Michael Prescott's report makes vital points about the importance of being accurate, and also how difficult that is. For instance, he describes himself as having been Political Editor of the Sunday Times for 10 years, which is not what the Guardian reported when he left the job.

"They're looking for someone with a thick skin and recent experience of flagship BBC news programming."

This is an unpopular position but: having worked with him a bit, I always thought Tim Davie was a highly competent leader and given his commercial instincts, was probably the best person to lead the BBC through its next charter renewal. I think this is very bad news for anyone who values the BBC.

I can't imagine a job i'd like to do less. Managing an organisation held to a ludicrous standard by roaring idiots on a daily basis, while the main mediums it uses are all in decline and it's starved of resources.

Absolutely the greatest thing to happen to a bookish teen with a sense of drama. '“I didn’t want to say immediately it was me,” he said. “With this photo there is a mystery, so you have to make it last.”'

Stephen has me bang to rights here (I think they're fine, inconsequential, uninteresting, other than The Chain which is excellent). My only point of argument is I think the window is a little larger: a bell curve of about 20-25 years with a 95CI in the ten year period in the middle of that.

Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...

FT piece on return of retro foods is really good, but the photography is particularly brilliant. I didn't clock at first that these were new pictures, so perfectly have they been cooked, styled and edited: on.ft.com/47IHdB1 (there are lots more great pics, but I think this is a fair use compromise)

That wordmark (the "ADAM" bit) is infuriating. Incredibly cheap "will this do"-ism from the design team (back when record labels still had design teams). The first A doesn't have symmetry with either the other A or the M (and therefore the whole first line) which makes the whole thing unbalanced.

I made a “how do you do, fellow kids?” joke to someone in their mid 20s who, it turns out, was too young to have heard of that meme. So “how do you do, fellow kids?” is now an example of “how do you do, fellow kids?”

One of the funniest things about getting older is watching people my age succumb to nostalgia about these terrible films.

Here’s a linguistic quirk: Last night on the TV10 on BBC1, it was the final; yet just now on the TV6 it was the finale. Do they mean different things? Which do you prefer?

There are things it is a sign of having too much time on your hands if you have opinions on, or indeed if you know enough to have formed opinions on, and “the youth parliament” is one of them in my view.

Not often that BBC headline writers get to sneak a gag in: you can practically see the grin on the writer's face for this one

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you. It only shows your intelligence and ability to appreciate nuance. History is not the study of heroes and villains. (Although both of these feature in it.)

This debate always makes me worry there’s something a bit wrong with me in that I don’t think the past is something you should draw pride or shame from. I have benefited from the British empire more than most Brits, but ultimately I am *not* my maternal great-great-great-grandfather!

I went to see this last weekend. It has now been extended and is well worth a look IMO (it's a 75-minute documentary presented on three screens in a disused Westminster office). The theme is Vietnam and the 1970s attacks on US college campuses. Free but you need to book; runs to Nov 30

A visual metaphor for the moment.

In the mad world in which opposing swastika graffiti makes you a Zionist.

As usual in big finance news, the only person worth reading on the subject of Elon Musk’s “pay” deal is Matt Levine, whose Bloomberg email newsletter inexplicably continues to be free and which is therefore the world’s best-value newsletter

The full story. Amazing stuff.

"Did Ross Douthat again?" "Yes, he did."

It occurs to me that some of you will not have seen Zohran Mamdani’s quite good 2019 rap video “Nani” which features the great Madhur Jaffrey in a starring role:

This is absolutely brilliant, not least because of the incompatible underlying tension between a gaming-addicted king’s insane personal architecture designs and the fluid mechanics of sewage.

A lot of people I follow, reasonably but I think wrongly, think this is a “line” reflecting the government’s caution. It’s not, but because the government is so vague on so much, can’t give honest answer like “I do not follow US politics at a municipal level” and have it be believed.

I am fascinated by a question @lastpositivist.bsky.social raised - will the mundane reality of Mamdani's governance cause anyone like this to reconsider their fantasies or the basis of their fantasies? How much do they even believe this crap themselves?

I would prefer the Lab govt to say positive things about a progressive NYC mayor, but I’d bet that the median Sky News viewer hasn’t a good idea who Mamdani is and would be surprised at the idea that people in the UK are paying much attention to the election of a mayor of an American city.

To be fair to them, this is a conference about "smart" banking, and "...con" is an established naming pattern for these things. I do agree that the branding people probably should have thought through the "con"/"banking" thing, but they probably didn't expect any outside interest.

I suspect it’s partly that the audience - especially at Christmas, and especially online - tends younger than this, but mainly that the ad is an exercise in market positioning: it’s designed in part to indicate to middle-aged former rave parents that John Lewis is for them.

Quoting Eugene Debs in his victory speech. Ridiculous hipster. Love it.

What happens when you distill 2025 into a single social media post? This. This is what you get.

Burry’s Palantir trade is roughly an order of magnitude bigger—and more interesting imo—than the Nvidia puts.

Not sure who will win out in the New York mayoralty, but I'm hearing some *very* confident noises from Susan Hall's team.

Andrew cuomo squats like a giant toad across the new york mayoralty

Christmas is ruined #theAdvertisaLie

There's an American kettle calling out a British pot

Arsenal have got a FIFTEEN YEAR OLD, Max Dowman, on. He is the first ever person to play in the Champions League about whom you can say definitively he was never in a Woolworth's.

I suspect it’s partly that the audience - especially at Christmas, and especially online - tends younger than this, but mainly that the ad is an exercise in market positioning: it’s designed in part to indicate to middle-aged former rave parents that John Lewis is for them.

Due to the Chatham House Rule, nobody can report that I’m the one in the back of every meeting who yells “It’s not Chatham House Rules! There’s only one rule!” and causes everyone to groan

They have an exododus in the Natural History Museum now

It always surprises people when I point out that the UK (population 70mn) has pretty much the same number of homicides per year as the city of Chicago (population 2.7mn).

Best one yet, I fancy: 3 November 1954: The death of Henri Matisse. The birth of Adam Ant.

Apropos of absolutely nothing... I was looking at Chicago Bears NFL team trying to relocate from their really cool downtown stadium to some suburb. And it's just such a perfect example of the weird size and sprawl of US cities... it's the equivalent of Liverpool building a new stadium in Manchester!

If you think the Tel doesn’t know at least a little bit what it’s doing here, note the first three words of the picture caption

Me at the hotel bar playing Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music on my iPhone, raising the question of “is this grossly inconsiderate if it affords my fellow guests the opportunity to broaden their horizons and ponder the nature of what music actually is?”