@NatureMC @afewbugs This might be a good moment for me to ask that people spread the word about the need to check on older people, who may not fully understand that the world has changed — and that they, too, have changed and aren’t as heat-tolerant as they used to be.

We have people like that here, and I’d wager you do as well.

It occurs to me that the majority of retail is dog shit.

In another post I blamed Amazon, but that's not the whole story, is it?

The problem is that companies who exist to provide a particular service have realised that they can make more money by lending money, or charging more for ancillaries. The end result is that a trip to an electrical retailer, for example, is a bleak affair because they make almost none of their money in the actual shop.

And we're at the point where, for many of the biggest companies, selling the thing they're known for selling is almost a legacy affair. An irritation that they have to almost maintain in order for the core of their business to continue trading. And these companies are almost always headed up by people who are Good At Business, but don't care a single jot about what the business purports to do. They're just good at knowing how to move money around.

The end result is that everything just feels that much more shit than it used to.