These Test matches are like episodes of Everybody Loves Raymond. The narrative and the reason they all get angry is slightly different each time, but by the end we're back to where we started, and nobody has genuinely learnt any lessons. And Australians find it much funnier than the English.

“We’re off to Fratton Park where it’s somebody’s birthday today, but whose is it?” “I don’t know Jeff!” Happy birthday Kammy.

“If you're going to quote from the Book of Revelation, don't keep calling it the Book of Revelations. There's no s, it's the Book of Revelation, as revealed to St John the Divine. And what about Mary Hopkin? She must despair.”

My Christmas present to all of you who are amazed you are in the top 1% of ChatGPT users: one percent of a big number (800 million weekly users) is a big number (8 million people). Merry Christmas everyone

TUTTI FANNO BUM

Events that precede the most vicious litigation of your lives:

I mean it is actually a click bait story of someone looking up what tax rates are because we don't actually know what his financial affairs are. At the very least I'd expect him to have some business expenses to deduct.

A coda to this is that the UK is pretty unusual in that we don’t tax winnings on the Lottery or game shows. John Carpenter (the first winner of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire) worked at the IRS and didn’t give his job up because after tax he got about $600k which is nice but not life-changing.

Meanwhile, from the Department of Unlikely Headlines:

Hereunder lies the above who up below, So hourly died that he lived on till now. First Love, 1946 Samuel Beckett 13/04/1906-22/12/1989

Having a similar experience to Steve - I bought a second-hand Xbox One in the autumn so I could watch the cricket (long story) but it’s been fun using it for gaming. And the cloud gaming service means I can even play new games in quite decent circs.

Found this exchange fascinating. Paxman used to say “bad luck” all the time - if anything, AR is using it as a sort of tribute or he’s just absorbed it as part of the UC presenting house style. But the image of Paxman as a snarling prick has so persisted that his avuncular side is forgotten.

What a voice. Rest in Peace Chris Rea : www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcW-...

Now listening and, sure, I'll buy this take.

North American (or indeed anyone from an English-speaking country) friends: I would like to hear your pronunciations of the following (don't look them up!): Leicester Edinburgh Greenwich Loughborough Llanelli Warwick Worcestershire Make a video with the lens covered (for example). 1 /2

"Roy's sister Cherie"

Got excited there and thought a new flaming lips album had dropped

Poor showing from the "at least the trains run on time" nations:

Not particularly a response to Duncan but the day five morning session (11-2am just gone) was the first full session I’ve watched of this tournament and it felt like I’d picked well. A great England fightback, Smith’s FAFO, England carefully doubling down after that, and plucky Aussie bowling.

"It's a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible goose"

new Arab Strap album just dropped

I still think of Ryan Gosling as "one of those new, young actors that they have now". He's 45.

The Americans in the farmers’ market this morning are demonstrating a disturbing new mangling of the language, having moved from “can I get…” to “I’m gonna do [name of sandwich etc]”

“What shall we name our snack brand after?” “How about a notorious gang leader whose family committed several gruesome murders under her direction and who was controversially shot dead by the FBI?”

I had never even heard a hint that generational upward mobility had been higher in the UK than in the US for decades, until seeing that second chart.

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts that someone in the BBC crisis huddle will suggest putting a redacted bar over his face and a few people will laugh nervously but then they'll do nothing until the day before it's due to air then pull it and show a rerun

You see this especially for contempt of court laws too I think? And definitely fuels conspiracism as to 'the mainstream media won't report this!1'

May I recommend a subscription to @theonion.com print edition as a holiday gift, because their ads continue to rule

All these worlds are yours – except Europa. Attempt no landing there.

"It's a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible goose"

Excellent thread this. The NYT interview made me think we need to rediscover shame in the modern world - that is to say, if your reaction to the Coldplay kisscam was anything other than to laugh and go 'wow, what a way to get caught' and thne move on with your day, you should be ashamed.

Not the point, but thanks to the headline Stephen has QTed, I have the phrase "Praise be to Jetway Jesus" running around my head now

@anitaanand.bsky.social @willdalrymple.bsky.social Really enjoying the Karsh episode. A quick note that the second Churchill photo from that 1941 sitting, in which he's smiling, is also available from the Karsh archive karsh.org/photographs/...

We are getting to the season of end-of-year reflections, so it’s time to post my annual reminder. If you helped someone this year or let someone else help you, then you’ve had a good year. That’s enough.

People next to us outside the pub: “…and then I ended up shagging one of the partners’ cousins.” “Was he hot?” <pause> “No, but he owns the pub. He used to be a jockey. We went back to his place, he put some Irish music on and, you know…”

Silently judging all the people out this evening in London and wearing more than one layer in what is, frankly, a 10° winter scorcher ☀️

good morning holy shit www.nytimes.com/2025/12/16/u...

This is a really good/important point. I've been "getting paid to put stuff on the internet" since 1999 (sheesh, that's one way to describe 26 years of work) and to some extent *I still think of it as a fun place for entertainment* rather than as fundamental modern-world infrastructure.

How the hell is Beavertown making a loss?

Romanticism as a political rather than an artistic movement *has* been tried, lads, & the results were very, very bad.

"Desecration" is such a tell. These are not reasonable concerns reasonably expressed, it's a religious objection to modernity.

He's brought shame upon the FIFA Peace Prize.

Go and get the Garth Marenghi meme.

Back to the Future remake but he ends up in Greeley, Colorado in 1950 at the sock hop that convinced Sayyid Qutb the West was irredeemably decadent and introduces him to a little something called "rock and roll."

Looking through Rob Reiner’s otherwise amazing filmography, I found this unintentionally funny line.

I get the point being made here (that Twitter as the home of left-right political debate is a net benefit to society, and that that's stopped happening) but it's just not worth the personal cost, quite apart from all the stupid product decisions the owner's made, that make posting there worse.

This is all true, but it omits that two years earlier, Reiner essentially invents a new genre with _his directing debut_, a film that remains the best mockumentary ever made. And even The Sure Thing, in between that and SBM, is a good film, though its premise hasn't aged enormously well.

This kind of versatility doesn't get enough credit IMO because it's considered more critically respectable to maintain a distinctive style and keep returning to the same themes.

Fair play, people listing all the amazing work you’ve produced in between detailing what a lovely guy you were is the dream memorial, isn’t it?