This has made me realise that there LOADS of stuff I haven’t really watched in detail, but I have sufficient cultural knowledge of to understand or make references to it in social contexts. It’d be quicker for me to say the few things I really know in detail.

“My approach will pay off eventually”

Suuuuure www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I have never been a fan of the Cheers titles - mainly because of the music. But this has made me reconsider the images. All those lives, memorialised in a strange context. Ghost actors playing a role.

“The day I stopped believing in the audience myth”

Why are pumpkins orange? They could be green or white or purple or whatever, but we’ve selectively bred them to make them bright orange. Like carrots. Is orange intrinsically spooky?

This week's theme was Food & Drink 🫒🍷 Hope you enjoyed it! Take a look at the timeline over the last week for full details of these and the rest of the featured pieces.

Techbros take a Cartesian “I think therefore I am” view of AI consciousness. Yeah, well Descartes thought your soul lived in your Pineal Gland. Has your LLM got a Pineal Gland? No. So think again.

The Guardian are really leaning into the headline format of two weirdly unrelated statements. “I Started An Erotic Bookclub. Yet It’s Impossible To Find A Dentist“ “I Ate A Pint Of Ant Yoghurt. Why Are My Towels Always Damp?” “My Partner Bought Me A Lathe. Starmer’s Silence Speaks Volumes” Etc

The Tory party is over reliant on cheap overseas racist policies.

IMHO, the posters for After the Hunt look like ads for Marks & Spencers' autumn range.

Stephen the Waxy Lemon

The new series of Slow Horses doesn’t seem to be as bad as the reviews suggested. I think it just needs a Morwenna Banks scripted episode soon.

Podcasting is perfect for the Opinion Economy, where personal views are currency. It doesn’t work for Knowledge Economy, because that barely exists anymore.

The idea that you will find every sketch in a show hilarious is silly. You’d never remember them all to do in the playground the next day.

Secret college tunnels under Cambridge should be in a ghost story

this is our cracker barrel moment

He looks like Gollum being told about potatoes.

Amateur‽

Mr Blobby by Mr Blobby (it’s a Blobby horror film)

Next week: Rick Moranis interviews Princess Anne

In memoriam...

It looks like the Bernard Manning ‘fact’ about the new Arch Boshop of Canterbury was added yesterday lunchtime. So I guess someone knew the announcement was imminent and saw an opportunity to spread a rumour? en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?...

Why are some people seeing the Wikipedia “fact” about the new Archbishop of Canterbury being Bernard Manning’s niece, and some people (me) not? Doesn’t appear on my page at all, but I’ve seen several screen grabs.

I was thinking about this recently when taking my eldest to the Oxford Open Day. She's at a northern state grammar school. She was amongst groups of kids who had been bused in by their schools, had stayed in college, where their schools had already been visited by various colleges...

Very pleased to see the Archbishop of Canterbury has regenerated as a woman this time. I just hope she gets some good writers.

“The following news headlines have been inspired by real-life events. Some characters and details may have been changed for dramatic effect”

Massive queue of Swifties outside Our Price this morning.

18 years later and Tony Blair is still trying to define his ‘legacy’. Can legacy building be a legacy?

She hasn’t actually made herself bigger, she can just extend a large disc-shaped neck frill too make herself appear bigger to predators.

This has made me realise that Meatloaf’s I’d Do Anything For Love is essentially a Two Ronnies song

There's a thread going round by a mutual I sort of want to jump off here, but not dunk on, about genAI "art" and how some people with good ideas might be able to use the tech to make decent work in limited forms like sketch comedy where the idea is everything. And that's true, *but*...

As it’s National Poetry Day, I’m reposting this thread about how Christopher Strachey used one of the first computers in the country to generate queer poetry.

On National Poetry Day, the greatest poem I have ever read

2020: Pivot to video! 2025: Video is slop now. Absolute garbage. Maybe pivot to PDF?

The height of summer The depths of winter The width of autumn The circumference of spring

For $2735 I’d want a full 90 minutes of Diana Ross taking penalties

This looks good deadline.com/2025/10/joan...

They’ve invented an AI Jeremy Vine

Amazing to discover that you can actually make a barrel *out of* rotten apples

So many problems stem from tech companies being wholly unable to differentiate between qualitative and quantitative information.

Of course. If your Ezra be Furman Prepare for ear-wormin' If your Ezra be Klein All will not be fine If your Ezra be Pound He is morally unsound If your Ezra be Better I will knit you a sweater If your Ezra be Fitch Your sweater will itch If your Ezra be Miller Buddy, you are on your own

That Ishiguro quote, one more time.

When is the government going to do something about this dangerously addictive street drug?

Don't miss Buddy Nutzack's set in Riyadh. youtu.be/lRXn-g1s4T8

September 30 / October 1

I have a theory that Strictly wouldn’t have worked 40-50 years ago because the baseline dancing ability of everyone was a lot higher. My assumption is pre-1980s anyone on telly, in any capacity, had at least some tap dancing training. I know they’re not perfect here, but they’re no slouches either.