Some say that if there’s an anti-democratic criminal regime that sponsors terrorism in other countries and which is opposed by much of its own population, one should bomb that country hoping the people take over. This is utterly wrong and I will always be opposed to missile strikes on Washington.

Labour MP Clive Lewis doesn’t hold back on the Gorton and Denton result in this interview with ITV

The current argument of the British right is that Muslims turned out in "blocs" with "family voting" to cast their ballots for a party led by a gay Jewish man, and this shows that multiculturalism has failed, voting is "sectarian" and we are in a crisis. Hmmmmmm.

In honour of the Sunday Telegraph's editor and offical maddest columnist, we have created the Allister Heath headline generator... stirring-fox-7e1fab.netlify.app

My phone has looked through my photos and decided this is one of my ‘Pet Friends’.

8.30pm. One of us: “Why is he making so much noise? Er… did anyone feed the cat?” Cat: “You will all burn in hell for this.”

I am just enjoying the Windows 11 update. Further evidence that the IT industry is hell bent on destroying itself.

Started rewatching The Wire for the 4th time. What is stunning is the entire thing, every series, character, situation and theme is there in the first 5 minute scene. How are you defined? What role do you play in this system? Can you change that? Is it fair? Is this the American dream?

Partner: ‘ This is pickled cucumber.’ Son: ‘Yes, I remember. It’s like cucumber. But worse.’

Sunday afternoon. ‘Where Eagles Dare’ on BBC. Burton and Eastwood kill Nazis and Nazi collaborators. It’s like a childhood weekend afternoon from 1975. The kids will be watching similar things in 2045. Hopefully.

Radio4 PM feels the need to get a ‘forensic image expert’ to describe the ICE shooting video. “Is it raining? We are too frightened to say. So we asked someone else to look out the window.”

I call on my party and my government to remove themselves entirely from X and communicate with the public where they actually participate online and can be protected from such illegality.

Trump’s America is a rogue state. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c5...

A real news outlet publishing the phrase "Grok apologized" should result in like a week-long timeout. Think about what you've done.

This just in: calculator has apologized for saying BOOBS

I’ve been making jokes in various places here about watching the hootennay. The sad truth is that I am old enough to remember when Jools Holland was Clive James.

The levels of Jools Holland’s Hootenany. 1. Fuck off, I spend New Year’s Eve in the pub! 2. I am watching Jools Holland’s Hootenany, but deep down I feel I should be in the pub and that my life is over. 3. I am looking forward to Jools Holland’s Hootenany.

I am a king’s henchman despatched to recover the mummified corpse of one of his ancestors.

Rest of family has fallen asleep already. So traditional Boxing Day afternoon for me. Light fire. Prepare plate of Stilton and biscuits. Glass of Port. Alien on the TV.

Central heating engineer: “I have optimised the day and time settings on your boiler. It will automatically turn on the heating everyday at 5am, turn it off at 11pm and break down completely one week before Christmas.”

For years I have struggled with our nut cracker. No matter how carefully I place the hazelnut, walnut or whatever in the device, when I squeeze the nut slips out and flies across the room. Today I discovered that what we have is, in fact, a device for cracking lobster claws.

If you see this, repost with your favourite onscreen moment from SF, Fantasy or Horror.

Introduce yourself with 5 animals you’ve seen in the wild: Scorpion Badger Sperm Whale Chameleon Vic Reeves

An important bithday in literature. I am currently re-reading Northanger Abbey, which I hope to finish by lunchtime so I can then re-read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch.

Watched F1:The Movie last night and TBF I enjoyed it. But it is a bit of a mix. If you have any familiarity with F1 then it is really easy to get quickly drawn in. But at the same time, I if you have any familiarity with F1, I think it also becomes a bit daft quite quickly.

Robin Ince reveals to last night’s audience at a recording of Infinite Monkey Cage that the BBC has forced him to resign over his support of trans people

I am apparently 73. Because of this:

Agree with @jomichell.bsky.social here. My earlier piece: "The claim that that MMT means that a future government can dodge hard choices about how to pay for decent public services is just plain nonsense." www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/econom...

Last year I succeeded easily in the challenge of getting a Christmas cake to absorb an entire bottle of Armagnac. This year the task is a little harder as I have left myself barely four weeks for cake-feeding. I am off to a good start however, as the dried fruit are already soaking in a hefty slug.

New post: The Budget suggests the Chancellor is thinking too much about short term management and too little about long term legacy mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-... What is missing is any sense that the government has a long term plan and is putting in place the resources to achieve it.

Just watched an episode of Forged in Fire. US reality show in which ‘blademakers’ compete to make swords, etc Blokes with beards and pony tails. Rock soundtrack. Earnest talk of the ‘blood and sweat’ of the craft. And one case of Swiss Tony (‘heating your forge is like making love to a woman’). 1/2

I find myself alone in the living room and in sole control of the TV. I am naturally re-watching, for the 12th time, the BBC TV Tinker Tailor. Because it is at least 6 months since I last watched it.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

‘So Civilisations… it’s like Gladiator meets History of the World in 100 Objects plus Newsnight… with a little bit of The One Show thrown in just in case.’

Share a TV series you’ve watched from beginning to end more than once. (Two for the price of one.)

Anyone here knowledgeable about the history of cricket bats in UK? Specifically I am trying to find out more about Alfred Jameson - was it a major/famous bat maker? Used by England team? Etc

I'm reading through the white paper or whatever it is. RESTORING ORDER AND CONTROL: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy www.gov.uk/government/p...

I have downloaded this app. It’s free, though there are in-App purchases. (You have to pay if you want to speak to an apostle, for example.) It also asks you what denomination you belong to - obviously if you are a Protestant you don’t want to end up chatting to a Catholic Jesus, or vice versa.

It’s got so bad on here now that I can’t even tell whether I am being ironic.

David Allen Green: The BBC is right not to pay damages to Trump

Reeves has failed to learn the lessons of Osborne’s pasty tax and is apparently going to target Scandinavian-style buffets.

Good theory

Personal theory (based on zero inside knowledge). Streeting was absolutely gunning for advisers around Starmer and aiming to get them removed. Those advisers decided to defend themselves by making out this was an attack on Starmer himself.

Suggested strategy for the BBC. In recognition of the bad edit in the Panorama edition, they change the programme to remove that fault. And then re-broadcast it to ensure as many people as possible get to see the corrected version.

I am coming round to the view that machines really are very close to being as intelligent as human beings in every sense. But mainly because human beings appear to be becoming stupider.

BBC News bulletins leading on the story of an Algerian man being mistakenly released by the prison service. Funnily enough I don't remember these cases ever leading the bulletins when an average of ten prisoners were mistakenly released a month in the final year of the last Government

In Memoriam: Cheney Haunted By People He Didn't Manage To Kill In Iraq War

1/2 Revolutionary counterculture T-shirts. 1960s:

Nessus drives one more into Phlegethon.

Jesus Christ. We go mad about one bloke we wrongly released, yet hear next to nothing about this horror? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...