Does "Peter Scandal-son" not work because you need the first bit (a rhyme is perhaps less effective than alliteration)?

Today has been fun with blocks and mutes. As ever, the lessons are plain, and will be ignored: short-form social is a shit place for discourse; most people resort to nastiness incredibly quickly (Bluesky has a special penchant for pass-agg rudeness); social media is a pointless, poisonous time-suck.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. Feeling like you need to see what all the fuss is about by downloading an app vs. liking that app vs. using it regularly vs. having an emotive response to its underlying technology... they're all very different, no?

White Ribbon campaign at Elland Road today before Leeds United v Wolves. Grab a sticker and a card if you're around the East Stand and pavilion. #lufc

Governments usually work carefully, building relationships and positions slowly, nursing alliances, creating stable foundations for moment-to-moment decisions to land firmly. Trump? With Iran or even firms like Anthropic, it's more like a particularly dramatic speed-run through High School dating.

This video of a Ukrainian Yak-52 crew taking down drones with a shotgun is incredible, but the music is deeply, and profoundly inappropriate. There was really only one option. So I've fixed it.

Can't remember why I followed (I'm interested in whether a centre-right party can succeed... but *are* they centre-right? I forget). But this account's posts mystify. The speakers are never identified. The things they say could be said by *any* party. I don't know how to find out more. I'm baffled.

For many years I have felt: no-one sees me like The Onion sees me.

Just to be clear: had he failed the vetting before or after he was announced? Feels like they thought security was a formality ("He's slippery, but he's a peer! He's a privy councillor!") announced and the FCDO did a very civil service thing and avoided embarrassing the boss

I left alone, my mind was blank I needed time to think To get the memories from my mind What did I see? Can I believe? That what I saw that night was real and not just fantasy? - Dickinsons 19:82

Exactly one year ago today:

The other irony of this ad is that they're actually describing the perfect replacement *for the CEO*. Top execs get paid huge sums for making difficult but definitive and clearly explained decisions based on prior experience - which is exactly what LLMs do. And CEOs are *always* asking for raises.

In-airport billboards (directed at the 'c-suite') are a reliable guide to snake-oil. Obviously some comes good, but the overselling of dodgy tech, the lionising of tough decisions for hyper-competitiveness, the sheer bullshit (ERP, to SaaS, to cloud, to blockchain and now this). Like weathervanes.

This episode is an absolute blast. Even if you're not Leeds and just hate ManU, it's great. #lufc

My latest bucket of cold water

Wait, what? I thought all tickets were balloted now? #lufc

Thing about conspiracy theories is that the theoreticians very existence partially disproves the theory. More pointedly, the conspirators are apparently idiots whose failure to keep their conspiracies secret, and deliver plans that work, makes them look like Dick Dastardly rather than the Illuminati

I'm pretty sure my friends and family hate me for not having notifications for WhatsApp, but who needs another "ding" all day. If they need me urgently, they know my number. Bah humbug.

Flashbacks to January 3rd. Remember the date? I was sat about where the lad with the scarf round his head is 😂 #lufc

These all feel like ways to garner demographics for Bluesky users. But I'll bite. Post your favorite film from the year you turned 18

It's almost like none of you know what it's like to support Leeds. Decent chance we still blow this.

Time to go-o-o, f*** off!

Started getting this a few issues before, but this reboot edition was the landmark: collected solidly for about 8 years (and, Warrior aside, I never went on to collect anything else...)

Can’t wait for JD Vance to campaign for Reform in the UK. How about next week? Is next week good for you?

TIL the Hungarians are about to elect someone we'd call "Pete British" as PM.

I would finally pay for a Substack if there was one tearing down Trump admin decisions and actions using his own quotes and sections from Art of the Deal. Anyone?

As a very basic ratio- A Sky multi channel subscription (no sport) was £6.99 a month in September 1993 and a pint in a pub was about £1.50. Today Netflix with ads (a much better product than 1993 Sky TV) is £5.99 a month and the average cost of a pint is around £5.

This is the absolute stupidest title race in football, one automatic promotion spot, two clubs on 100+, final day is Rochdale v York, please someone pay me to write about how York can get two points from the final two games and guarantee win the league but three points might not be enough.

Leadership isn't just naming problems or acknowledging change. It's taking tough decisions. Obviously in a democracy those are much harder - you gotta sell 'em, then defend them from emotive counter pleas (see, esp., pensions, income tax, defence, energy...). Feels like Labour isn't quite there yet.

A Bluesky Timeline Juxtaposition of the Day from @simonpegg.bsky.social and @dempster2000.bsky.social taking a slightly different approach to aligning the 47th President with post-war British comedians.

Andrew Cockburn on Mossad’s kill list - read it here: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

🚨Took a look at sovereign defaults for @alphaville.ft.com. www.ft.com/content/d796...

Drop something TELEPHONIC ☎️📞 "Blue horseshoe loves frozen concentrated orange juice futures."

Ugh, preview didn't unroll. So, received wisdom is that junior accounting jobs are very automatable and senior, more expert roles that might be required to give counsel are not. However this creates a talent pipeline problem ++

A movie couple who would definitely have a podcast.

Very sorry today for the people of Iran. Having talked to some Iranian exiles in London, they hoped that Trump would force out the regime and that their families would get freedom. Instead, their country got bombed and Trump is happy to leave the theocracy in place.

Never interrupt your mistakes when you’re making enemies.

Trying to explain to my February self how the prospect of Iran controlling the Strait of Hormuz and charging a toll on every passing ship would produce this reaction in the oil market.

I'm not saying Trump is a Russian asset, but if Russia wanted to screw over the US, get it detached from its backyard in Europe, destabilise a world economy that it's not very good at - apart from hydrocarbons, whose price it wants up - and distract from its own nasty war... Trump is nailing it.

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell"

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell"

The limitations on violence established after World War II were not brought by pacifists or peaceniks but by literal old soldiers. They knew. They had seen.

BTW, I do NOT think that the massive surge in AI models, language or otherwise, is a clear positive. TBH, I don’t know how our society can navigate this in a healthy way. Tools are not ethically neutral. But I’m really interested in what their evolution says about us.

Dieses Spiel macht nicht wirklich fertig. #lufc

Injuries to key players ✅ Extra time ✅ Emotional drain of pissing away a decent lead ✅ Giving a key relegation rival a boost of confidence ✅ This could be the most Leedsy Cup match I've witnessed. #lufc

This was the moment I began to fear we might not win

OMG it's Lance!

It’s almost like building a Cold War military industrial complex then taking away its principle raison d’etre creates an incentive to find other ways to use it, and those other ways don’t feature mutually assured destruction, so you get reckless. Then you hand the keys to a thoughtless man-baby.

Lovely short break in Belfast - got screwed over by British Airways but made the best of it. Today's murals tour included this literary gem from the UFF. Can you see it?