Respect to 1991 Mt. Pinatubo for briefly pulling the vibe back.

Iesu fucking Grist

This is my intuition about austerity and most business decisions: short term cost-cutting leads to higher long term costs.

TIL the word ‘glosslighting’ to describe the problem with terms such as ‘hallucination’, ‘reasoning’, and ‘agent’ in AI: “using technically redefined terms to evoke intuitive — often anthropomorphic — associations while preserving plausible deniability through restricted technical definitions”

"France is making major streaming services pay up. Since the start of 2024, platforms such as Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music have been paying a streaming levy on their revenue. The country is using the proceeds to support its own music scene."

“Sometimes, carrying on, just carrying on, is the superhuman achievement.” - Albert Camus ‘Carry on Camping’ released this day in 1969. Signed prints available here: shorturl.at/WuJGr @barneyfarmer.bsky.social

Fell victim to the National Trust bookshop again, didn't I?

On this day 29th May 1953 Tenzing and Hillary and became the first people to reach the summit of Mount Everest Artist: Frank Humphris (Danger Men, 1970)

Watching the cave rescue and thinking "Nooope" - fills me with absolute dread and horror and an enormous amount of respect for the rescuers. Extraordinary bravery.

Title text: "Every place has a local cryptid; more places need a local Pictish Beast, a creature in historical art that's drawn so weirdly that no one can tell what animal it's supposed to be." Alt text: https://explainxkcd.com/3250#Transcript

A £300 tax on your UK summer holiday does sound like a lot... So let’s take a look at this tax, put it in a wider context, and find out where that £300 figure came from.👍🏻 1/26 🧵

Agreed! bsky.app/profile/monk...

Nothing to see here, just an ancient British hare chasing a Roman hunting dog 😏 At the Roman Army Museum, @vindolandatrust.bsky.social

"When a clown takes over a palace, the clown does not become king; the palace becomes a circus." -- alleged to be a Turkish proverb

This year marks 30 years of EUMETNET - a network of 33 European National Meteorological Services that strengthens collaboration, shares scientific expertise and accelerates innovation to improve the weather and climate services people rely on every day. Read more: bit.ly/4dBDLN2

New report suggests more global temperature records ahead 🌡️ A new report, produced by the Met Office for @wmo-global.bsky.social, shows there is an 86% chance that one year between 2026 and 2030 will surpass 2024 as the hottest year on record. Read more in the news release 👇 bit.ly/3PIkzEc

I'm increasingly of the view "You don't have to persuade them, just outnumber them".

But why are young people not thriving and having loads of children, we muse, as a series of madmen in power wreck the world, A.I. is hyped, the planet burns and social media drives everyone mad? Is it perhaps that they’re just a bit soft?

Another negotiation front for EU-UK relations, underlying the 'forever negotiation' theory. This time an EU project for satellite-based mobile services, part of which the EU wants to reserve for EU-based providers to protect against the US - and wants to negotiate access for the UK & Norway:

Currently on an interesting tour with my new book across Germany and very surprised how much love, affection and interest there still is for Britain and its ppl. We haven’t forgotten you ! Really enjoying it, and actually quite moving.

“To defeat the scourge of populism, the government should do a procession of things that sound suspiciously like the populist’s manifesto, but crucially filtered through the economic priorities of the people paying me to write this”

And then there's always this: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsRu...

Ok this is a truly great tweet

How the plastic bottle cap became a parable for the value of EU regulation

Charmed to hear that the 92 year old fireboat "Pyronaut" was borrowed from her berth by Bristol M-Shed Museum to spray the underside of the bridge www.bristol247.com/news-and-fea...

On the grounds that there’s no bad time to share this video of a squirrel having a jolly good go, here’s this video of a squirrel having a jolly good go

Solidarity is where it’s at. ✊🏽🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

Okay, we get the message. Don’t visit Kew Gardens for a bit as it’s very hot there.

Evan Davis ended PM on Radio 4 by saying: “We’re all going to have to become a lot more expert in this area [climate].” We agree. Which is why hundreds of communities and organisations across the UK are hosting screenings of the People’s Emergency Briefing. 🚨Anyone want to invite Evan to one?🚨

This policy is evil. Genuinely evil. Yet it has received no serious media scrutiny.

Discussions on preventing water shortages in Kent delayed until July as Reform-led council prioritises debate on introducing reciting the Lord's Prayer at Council meetings: bylinetimes.com/2026/05/26/r...

This BBC article states that "climate change is believed to have played a role in such hot spells as this." Let me fix it: Climate change IS making these hot spells more likely and more dangerous. Scientists have been warning of this for decades. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Kew Gardens recording 35.1ºC today breaks its previous May record in 1922 before this spell by NEARLY 5ºC and breaks its June maximum temperature record set in 1976 by 0.5ºC - this also beats the previous May UK maximum record by OVER 2ºC (32.8ºC, 1922/44). An incredible anomaly

Otherwise, the article was perfect

I think they should sort it out in the traditional manner: put them both in straight jackets and hold a headbutt fight. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

There has to be a scene where Paddington and Zhukov meet! Paddington is wearing lots of hand made medals which are marmalade jar lids.

Compare that to the new electric DS inspired by the Citroen DS of the 60s. I know which one I'd have, and it doesn't have a little pony on the front. www.carbuyer.co.uk/ds/305763/ne...

Unreliable narrator stories are fun until you live through a global-economy tanking war between two sets of relentless liars both trying to influence a stock market full of investors who don't actually care what's true.

It’s kinda odd to be drowning in photos of every insignificant moment these days whilst having so incredibly few from before around 2008 but did find some from when I was, I guess, 2/3/4 and do love my family’s strong commitment to the booze

We built these water refill points for days like today... London now has over 4,000 free water refill points across the capital. Find your closest here: www.london.gov.uk/programmes-s...

What calmed my shit down was a) having a spouse who will literally pull on my earlobe to let the air out of my head when I get too full of myself, b) becoming part of the SF/F writer community and meeting so many people who were equally talented if not more so, which recontextulized my own skills.

We're especially worried about climate change in archives because there's going to reach a point where it's too hot for corduroy. A lot of archivists will have to fundamentally change their fashion choices. The rest of us will die with our honour.

In celebration of both World Dracula Day and Peter Cushing's birthday. 🧛

26th May 2026 05.07

No there will not be an early election. A man with 400 seats will not risk half of them three years early to satisfy columnists’ belief in mandate fairies.

so I do think that when people say "but we're not built for heat here!" what they at least partially mean is "we're used to being able to sort of just ignore the weather all year around!", which is unfortunately not something you get to do when it starts being 33 degree celsius in May

Oh and another thing: Australians are taught from a young age that the sun is dangerous (no ozone, melanoma everywhere), whereas in Britain we see it as a kind of rare beautiful bird that we only glimpse if we're really lucky. That's another cultural shift we really need to make here.

As a Londoner who has spent a number of summers in Australia I am fully signed up to the theory that London heat is uniquely unbearable. In Aus I sleep in a room with no aircon and a full on duvet, but the house is designed for cooling so it's fine. Right now my bedroom is 30C. Torture