I mean, the other four could think the other way and I don’t know how RAI works (at times, I wonder if they do either). But this is interesting. What is also interesting is the different rationales coming out to make the case, and how they often align with international politics/contest concerns.

If you ever wanted reassurance that fake information isn't new and social media isn't the only reason it's a thing ...

During pregnancy, acetaminophen — the main ingredient in Tylenol — is generally considered a safe painkiller and fever reducer. Research hasn’t shown that it causes autism.

Well this is a particularly bleak time for anyone who has ever worked against misinformation.

I do remember US-based companies making a big push for their employees to stop using gendered greetings and terms like “lads”, at one point suggesting “y’all” as an alternative, and thinking “yeah, I don’t quite think this will land in the Irish office.”

Increasingly think a lot of the problems of the world are caused by people who are unable to go “yeah, I f***ed that up” or “I lost, we go again”.

Russia doing some spectacular work at Intervision here in squaring "wait a minute, we want a soft power win with "it would be beyond parody if we won the thing".

Bluesky/X/Twitter discourse again, is it? I remember on a trip to the US seeing Fox News and CNN (the opinionated US version) presenting alternate realities side by side in a hotel, thinking “this isn’t healthy”. That’s kinda how these two places feel now.

I used to work at this paper. I never spotted this and now I can’t unsee it.

Stars In Their Eyes was done and dusted in 30 minutes every week. Just saying. #SCD

Strictly feels like Sanremo tonight, endless chat show sections. #SCD

Pah, Sanremo just shrugging its shoulders and giving the Italian for “that all you got?”

Prepare for a rant about the Lowland League being a Toytown league for letting B teams in, not in any way coinciding with my team being beaten by one of them.

🧵Thread / Lanka. What links 🇫🇮 #Finland and a Kremlin-backed soft-power initiative? Music! The Intervision Song Contest takes place tonight in 🇷🇺Moscow, and some participating countries are accused of war crimes, genocide, human rights abuses, silencing civil protests & restricting press freedoms.

A very good article by a man who knows his Eurovision. Worth reading given the ongoing furore about (and borderline existential threat to) Eurovision itself. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

BREAKING: Jamie Hepburn has resigned after an alleged confrontation with Douglas Ross

I think the broadcasters are probably in three camps on Eurovision at the moment: 1. Israel’s broadcaster must stay (though no public declaration of that yet). 2. Israel’s station must go 3. There are issues but we need to see the review out and we don’t want to wade unilaterally into this.

Meanwhile, in Scottish politics

Football translations, part one "It's not what you want to see", 99% of the time, means "it absolutely is what you want to see".

Scotland no longer has three verdicts - guilty, not guilty and not proven (the latter two of which mean basically the same thing).

A social media sites without posts from the US?

Not entirely unexpected, but still a big moment.

Half the problem here is that if you’re a public service broadcaster taking a licence fee from everyone in the country, you generally don’t want to take a side. Which is presumably why a report’s been commissioned to give an evidence base for any future decision.

In as much as I’ve ever been confident about anything, I’m pretty certain the BBC will defer to the EBU and won’t be taking a side publicly on the whole Israel and Eurovision thing.

Potentially not a huge shock if it happens, but a big moment. One of the big five, the main funders of the event (alongside the BBC and the broadcasters in Germany, Italy, and France - a penny/euro for their thoughts right now).

The EBU has explicitly denied reports in the Israeli media over the weekend over the Israeli broadcaster’s participation/non-participation. t.co/TNmRfOCXaf

So we had the high drama of two countries threatening to pull out and then ... nothing. And into that misinformation vacuum steps rumours and anonymous reports. I'd just urge a liiiitle bit of caution at the moment.

"Welcome to Barga, the most Scottish town in Italy." Excellent piece, by @danigaravelli.bsky.social, on a joyful cultural exchange.

Not saying this will happen, but it wouldn’t entirely surprise me if more countries calling for Israel’s broadcaster to be booted from Eurovision - and even the eventual report - don’t point to the government’s advertising campaign for its entry as something specifically affecting the contest.

It’s a strong time when two of my specialist subjects are misinformation and Eurovision… Anyway, France has not made an official comment saying it’s against Israel, and the countries reported to be in favour of Israel have not done so either. Stick to the official comments.

Postman Pat having a helicopter in an episode from 2008 is full pre-financial crisis stuff.

Former world champion boxer Ricky Hatton has died aged 46 - report

I regret to inform you our child has entered his Paw Patrol era.

When does the voting start on this Proms thing?

Russell Martin's Rangers form is like a real-life version of when you play as the team you absolutely despise in Sensible World of Soccer or one of the management games and deliberately tank the team, except he's actually trying to win.

Dare I say, the answer if you think this place is too small and the other place has issues is … it’s time to experiment with video and photos on the likes of Insta and TikTok. Which actually have tons more users, as others have pointed out. I know, I prefer this too.

My favourite part of this is that they've almost certainly had to do the same thing for an STV URL as well.

There's a big system that allows me to see what the newspaper printers can see and I'll be honest, when I load it up my head does plays the old National Lottery draw machine reveal music.

There is a definite gap in oversight of conventional broadcasters - the government will obsess about the BBC and GB News, for example - versus online. I don't just mean the other place, plenty of people go home and stick YouTube on telly, which is not subject to the same Ofcom standards.

Is Russell Martin the man for the upcoming relegation battle? Call us now on …

Meanwhile, my team has been knocked out of a completely pointless cup competition and that's always a fun mix of emotions.

Russell Martin remains such a spectacular misfit to be Rangers manager it's like a Fringe performance art piece.

Just listening to Elton John’s song about his second favourite Amiga magazine.

Fair play, someone at the BBC giving themselves the mixing challenge of the century.

I’m not quite sure how we got into chatting about Sanremo and I ended up discussing the Bugo incident in the office today, to be honest, but quite happy with that situation.

It's still number one ... no, honest. #TOTP

We are doomed to be knocked out of a World Cup by a called playing for Argentina called Ian, aren't we? www.heraldscotland.com/news/2546379...

Before you watch, well, people basically dying online - whether through feeling a need to "bear witness", through morbid curiosity or by stumbling across it thanks to an algorithm, it's worth bearing this in mind. If nothing else, turn autoplay off where possible. www.poynter.org/ethics-trust...

From before last year’s contest, some useful context on the Israel and Eurovision situation. It would be fair to say things have moved on a little since, and things have not been entirely rosy behind the scenes long before Ireland spoke up. www.youtube.com/watch?si=rEX...

Well