This is well said. The same applies to countless other everyday luxuries we take for granted, but would have astonished our ancestors. My local corner shop sells a variety of food that dwarfs everything a typical nineteenth century person might eat in their entire lifetime. Modern life is a miracle.
Oh God, I'd almost forgotten that.
Quite.
Beyond a certain point, partisan spin *does* cross the line into plain and simple lying, and the Daily Mail crosses that line more often than any other major media platform. I'm not saying there aren't any left-wing equivalents, but they have orders of magnitude less reach, at least in this country.
Sleaford Mods, those bold iconoclasts, just tweeted the following, which I quote in its entirety:
"Yea, fuck War. Fuck illegal War. Fuck War."
Naturally, I couldn't help being reminded of this:
Probably a porn thing, sorry to say.
This is a deeply shocking story. It genuinely never occurred to me that a hotel might give out a room number and key without at least asking for proof of purchase and identity. The potential for abuse is *so* obvious, I don't understand how it wouldn't occur to *anyone*, never mind Travelodge staff.
Thank God for AI content like this. Before, I never knew Marilyn Monroe would have been called "Nathaniel B. Bone" if she were Chinese.
From the official White House "X" account. The Trump administration pumping out garbage like this isn't just some unfortunate blemish. It gets to the heart of why they're fundamentally unserious, morally diseased people, who shouldn't be running a fast food franchise, never mind a regime change war.
(Thanks to @alistaircoleman.bsky.social for drawing this to my attention.)
THIS, ladies and gentlemen, is how an abusive piece of shit attempting a career comeback should be reported. Let's have a round of applause for @thecourier.co.uk, and especially the reporter, Lucy Scarlett. Full piece is here: www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/5445...
"Anti-Zionism" becomes antisemitism when the Jewish state, and people who support its right to exist, are not merely criticized, but held to be a singular, almost cosmic evil. Just think about what Zarah Sultana is saying, here: "one of the greatest threats to humanity"? ALL humanity? Sheer madness.
Stupid person voice: Multiculturalism has failed!
Me: Well, you clearly haven't embraced the majesty of Sicilian-Norman-Arab-Byzantine-Jewish civilisation.
This, by @doremus-schafer.bsky.social, is very good on the John Davidson/BAFTAs affair: doremuseng.wordpress.com/2026/03/02/i...
If Hell exists, there is a special place in it for people who, having enjoyed all the benefits of a free society, choose to devote their lives to lending aid and comfort to murderous dictatorships. Though Mr Bowes is at least willing to *live* in Russia, much to Ireland's relief.
*Of course* fuck that guy. But his wellbeing isn't really the point.
If you're inclined to celebrate this, give it further thought. The sort of convicts who carry out these vigilante attacks - assuming that's what happened - have very often ruined countless lives themselves. There are good reasons we have courts and prisons instead of mob justice.
I found this bleakly amusing. Leaving the off-the-charts misogyny to one side: if you're hitting the "back of the cervix", whatever you're having sex with probably isn't a human woman. Though actually, I do think misogyny and abject ignorance of female anatomy are closely related.
I just don't know, any more. I suppose people like this must always have existed, and social media just rubs them in our faces. Still, it's hard not to feel degraded merely by contact.
A family friend of ours was a drama teacher at quite a rough high school. One day, one of the older boys spat right in her face. Without hesitating, she scooped up his spittle and rubbed it right back in *his* face. Absolute queen.
If you can't see this wonderful British poster from 1956, depicting the then-nascent Cold War as experienced by penguins, without thinking of the video for "So Says I" by the Shins, then you are (a) almost certainly of a certain age and disposition and (b) one of my people.
I didn't! Interesting. Makes sense they'd be played by non-actors, as they barely have to do anything onscreen.
I must have seen Minority Report half a dozen times, but only the last time did I notice that the three "precogs" - Agatha, Arthur and Dashiell - are all named after famous crime writers. Nice touch.
My mum's friend once proudly shared that the vet had said her cat was his favourite patient. It hadn't occurred to her that he probably says that to all his clients. Anyway, she was *still* savvier than the Western rightists who think Putin is their ally for reasons of principle.
Antisemitism is the world's most boring detective show: same culprit every week.
I'm currently reading @briandeer.com's book on Andrew Wakefield (which I strongly recommend). I'd completely forgotten, or never knew to start with, that Ken Livingstone was anti-MMR, at the height of the scare. What an all-round dog's breakfast of a human being.
Two undeniable facts:
1. Israel has assumed a wildly outsized importance in the popular cosmology of evil;
2. Israel is the planet's only Jewish state.
1 is not necessarily *entirely* the result of 2. But you'd have to be pretty naive to think there's no connection at all, no?
I like their atonal stuff, and enjoyed AMSP because I thought it was a successful synthesis of that and the more accessible era of their music.
Radiohead's A Moon Shaped Pool, which turns ten years old in May, might be the ultimate "grower" record. On my first few listens, I didn't know what to make of it, at all, but it gradually got under my skin, and now I think it's right up there with their finest work. *Nobody* else is on their level.
My current Spotify queue is some kind of mood, but I don't know *what* kind.
