I despair of Labour. Can we not just have a sensible budget, delivered on the day, that apologises for hard choices and then just gets on with giving us something that will give us some hope? All this briefing and speculation makes them look like clowns.

It’s slightly odd when a big new Edgar Wright films comes out to remember being one of what seemed to be a very small group of people watching Spaced in 1999. I guess there were actually quite a few of us but we only had dial-up internet so cult TV was less visible in them days.

When I see people having wildly different opinions about films (cf @kermodemovie.bsky.social and @stephenkb.bsky.social on Die, My Love) I’m reminded of Big Talk with Raymond Terrific: Come on boffins! Let’s sort this out! It’s a simple question, is it a good film or not?

Ailbhe back at the NS, Ed gonna be PM, bluesky bringing back old Twitter vibes It really is like the old days

Running the [insert]* has become an impossible job on.ft.com/4oE2cwk *BBC *ONS *British Library *country

No no no begs every archivist. You are never going to be able to find anything. Please don’t start using emojis in file names. Who asked for this? What fresh hell is next?

Marcyliena Morgan, Founder of Harvard’s Hip-Hop Archive, Dies at 75 📜 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/a...

I see Noah Smith has said something stupid about the UK again. It comes around earlier every month.

Yep. I think the only reason I was aware it was a big thing was via @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social noting that they would be covering it on Newswatch.

This is most revealing part of @matthewcobb.bsky.social's piece on Rosalind Franklin: "Franklin did not succeed, partly because she was working on her own without a peer with whom to swap ideas. She was also excluded from the world of informal exchanges in which Watson and Crick were immersed."

In case anyone is wondering if Watson was really THAT bad, @lpachter.bsky.social compiled a list of quotes that are absolutely not for the faint of heart. liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...

@oldenoughtosay.com FYI

So, the BBC has the Executive Summary of the investigation by Penningtons Manches Cooper into Oxford Brookes University Boat Club. It’s also up (with redactions) on Reddit at the moment. It does look bad - not least the interference with the investigation. But the club is clearly very divided.

Apple Maps really doesn’t like Canary Wharf does it?

Quite. The lack of coverage of the BL cyberattack and its consequences has been dispiriting. There are multiple angles to it but apparently none of that has been found by editors to be especially newsworthy.

Whoa Rebecca Lawrence has resigned as Chief Executive of @britishlibrary.bsky.social. Sorry that this might mean more turmoil at an institution that is a critical part of UK research infrastructure www.bl.uk/about/press/...

Sad that Yolk on High Holborn didn’t last long. The food was good and the staff super friendly.

Huh. I am listening to Gary Numan ‘The Pleasure Principle’ for the first time, and I hadn’t ever realised that the main riff from Basement Jaxxs’ ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ is a sample.

This makes me wonder. Are paywalled media sites in scope of the UK Web Archive? Does Legal Deposit mean that publishers have to give full access to the British Library and its partners in that Archive? Can’t easily check because https://www.webarchive.org.uk/#en#enis still down after the cyberattack.

It is amusing to me that some people were speculating that The Times had been taken in by a deepfake as part of some shadowy political interference campaign. Nope. They just emailed and then interviewed the wrong Bill DeBlasio.

Also: other allied projects of the Wikimedia Foundation are great too. Most people aren't really aware of Wikidata which is an increasingly useful resource with even greater potential.

I implore everyone to donate to Wikipedia. Just think how often you use it. It's packed with reliable information. It's run by passionate volunteers. There are no ads on it. It's free.

I am clearly far too invested in US politics and journalism, but as soon as Bari Weiss’s arrival at CBS was announced, I strongly suspected that John Dickerson would depart early. He’s a fine journalist and a thoroughly decent man.

It's interesting that, while Copilot integration with Outlook is now active in 365, it's rubbish at the one thing I'd want help with, which is staying on top of emails that require me to do something.

Who knew!

Years ago, @georgemonbiot.bsky.social presented the idea (can’t recall if it was his own) of having coach terminals out of town, near motorway junctions. The idea being that it’s the first and last bits of long distance coach journeys that are the slowest, as the coach gets to/from the city centre.

Well, A House Of Dynamite is cheery. And then one imagines what Trump, Hegseth et al would be like in this situation.

Mrs Blurt Goes To Washington

At the end of Captain America: Brave New World a news anchor says: "Back in our nation's capital, ground was broken on the restoration of the White House, marking a significant step towards normalcy for the country." I laughed out loud, not knowing it would soon become even more on the nose.

Turned off automatic updates as I don't have iOS 26 yet and it sounds like there's such a backlash that they could conceivably roll back the changes and I can avoid them.

It'd be nice of Downing Street would wholeheartedly condemn the Lam mass-deportation stuff, but it's also an enormous failure of the centre-right to maintain a cordon sanitaire against this slide.

Am finishing Walter Scheidel’s The Great Leveller which is, it must be said, pretty depressing. Near the end he references work by Tony Atkinson on possible ways of reducing UK inequality. I think it must be this: I’ve never heard of it before. Has it had no influence in UK policy debates?

This is such a good read.

We iPhone 13 Mini holdouts will never win and it’s becoming harder to find replacements but it’s nice to see @sarahoconnorft.ft.com trying. on.ft.com/3IT3RyA

At the end of Captain America: Brave New World a news anchor says: "Back in our nation's capital, ground was broken on the restoration of the White House, marking a significant step towards normalcy for the country." I laughed out loud, not knowing it would soon become even more on the nose.

Mike, ‘satire’ is not when you’re sitting in an aeroplane. (Credit to Graeme Garden who came up with that joke in a round of Uxbridge English Dictionary on ISIHAC).

I don’t think many people realise: 1) That AWS is now a considerably larger part of Amazon’s business than retail - given the size of the latter that’s mind-boggling but, as I understand it, true. 2) How much of the modern internet depends on AWS.

Angela Carter’s The Admirable Crichton.

Perfect.

Here we go again.

What about tattoos reading ‘Death to Kings’? (Yes I know it’s probably apocryphal)

Occasional reminder: Not liking hot/spicy food does *not* connote being staid, conservative, small-minded. “Haha he’s the kind of person who has lemon & herb at Nando’s!” It’s deeply tedious.

Periodically I watch this again because it’s just so good.

Not sure if this counts, but Wodehouse should be taught at GCSE as an illustration of the craft of both language and plot.

A lot of online men, of all political persuasions, are always deploying castle metaphors (motte, bailey, moat) in their discussions of politics, economics and whatnot. Has everyone been frequenting the same fora? Is this more than a few years old? Have I missed a memo?

Strobing shirts and ties. That's something you don't see any more.

It has red rot.

The idea that Tommy Flowers is ‘little known’ just seems odd to me. But I did spend the first lockdown tidying up the scans of the Dollis Hill War Diary prior to its release, so I’m clearly far too close to the subject.

Thoroughly enjoyed my week at @gladlib.bsky.social. Strongly recommend to anyone wanting to do some reading, writing or just pondering, in the stillness and companionable quiet of a Grade 1 listed reading room, surrounded by Gladstone’s own books. Great food too.

Enjoyed this piece about Peter Thiel. A key quote is this: “…in Thiel’s mind there are two cosmic forces warring over creation itself, and they both consist of Peter and his friends.” I think this does capture the self-involvement of a lot of senior tech sector men, and the “thinkers” they like.