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Understand that he wants to prevent his son from revenge, and why he thinks Trump will keep coming for him. But, if he had done this differently e.g. bundled it in with pardoning of federal Death Row prisoners or some others serving egregious sentences, it could have resulted in so much less focus on Bad Hunter/Crooked Joe and made it part of a wider debate on sentencing. He's managed this exceptionally poorly, and made it really easy for the Reps to weaponise.

Been very happy since discovering you can whack them (and maybe some other veg) in the air fryer on roast for 10 minutes, blitz them with some walnuts and stock, and you have an amazing soup for pretty much no work.

It's the easiest of the broadsheets - their old business model was to reel in the upwardly-mobile who felt they should be graduating to a broadsheet with an easy crossword, extensive sports section and reliably comfortable right-wing opinion pieces.

is minute cryptic easier than other cryptic puzzles?

Yeah, mostly. There are other easy cryptics out there (I think Metro used to have a daily one that was pretty simple), but most of the broadsheet ones are more challenging. Minute cryptic is a good one to show beginners the ropes.

Giles Coren had his moments too, I suppose. I enjoyed the thing he did with Sue Perkins where they went through history, one eating as a rich person did, the other as a poor person. That aside, his general odiousness is pretty pervasive.

I was treated to a very nice lunch by a client last week and the halved sprouts served with the pigeon breasts were so good

The only out Tory 'comedian' in the country other than Jim Davidson, which means that, despite being about as funny as child cancer, the BBC have to have him on every single radio and panel show to keep the Daily Mail happy.

Geoff fucking Norcott tho?

It’s notable that Biden has done this for his son, but nothing for those on federal death row, for whom Trump has pledged a slaughter fest.

Typical Monday clue.

And all the Jan 6 rioters.

he'd hire a nanny

As I said, man’s a saint. Tho he might have some problems affording her now he’s dole scum…

Christ, hasn’t he explained enough? He didn’t want that child, he’s a saint for spending any time with him. Or her. I don’t know, fuck knows he doesn’t.

No

To Agadir, there are a few options. Trying to avoid the busiest roads, I took the 114A until it reached the 1010. These were good roads, and the traffic was light, and gave plenty of room. Lots of villages etc to pick up stuff. I think whichever route you take will be similar - flat, straight, depressing amounts of plastic waste caught in the scrub.

Agadir seems to have a bad rep, probably because most of the tourists are northerners, but I quite liked it. Lovely long, sandy beach, kept clean, good surf if you’re into it, nice swimming if you go out past the waves. Some perfectly nice restaurants, friendly people, nice parks and long boulevards to wander down. And you can finally get a beer. Was happy to chill there for a day before catching the coach which is currently taking me back to Marrakesh (riad there was more than happy to mind my bike box btw).

A couple of majorly lucky things happened on the trip:

• After going thru the high mountains solo, my pedal crank snapped on the way to Taroudant - just as I passed thru my first town since Marrakesh, and 50 yards from a bike mechanic. The little wizard sent me to his pal to buy a crank (1 pound fee) then fixed it (1 pound fee). Was on my way in half an hour. If that happened the previous day, would have been fucked.

• 10 miles out of Agadir, a tyre started to fail, bulging out horribly. Nursed it into town without blowing but again, would have been an issue in the mountains.

Overall, really enjoyed the experience. If I were to go again, I’d consider bringing a tent, and maybe another person. Researching better and being more prepared. Maybe take another route and spend more time in the mountains. Or just go to a country where I can more easily get vegan food and a beer.

Yes. Probably not the right choice right now, tbh. But fine once all the roads are fixed.

Waking up in Tizi, you get to see the most wonderful of vistas dropping away in front of you. Gorgeous. On the bike, the first 10km is solid roadworks at present, but after that you reach the new, improved, wide and beautiful road. And every metre of it is downhill. I -literally - did not have to push a pedal for the first 30 km.

Then it’s pure flat (actually, false flat in your favour) into Taroudant. Which is a perfectly nice, traditional town. Not much to keep you there for more than a day, but pleasant to walk around, find a decent tagine etc.

