If it’s the first week of January, it must be time for the BBC’s Sound of 2026. Aussie duo Royel Otis kick off this year’s tip list - and here’s my interview with the band. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

"Showgirl, however, sounds freeze-dried, prepacked, obvious. Though the album’s genres are superficially diverse – you’ll hear flashes of grunge, trap, and, yes, reggae – its arrangements could work fine as royalty-free background music for content creators." Ouch! www.afr.com//life-and-lu...

Reading this from @molly.wiki, and it really does sometimes feel like the demise of Google Reader coincided with a worse internet, as most people never picked up another RSS reader and many sites stopped using RSS at all. www.citationneeded.news/curate-with-...

"The building has received regular upgrades, including the removal of an in-house shooting range and squash courts in 2001." Damn, Australia's central bank didn't mess around. www.afr.com/policy/econo...

Gosh this is a good piece of journalism from my colleagues over in the Herald - but infuriating! www.smh.com.au/interactive/...

It's winter in Sydney, where a "polar air mass" descends bringing the horrors of... a few days of rain in a row and temperatures just under 10C. The horror. Still getting used to the different standards here. www.smh.com.au/national/nsw...

#China’s Didi car hire service company has the wildest ads playing in the breaks for the footy in #Australia…

I've updated my @obsidian.md theme so everything looks pretty and that's basically the same as actually accompishing the work I have to do today, right?

I spent several years as a tech reporter and remain a deep AI sceptic. Other reporters seemed to think it crazy that I don't see the revolution. But years in, all we've got is still a cool toy with no business model.

New job, new bio.

This is pretty cool: my favourite podcast app, @pocketcasts.com, has just opened its web player to everyone (previously a paid user benefit). Just go there, search for your podcast, play - no sign-in of any kind, works in incognito mode - neat! play.pocketcasts.com/discover

Me filing my long ass drafts to my editor

This entire saga has been absolutely wild. www.bbc.com/news/article...

open.substack.com/pub/iandunt/... Absolutely essential piece on why journalism is broken just when we need it most and what we can do to fix it. Please read - or you could click on a story about a man with three nipples. Your choice…

Saw a sneak peek of this research internally a few weeks ago - interesting formal look at what we all suspected. Most interesting nugget to me are the factual errors cited to BBC stories which don't *actually* contain the inaccurate cited info. www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0m17d8827ko

I've been spending a few weeks back in Europe - took a nice stroll around the French mountains near Grenoble this past weekend.

Over the moon that the BBC's Tech Decoded newsletter, which I launched internationally last year, is finally available to UK audiences! It's been in good hands since I've been on parental leave and you can and should sign up here: www.bbc.com/newsletters/...

Apple Intelligence’s commitment to writing incomprehensible summaries is unparalleled

I left summer storms in Sydney and flew to Ireland for winter storms. Holy moly has it been breezy here in Dublin. Nothing for it but a cuppa tae and wait for it all to blow over. #Eowyn

Great round-up here which also serves as a cheat sheet to Trump policy going forward: www.bbc.com/news/article...

Holy god, the latest edition of Molly's newsletter is jam-packed - and great prep reading for journalists who'll need a handle on the current state of crypto as Trump prepares to take office.

First real summer storms experience in Sydney and it SUCKS. Internet has been out since Saturday, apparently will take two weeks for an engineer to come fix, and the power has cut twice. As a Dublin / London lad, I've never seen the like. www.abc.net.au/news/2025-01...

Headline applause. search.app/PRsKiwxB6z5u...

This is a nice piece attempting to put Elon Musk's intervention in European politics in the context of the wider move to the political right over the past decade. www.afr.com/world/europe...

As always, @zurch.bsky.social has written a fantastic piece on the political drama in the US House. www.bbc.com/news/article...

What Nick Clegg leaving Meta tells us about the tech giant’s political positioning.

Nick Clegg has been the face and name of all the boring-but-important policy decisions at Meta that tech journos have been reading for *years* now. This is a really big departure. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Hats off to my BBC colleagues who were likely expecting a quiet news day for New Year’s - but instead have multiple major stories. The homepage is packed this evening with a live page, stories, video explainer - the lot. www.bbc.com/news/videos/...

The fact that WIRED messed up all the photos in its old articles is certainly regrettable, but I can't say it doesn't lead to some good results

There are "some Nazis here, who don't like journalists", she said. "Please be careful." Good stuff from Bethany Bell here. www.bbc.com/news/article...

All my fellow Irishmen and women celebrating the winter solstice have made me think about the summer solstice for the first time ever - here in Australia the peak daylight is now behind us!

This photo is one of the better gags I got past editors… My interview with Sega president Shuji Utsumi: Sega considering Netflix-like game subscription service www.bbc.com/news/article... And once you’ve read that, here’s a thread with my thoughts and a few things that didn’t make the article

If Santa is delivering a new games console to on Christmas, the first thing that machine will need when you switch it on is a big bastard of an update which could take an hour to install. Time counts for double on Christmas morning… see if Santa can get it done before then.

Anthony Zurcher's analysis of the chaos is great as always.

“the hawk tuah girl has been milkshake ducked by her memecoin” i say as the neurologist schedules me for an emergency MRI

I think it’s quite possible that Hawk Tuah girl had her unexpected moment of fame, doesn’t know much about crypto, was sold this idea of a memecoin as a way to make easy money, and probably wasn’t involved in it apart from putting her name to it. But I also think she might now in big trouble.

🩷 It's the moooost wonderful tiiiiime of the yeeeear 🩷

Hallelujah! I was waiting for this before taking the plunge. Will get to it soon now.

Festive food essentials #food

Playing the music videos for BandAid '85 and War is Over on the TV, and it strikes me that this type of horrific footage from conflict just isn't something many people see these days. The TV news package is what had such an impact back then, and it's in decline. youtu.be/yN4Uu0OlmTg?...

Moving to Australia for parent leave means I entirely skipped winter this year. Sitting on the verandah on a summer evening watching the kookaburras isn't a bad December activity.

Oh my God that second slide! Lads.

in *history*

Never usually listen to it but after trying a few channels BBC World Service is the thing to put on the radio this morning.

Decided to turn on CNN for coverage of the fall of Assad, and once again, the network has become useless. First thing back from an ad break, anchor spends a full minute reading a 12-hour old tweet from Trump. Just…no. And yes, I’m now watching BBC News.

Surreal to see the events in Syria, a war which has spanned my whole career as a journalist so far (I left university in 2010). I covered it from time to time on the BBC online team between 2016 and 2020, too. What a sudden shift in fortunes! www.bbc.com/news/live/cw...

The #latelatetoyshow hashtag for Ireland's finest festive tradition is popping off! BlueSky really is the place to follow live collective events now.

Watching #latelatetoyshow at 0830am in Sydney having just picked up the tree. Festive as all heck.