the tourettes at the BAFTAs thing, with its lack of clear baddie and its need for sympathy for all and a bit of saneness and restraint, is perfectly designed to send a specific type of (usually american) ultra liberal mental

OpenSAFELY is open from today! Huge thanks to all who supported this vast collaboration: whole population GP data; in a productive platform; innovative privacy protections; unprecedented support from professions, privacy campaigners; &c Now it's over to users! www.bennett.ox.ac.uk/blog/2026/02...

Really incisive and nuanced thread here regarding disability, John Davidson , Michael B Jordan , Delroy Lindo and the BAFTAs . Please watch Sinners , I Swear , and John’s Not Mad. Thank you @i-am-zagreus.bsky.social

Former UK PM Gordon Brown is providing - voluntarily and not for the first time - information to the police about abuses of power relating to the Epstein files. As PM Brown was briefed against by people such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson as being ‘psychologically flawed’ ….1/

Actually this should read ‘some very stupid people are realizing.’ The rest of us knew all along it was a pyramid scheme.

I’ve genuinely forgotten which club Jadon Sancho is supposed to be playing for right now.

Guys guys guys I’ve cracked it. The secret of life. And it’s easy. Listen. It involves walking around an English park with friends, stopping for an impromptu pint, dropping to a Coop and then having a nap. Anyone can do it! Who wants to give me a book deal?

This is an amazing story and a brilliant piece of detective work by FT folk.

Real 90s girls always knew she sucked. Thoroughly horrible vibes from the start, and then there was that whole bizarre episode where she appeared to be keeping four Japanese women as pets

Journey of the Sorcerer by the Eagles.

If the Duke of York escaped prison, fled to France, raised an army and landed at Newhaven to try to overthrow his brother I’m not saying it would be a good thing but as a historian I wouldn’t exactly hate it.

I set today’s Guardian cryptic crossword. I’m hoping you’ll feel my pain in this one: Walter White finishes Breaking Bad making money (5) Old lady wasting money in Virgin store (7) Comply with Klingon on the radio (5,2) www.theguardian.com/crosswords/c...

Well I, for one, think the U2 protest song is Quite Good and have no problem with Bono being ridiculous. To quote The Daily Mash on another band: "Iron Maiden fans somehow immune to self-consciousness epidemic". Bravo to Pete for saying all this.

I was following the Far Side cartoon bot on here and a similar one for Calvin and Hobbes on Instagram before suddenly realising this was participating in massive, egregious IP theft from the original artists. This stuff is so insidious. Stealing is as easy as running a tap.

Prometheus. Always Prometheus.

Rest in power, Virginia Giuffre. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

She never lived to see this moment, but it’s worth remembering that none of this would have happened without Virginia Giuffre. She had the courage to speak out against power and privilege when it was just her word against Andrew’s. Thanks to her, justice & accountability may finally have its day.

And a very happy 66th birthday to Andrew Mountbatten Windsor

“OK, people are scared of crypto. So we need our new platform to be associated with a rock-solid, dependable institution which will absolutely not fall to bits at the last minute. Got any ideas?”

I woke to this and the news that South Korea is locking up an insurrectionist president and for the first time in a couple of years felt a little of twinge of something not entirely unlike hope.

Today in "Labour is right wing" news, the majority of the Trade Union Act 2016 has been repealed by the Employment Rights Act 2025. Balloting for industrial action is simplified, picketing restrictions are removed, protections against dismissal are reinstated, political funds are unrestricted.

Sitting on a bus in a traffic jam on the motorway, rubbish around my feet, a kind of sleety rain battering the windows - through which I see a soggy Union Jack flitting about uselessly in the wind, half-mast on a lamppost to indicate the symbolic death of something. And that's when 'Layla' comes on.

@mrjamesob.bsky.social Bedford CC dealing with the bigots like an absolute boss.

Absolutely wild that we can have a thought and write it down and send it out to a bunch of complete strangers and we’ve trained ourselves to think this is normal somehow

I imagine it was extremely disturbing

And that’s why real comprehensive welfare states don’t tax progressively. They tax relatively regressively and *spend* progressively.

Reading Gerard Hoffnung's Wikipedia page for no particular reason and wondering if he wrote it himself: 'After leaving Highgate, Hoffnung studied at Hornsey College of Art, but was expelled for his lack of gravity in the life class.'

Len Deighton’s 97 today! Have a listen to what me and @moongolfer.com discovered when we took The Ipcress File out for a walk (content warning: early episode, may be on the raw side) podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

My parents have bought the same car as their neighbours, who they share a drive with. Same colour and everything. It’s the most embarrassing thing they’ve ever done

Lost my phone in London, with four credit cards and £150 cash in the case. Returned to me within 21 minutes. This hellhole of a city eh.

Unimprovable

Does it make mistakes?

Billionaires are money hoarders. No one can spend $1 billion, let alone $100bn, on things they & their families need, or even really want. If they gave away 99% of their loot, this lot would still be absurdly, obscenely rich. Their wealth is socially useless, kept out of circulation for status alone

Argh rats, what a loss, like an enormous bank of lights just went out. Duvall seemed elemental, I kind of hoped he'd shine forever www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

My brother wanted a London pub crawl. The result? My new Substack post: "Britain Lost 14,000 Third Places. They were Called Pubs. Is Your Local Next?" How private equity reshaped the local, which pubs are most at risk and most importantly what to do about it. open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...

Every now and again I remember that Nicole Kidman made that obscenely terrible music video with R*bb** W*ll**ms and I just think it’s amazing the way we can almost-but-not-quite memoryhole that kind of trauma.

A magnificent set of choices led to this. What a time to be alive www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Well Predator Badlands was the most fun I’ve had in Weyland-Yutani land since Aliens.

‘Claude Code now supports SSH’ someone gleefully announces on LinkedIn. And obviously…

Well, that Ocado substitution has ruined my entire day.

My mother died this week. I’m not posting this for sympathy, although thank you. But I realised I was so extremely grateful for people who showed small kindnesses this week. People who let me out while I was driving to her deathbed. People who smiled when I got stuck at the self service supermarket.

Your poems are shit, and so are your stunts. You shout at hotels, you wife-beating cunts.

To quote Rowan Atkinson (words by Richard Curtis): I wouldn’t trust this man to sit the right way on a lavatory.

One rapid way AI search results could be humanised - add a couple of book recommendations to every result. They nicked the damn text, so they must know.

You cannot hope to bribe or twist, / Thank god, the British neo-fascist. / But seeing what the man will do / Unbribed, there's no occasion to.

"Funds are safe." This is what we Brits call "squeaky bum time"

This is what makes us a great country, right here.

Took one look at that Ratcliffe interview and decided there was no way on God's earth he was going to work for that prick. www.theguardian.com/football/202...