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We are working our way through the Czech Christmas market foods… last night it was halusky (little potato dumplings with bacon and cabbage) and Prague style ham.
This morning taking the train down to Cesky Krumlov.Perhaps a little snow there.
I saw some posts on reddit about why some people say they (and many others) aren’t satisfied with Keir Starmer on immigration despite net migration going down in the UK.
They say immigration is like inflation; people don’t necessarily care about the current rate of immigration. It’s the (perceived) cumulative amount of immigration that pisses these posters off. I’m guessing by that they mean that they see too many people that don’t look like them, hear foreign languages too often, see foreign shops too much since that’s the most obvious signs of cumulative immigration for the average person. It seems like it will be impossible to resolve the immigration issue to these people’s satisfaction without remigration.
There’s a good deal of precedent around the world for this sort of demographic anxiety radically altering politics. Malaysia and Fiji have used preferential economic treatment for the ethnic majority populations in part to encourage the immigrant populations from the British colonial period to emigrate after independence. Those aren’t even the only examples of ex British colonies having second thoughts about immigrant populations from the colonial era.
Well hopefully immigration politics don’t head too far into that direction in the US and elsewhere (I’d probably be screwed), but the most idealistic politicians’ expectations from 20 years ago were probably very naive given how people tend to react to demographic changes in the past.
In some German cities, you can ride the tram for free these days if you’re dressed as Santa. What qualifies as Santa is even described in the rules 😂 so just putting on a hat won’t do it. I think it’s pretty sweet.
There is going to be some Christmas lunch tomorrow… I wonder who is going to cook it, if it’s going to be me, and if it’s not me, who it will be and if I’ll survive it (my mother-in-law is on a healthy diet of sorts and her recent flourless sugar free fat free “Stollen” almost made me gag, and I eat absolutely everything). My husband hates Christmas and he gets overwhelmed easily by any kind of planning.
Maybe I’ll just eat beforehand. I hate this time of the year so much.
The hotel buffet this morning had homemade ‘Christmas soup ‘, which was actually excellent!
Is this a thing in Central Europe? Soup for breakfast? It’s very strange in Italy and not something I’ve come across much before in Europe that I remember… though it’s common in some other countries outside of Europe.
Getting flu straight before Christmas throws plans overboard, but with two days of baking I got at least some cakes ready.
I usually go to the supermarket around midnight because there’s not that many people. You get in and out faster. No standing in the line at the cashier and so on. Last night I went, I think it was about 23:45 or something like that, and there was so many people there. Always the same around Christmas, there magically is like ten times more people in shops. Where do they even come from?
I bought a really cool suit for 20€. Not at the supermarket, though… Mainly for the trousers, but maybe I’ll get to use the whole thing at some point. It’s virgin wool, vintage of course, double breasted, pleated trousers, navy blue with like purple and blue pinstripes. It looks like something a secretly queer banker would have worn on Wall Street in the 70s, I love it.
I really love the trousers though, I think I’m going to wear them a lot. Such a nice drape and they feel amazing.
Just when I was getting a tiny little bit optimistic about the situation here re: the Orbán of it all, I came across videos interviewing homeless/otherwise in need people queuing at a charity soup kitchen event held by Tisza, the main opposition party that is in fact leading in the polls right now. And… yeah, I’m back being pessimistic as fuck, because you see all these people in various stages of decrepitude, queuing for free food at a charity event, regurgitating all the regime propaganda about how Orbán is the best and Tisza are a bunch of criminals who would send everyone to war and take away people’s pension and raise taxes and serve the country up to the “cocksuckers in Brussels” and so on and so on… while eating the free food they just got from Tisza activists.
Videos like these always jank me right down to earth because these are all the sort of people pollsters don’t reach, they’re easy to mobilize, and there’s way too many of them, unfortunately.
Youtube recommended me [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EseMHr6VEM0) of Maria Callas performing Habanera. In the video the orchestra first plays the prelude from Carmen. During this time Callas just stands there smiling, and for some reason whoever directed this decided to mostly just film her and it’s so funny. You could have had more shots of the orchestra, since the orchestra was playing, but no, just get the vocalist there even though she’s doing nothing lmao.