The BBC are accidentally running the subtitles to Mrs Marple over the Mercury Prize, and it’s rather wonderful. A few of lines could plausibly have been written by Jarvis.

this is, hands down, the best video I've seen on men's influencer content and it's not close either

Of course the Queen was Remain. You don’t sustain a hereditary monarchy by randomly pulling pins out of grenades for the lols at the urging of a cluster of snake oil chancers.

The BBC are constantly bending over backwards to please Reform. I fear they're becoming a mouthpiece for Nigel Farage, a guy who wants to destroy them.

@winchesterlunch.bsky.social just read your bio - how absolutely brilliant! Is this the book you shared with me in about 2017/18? I read a few early chapters and have thought about the characters so often since then.

Whether it's Hillary Clinton sharing risotto tips on a private server or Pete Hegseth using the nuclear codes as his password on Pornhub, both parties have ignored our nation's security.

This is an exceptional piece of writing by an anonymous barrister recently diagnosed with ADHD. www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/adh...

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Cycling ending on ITV4 and going behind a £30.99 Discovery+ paywall is a travesty.

Look, obviously my emotional reaction to that press conference is to punch a wall so hard either it or my knuckles break. But let put that on hold for a moment and ask, very dispassionately and calmly: What American national interest objective or foreign policy goal was served by that shit-show?

A lawyer’s resignation letter for the ages, and that penultimate paragraph is an absolute corker.

saw this circulating on Instagram the other day and I can’t stop thinking about it. “Who cares anymore what particular knot they used in the binding?” is such a perfectly expressed repudiation of the “economic anxiety” framing

How long until Musk decides Trump is a hindrance/liability and deposes him entirely, rather than merely continuing to use him as his useful idiot? Not long, I’d imagine.

I'm struck by the near-total failure of leadership across civil society, in a country that fetishizes the concept. Whole sections of leadership books at every bookstore. Named, endowed "leadership" institutes and curricula across higher ed. Awards and special recognition for "leaders." AND YET

Isn’t this a coup?

And young men with few friends who had a bright idea 20-30 years ago weren’t necessarily best suited to manage huge corporations.

Hard to overstate just how much of the tech industry’s horrifically dystopian present grew right out of its transparently misogynistic past

it genuinely sucks that basically nothing on the internet works well anymore. search? barely works. social media? filled with garbage engagement-bait designed to game the algorithm. news websites? pages that refresh at random or so covered in video ads that it’s impossible to read stories

For the UK there is a real opportunity here to attract global talent and investment simply by displaying commitment to the rule of law, basic liberal principles and sound economics. Projecting competence may seem a low bar but it’s one others will struggle to meet.

No idea why you’d faff around giving Sarah Lancashire a CBE when she’s so clearly destined for Damehood.

I suggested to the 10yo that he put Christmassy snacks into small bowls and position them “here and there”. Now there’s a bowl of Quality Street on the side of the bath. God bless us, every one!

Time for my favourite Christmas Eve tradition - scrolling by candlelight through the offerings of #DuvetKnowItsChristmas.

Instagram has just shown me a woman doing a dance to a Bruno Mars song in her dining room, accompanied by a caption explaining that her son has been diagnosed with coeliac disease. Some social media stuff is just baffling to me and I’ve been terminally online for 25 years.

In dark times, this is such wonderful news.

Has someone sent for BBC Dad? #SouthKorea

Has anyone else cooled rapidly on The Rest Is Entertainment in recent weeks? Not sure if it’s them or me. I have loved it (I’ve heard every episode) and now…. it’s just different.

I’m enjoying The Diplomat (though the script could do with some of The West Wing’s humour) and one of the standout performances is Rory Kinnear as the PM. Note-perfect throughout.

If you want to know how broken the SEND system is, read on: complaints about dominate the local govt ombudsman intray. 90% are upheld yet don’t include complaints from academies (80% of secondaries, 50% of primaries). tinyurl.com/yc73ejtp 🧵1/7

When my kids are grown-up, I'll remember early Saturday mornings with all four of us piled into one bed on a gloomy winter day. One child is telling a story, another is telling jokes, I'm listening to both and my husband is snoozing gently despite a child sitting on him. Perfection.

So upset to discover that Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter was unable to discern the difference between her own interests and those of others might have to go and recover in my sauna office block dedicated to his memory

I might feel more sympathetic to the plight of farmers if they were picketing the supermarkets. Imagine if the underfunding of SEND was leading the news like these protests.

Amen.

People with no skin in the game (eg @danneidle.bsky.social) estimate that under 500 #farms may be liable for #IHT. There are 209,000 farms in the UK.

R's look to have taken House. Add to that the Sup Court, and the monolithic control rivals any in the last 50 years. & media not the counterweight it was. There is some state power to counter abuses, but nowhere near as much as massed w/in MAGA. Huge challenges for democracy.

So Lineker’s going in as Archbishop of Canterbury and Sue Gray for host of MOTD? Busy transfer season.

This has massive consequences for the UK govt's relationship to Big Tech. Current strategy is to engage as if it's a growth slot machine rather than building domestic resilience - the danger of seeing tech only through an economic policy lens

Are the #swifties here yet? I’ve got a Threads account which is Swiftie-central but I’m sick of checking both.

For reasons beyond my understanding, Paddington Bear is doing a Reddit AMA. They’ve asked about rectal thermometers and suggested he plays Shag Marry Kill with Pooh, Yogi Bear and Baloo.

It has been a shit day, and the world, not just the USA, has, at least, another four years of it. I don't have anything positive to say other than it has never been more important to stand by and stand with marginalized communities. We cannot hide. We need to stand together to combat what is coming.

Hamilton from the top rope. inthesetimes.com/article/trum...

Agree very much with this from @davekarpf.bsky.social davekarpf.substack.com/p/what-the-f...

"We can't run history twice. Donald J. Trump just ran the worst campaign I have seen in my lifetime... Given that Trump emerged with a victory in the actual contest we just witnessed, I'm not certain any alternate candidate or granular campaign choice would have arrived at a different outcome."

It was clear to the American electorate that the man is an insurrectionist with convictions for rape and fraud, who has been up-front about his fascist leanings in rallies, and they liked that. Not obvious the fine detail of the election campaign made a material difference.

London mayor Sadiq Khan strikes a different tone to the PM this morning, noting many Londoners will be anxious about Trump's win and calling for everyone to double down in the fight for progress

Really seems that being a singularly worthless man is still a major advantage over being an exceptionally impressive woman.

I think this is the key we are all sitting here asking how the fuck THIS campaign - this awful fucking campaign - from a visibly declining Trump results in quite possibly not only an EC victory but a PV victory and the answer is that most people no longer see what we see

"We cannot leave the security of Europe in the hands of voters in Wisconsin every 4 years. Let's get out of collective denial. Europeans must take their destiny into their own hands, regardless of who is elected president." Jean-Noël Barrot French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs

I think I’ve seen this film before, and I didn’t like the ending…