I used to think spam that preyed on lonely horny people was the cruellest kind, until I saw the spam emails that promise writers money and praise.

So just for the record - I am not working with any book marketers, so if you happen to get a weirdly robotic email from me claiming that I do, that i love your book, and that I'd like to introduce you to a marketer that might help you boost it, that email did not in fact come from me.

I really hate the gleeful "of course there has to be a downside" stuff around this. Like, it is a thing closely linked to body image and all that brings with it and that is not uncomplicated but the naked "well they'll get their comeuppance for 'cheating'" element - just deal with your issues lads.

I’ve found that a lot of the adverse consequences people raise are basically the adverse consequences of losing weight, particularly losing weight relatively quickly. All those things that were glossed over because the most important thing one supposedly could do for one’s health was…lose weight

I have seen some suggestions that long-term use of these medications may have a significant negative impact on bone density, which for women in particular with higher risks of osteoporosis in later life could be a big deal. I'm sure this is solvable though!

The responses to this news are predictably a bunch of people crowing that this is actually good because it means the fatties will continue, as is right and proper, to suffer. But is there any evidence that "okay, just stay on the maintenance dose" is actually problem?

"We can excuse free child pornography, but we draw the line at charging for it" is both the most this government way to handle this, and absolutely barking.

🚨OUT NOW🚨 What does Trump’s attack on Venezuela mean for the world – and what happens if he’s serious about Greenland? Join @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com, @seththevoz.bsky.social, @jonnelledge.bsky.social, and @rafaelbehr.bsky.social for that and loads more 👉 linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...

Also this is basically all podcasts bsky.app/profile/mich...

A rather less consequential thing irritating me today is yet another wave of ads on podcasts in which the hosts of a *different* podcast tell you who's sponsoring them. I don't care who's sponsoring some people I've never heard of! How is that an endorsement! Podcasters are not fungible!

"Why, people ask me more often than I’m entirely comfortable with, 47 borders? The reason I don’t like this question is simple: I don’t have a good answer." Wrote about another border.

It's also a good loyalty test to force your supporters to argue black is white. Binds them to you as well.

An upsetting question I have this morning is whether the transparent absurdity of the White House's denials that ICE agents are quite simply killing people in plain sight is something else they learned from Putin after, e.g., the Salisbury poisoning or another oligarch falling out of a window.

"As soon as I accuse you of something, you become really defensive".

catching up on Traitors and one of the maddest reasons people accuse each other of being traitors is "trying to influence the game". yes? that's... how this works? what thd fuck?

(Going to see a band I like) this is a cool room. I hope they start to constantly email me about every single event that goes on in here.

NERDS EYE VIEW 💡 Learn new things with @jonnelledge.bsky.social's weekly column. Discover 14 facts you didn't know about Venezuela 🇻🇪

"When the mine ran out around 1885, one might think that’d be it for Neutral Moresnet. But no: like microstates the world over, it simply shifted its economy into more contested areas..." You* asked, I delivered: a brief history of Neutral Moresnet (*Possibly not actually you)

One thing The Traitors has taught me is that the people snarking on the internet aren't lying, a lot of white men look pretty much interchangeable

"It’s worth remembering that Ernest Marples arguably did more for the motoring lobby than any transport minister before or since. And yet they hated him – for attempting to restrict their freedoms even slightly for the greater good. That, too, was a sign of things to come." @jonnelledge.bsky.social

Back in the present, I still have the instinctive urge to preface what I’m about to write with something along the lines of “obviously this is not the 1930s”. That, though, is getting harder to say with any conviction with every month that goes by....

absolutely unreal. who can possibly hit publish on that and think "yes I have done my job as a journalist and editor. this is serving the reader"

My word. The Taoiseach, in China, says "platforms can be misused and abused or they can be used for positive reasons as well..." and says that should be considered carefully "before jumping to conclusions" on whether it's appropriate for the Government to be on X.

I understand the pressures on the BBC, but Radio 4's coverage of the Minneapolis shooting is an example of "bad balance". It's all "the Trump regime says she was a terrorist, but Democrats say it was murder". The BBC has the footage. It doesn't have to treat truth and falsehood as equally valid.

I don't think this is going to be particularly controversial with anyone on here, but I wrote today's newsletter on why I'm not buying the Keminaissance:

Years ago my friend Dave’s then-four-year-old son walked into a room, looked at Dave, and said, “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Mr. Daddy.”

If you haven't watched this evening's episode of The Traitors, I encourage you not to look at the front page of tomorrow's Daily Express. At least the Mail has hidden their spoiler on p.3.

“One oft-cited explanation for the region’s tendency towards authoritarian instability lies in the fact that, in 1922, geologists from Royal Dutch Shell had discovered quite an incredible amount of oil there...” This week’s New World column is on – what else? – Venezuela.

was just outside for all of 15 minutes and now alas I shall never be warm again

First newsletter of another bloody year. This week: is this really the year the western alliance finally breathes its last? Also: a brief history of the lost microstate of Neutral Moresnet.

Who governs?

has anyone heard from Lisa Nandy recently, out of interest

I don’t know. Yesterday a woman in the Bloomsbury Waitrose described the one in Granary Square as “the good Waitrose” and for a moment I thought “huh, maybe David Betz is right. Maybe we will start to see civil war on the Strand”.

“One oft-cited explanation for the region’s tendency towards authoritarian instability lies in the fact that, in 1922, geologists from Royal Dutch Shell had discovered quite an incredible amount of oil there...” This week’s New World column is on – what else? – Venezuela.

Nigel Farage had already acknowledged, generally, that many of these allegations were broadly true in 2013 and 2021. Now that there is more detailed testimony from about 30 people, he is claiming they are making up things he had previously tacitly accepted happened.

Yup, it's also just not particularly useful in understanding Trump. Yeah some of his acolytes might have a coherent fascist ideology but he clearly doesn't.

The thing about putting Yarvin on Newsnight is that it's worse than having Nick Griffin on QT. Not only are his views similar but far broader than Griffin's common thuggery but at least Griffin was a UK politician who it could be seen as necessary to have on. Yarvin is an American blogger.

The rage had receded enough for me to give King & Conqueror another go because tonight I'm as braindead as the show imagines me to be, and i am enjoying it for TWO reasons: 1) Eddie Marsan and Juliet Stevenson being genuinely delightful as Edward the Confessor and his mum; and...

They fixed the lift. www.instagram.com/p/DTLwx0qjZF...

the Onion absolurely knew what it was doing with that British food story

I have accidentally trained the instagram algorithm to give me endless posts about dying dogs and honestly I'd rather it was fascism

'British food is bad' has been untrue for like a generation and a half at this point but really sticks around in the U.S. U.S. supermarkets are inferior to their U.K. counterparts!

Me, sowing: Yes, you can republish my first book for the North American market! Yes, I'd love to do you some original material! Ha ha fuck yeah!! Me, reaping: What the fuck. Well this fucking sucks.

There’s a lot of talk about NATO’s Article 5, and what it would mean if one NATO country attacked another. There’s not nearly enough attention being paid to Article 42.7 of the Treaty of Lisbon, and what happens if an EU member state is attacked.

dunno if anyone's mentioned but it's actually snowing in London

@stephenkb.bsky.social Okay. So. Vikings. Is the point that the group we generally refer to as Vikings were not in any meaningful sense a group, making it roughly akin to the Roman notion of Germans?

"The third possible reason for Donald Trump’s obsession with Greenland is that it looks really big on the map." Feels like a good week to push this again

Some bad news this morning: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...