<reads history notes> Didn't the last attempt to bomb an adversary 'back to the stone age' end in a chaotic helicopter retreat from an embassy roof? Or did those air strikes take out the hubris first?

I was just informed by my brother @stephenmcgann.uk that the Mail and the Sun have reported that I've GIVEN UP acting . They're confused, bless them, someone must have hacked the wrong phone. I do work in a rehab, I am training as a psychotherapist, still acting open.substack.com/pub/joemcgan...

'When your symptoms are treated one at a time, in isolation, without anyone looking at you as a whole person... you are a category of problem rather than a person with a problem. That your suffering has an asterisk next to it.' My brother on addiction, shame, and the gaps it grows in. x

This chart shows just how much trouble Bluesky is in. Sorry but we’re cooked.

Marmalade. A country that was once a serious contributor to affairs of international importance. F**king marmalade.

On current form the US really doesn't need a huge uplift in the Defense budget. It's doing a really good job of embarrassing the world to death.

"Don't let your indecision take you from behind..." Wise words from Bucks Fizz. #totp

That famous treaty they made entirely with themselves. That one.

Just caught up with this. Well worth a read. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/29/o...

Quietly livid. My school's careers officer never once suggested that 'Swedish Pop Provocateur' was a job opportunity.

This! I've spent a working life being surprised and thwarted by bank holidays - wondering why nobody is answering the phone, or why a shop is shut. If it's got a 'y' in the day...

I could always get my head around the concept of an 'end of days'. I just didn't expect it to be so infantile.

The combination of cynicism and purity that tightens the chokehold on tolerance from both sides. Brilliant and important stuff.

I see we're at the '2am drunk outside a northern nightclub' stage of transatlantic diplomacy...

Left: Kemi Badenoch says if we drill today that money could be used to subsidise energy bills Right: Kemi Badenoch says no one is suggesting that if we drill today the money would subsidise energy bills

My brilliant big brother has started a substack on his experiences as a caseworker and tutor at a frontline addiction rehab in Liverpool. Give it a look. xx

To understand the power of asymmetric warfare, one must first be able to spell 'asymmetric'.

EMULATE THE DUSTBUSTER!

I wish to inform you that due to the productive discussions I had in my dreams last night, I will now be postponing my intention to perform naked onstage holding a blancmange for a period of 5 days.

Examples are all around us that show we don't see objective reality in the way we think we do. Our brain, and its own flawed value system, gets in the way of every perception. Remarkable then that we can't or won't scale this simple, persistent fact to our wider assumptions about the world.

I was born into the sober aftershock of the horrific Nazi ends of hating others for being others. Yet before I even reach pension age, ambulances burn, and places of worship are riddled with bullets. Hatred is the beast with no memory. The self-righteous parent to every evil. The one true 'other'.

Look on my works ye moggie and despair...

It's only force majeure if it comes from the Majeure region of France. Otherwise it's just a sparkling shitshow.

I still walk like that now...

Bone spurs.

It's not even him any more. It's the legion of minions. Those snivelling, squirming, faceless, loose-shoed head nodders in back of shot. Every ounce of self-respect squeezed out of them by the school bully till they can't even take a dump unless he gives his blessing.

People now get nostalgic about decades in which I got nostalgic about other decades.

I was sceptical, but having a massive dickhead in charge of everything really works, actually.

Political malice is an animal with high metabolism and no means to conserve what it consumes. It must feed constantly to survive.

Maybe Wally doesn’t want to be found. Ever think of that?

That moment when you realise that democratic sanity hasn't just taken a break, but has gone for good.

See also - 'Doing a Riefenstahl'

Animals on banknotes. Red letterboxes. Easter eggs. Tiny weeny diminished happy places in which to vent spleen. A country that, not so long ago, identified itself with far more consequential things. A patriotism of the gaps. Cultural shrinkflation.

Tim.

I still think about this a lot.

Let's Not Play Frisbee With That Poet Anymore

"Politicians? <sniff> They're all the same. That's why I'm going to vote for the one who's clearly the worst of the lot but just doesn't care..."

Wow. I wish I could grow a moustache and goatee on my genitals...

There's a gargoyle in most cathedrals, but things run better when you don't make them Archbishop.

Don't let political vampires over the threshold, no matter what promises they make. It always ends in blood. Rarely theirs.

Terrific essay on inter-generational fairness from John Lanchester, that brings up some of the discomforts of the past but still broadly accepts the problems now faced. www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...

The great thing about stupidity is that it simultaneously feels endowed with an insight for solutions beyond the reach of the merely intelligent, and the confidence of a minor character in the first twenty minutes of a horror movie.

In a world of pain, there's always time for a little laughter...

This is very good. Economics focused, but generalises to pretty much everything. A lack of societal trust is very expensive - to the least advantaged most of all.