The Great Nigel

Pedestrian traffic lights

Starting off with the difference between formerly Eastern German traffic lights (upper images) and formerly Western German traffic lights (lower images):

The city of Erfurt had some additions, like an umbrella or a heart:

Same sex love in Marburg (upper image) and Frankfurt (lower image):

Traffic light lady in Bremen:

Karl Marx light in Trier:

Face of Friedrich Engels in Wuppertal:

Elvis in Friedberg (Hessen):

A sparrow (for the Golden Sparrow film awards) in Gera:

Winemaker in Bad Dürkenheim:

Mainzelmännchen (mascot of the public broadcasting service ZDF) in Mainz:

Otto Waalkes (German Comedian) in Emden:

Town musicians of Bremen in Bremen:

A miner in Pirmasens, Rheinland-Pfalz:

Bishop in Fulda:

Source: Saarbrücker Zeitung

Let me explain:

Grotesque fascist grifter, Nigel Farage, is the leader of Reform, the racist far right party he created because UKIP got what it wanted (Brexit) and it sucked.

Having tried and failed to be an MP many times (but somehow getting more screentime than any Liberal Democrat or Green politician), he finally succeeded in the last election because people were so overwhelmingly pissed off with the Conservatives, and many right-wing people saw Reform as the new Conservative Party; partly because it's full of rejects from the Conservative Party.

Speculation: he doesn't really want to be an MP, he wants to be a fascist grifter. He's annoyed by suggestions he do things like Be In His Constituency and Serve His Constituents.

He's recently been caught having accepted a VERY large amount of money from some unsavory people that he insists was a totally legitimate 'donation' and not breaking any rules.

Only it did break the rules and it's very clear that it did and things are in motion to hold him to account.

To avoid this, he has resigned as an MP, saying this is a protest at his treatment by the 'establisment' (he is a rich fascist grifter, but he likes to cosplay as a Man of the People). This has triggered a by-election, in which he is standing, with the hope that the people of his constituency will either elect him in a resounding win, indicating they don't care that he's corrupt (having not heard everything the investigation is uncovering), or someone from Labour or the Conservatives will win and he can swan off to America, free to grift again because of what the 'establishment' did to him.

Only, all the major political parties have agreed not to stand, stating openly that this is an obvious stunt and they won't legitimise it. So if he doesn't win, he can't say it was because he was too much of a rebel and the Establishment went against him, he'll just be a loser, which doesn't play too well with the right-wingers he wants to grift. And if he does get back in the investigation will go forward without any kind of 'mandate' from his constituency buoying him up.

But. There is another option.

COUNT BINFACE IS RUNNING.

Count Binface is part of the grand British tradition of joke candidates who stand as a protest option. They usually don't get enough votes to get their deposit back (which is supposed to deter unserious people) but they don't care, because DEMOCRACY.

Of course, Count Binface has never won, but it is hilarious to see a completely serious pathetic fascist concede defeat while standing next to a man with a bin on his head to whom they are democratically equal.

But if nobody else is standing. And if enough people in Clacton-on-Sea are finally cheesed off enough with Farage not doing anything for them, there is just a chance that one of the funniest things to ever happen in politics will happen.

Imagine. Imagine for just a moment that the Grotesque Fascist not only loses, but loses to Count Binface.

i feel like the problem with this question is best illustrated by a conversation i had with a friend a while back, where i said something like, "i feel very safe with you because you don't do subtle hints and you are always very straight-up with me about what you are thinking and feeling."

It has come to my attention that some of you have never seen what I firmly believe to be the greatest music video of all time: Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart. It is the perfect marriage of a galactically bombastic power ballad and a writhing mass of 1980s video clichés, thrown into the path of a wind machine and blasted down a moodily lit corridor into the realm of legend.

In case you’re wondering what the heck they were thinking of when they made it, I remember Bonnie once explaining on TV that it’s about the dreams of a headmaster’s daughter, hence all the boys in (and out of) uniform. In retrospect, the whole shebang is quite fascinatingly female gaze-y, and I’m pretty sure it was a major formative influence on my pubescent imagination.