formal proposal of a replacement for the vince mcmahon meme format

These are cringe and they are stubbornly incurious of English placename traditions. The towns that are named after individuals are in colonies.

How Kemi Badenoch's spokesman responded when I asked if she agrees with her Shadow Lord Chancellor that Muslims praying in Trafalgar Square is an "act of domination"

If there was work in the bed, he’d sleep on the floor

Happy St. Patrick's Day, New York.

Philip Pullman said that anything that a child might encounter in their childhood is appropriate material for a children's story.

I'm obsessed with the way there were 9/11 conspiracy documentaries on Bin Laden's hard drive. Just imagine him being all "they're not telling us everything, lads".

It’s fairly clear that they see this as a war against Islam and Muslims (hence the Gorton and Denton comment). Right wing politics in the UK is almost entirely driven by anti Muslim hatred and it’s clear their support of this war comes from that

so the £10k payments to asylum seekers to incentivise them to leave is pretty much a BNP policy from 2010s, the only difference being that the payment is worth a lot less in real terms now

30 years ago Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club accurately predicted that men under late capitalism, empty consumers who had come to think of themselves as “the middle children of history” with no great wars to fight, would eventually prank and shitpost their way into fascism.

Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey: "Tax exiles like Isabel Oakeshott and washed up old footballers who mock ordinary people who stay in the UK and pay our taxes... As we protect them, it's only right for tax exiles to start paying taxes to fund our armed forces, just like the rest of us".

Good result for Liverpool, but I really didn’t enjoy that Arsenal-Chelsea match. Standard of football in the PL has nosedived; every team playing for corners they’ll only take after the long, customary 10-man brawl in the six-yard box. The pace and excitement of Rangers-Celtic drove it home

Written English has barely changed in 300 years. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read Robinson Crusoe (1719).

An underpriced risk for EU-US relations is a scenario where a process through which Fico and Orban fall from power is declared illegitimate by Trump who then threatens sanctions against Europe if outcomes in Hungary and Slovakia are not reversed

NEW How Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence How a close read of public domain documents show how MoD was commercially colonised by Palantir By me, at FT www.ft.com/content/5207...

Sharing from a friend, a passage from the Leveson Inquiry regarding the British actor Denholm Elliott, who died of AIDS in 1992. Three years after her death, the News of the World journalist Paul McMullan did the following to his daughter—neither a celebrity nor even someone of public interest.

every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds

This can't be right. Only last week some bloke with a history of domestic violence screamed at me that Ireland was full

FIFA Peace Prize Winner displaces Nobel Peace Prize Winner

Mamdani: For too long, those fluent in the good grammar of civility have deployed decorum to mask agendas of cruelty

the best version of Silent Night you'll ever hear was filmed 50 years ago today, Christmas Eve 1975, around Guy Clark's kitchen table in Nashville and led by a 20-year old Steve Earle. It's somehow equal parts kick-ass and poignant

Martin Parr A drive through McDonalds. Nutgrove shopping centre. Dublin. Ireland. 1986. www.magnumphotos.com/arts-culture...

Remembering Con Houlihan (born 100 years ago today): "A man who will misuse an apostrophe is capable of anything."

I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.

Newmarket MP Matt Hancock gave a £37bn Covid testing contract to Jockey Club director Dido Harding, who subcontracted it to Grand National sponsor Randox, employer of Tory MP Owen Paterson, whose late wife chaired Aintree racecourse. That's how the Tories handled the pandemic.

VERY funny that Labour are being pointlessly cruel and haemorrhaging support from their base and yet none of what they're offering is ever going to be enough for the people whose approval they're seeking, WHO could have predicted it

Sustainable band lineups include four cool people (Ramones), four dorks (Weezer), or two cool people and two dorks (Cheap Trick). Unsustainable band lineups include one cool person and three dorks (Pixies)

From Eamonn Sweeney’s sports column in the Indo 👏

1. In the wake on Mamdani’s win, we’ll see a lot more far right anti-urban sentiment. Here’s a thread on its roots and evolution. The idea that the city is evil and corrupt, and the countryside innocent and pure, goes back a long way: to Theocritus in Alexandria, and to the Old Testament. 🧵

LONDON (AP) — Buckingham Palace says King Charles III will strip Prince Andrew of remaining titles including “Andrew”, curse him to wander the Earth as “the nameless one”

I don’t need a movie about Bruce Springsteen. I need a movie about what the hell happened to the chicken man.

in Demolition Man, Sylvester Stallone plays a supercop from the violent 1990s frozen in time and sent to the future. He winds up fighting a group of terrorists until he realizes they're just trying to steal food, at which point he refuses to continue attacking them

Fascinating article with Don McCullin talking about 19 of his greatest photos. www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

It is a special kind of cruelty to neither own a dog nor have any friends within a commutable distance that own a dog you can visit. There should be state-allocated dogs for petting in such trying circumstances.

If I had explain American history in one sentence, I could do worse than "John Brown was hung for treason, but Robert E. Lee was not."

Blood is food for vampires so this scene in Blade is basically the same as when they used to serve chicken curry at a rural Ireland disco

Most people seem to have missed who retweeted this picture of Farage in Gill’s office a few days after Gill began receiving his first bribes from Oleh Voloshyn (Oleg Voloshin). None other than…

> It is 2025 BC. I am a soldier from one of the outlying provinces called to defend the pyramid in Memphis > It is 2025 AD. I am a soldier from one of the outlying provinces called to defend the pyramid in Memphis

Q: Why was the person responsible for the Blackwater fish kill never found? A: it wasn’t anybody’s job. I talked to the heads of all the agencies involved in the investigation, about why the biggest pollution event in Irish history fell between the cracks. Listen: 👉 www.rte.ie/radio/radio1...

It helps to be able to spell the country you say only you are competent enough to run.

Freedom is just another name for “a gap in the law”.

Label Guy "OK so Mariah is doing a cover of an old Phil Collins song with some Irish boyband. Just take a normal photograph. You don't have to make it look like a Caravaggio painting or anything". Photographer:

So, to be clear, Reform UK want a state strong enough to carry out mass deportations but identity cards would be a step too far in terms of state power?

Huge news for a particular type of guy

If wrestling isn’t real then how do you explain this?

Scientists believe we could be just years away from discovering the opposite of "anti-fascist".

Today people went around my neighborhood in north east London spray painting St George’s crosses onto people’s homes. Many of these houses have non British people living in them. This is getting very dark, very quick.

Regarding "speaking ill of the dead" - lying is speaking ill.