sovereignty question is not a technical matter, but one of politics and specifically about how to purge the Microsoft resellers from their entrenched positions where they block teaching and learning of ICT across the EU…”

Consider for example what they do in schools (paywalled article). “Teachers talking about GenAI [sic] in schools more trouble than it is worth? [...] we are beginning to see signs that GenAI is starting to lose its lustre.”

Why did this nonsense manage to (or was allowed to) enter schools in the first place? What were they teaching and why? Who for?

“Is Microsoft in schools more trouble than it is worth?”

“Yes. It is,” I was told. “Are Microsoft cults in school administrations more trouble than they are worth? Yes, they are.”

We need to oppose not only proprietary software but also social control media and chatbots. They have no inherent value, they’re mostly instruments of indoctrination and “population control” or “social control” (the latter is less loaded a term).

It’s a famous line from a famous flick. We discussed numbers related to the waste of money associated with proprietary software and I said that if we assume 90% of “IT” budgets in governments (across Europe) are devoted to proprietary stuff, then we can deduce totals or estimates (rough totals) associated with such undesirable software which threatens sovereignty, both at a national and commercial level.

I also noted that GNU/Linux – a carrier of Software Freedom – is moving from underdog status to middledog [sic] – i.e. not top dog yet but heading there w.r.t. desktops and laptops. I said we need to cover this as it’ll happen once, and once only. Of course many sites will cover it and are already covering the growth of GNU/Linux, e.g. “Desktop Linux Just Cracked 10% Market Share – and Windows 11 is Mostly the Reason” (SoylentNews citing ZDNet).

ODAY will be our last “normal” day. After this we rest a bit, take it easy, and are formally or informally “on vacation”. It’s partly a mental state of mind… and partly a policy thing, which means not bothering with E-mail, all sorts of “work” (or “chores”). We’ll instead spend more time outside.

In September we’ll return (back to normal).