Odd things have been happening in the UK, so it’s time once more to chat with Scottish author and social researcher David F Porteous.
In this episode we discuss Barnaby Joyce’s claim that One Nation is “one of the gayest parties in Australia”, the early days of social media, maths, physics, shrinkflation, and of course last week’s Clacton by-election which returned Nigel Farage to parliament.
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Episode Links
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The official website of Scottish Author David F Porteous
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Scottish author of The Wicker Man Preservation Society, Good Witch, and Singular. Read work in progress at dfpiii.com
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[7 August 2026] The Edinburgh Fringe has a vision to give anyone a stage and everyone a seat, and in 2026, 4,206 shows await audiences across 299 venues.
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The interesting number paradox is a humorous paradox which arises from the attempt to classify every natural number as either "interesting" or "uninteresting". The paradox states that every natural number is interesting.[1] The "proof" is by contradiction: if there exists a non-empty set of uninteresting natural numbers, there would be a smallest uninteresting number – but the smallest uninteresting number is itself interesting because it is the smallest uninteresting number, thus producing a contradiction.
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A by-election for the United Kingdom parliamentary constituency of Clacton was held on 13 August 2026, following the resignation of Nigel Farage, its member of Parliament... He announced on 7 July 2026 that he would vacate his seat to trigger a by-election and re-contest the constituency... Farage was returned with 22,239 votes (63.3% of the 44.4% turnout), followed by [Count] Binface with 9,455 (26.9%).
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[21 May 2026] Questions about a £5 million gift to the leader of Reform UK Nigel Farage from a crypto billionaire simply won’t go away.
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[23 June 2026] Farage has argued he did not need to declare the gift because he received it before he was elected as Clacton MP and it was not political. The Parliamentary Standards Commissioner is investigating whether he broke the rules.
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When Farage resigned as an MP last month, triggering the by-election, an investigation into whether he should've declared a £5m gift was paused. The website of Parliament's standards commissioner has now been updated to say the probe is no longer suspended, writes our political reporter.
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There have been several instances of non-human animal candidates holding political office. In the United States, these candidates often hold honorary positions won through unofficial elections, typically in unincorporated areas with no official local government, although there have been cases of animals being elected to legitimate offices.
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[17 August 2026] Nigel Farage was at the centre of a growing row over not attending the Clacton by-election count due to an alleged “threat” against him. Reform UK said the party leader had been “advised” by Essex Police not to go to the count due to “a credible threat against him”. But it is understood that the force did not advise any candidate not to turn up for the official declaration.
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Laurence Paul Fox (born 26 May 1978) is an English actor, political activist, and founder and leader of the right-wing populist Reclaim Party. He made his acting debut in the film The Hole (2001) and his best-known role is James Hathaway in the television drama series Lewis (2006–2015).
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[29 November 2026] The Federal member for the North Queensland seat of Kennedy, Bob Katter, explains why he doesn't really care about the same-sex marriage debate.
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Robert Bellarmine Carl Katter (born 22 May 1945) is an Australian politician. He has been the member of Parliament (MP) for the Queensland division of Kennedy since 1993 and is the father of the House, being the longest-serving member of the Australian Parliament.
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Barnaby Thomas Gerard Joyce (born 17 April 1967) is an Australian politician who served as the deputy prime minister of Australia and the leader of the National Party from 2016 to 2018 and from 2021 to 2022. A member of One Nation, he has been the member of parliament (MP) for the New South Wales division of New England since 2013. Joyce previously held various ministerial positions in the Abbott, Turnbull, and Morrison governments.
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[12 August 2026] The comments, made in a social media video, have been condemned by an LGBTQIA+ advocate as "baseless and absurd". Mr Singh's profile has now been removed from the party's website. One Nation MP Barnaby Joyce has distanced himself from Mr Singh's views and said One Nation is "one of the gayest parties in Australia".
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[12 August 2026] One Nation MP says failed WA candidate’s comments describing same-sex attraction as a mental illness are ‘highly offensive’.
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[12 August 2026] Speaking to Afternoon Briefing, Barnaby Joyce says he disapproves of comments made by a One Nation candidate who made a series of homophobic statements in a social media video. Parminder Singh, who was the number three on One Nation WA's Legislative Council ticket at the 2025 election, described gay people as having a mental illness.
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[13 August 2026] A brief reminder of the sorts of candidates that choose to run for One Nation, “one of the gayest parties in Australia”.
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[26 April 2019] Stuart Bonds is the far-right One Nation Party’s candidate for Hunter, New South Wales, ahead of Australia’s federal election on May 18.
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Quolls (/?kw?lz/; genus Dasyurus) are carnivorous marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea. They are primarily nocturnal, and spend most of the day in a den. Of the six species of quoll, four are found in Australia and two in New Guinea. Another two species are known from fossil remains in Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits in Queensland.
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The rakali (Hydromys chrysogaster), also known as the rabe, the "Australian otter" or water-rat, is an Australian native rodent first scientifically described in 1804. Adoption of the Ngarrindjeri name rakali is intended to foster a positive public attitude by Environment Australia.
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Wombat feces are waste deposits left by a species of marsupial native to Australia. The only known animal dropping to be cube-shaped, the American Physical Society won an Ig Nobel Prize for discovering why.
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[3 June 2026] Are Koalas adorable leaf enthusiasts or slow-motion monsters?
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In astrophysics, an event horizon is a boundary in spacetime beyond which no signal can ever reach a given observer. Wolfgang Rindler coined the term in the 1950s.
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Parkes Observatory is a radio astronomy observatory, located 20 kilometres (12 mi) north of the town of Parkes, New South Wales, Australia. It hosts Murriyang, the 64 m CSIRO Parkes Radio Telescope also known as "The Dish", along with two smaller radio telescopes.
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[11 August 2026] What most people already know and it was 'Like a house brick': Cleaner finds Mars bar from 1991 weighing 56% more than today's version. Welcome to cost of living crisis, shrinkflation and ripoff Britain!
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[10 August 2026] Police initially believed the suitcase, which was found on Sunday afternoon at Oallen, contained the remains of a woman's body. Police have defended the investigation, saying the correct processes were followed.
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[12 August 2026] Coalition demands police investigate apparent leaking of diplomatic cable to newspaper but Labor calls it a ‘silly political stunt’.
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