I think this gets to the root of the problem here in the UK, too. If UK Gov were to take on X it's not just that he'll call them nasty names in the place they all hang out, or that he'll make Donald shout at them, but also that he might funnel millions into Reform at the next election.

Post a pic of the venue where you saw your first concert and the band or artist

Such a long, long time to be gone And a short time to be there RIP Bob Weir www.jambase.com/article/bob-...

My drag persona is "Ana Grind" and the whole act is just doing cryptic crosswords

I get AML and KYC are tightening up, but for those of us who are not known by our legal names (of which in this country there are legion) it's a right faff on old accounts. No, I don't have a "deed of name change"; you just let me use my given, rather than legal, name twenty years ago. Grrrrrr

There is a particular pleasure to be had from having reached a suitable age for long johns

I genuinely think this Christmas cake is trying to kill me

Not only a perfect denouement, it was the end of an era. Thirty years ago today, this strip was published.

There's that wonderful tweet from the other place, about 15 years ago, by @simonblackwell.bsky.social, where he says he thinks of this time of year as practice for later life, as he sits by the fire and asks his wife what day it is.

Only last week I queued behind Katerina Johnson-Thompson at the Costa in Donnington Services. She clocked me recognising her and gave me a small nod.

Private Eye. Which, to be fair, would be ideal.

Winning a test match in Australia for the first time in god knows how many years is great an' all, but I was really looking forward to finally being able to watch some of it

“Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden or Alice in Chains.” I’ve not seen a more unnecessary qualification since my certificate in software testing.

More than a decade or so ago I spent a good few years working in digital at one of the country's largest publishers, and we kept bumping up against this problem then. It's not a hard lesson, but it's a perennial one www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

DATA CENTRES IN SPAAAAAAAAAAAACE! Pretty sure Miss Piggy would not approve. taranis.ie/datacenters-...

Every time there's a breaking story about a celeb's treatment of women, everyone in the book world asks, "Is it finally Walliams?" Well, it finally is.

Genuinely gutted this doesn't ship to the UK 😭

They used to "laugh and call him names." Now they're all dead

Bowie taps

Since starting my MA I've tried using LLMs to find articles that match my needs. Took a while to realise it was often making shit up. After some poking, Gemini now says things like "I've got no direct references but lots of people say..." Which is exactly what I'd say if I hadn't done the reading 🤣

This is great. I love a “debunking the mythos” feature and this is exactly that. Also, if you’ve never seen that Pepsi “press release” before, wow!

Get a load of this. 😆

I feel a Health Secretary launching an independent review into rising demand for mental health, ADHD and autism services ought to have had to explain what was wrong with the independent review in to ADHD that reported last month.

I did find the recent Times puff piece on Daunt/Daunt Books interesting, given the "Waterstones opening near an independent book shop in Edinburgh" debacle of only a few days before. "Look over here, see how much he loves books! He can't be bad! Even Benedict Cumberbatch shops there!"

I once had a complaint raised against me at work for using the (both accurate and correctly hyphenated, I might add) phrase "breakout-cum-storage area" in an all hands email. Perhaps we should petition for a change in spelling to avoid such confusion?

There is nothing finer than live Dead at the height of their powers www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGPe...

“Imagine if we truly understand complex whale communication & can extend our term ‘language’ to them. Such breakthroughs would not only rewrite biology textbooks but also fundamentally redefine what it means to be human & pave the way to instituting new protections for whales, the ocean & beyond”🧪

Introduce yourself with five concerts you’ve seen: Hawkwind (1991) Hawkwind (...) Hawkwind (...) Hawkwind (...) Hawkwind (2025) Living my best life 🕉️

Ok. We're done. AGI is here. '2025-final-v2' just needs to become '2025-final-v2-fixed'

I think it would do this and all future governments a lot of good if they stopped including pensions with "benefits" and "welfare". Split them out, then let's have a debate.

I'm increasingly of the view that the next phase of this horrid mess is the proposal of some kind of Hadrian's Firewall. I can't quite believe it, but it looms ever larger. If this is one of the (many) hills this govt wants to die on it's a sadly logical step, however dumb, damaging, and unworkable.

Careful now. www.youtube.com/watch?v=75QF...

Many news stories recently have made me unutterably angry. The Free Birth Society one makes me unutterably unutterably sad. I just don't have the words.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

If anyone's wondering what to buy me for Christmas... www.amazon.co.uk/Blotter-Unto...

I am not sure there is a purer example of bureaucratic creep than G-Cloud. It started out as a breath of fresh air, but every iteration has added just a little more grit to the gears, and by the latest iteration you want to drive off a cliff rather than fill in their increasingly bizarre questions

French 'National treasure', La Pascaline, pulled from auction as historical significance recognised. Mathematician Blaise Pascal invented the calculating machine in 1642. Thought to be one of only eight remaining, the lot was expected to fetch £1.8mn. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

The eighties called, they'd like their restaurant back

I'm not alone in thinking this jewellery thing has.... resonances... am I?

My biggest fear when visiting a foreign country is that after a day of wandering I'll happen upon a little museum of me. Shuffling along with other tourists through rooms of my discarded effects and lost memories, unable to translate the labels. Learning nothing about myself.

Well this is just downright filthy www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J9E...

Oh my

Age yourself with gaming

A VPN ban is the next logical step in this mess. How you distinguish "VPN vital to the cyber security of your firm" and "dirty shameful VPN" is a whole other matter, of course. Only endpoints in the UK allowed? Need a VAT number to buy one? Good luck with all that, none of it will work.

Fuck it, some days just need Fields of the Nephilim. Today is one of those days www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ors...

Given its contents you could certainly argue that @isotoma.com 's fridge is an archive.

Am hovering between £39.99 to buy a book vs £80 return to London to visit the British Library and read the bit I need there, but *trains!* and *a day in the British Library!*

Never heard this version before (the 12 minute album version is on regular rotation), and never really thought of them as a 'live' band, either. TIL etc etc www.youtube.com/watch?v=kI-k...