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My trip to Europe's craziest border (Odds and Ends #106)

In his newsletter 'Odds and Ends #106', Sam Wetherell recounts his visit to what he calls Europe's craziest border, discusses the Jason Arday controversy, shares a London travel time map, and reveals he has moved closer to AI-doomer. The newsletter also promotes the YIMBY Pod episode featuring Jamie Airnes of Cornish Lithium on Cornwall's lithium ambitions.

read1 min views1 publishedAug 11, 2026
My trip to Europe's craziest border (Odds and Ends #106)
Image: Takes (auto-discovered)

Plus my brief take on Jason Arday, a cool London travel time map, and why I've moved a notch closer to AI-doomer.

**POD! **On this week, Martin and I dig into Andy Burnham’s devolution agenda, talking about integrated transport ticketing, making the lines on the map more consistent, and much more. Then we speak to

YIMBY Pod Jamie Airnes from

Cornish Lithium about his attempt to turn Cornwall into a lithium superpower.

Listen here, or wherever you get your pods! Hello! It’s time for Odds and Ends, your semi-regular round-up of the most interesting links I’ve seen this week, plus some shorter takes.

This week, you’ll have to indulge me as I’m going to tell you about an interesting place I visited recently – though I think you’ll find it interesting. Then we’ve got some fun and scary links on what’s going on in AI – and whether you like it or not, I’m going to tell you what I think of the Jason Arday controversy.

Now let’s get started!

My trip to Europe’s craziest border

Every so often someone will confuse me and Jonn Elledge. I can sort-of see why1 – we both write nerdy Substacks that often touch upon similar topics, especially as Jonn is one of the people who radicalised me on housing back when he was the editor of CityMetric.

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial #

Subscribe to Odds and Ends of History to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

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