Oh yeah, on food, the mountains were the only place I’ve been other than the Karakorams in Afghanistan where I’ve found it impossible to stick to veganism. When you’re in a poor area with poor supply lines, you can’t exactly say, ‘Here is my list of bourgeois Western proclivities, pander to me’. I had fucking omelettes for 4 meals in a row. And due to the strict culture in this area, not a single one of them was washed down with a beer, in direct contravention of my god-given rights as a cyclist. Just don’t tell Oliver, you know he’ll be a dick about it.

From Ouirgane, the facts of the earthquake start becoming very obvious. Shamefully, I barely noticed it in the news cycle last year, but 3,500 people were killed, and roughly the same number of villages were destroyed or damaged. There are so many tent villages and so much visible destruction that it’s clear this will take years to fix. The government apparently said everything would be fixed in a year (clearly nonsensical), but tens of thousands of families are going into this winter in the high mountains in tents. It’s horrible.

Out of Ouirgane, major roadworks instantly, into ankle-deep slurry. Saw a workman screaming into his radio - turned out he was telling the guy in the digger 30m above us not to drop his load of rocks. He didn’t hear, and a ton of granite landed ten yards in front of me. He then told me it was like this the whole way up the mountain.

Came very close to losing my shit and just turning back, but decided to try a few more kms. Luckily, it gets better - but not good, esp on road tyres. There are long, heavy-duty roadworks, long unsealed sections, and the few downhills are so potholed you’re going as slow downhill as uphill.

I think this will just be a lovely, only slightly tough day of climbing when the roads are fixed, and probably wouldn’t be too bad now on the right tyres. I had a hard day tho on old-skool road skinnies. Some fantastic viewpoints on the way up to Tizi n’Test tho.

Worth saying that Apple Maps and maps.me show there being almost no villages to stock up on sustenance. There are some, but nothing in the last 20 km or so, so stock up.

On warmth, the top of the pass was the only time I needed arm warmers. This was at sundown and very depleted (hadn’t stocked up), and in the early morning before the sun came over the mountain. No call for gloves, though winter may come earlier in other years.

Still in Maroc, but have finished cycling. Thanks to the hive mind for really helpful info, I’ll start contributing what I’ve learned if anyone needs to know for the future.

Marrakesh - airport is great - you pay for your taxi in advance outside the terminal, then the driver takes you to your destination. Cars can’t go into the medina, but guys with little trolleys can help you with your bike box for a couple of quid. Otherwise, you could easily build your bike at the airport and ride in (if you don’t need to keep your box).

Riding out of Marrakesh is easy. Traffic is fine - not that heavy, drivers aren’t dicks. Have tried to learn the rules on rights of way, if red lights apply to bikes etc, but it seems to be very inconsistent, go with the flow approach.

There are cycle lanes in all the bigger places, and they’re respected. Also on a lot of the A-roads equivalents. Even with that, traffic tends to give you a very wide berth, and there is very little speeding, even on the main roads.

Road surfaces are generally good, often excellent (other than in the earthquake zone, which I’ll circle back on). As the culture is more Berber than beer-beer (oh yes he did), there’s very little broken glass in the gutters.

Taking the Ouirgane route, there’s one road out that direction and you can’t go wrong unless you’re a fucking moron. In which case, you have to retrace your steps almost as far back as Marrakesh city limits and take a poorly-sealed cut-across where you will inevitably puncture, adding hours to your day. Fucking moron.

Other than that, it’s c40km of very boring straight road out of Marrakesh, then a lot of backloaded climbing to Ouirgane. You might want to take transport out of town to get to the interesting stuff.

Having done a bunch of research, this is what I decided on. Haven’t tried it yet, as it is my Xmas present.

Gregg

There’ll be another one along in a minute

Apparently, just by chance, she’s precisely their 100,000th member, so has won the grand prize of… a pint with Lee Anderson. So it’s not all going well for her.

When you compare them to the Tory level of graft, where chancers had to pay big bucks for tennis with Johnson or high tea with Gove, Reform are more at the level of a pub meat raffle.

I've still got my Audi

I mean, it’s low-hanging fruit over there…

Plan is to keep it until another Porsche Boxster or Cayman comes along