Cabinet Secretary and man of the people: on holiday with his wife, four children, and nannies, plural. Two adults (outside of the GOP these are generally known as ‘parents’) are apparently not enough to corral 4 kids. At least 2 other adults are needed.

Oh gee, it's my morning for 'Sanctimonous Responses from Snippy Blueskyers'. Damn. I forgot to put it in my diary.

'Trump uses his platform to shout at people using their platform to shout at him.'

MAGA KILLER Bruce Fanjoy 🇨🇦 proposes Petition e-7148, which requires the official opposition leader to hold a top secret security clearance. #cdnpoli 👍💯🔥👊 www.ourcommons.ca/petitions/en...

Why is this not an Olympic sport?

Let me get this straight. The Royal Academy contemplated throwing Ai Wei Wei out for tweeting about genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, back with the parqagons of virtue, @royalsociety.org is whistling on its way, refusing to throw out Elon Musk for overseeing the deaths of millions. Got it.

At first glance thought he said “The proceeds of trolls” which frankly would make as much sense. If not more, actually. We need to take a harder line on international bridge trolls.

‘May have’, AP? I do not think those words mean what you think they do. Hell, I’m 66 and have never in my life watched a football game, and even I saw Bad Bunny. apnews.com/article/bad-...

Something compelled me to make this

Defoe forgets the attachment.

If any musical acts require advice on integrating Clausewitz or his theory of war into their set, my dms are open

Is it a bad sign when taking notes on a book, after the citation I type, 'NO THEY FUCKING DIDN'T, YOU LUNATIC'. Asking for a friend.

If any other global megastar needs a consulting historian, I'm available. Just putting it out there.

My dad said ‘What are you going to do with a history degree?’ Look at this, dad!

I’m an Ambassador for this brilliant charity, Bookbanks, giving away books with food parcels at food banks. There are two part-time jobs going for Regional Leads in London and East Anglia. Link below. Please share far and wide :)

McMaster University has posted the email written by the professor to Canadian figure skater Maddie Schizas, granting her an extension on her assignment. “I’d say focus on the competition right now, and submit it directly to me when it is done” This is a really lovely note.

Robert Lepage’s Macbeth: adapted into québecois French, with all the characters being Hell’s Angels. Sounds horrifying, and was the best production of Macbeth I’ve ever seen. youtu.be/hj4utAfylAw?...

Feature, not bug.

The Guardian goes embarrassingly monoglot. I don’t speak Portuguese, and even I recognise that the last part of film director Kleber Mendonça Filho’s name means ‘Junior’. Not the Graun. Nope, ‘Filho says…’ it pronounces. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/fe...

Since the Guardian sold the Observer down the river, the latter has been all but unreadable. Now the subscription has been hived off, — for the first time in my adult life I don’t have a newspaper on Sunday — and I’m not missing it. Which is — sad.

Well, if it’s 8 February, it must be the 94th anniversary of Geoffrey Potocki de Montalk (a fascist from New Zealand who said he was King of Poland) going on trial for attempting to get into print his poem ‘Here Lies John Penis’ 🧵

Love how these towering intellects don’t know that Northern Ireland doesn’t have a Prime Minister.

‘Terry’ is just so wrong.

Anyone else revolted that @thedailybeast.bsky.social , supposed excoriator of Trump and his parade of grifters and shills, nevertheless regularly employs Michael 'Let-Me-Help-You-with-your-PR-Problem-Mr-Epstein-sir' Wolff?

And I keep thinking how cheaply the academic/literary world can be bought. Brockman got $850,000 from Epstein over 17 years: $50,000 a year to be his intellectual pimp.

The kind of statement that you think doesn't even need to be said. And yet these days, it's enough to make one weep.

The free market: it's all fun and games until it doesn't allow you to raise your kids to be bigoted assholes. www.wonkette.com/p/josh-hawle...

Oddly the choices of response appear to be 'No' and 'Jesus Christ what are you smoking?'

Statler and Waldorf have more of a comment than a question

Trying to imagine the same Olympic committee telling the US they can't use an image of George Washington. Or indeed their own designers that Garibaldi is off-limits.

One of my favourite moments in a museum was the label underneath a neolithic pot: 'c.4000-2500 BCE. Artist unknown.'

Hi world. Any connection between the complete lack of interest in sexual assault in student bodies and the pervasive adoration of Jeffrey Epstein? Asking for several generations of women.

OK, that’s almost as funny as the NY Times referring to Meat Loaf as Mr Loaf.

Totally new light thrown on *checks notes* cricket clubs. Totally. *blinks*

At the La salle Ovale, Bibliothèque nationale de France.

Very interesting piece on AI and the Anthropic settlement (with sign-up link) for all authors. Also warming of a scam going around the 'help' authors opt out of the settlement and (ha!) get more money. ai-humanist.beehiiv.com/p/hearing-fr...

Expert view.

Just a very wholesome guy.

I've no beef with the general rapture at this performance. I have huge beef with 'Shakespeare's Sir Thomas More'. Shakespeare's Sir Thomas What? Shakespeare may/possibly/might have offered some revisions to this play, written by that famed pair Thomas Chettle & Anthony Munday. Who? Exactly.

With so much turmoil in the world, finally the real culprits are put under surveillance.

‘Just goes to show, any one of us is just two missed paycheques from having to live at Sandringham.’

“The era of hiding behind servers is over”.

The Epstein files: Rich people acting with impunity. Art Gallery of Ontario: Rich people acting with impunity. No consequences for $$$ is the norm. www.theartnewspaper.com/2026/02/03/a...

All mayors please note:

GOALS

Ballet (finally) gets political: Alexei Ratmansky's Emperor's New Clothes is a text that needs no subtext: www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/a...

Famed French ex Minister of Culture also in the Epstein files. I’m not sure excusing yourself but claiming to be « séduit par son érudition, sa culture, sa curiosité intellectuelle » of a semi-literate conman is the way to go. www.ledevoir.com/monde/952947...