I know the football is on BUT anyway, as someone who's faintly obsessed with the boogie/funk sound of 1982 I heartily endorse this magnificent new record by Galaxians, and recommend it to anyone who likes Sharron Redd / D-Train / etc galaxians.bandcamp.com/album/feel-i...

Two shows in one day. Thanks to everyone for coming. It was a joy! My four year old son came to the first one and I could hear him shout “daddy!” which was nice. Apparently after four songs he asked mummy to take him home, which is fair enough tbh

That’s me up there on the right Doing it all again this evening ♥️

My father in law won “Schoolreader Of The Year”. Across the country, 35,000 kids are helped by volunteers going into primary schools to assist them with reading. Peter was deemed the best! I agree with this decision! www.instagram.com/p/Da4vKPbASZi/

Wordle players assemble and prepare for a bloody coup 🙁

Rehearsing this week with Scritti Politti for the shows on the South Bank this w/e, and the news from the world of pop is that some of the band are really enjoying the 16°C aircon as a welcome reprieve from the heat, while others aren’t so much, so they’ve put on a jumper and long trousers

I know people find this kind of thing appalling but I adore it. All hail the sudoku constructor, Nicolas Duhail. Dunno how he does it. Digits can’t repeat within a cage. If the digits in a cage sum to N, there are exactly N cages whose digits sum to N. I look forward to your solutions.

As a non-believer I sometimes annoy my non-believing wife by pointing at an exquisite bit of nature and saying “surely only God could have made that”, and this morning I ate a strawberry out of the fridge and looked at it and said “surely only God could have made this” and she wasn’t even there 1/

One of Ivor (4)’s friends asked me today “Ivor’s daddy, do you bewember me?” which was delightful, and I affirmed that yes I did bewember him, and ever since I’ve been thinking of songs like “Do You Bewember The First Time”, “Johnny Bewember Me” and most importantly “Bewember You’re A Womble”

How about “Mediterranean Platter”

There’s a new Paw Patrol film out soon, and Ivor (4) is incredibly excited. Improbably (or not) the first song released from the movie is by the Backstreet Boys, and MANY repeated listens have caused me to deem it a banger, with a *delicious* Ab/Bb slash chord pre-chorus youtu.be/Tdxn1wc3As0?...

“What did you do today, darling” “I named a song with the word ‘night’ in the title” “Did you put the bins out” “No”

What a dickhead

I’ve had a monthly technology column in Prog magazine for 15 years or something equally stupid, and when I see magnificent Prog headlines like “Why Jon Anderson drove himself mad making Olias Of Sunhillow” I feel very proud of this

I am not a reader of Take A Break but I’m not sure that “we are going to actively make the magazine worse by thunking desperate prompts into an LLM” is a good idea

Perfect illustration of the British (i.e. our) lack of familiarity with aircon. Yep, really make that unit work, guys. Trail that vent out of them Wide Open Doors

In a more logical world, the government would be piling money into the grassroots of a £150 billion industry with massive global reach which is growing at over twice the rate of the rest the economy as a whole.

I don’t think it’s fully appreciated across the World Of Work how *completely* pointless so-called “AI checkers” are, and me saying this here isn’t going to change that, but if someone tells you that they’ve used one do PLEASE inform them that they’re effectively just random percentage generators

I’m 5’9” and my dad is 6’6”, and I’m reading that Arthur Fery is 5’9” and Alexander Zverev is 6’6”, so I’m aware of what that height differential feels like, and if (big if) they end up meeting in the semi finals I’m REALLY looking forward to the post-match embrace at the net

When Cardiacs played in Barcelona recently we employed a lovely guitar tech to set up gear and pack it away afterwards so we didn’t have to do it, AND YET for some reason the world’s greatest tennis players have to stuff their own towels and racquets into multiple bags when they’re done, baffling

If I was a tennis player I would make a point of thanking the ballboys and ballgirls every time they threw me a ball or fetched me a towel, I mean what example are these people setting to impressionable youngsters Oh, and I would also insist that the ballboys and ballgirls replied “you’re welcome”

Ludicrous tit.

