I’m sorry at the where

Well, this was fun: Black Box Recorder at the Palladium last night, in what turns out to have been the fourth time.

Thank goodness my German is not good enough to fully understand what this is all about.

"And if you're streaming this song on Spotify Then we both fund weapons-grade AI But if it wasn't here, then how would you hear it? We're over a barrel, but we don't have to cheer it"

I simply don't know what to do with how great the new Arab Strap single is. If it was a person, I'd want to stand near it and occasionally rest my head on its shoulder. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VeB...

offering to you, as a present, the fact that in Nantes we have a high school called La Perverie which we used to refer to as "La Perv", you're welcome

I’m old enough to remember when Paul Ormerod was regularly name checked as a leading UK systems/complexity thinker. Of course, those of us outside the club noticed the glibness even then.

A terrific example of why the difference between mean, median and mode matters. (Owen is a data journalist and he obviously knows this - I just thought it was a particularly apt specimen, this isn’t a dig.)

As James says, the central point of this bizarre piece (“a small rail exhibit refused to accept on the spot someone’s random model rail collection, this means the British state is a dead duck, I am very clever”) makes no sense, is utterly arrogant, and is a non-sequitur from an actually good point.

We go live now to the cabinet room inside Number 10:

While I'm apologising to bureaucrats: while I still think the idea that consumers will get confused by a phrase like "soy milk" is stupid, I concede this is a mess. Surely even vegans are confused by a product called "Just Egg" that is 0% egg.

London's various central-European national clubhouse-type establishments are a nice (and still very tasty) remnant of this time. The Polish club in south Kensington and the Czech-Slovak club in West Hampstead are the two with which I'm familiar (the latter good for a pint on the way to Wembley 🏟️).

Done. Over *1 billion USD* has now been wagered on Polymarket *on a single market*: the 2026 World Cup winner, dwarfing the volume of what traditional sportsbooks will process. This is not a concern. This is an emergency. Polymarket is unregulated as a betting operator, illegal in most territories.

Turns out 19th May 1986 was quite the day

Something something skin deep

Not wrong on this at all.

Combining food and book discourse by reading Focaccia In The Rye no you shut up

This is excellent. I’m a game player rather than a game maker but I learned a lot here. Much for product people to digest, i think.

One of my favourite moments while interning at Mojo in my early 20s (and there were many) was picking up a ringing phone to find a Californian drawl asking whether Andrew was there, and when I said he was away from his desk, the voice saying: "OK, could you tell him David Axelrod called?" 🫨👀🤩

The Guardian's Best 100 Household Appliance Instruction Leaflets

The most psychologically weird reaction to the 100 novels list is the suggestion that writers who like literature are just showing off or pretending or being snobs and they don’t *really* like these books at all. God forbid writers sincerely enjoy great writing

Top 100 Novels I've Criticised Based On Vibes I Got From the Title And Occasionally By a Wikipedia Synopsis If The Conversation Continued For Long Enough That I Was Able To Get To The Bar or The Toilet

how many of the “hundred best books of all time” takes have YOU read?

That’s nothing. Wait until you hear about my mate Billy…

Good news for Joe Dolce

I know we like to joke about how every faction in the Labour Party will eventually adopt every position. I wasn't expecting them to manage it in one leadership contest

BRB just on eBay

BRB attempting to trademark “CORONATION STREETING” before any of the newspapers get to it.

I get half of these people confused because they're all called Jimmy. Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy John Oliver. I think when Kimmel was sacked it turned out the guy I was picturing was Seth Meyers, and the guy who's actually Kimmel just looks so much like the generic Jimmies that I forgot him.

Listen, the FT. I think you are the greatest newspaper in the UK in 2026. But since I signed up for a trial, you have emailed me 27 times with the exact same email, telling me to "Download the FT app". But I don't _want_ the app, and there's no way for me to unsub without stopping _all_ emails.

I have likely missed the serious discourse on this. I'm a big fan of Jess Philips, but the technology does not exist to stop children taking naked pictures of themselves. Or, in so far as it does, the technology is "not letting children have cameras".

There's only one man for the job.

Cannot stress enough how much this is the wrong question (QT because the point is general, not about what this one person thinks). People don’t respond to policy, and the things that would make a difference (reduce inflation effects, pour money into social care) aren’t policy.

Traders don't like instability and if you give clarity as to the medium-term then they stop flapping about and digest what the future is.

No, it is actually in fact a huge policy issue that the prime minister does not adjudicate between departments, does not command the support of his MPs and does not grip whether policies are actually being delivered!

Fare you well @iandeeley.com May the road rise to meet you May the wind be always at your back May the sun shine warm upon your face, The rains fall soft upon your fields And until we meet again May God hold you in the palm of his hand

The real takeaway from this is just what a disaster statutory obligations are for democracy. An attempt to hide where the costs go that has screwed over all the most visible bits of government and has empowered popularism by forcing councils to make choices no one in their right mind would vote for.

The painting is definite slop, but what surprised me about this was learning that for some reason Max from Eastenders is the voice of one of the most prominent ad campaigns/corporate mascots in the USA.

Paper candidates, unfortunate but sometimes necessary, but why the fuck would you agree to stand knowing you're ineligible? Should be prosecutable. Just a stupid thing to do.

BRB attempting to trademark “CORONATION STREETING” before any of the newspapers get to it.

Is it weird that I find the man dressed as a giant bird heartwarming, while wanting the man taking a selfie to be drummed out of public life?

Interesting anecdote, but the financier has drawn the wrong conclusion in the final paragraph. It's not "we tried techies, now let's try English grads". It's "your hiring process is engineered badly and has led you to make some obviously bad decisions about candidates, and that's what you fix".

One of the best graphics I’ve seen to explain British politics.

of course these guys think polygraphs are real

The funeral of my mate and massive Partridge fan @iandeeley.com. He’d have been a little surprised by the attendance, but appreciated the attention to detail.

Time to play: “Architecture and construction firm or niche neo-fascist local political party?”

Among other bits I’m hearing from voting in London… lots of people complaining they never received their postal ballots… Lewisham polling booth signs telling people to vote twice in a FPTP mayoral election… and Reform buying (ht @darryl1974.bsky.social) the cover of the Standard’s print edition.