The BBC's contribution to a civic climate of rage, despair and hatred is sizeable. It's constant amplification of extremist right-wing positions is utterly reprehensible.

Billy Bragg has started a ‘reclaim the lampposts’ campaign and is happy to supply these stickers for you to attach to lampposts with flags on. If you want to call the Xenophobes out then send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Billy Bragg at Bragg Office PO Box 6830, Bridport DT6 9BH

In the big scheme this is not important, but in the little and local world it might be. In Catford three pubs & a cinema have closed in a year. Now one of the last snooker clubs in our area is also going. Used by all ages and backgrounds. Lots of fathers & sons. Another rip in the social fabric.

Yes

Yep.

WOW. This new Ari Kuschnir short about Donald Trump's White House ballroom is AMAZING.

This is not caused primarily by "screen time". It's been caused by the mass eradication of third places for young people in basically every city over the past three decades - and a society that's hostile to the concept of teens socialising in public spaces. www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

Ladywell Playtower, an iconic, historic building that enriched the Lewisham community for generations, is falling into ruin. Will you join me and urge the Mayor of Lewisham and local councillors to save it? you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/sa...

This is beautiful 🥺 Statement by Sophie and Colin Hortman, children of Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark who were assassinated at the weekend.

Isaac Asimov on, "If God is Dead, Everything is Permitted?"

Excellent sleep - as described, arrived as expected and well packaged. 5 stars,would sleep again.

Man in Victoria: Everyone's so negative. Know what I mean? Woman: No.

Yes.

I’m glad I happened to spend one minute of my Monday morning hearing this helpful and uplifting truth…

The juxtaposition in the @lrb.co.uk of the articles on the Cold War (from the Russian perspective), and Paul Taylor’s writing on DeepSeek is surely deliberate. It places major political tensions of the past alongside the major technological tensions of the future. Titanic/tectonic struggles both.

Beautiful thread

Eileen at work… (Actually, what he tries to say here doesn’t make sense).

So there’s such a thing as a ‘profanity accountant’. Which my family probably think I should avail myself of. (Wazzocks). Begs the question what other accountants would be useful in this life.

#BlueskyResistance #Voices4Victory #ProudBlur Advertisement at a London bus stop. Ya gotta love the British…

WOW. The first review of The Dream-Pedlars’ Parade is ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐. ‘One of my absolute favourite reads in quite some time.’

Worth reading

I hope you’re right, Dan. But to add to your argument and build awareness, can you cite evidence and/or examples?

@profaliceroberts.bsky.social, this is lovely Anya who got the Mary Anning statue put up! Please would you repost? I met you that day in Lyme and have a gauche selfie with you to prove it, it was so great 😄

A reminder

What is ‘trutherism’?

We need images. In fact we could judge it online. I mean what do LRB readers not know about scarecrows?

A tiny 2% wealth tax, on 20k people would raise £24 billion per year to spend on the things that urgently need fixing in our country. We need some tax justice - the more money you have the less tax you pay and vice versa - that’s absurd.

Keys found embedded in jam sandwich. Apologies.

"If Trump is what the image-world has now revealed itself to be – if he’s the ‘society’ we have settled for, looming against us, cruel & false & ugly & determined to destroy – [then the answer is] a plan of campaign, with spectacle the enemy. Not derision but tactics." www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

A wise thread…

x.com/tedchris/sta... interesting appeal to Elon, posted of course on X.

So true. Short Cuts was one of those BBC/Falling Tree curios which allowed time for artful wondering. It brought credibility to the rest of their programming. Safe blandness slowly descends.

Just in from mammoth interview session to two bits of news. One that a DV perp got locked up because of something I did and that a vulnerable constituent had a a massive wrongful debt written off after our intervention. This is why I came to politics, this is why I'll just keep cracking on.

Today is the WOKEST day in the calendar - Nollaig na mBan [Women’s Christmas]. Traditionally women would do no work & let the menfolk sort it all out. It’s been a feature of Irish tradition for centuries & is enjoying a comeback!

Epiphany: a 12th-century pillar capital from St Lazarus Cathedral in Autun, France. 🤴🏼🤴🏼🤴🏼Three cosy kings are awakened by the angel who urges them to follow the star 🌟 If you had a crown, you’d wear it in bed too. ❤️

Please, Brentford, do this next season

While we’re banning books… Finland is teaching children in school how to recognize fake news and propaganda as part of critical thinking and civic responsibility. Some of this will seem very familiar. Be. Like. Finland.

Yes but, not wishing to fall out with Carl, orally shared stories had/have a similar quality - with added prosody. Yes the teller has to be there, but hey, the teller’s physically there. Stories are passed on and no trees are pulped in the process.

Very readable. Very frightening. “Responsibility for one’s actions is so Legacy”.

Ann Telnaes quits the Washington Post after the newspaper rejects a cartoon about tech billionaires and Donald Trump, including Zuckerberg and the paper's owner Jeff Bezos anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-qui...

If you've never donated to Wikipedia, now's the time. Elon Musk is attacking it because it's one of the only sources of honest, curated information that he can't control. www.newsweek.com/elon-musk-ta...

There are no Danish Butter Biscuits available in all of Birmingham. My 1970s husband is aghast.