Richard Douglas

Paul Robinson: “I do not see any scenario in which Tottenham come out of this well.”
#punditry

Someone has got to sack Tudor now. Never mind full time, don’t wait until halftime. Make him make his own way home.

Never seen a keeper hooked like that before

The only point to this game was to gain some momentum.

It’s the only explanation

You got the eyes right

Either they didn’t think about the effect of the invasion on oil and gas prices or they did and didn’t care. I wrote a paper once distinguishing malice, recklessness, negligence, and incompetence. Sometimes you get them all at once.

The British general election of 2029, in which we are *really* going to stress test 'the governing bloc has, through both forces inside and outside its control, presided over a *really* miserable time for the country' versus 'the opposition bloc just can't stop itself picking up unpopular stances'.

All it needs is the Terry Gilliam foot

I can’t tell you how much l’m enjoying @london.gov.uk ‘s Breathe: how to win a Greener world. In the midst of a leadership crisis in NZ, at a time when it feels that cynicism & focus group politics dominates over genuine commitment to change, it’s so refreshing & helpful-can’t recommend it enough.

The women’s team are having a great season. The owners better not use the men’s team going down as an excuse for cutting the women’s team’s budget. Though you can bet that’s just what those snivelling wretches will try on.

Just tell me it’s not payback for the Europa League. Oh God, it’s not Ange is it? He just had to make sure he won something in his second season.

I mean someone’s made a deal with the devil. It’s either a Spurs fan and this is the devil taking payment for services already rendered, or it’s an Arsenal fan for this season and their fate is still in the post.

Keep picturing that stadium at 45 degrees, the lights starting to blink, and people desperately clinging on to that golden cock as the whole glittering edifice disappears from view.

This is what watching, entirely powerless, as you lose billions of pounds thanks to decisions you have taken looks like. Years of gaslighting, complacency and greed are finally catching up with ENIC. The only shame is that their man Daniel Levy is not still there to publicly share it all with them.

Yes, how about a political platform that recognises and tries to do something for this group? How about that?

Yes, I know it’s all terrible. That’s why I’m keeping it light.

Keeping it light!

It got quite a workout. And I tell you, it’s getting another one tonight, after those Forest and West Ham results.

What’s this? it was saying. I might get destroyed? I’d never heard of myself a moment ago, and now I have to fear for my own mortality?

And as I listened to that, I swear I started feeling scared. Like, unaccountably scared. Heart pumping and everything. So much so I had to switch it off. I can only think it was my amygdala becoming scared for itself.

I was listening to a podcast the other day about the brain. And they started talking about the amygdala. They said this was the part of the brain that enables us to feel afraid. And they said how some people receive injuries that damage the amygdala, meaning they no longer feel fear…

Christopher who? In May, a party founded eight years ago, with no record in national government and only eight MPs, will fight elections in Wales and Scotland, and for control of councils across England, with every chance of winning many of them. British politics is being reshaped by Reform UK. This is a result of Nigel Farage's personality and of Christopher Harborne's money - £9m, from a fortune amassed largely through cryptocurrency investments. The party would not be able to field candidates, run social media operations or door-to-door campaigns if it weren't for the Harborne war chest. There is a template for crypto-funded campaigning - in the US, where it is viewed as having led to securing crypto-friendly legislation and sweetheart deals to enrich crypto charlatans and undermine transparency and accountability in politics. Reform threatens to destroy the Conservatives as a party of government and divide communities, increasingly along ethnic lines and with overtly racist arguments. It also poses the most serious threat to Keir Starmer's government, Harborne lives in Thailand and owns a 12% stake in the Tether stablecoin. Little else is known about this intensely private man. Yet he can influence the course of politics, seemingly without either much of a business or life in the UK. It's a lot like overseas interference in British democracy. Didn't someone once say: "Take back control"?

From yesterday's Observer.

I resent the pivot to video so much. I do not want to become an "on air personality." I do not want to boil everything down into little pithy viral slogans. I don't want to worry about my f'ing hair. I hate it all. Hate it.

The presenters Radio 3 get in to host their breakfast show are like Russian dolls of smoothie naffness - each smoother and more naff than the last.

And that would still retain the 1-2-1 link of MP and constituency, while ensuring that each MP had at least 50% of the final votes.

The most important things this Labour government can do in the next three years is strengthen democratic institutions for the long term. It would be possible to introduce STV for the next general election - that wouldn't be so radical a change that it couldn't be done so fast.

I'm not a fan of PR, but that ship has sailed. Read a great essay in Political Quarterly about this a while back. Having introduced it outside Westminster (European Parliament, Devolved Governments), we have allowed a multiparty system to develop anyway. The Westminster system has now got to adapt.

About to have a haircut. My hair’s like an elderly pet on the morning of its final trip to the vets. It’s been ridiculously big and unkempt for the past couple of weeks, but now it’s suddenly looking presentable. It’s rallied. You don’t have to do this, it’s saying to me.

The Today programme this morning interviewed Diana Furchgott-Roth, a senior staff member at the Heritage Foundation, about Trump's climate policies, during which she came out with the zinger: “a lot of people like it a bit warmer.”

How is it in the public interest to platform anti-science tripe?

Job’s a good’un