'In total, the 20 universities spent £8.3 million on remuneration for their vice-chancellors. The accounts also reveal they collectively let go almost 7,000 staff in the same year – costing £124.6 million in compensation for loss of office.'

Pretty convincing, but surely it was Coleridge himself, travelling back into his own past to prevent himself from writing the crappy ending he jotted down in the original timeline

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 18/725 Annette Kuhn, ed., Alien Zone: Cultural Theory and Contemporary Science Fiction Cinema (1990)

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 17/725 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and sequel Through the Looking-Glass (1871)

They're calling it urthpunk, it has all of the mystery and benighted wonder of the Book of the New Sun with none of the catholic conservatism

Coming up 5 February. I’m introducing Lewis Milestone’s The Front Page in @slapstickfest.bsky.social as part of a short season of Adolphe Menjou films. Menjou dazzles as sharp-tongued editor Walter Burns in a fast-talking comedy that laid foundations for decades of screwball brilliance to come.

AI users:

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 16/725 John Hersey, The Algiers Motel Incident (1967)

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 15/725 Robert Arthur, Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators in The Secret of Terror Castle and the dozen or more sequels I was able to lay my hands on back then.

Delivering his first annual foreign policy speech, Pope Leo did not hold back in his criticism for the might-makes-right mentality of world leaders.

www.thenation.com/article/acti... Hit them where it hurts them - boycotts can work

It's almost as if years of relentless media saturation bombing of flat-out lies, demonisation and blaming don't help the public to understand what is actually happening.

He kidnapped the president of Venezuela for them And oil companies are like Meh

We inherited mum's budgies and since the sweet little yellow one has turned into a fat thug, they've been renamed. First we tried Thuglife and Efil4zaggin but finally settled on 2Peck and The Notorious B.U.G.

Denmark is changing the name of Greenland to Epstein Island—so that Trump will stop talking about it.

This is Zero. She is something of a shapeshifter. Not voluntarily, but still very impressive. 14/10 (IG: zerothesupercollie)

Reform’s new London mayoral candidate, Laila Cunningham, was undone by a rare GB News miracle: a good question. Asked why a party that says the Tories are terrible keeps hiring so many of them, the ex-Tory herself had a rock-solid response: "I can’t answer that."🤨

A deleted tweet by a Toronto Sun national politics reporter.

It’s getting so the only safe place to be is in the Epstein Files. 🔄

A woman recording an ICE agent tells him "Shame on you." The agent responds, "Have you all not learned from the past couple of days?" "Learned what?" she asks Then he knocks her phone out of her hand

"The maximum time a prisoner can spend on remand is 182 days (six months). Yet Muraisi and Ahmed were arrested in November 2024, and are not due to be tried until June at the earliest, which means they will be remanded for 20 months." Shameful. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

How about a FIFA Peace Prize?

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 14/725 Geoff Ryman, Air: Or, Have Not Have (2005)

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 13/725 Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789–1848 (1962) and …

I, for one, cannot understand why men like Rupert Lowe are opposed to banning X, despite it assisting sex offenders, paying people to invite the foreign powers to invade the U.K, and allowing state-sponsored cyber warfare against our democracy. It's a real mystery...🤔

This week: we execute a U.S. citizen. Next week: we take over elections to stop “fraud.” It's so transparent what's going on here.

@aladyofchance.bsky.social finally!

Literally the first news outlet I've seen directly quoting her wife. Even the NPR piece on Renee Good that aired this morning made no mention of Becca Good whatsoever.

This is amazing humor. A+

By the Chair of the Texas A & M Philosophy Department who ordered a faculty member not to teach Plato. And the epigraph from Kant is ‘For nature is our problem, the text for our interpretation’.

Two women face trial in May over a protest that placed body bags outside David Lammy's home. The BBC report fails to mention these were child sized and clearly referred to the government's indifference to the massacre of children in Gaza. This is "harassment" apparently www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

12/725 Thomas Pynchon, Against the Day (2006) – I read Pynchon in chronological order over the years and this was the first one I actually liked (although I’ve still not read Mason & Dixon or the new one). But I did enjoy Bleeding Edge, and not only for the superb ‘Medelin kids’ gag.

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 11/725 Gregory Benford, Against Infinity (1983)

I continue my Ballantine Adult Fantasy reading series with the first official novel in the series: Fletcher Pratt's THE BLUE STAR. Originally published in 1952, this is an impressive novel about power and gender (though it's not without its problems), and a great start to the BAF series proper.

who are you going to believe, your president or your lying eyes?

JUST IN: Reps. Massie and Khanna say "DOJ cannot be trusted" to release all of the Epstein files, urge a federal judge to appoint an independent overseer to make it happen. khanna.house.gov/sites/evo-su...

Saw this on X. Merlin Strategy, run by Scarlet Maguire (formerly of JL Partners) is Farage's favoured polling company. Until very recently, registered at the same address as the Brexit Party's old one. I'm sure it's just a coincidence.

Make it viral.

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 10/721 Anthony Joseph, The African Origins of UFOs (2006) – his audio version is pretty remarkable, too

Choose a passive-aggressive number of books that shaped you. Even if you are indifferent to or despise them now. No explanations. 9/721 Christopher Priest, The Affirmation (1981)

Every second the murderer is not arrested is another second for feds to hide him in a place that would create a jurisdictional fight. He's on video killing a person. You have to arrest this guy an hour ago, but you might still have time now.

Please share.. ICE THUGS shot & killed a woman in Minneapolis. Then attack citizens point blank with teargas grenades, pepper ball guns & chemical spray in the faces. Of course, Greg Bovino was in the mix. He needs to be brought up for murder charges.🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 youtu.be/LnfiWmX_mTE?...

Jacob Frey: "To ICE -- get the fuck out of Minneapolis"

Please spread the word and join us. Vigil scheduled for 5:00 today at E. 34th Street and Portland Ave S. in Minneapolis for woman murdered by ICE agents.