I’m finding this kind of stuff increasingly annoying. Yeah it’s important, and deserves a current affairs slot, but in real life I still know very few people who are bothered about it. They’re mostly just living their lives, not wondering about the nature of national identity.

BBC World at One opens with the voice of Farage effectively urging a riot by making wildly untrue generalisations about race. They could have opened with the voice of the police chief who had to deal with Farage’s mob. There’s a presentational choice there, and no need for Daily Mail headlines.

Listen to the people who loved their boy and not the people who want to use it to stir hate.

what on earth is the BBC doing making time for such a vile creature? Colossal lack of judgment to risk offering a cloak of respectability to someone so extreme.

Here’s our growth opportunity if we are able to focus on reality long enough to take note of it - the green transition China is already miles ahead on this road www.theguardian.com/environment/...

‘The speed and scale of media hostility means it now runs far ahead of public opinion at large’ this is fascinating and utterly depressing. It could doubtless be said about almost any progressive idea.

It’s a stupidly high bar but I believe this to be Craig Brown’s finest work

this is a cracking read. Really enjoying it and would recommend it to anyone interested in the messy truths about the British ‘home front’ in WW1

fields are being cut in West Devon and, bang on time as every year, a handful of Red Kites turn up and stay a week or two. I wonder where they come from and how they know when to come? No pic of kites as my phone can’t zoom that well #devon #redkites

This is an unforgivably stupid situation. It is an astonishing own goal to try and drive student numbers down to move an immigration number that in turn is totally ignored by the anti-immigrant head bangers.

I was just going to post some nice reviews of my book, was worried about blowing my own trumpet, but Chat GPT says I have no choice

It’s really frightening.

super-green this morning along the upper Teign valley #devon #dartmoor

Class Mr. Karloff, class.

just had a Willy’s ice cream at Cox Tor #dartmoor #devon

Still space on this course at the Folk House in Bristol on which, amongst other things, I’ll be trying to convince students that editing my novel was sheer joy www.bristolfolkhouse.co.uk/courses/how-...

went to a cafe this week where customers at the outside tables had to pay up front in case they did a runner. Then, when I’d finished eating, a hungry guy walking past asked for the half a bread roll I’d left on my plate. Nice British street, nice cafe, just a grinding sense of desperation.

this account is worth a follow. Turns out, contrary to what you hear in the worst bits of the moaning media, that Britain’s military still exists and has a role.

spent today in #Cardiff on a combined work/social trip. A city with such an exceptionally friendly vibe. I worked there for nearly 20 years and I’d forgotten how much I miss it.

This headline might give you the wrong impression, right wing commentators may leap to the wring conclusion - this is not a failure of modelling the climate crisis, it’s the success of renewable energy, pulling down the worst case temperature rise - by a whole degree. buff.ly/gjCN8AX

universal metaphor alert!

“and that was Dr Oz and the underbabied”

Fashion tip of the day: To deal with clothes moths, fill your wardrobe with thousands of tiny spiders, the moth's natural predator. To deal with the spiders, fill your wardrobe with scorpions. To deal with the scorpions, fill your closet with RFK Jr. This way, you avoid harmful chemicals.

cycled yesterday from Bratton Clovelly to Okehampton via Castle Cross and Pegasus Trail then back via Granite Way and Bridestowe then up the ridge by Way Barton and Wortham. Very nice it was.

Ten Tors weekend, have been training our three teams since September. Such an iconic event. 400 teams of six, tackling 35, 45 or 55 miles over Dartmoor this weekend. Some pics from the start line at 0700 this morning.

this is fun. My debut novel is (so far) only in the hands of people who know me, and sometimes they send me a pic to prove they’re reading it. shorturl.at/iNt3R

👍🇬🇧👍🇬🇧👍🇬🇧👍🇬🇧 Very happy with this. Only ex PM not to take his entitled parliamentary allowance as an ex PM Truss pockets it. As does Johnson. Done great charity work since leaving office.

history shows that market forces can be inappropriate to the point of destruction. Ironically, market forces have just killed one of our finest history departments.

Nice start to the week, ten announcements under our hard working Labour Gov. new laws taking effect and some exciting plans. Don’t expect to see these in our media though. They are determined to keep these from you. #DoingTheMediasJob #FixingBritain #LabourAchievements

As the UK heads to the polls, real progress is being overshadowed by media fixation on Reform’s manufactured outrage.

out cycling on the northern fringes of #dartmoor #devon and stopped to look for the Way

getting some good informal feedback on my novel from early readers: “not a word out of place/a joy to read/I was gripped from start to finish…” Still waiting to see what a wider and unknown readership will say, or if they’ll even find the book at all (top tip - it’s on Amazon!)

The more I travel outside of the UK and speak to other countries’ locals the more I realise how damaging the years of insane small boats media rhetoric has been for the UK. It has been totally over-inflated, portrayed as if we are a tiny island that has been overrun by a huge “invasion”

Important from Met Police commissioner Mark Rowley 👇

The historical novel I’ve spent the past two years writing is out now. It’s called CENTURY. I’m self-publishing as it seems a waste to leave my first (and probably last) novel hidden, and because some people might enjoy it. That’s it, rather than money and fame (if only)! shorturl.at/iNt3R

As astonishing as Roger Bannister breaking the 4-minute mile! Not only did Kenyan Sabastian Sawe of Kenya run a 1:59:30 marathon to win the London Marathon, Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha ran 1:59.41 for 2nd – 2 runners at once become the first to break 2-hours in a marathon. apnews.com/article/mara...

The topics they want covered are already part of the curriculum.

Trump is sounding more and more like Hitler ranting in his bunker during Downfall. His whole world is collapsing, everyone else is to blame, everyone’s a traitor, and the country doesn’t deserve him.

Not to be seen on the BBC TV News, doesn’t suit their agenda . Also not to be seen in the Telegraph, Express, Mail, Sun, etc. And nowadays not in the Guardian either.

"I have heard a lot off my friends and I am voting Farage" When it comes to influencing how people will vote in May's election, a lot of attention is put on social media. But conversations with friends and family can make a huge difference to how people perceive politics and issues.

released my self-published novel a few days and am riding that rollercoaster of ‘oh no, nobody’s reading it’ and ‘oh no, somebody’s reading it’

Keir Starmer should go immediately... ...to the shops to buy me some cat treats.

‘Bringing Britain closer to the level in high tax countries such as taxes Denmark rather than to the level in the USA’ is perhaps not the scare story that the Telegraph front page lead implies …

the ability of some people to shock anew each day is quite something

🤣 "Having the critics praise you is like having the hangman say you've got a pretty neck".

Excellent chart. And there may be another one somewhere that shows we could afford to look after the vulnerable PLUS spend more on defence if wealth was being appropriately taxed.

interesting. I learnt something here about the nature of corruption - and why populism can’t work without it

can see forever from Yes Tor #dartmoor today. I imagine the little shed is a military one.

what a week. House-martins returned to #Dartmoor, and last night I saw an otter wriggling into a hedge in the glare of headlights. This morning, lambs in gangs, running and jumping, as bold as teenage hoodlums.

been getting into a few of those ‘there is no point anyone doing a humanities degree’ discussions recently. It seems that the idea of being educated is old-fashioned, and that ignorance is a fine thing (especially in others).