Yes, he is a 100% real candidate and if elected would become the MP for Clacton

I've never voted anywhere with a gag candidate but I believe he does appear on the ballot as Count Binface. I assume candidates have to undergo an ID check at some point but there's no rule that says you have to run under your legal name. There is a precedent for people who have been professionally going by a name different from their government name keeping their professional name when they pivot into politics.

And like, how do you police what is and is not an acceptable name? You might say 'no joke names' but if Count Binface says his name is earnest self expression and not a joke how can you prove him wrong?

Count Binface's real name is public knowledge and there is an element of kayfabe going on wrt everyone playing along w the character.

If elected he probably would have to stop wearing the outfit as it would contravene a number of House of Commons regulations around hats and face coverings and also armour.

You do not need to live in a constituency to run for their seat in parliament. You do need 10 nominations from constituents. You also have to pay a £500 deposit which you will get back if you achieve more than 5% of the votes. Count Binface has never got his deposit back but this could be his year 🤞

there was a vote, which means there was a list, which means they probably came up with criteria over several weeks of arguments and discussions. then, they tried to find people that fit as many of them as possible, and that's how you get said list.

a very, very short list. diplomats, politicians, leaders — capable people that are good at what they do and speak several languages and seem like they could handle the pressure. people that are already perceived as something other than human.

then, they voted. maybe in rounds, maybe the list was short enough to sort it out with one. either way, eva won, but it didn't feel like a win.

it felt like being chosen as a sacrifice, a scapegoat, turned into someone who gives up being human for the greater good. they honour you, at first, revere you maybe, but people care about exactly two things: money and power.

so soon enough, saving humanity became secondary to selfish gain. eva stopped being the noble leader and became the enemy, and she knew it was going to happen, knew it was only going to get worse. but she didn't really have much of a choice, did she?

she has no immediate family.

she doesn't even have a dog.

she has no one who cares about her as a person, a human.

it was just easier to have mutual access to everything, to be able to answer emails or look up appointments or data or pick up something the other forgot and doesn't have time to get.

security concerns never occurred to them either, they have the same clearance level anyway, so what if he can download super secret government documents from her laptop while playing minesweeper during a meeting because he got bored? it's not like he's going to actually do that and even if, then what he's gonna do? share it with his middle school class?

("it's simply not protocol, it's an unnecessary danger and—"

"no it's not".

eva does not elaborate. just stands her ground. eventually, they walk away with a lingering sense of unease.)

everyone on the vat gets used to it, they're just Like That, and while the betting pool is growing by the day, it's just normal.

it does however confuse the shit out of practically everyone else when grace's fingerprint unlocks her phone or he has keys to her hotel room. when she lends him her jacket or he brings her breakfast because she refused to take fifteen minutes out of her day to eat.

we're highly social animals; helping each other is our number one survival strategy. humans are clever enough individually but put a bunch of us together and, well... that's how we got all the way to global civilization.

Patagonian mountain lake in the rain - Torres del Paine National Park, Patagonia, Chile, March 2025

You are my solution.

— chronic hypovolemia // lena oleanderson

Way back in the early days, it was where black performers in Vaudeville were legendary for it in Jazz and Jive routines. At about 1:37, this is where the Nicholas brothers go off.

Tap is a distinctive American art form that comes from a blending of African dance traditions with Irish dance traditions. It was developed by Black and white dancers and came up alongside and deeply entwined with jazz.

Certainly the tap that ends up in musical theater often seems old-fashioned and white but that’s a musical theater issue, not a tap issue. That is only one small part of tap, which continues to have a strong African-American tradition.

The Nicholas Brothers, above, are in a clip from the film Stormy Weather, which has an almost entirely African-American cast. Some of the other scenes in the film include Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, one of the greatest tap artists of all time. He was very well-known generally and was in quite a few Shirley Temple movies in his day. (Shirley Temple, herself, was a tap dancer – which I’ll be real is probably contributing to people thinking it’s old-fashioned and white, because it’s easy to forget the Black man dancing alongside her, I guess.)

Here’s Bill Robinson with Cab Calloway in Stormy Weather – he’s performing a variation of his famous “stair dance” in parts of this clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VY3fbvBRiaM

Here’s probably the most widely famous version of the “stair dance”, from The Little Colonel:

There’ve been a lot of white tap dancers through the years – see, for example, everyone’s favorite clip of two men torturing a speech therapist:

… but a lot of its most famous practitioners have been Black and it’s weird to me that people don’t know that.

Have a scene from Tap (1989).

Stray cat breaks into Lynx’s enclosure at zoo

these two felines were introduced at 6 weeks old in order to give more enrichment for the lynx and for education purposes, however they got along fantastically from the start and were eventually moved to permanently live with one another.

a much less exciting story, but a much cuter one as well.

Isopod