Extremely niche, but this footage just popped up on YouTube of the magnificent World Domination Enterprises playing on 19/6/88 at Milton Keynes Bowl (mostly empty, bottom of the bill) before The Damned, New Model Army, Bhundu Boys Aztec Camera (not filmed, LOL) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkiw...

I was roused from my slumber by a messenger who told me of England’s magnificent victory by singing Wonderwall very loudly as he staggered past my house

I ran an absolutely 100% human, zero AI-involvement at any stage passage of my writing through an "AI detector," curious if it could really tell human from AI work, and it said my own writing was "84% AI written" then asked I wanted to pay to have it "humanized." So there's that to keep in mind.

Shout out to the two year old girl playing with her dad in a public sandpit who just emptied a shovel full of sand over his head and then impassively withstood a furious lecture from him about not tipping sand over daddy’s head, absolutely hysterical

They tell me I’m uncultured, but I’ll always recognise a bit of Beethoven.

Trump is watching the Fox News feed of himself watching Fox News

Apologies for reposting something designed to make everyone cross, have deleted and punched myself in the balls for good measure

Similarly, I had an email that started “sure, here’s a version of team message with added empathy” the other week. Have to say, the team did not feel more empathised with.

Had an email today that began with a sentence they should probably have deleted – "Here's a more natural and polished version of your email" – and it made me sad

I struggle with customer service depts being named "Customer Success". Such a weird word to use, "success". I can't say that I'm ever looking to "succeed" when I buy something, I just want it to fucking work.

Counterpoint: he looks great for 65 — what’s that now he’s 85 you say

Normalise having one drawer of your freezer that is literally just loose peas. ‘Oh that? That’s my pea drawer.’

Fame at last: Somebody asked me for a selfie today to show his wife he had met the Alom of “Alom’s Dal” which he makes for her. You should make it for your loved ones

‘Take Us To Your Biggest Pedophile’ Demand Surprisingly Politically Informed Aliens https://bit.ly/4eTxZ8V

What NOBODY is talking about in relation to this incident is the way I get pains in the soles of my feet whenever I see pix/video of people doing dangerous climbs to absurd heights, and why this happens

Today I spent 30 minutes driving around a hospital car park looking for a space. Eventually found one. On my way back to the car there were still dozens of people vainly looking so I tried to make a signal to some of them that I was about to leave, you know, good citizen and all that 1/

Many responses to videos of the empty American State Fair say “if there are more people on stage than are in the audience, you’re in trouble” I’ve been in that situation many times, but in my defence it thankfully always happened in the back room of a pub and not on 200 acres of federal parkland

Come with me and you'll be / in a world of abject exploitation

London Centre for Book Arts is an incredible place for learning how to make boxes, bind books, foil, letterpress & RISO print. londonbookarts.org/collections/... You can enrol in specific classes or pay for studio sessions. Their library of books and type specimens is also exemplary.

A tortuous experience with Trainline's customer support ends with me losing my rag at an excruciating multiple choice quiz via WhatsApp, and the news that the waiting time for a WhatsApp response from a human being is 12 hours, well done everyone

I make my mother a birthday card every year in the style of a 6 year old child, and it’s good to see this one up on the dresser

A lot of this is AI filling a role which has historically been filled by management fads or business groupthink - making bad bosses worse by convincing them there’s one simple trick that their feckless workers just aren’t doing, or encouraging them to tinker endlessly with strategy

Oh, get up #football

Related re mobile phones: If you're out of contract and resent the amount you're paying, the easiest/quickest strategy is to request your PAC code (text PAC to 65075) and your provider will call you within minutes, offering you deals you'd never have got from the "thinking of leaving us" team

Every year breakdown recovery firm offers renewal quote up 35% on previous year despite me never using their service Every year I make a tortuous call where they roleplay looking through screens & beard stroking before giving me same price as last year Every year I make this post on social media

Is it STILL Mel Brooks's birthday?

It completely delights me that a book with the word “wisdom” in the title is written by someone with the surname “Wisnom”