Just heard that an old and dear friend of mine passed away. Eamon Downes gave me my first meaningful role in the business way back when and we had some amazing fun together. He was wonderful. I’ll always remember him with great respect and love. on.soundcloud.com/M1EpETaMHHOB...

The DM has now picked up the 'too many blacks on TV' story, related to the C4 report, using so much of the exact logic from The Spectator that I suspect it was either plagiarised in part or heavily cribbed from. The Daily Mail of course rachets up the "woke" hysteria. Archive link: archive.is/TQXu9

Yikes. That’s terrible. Guess he’s now tossing out the data that claims diversity correlates to gains in revenue and brand perception? www.marketingdive.com/news/study-d...

This is *extremely* disappointing from Rory Sutherland. The article is here: www.spectator.co.uk/article/is-t... Points to note: * it doesn’t link to the report * I cannot find the claim that black people appear in 50% of adverts in the C4 summary * even if it could, the argument that ‘if black

I was middle-aging through various Reddit threads about home improvement and noted the near ubiquity - inevitability - of ‘your mum’ comments. I think this has become almost formalised as part of a 21st century chivalric code. Honi soit qui mal y your mum.

So I'm reading through the latest JK Rowling/Robert Galbraith 'Strike' book and while I'm happily surprised that there's no obvious racism/transphobia so far, there is this absolute gem from a German character: 'Der first time I came to der flat. Der vigs and dat.' Peak literature.

Whenever I’m on LinkedIn, I inevitably encounter some banal, depressing dross like ‘Thrilled to announce that we’re launching our latest case study, revealing how our business does business’ on first scroll. I immediately click away and spend five minutes contemplating life.

I think the most sublime act of corporate passive-aggression is the ‘my calendar is up-to-date’ reply. It’s a polite power play. It’s practically impossible to respond to without seeming like an asshole. Do you yield to getting a CC teabagging or do you throw toys? A true white-collar snookering.

Been casually reading through the collected Judge Dredd volumes over the last few years and I’m almost through volume 5. It starts getting truly batshit. ‘East Meg’ (a megacity like Dredd’s) goes full nuclear assault and wrecks Dredd’s home city & conquers it in 4 days. They capture ‘Chief Judge’

Goddamn I hate LinkedIn. youtu.be/nUrhd0trtVM?...

Finally

Will recommend it to anyone who’ll listen

Peak Grauniad?

Recommend everyone buys Refaat Alareer's posthumous work, a collection of his writings. He was killed a year ago, with family, because he was vocal on Twitter. His beloved daughter was killed in April 2024. If you've ever been angry about threats to Rushdie, the killing of Alareer should enrage you.

Bit of an alternate take from me on TikTok in the US. This is the right thing to do but for the wrong reasons. The US should clamp down on China owned products and services in the name of reciprocity (cf China's bans and restrictions on US media). www.bbc.com/news/article...

I remember, years and years ago, a friend visited rural Georgia for work and came back. She told me that the water on the farm we were at was so 'pure and natural' that it had earthworms and other sorts in it at pump. We're heading for that level of purity now. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

I don’t understand this image. It looks like the owl is lying down randily but there’s a face growing out of his behind. Is this like a linguistic Rorschach test?

Odd choice. Huge has been acquired by a private equity firm, away from IPG. How’re you going to asset strip something with no assets? t.co/zp32aL65kr

Maybe it will finally be addressed when the wealthy realise they too can die from drug-resistant TB

So I think I'm fully happy with voice transcription now at least in English. But it also works in mandarin Chinese. I still need to test and see if Arabic works, particularly in dialogue terms, but for now I'm really comfortable just talking to type. It's a great new world.

Nooooooooooooooooooo. Whodda guessed? hypebeast.com/2024/12/nike...

I don't like AI used to exploit artists, erase jobs and remove the soul from creativity... Buuuuuut I absolutely love that I, despite a large void of artistic talent, can send this to someone who had a St Pancras typo (St pancakes)

Would absolutely not be surprised if something similar were to happen today

If I was 86 and doing packed movie schedules of probably be "lazy" too

When astronauts start giving their opinions about China's imperial dynasties

Some new books just in #ReadWithHamid

Germany has facilitated Israel's genocide from day one. Now over 1,000 academics, civil servants and public figures have signed a letter demanding this obscenity ends. Delighted to interview two of the signatories 👇 youtube.com/watch?v=w8hX...

@neilhimself.neilgaiman.com Could you help me spread the word about this reading list I curate for the Palestinian fantasy, sci-fi, and other speculative genre works (with links of where to find and support the authors? soniasulaiman.com/readpalestin...

Rounding off Graeber's 'Debt: The First 5,000 Years'

This is great (but also incredibly sad!) to see - what Liverpool would look like if it was a French city with a typical transport setup. 50km of metro/tramways. Nabbed from a chap called Todd Lithgow.

the future of finance

Summoning the spirit of David Graeber (RIP). You'd have thought that this news would be a bit less surprising over the last decade or so of anthropological publication.

Oof, talk about unintended consequences. Google decimates Twitter search results after Elon Musk imposes limits on reading tweets - Raw Story - Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Journalism

Me, taking photos of friends

Welp, this makes Threads an exciting prospect. Shut up and take my personal data Zuck.

Whoops Vietnam bans 'Barbie' movie over South China Sea map | Reuters