No pressure then.

People rightly mentioning Sam Neill’s many terrific movie roles, but also try to see him in the first two series of Peaky Blinders. Marvellously evil performance as a brutal British Northern Irish agent. Was good to see him get what he deserved, but I missed him in later episodes. RIP Sam.

This is genius. Farage is doomed & he’s going down in the funniest way possible.

“Investigations are expected to take some time, given the large number of suspects with a wide range of motives,” said a police statement.

Make it so, people of Clacton.

“Because the alternative is Farage”. Clacton voters, you know what to do.

Farage won 46% of Clacton vote in 2024. But 58% of vote was against him to other candidates. If everyone in Clacton who voted against him for different candidates in 2024 votes against him for a single candidate in forthcoming byelection Farage’s political career is over. Really is that easy.

Farage has handed absolute gift to other parties if they can only see it. No parties should stand in Clacton. Instead they should all give maximum support - money, campaigners, pr teams, etc - to Count Binface. Let Farage go down in history as only politician to lose his seat to Count Binface.

Belgium 4 Trump 1 😁

Thank God. Spain have scored in the last minute . We don’t have to endure a half hour extra time of this dreck.

England - the entire country, not the football team - will not be turning up to work today.

This Mexico England game is mental. I need a stiff hydration break.

Apparently the Norwegian for “row”is - checks notes - “ro”. Whoda thunk it?

Dear UK govt, please nationalise @greateranglia.bsky.social without compensation & fire the entire current management. Thank you.

Had to choose today between going to the hospital & watching England attempt to play football. I don’t like pain & suffering so I’ve gone to the hospital.

Epic “fuck you” from Starmer to Burnham.

Just received the latest edition of Evidence from @fistfulofbooks.bsky.social Outstanding documentary photography. Interview with Ed Kashi, spreads from Jim Mortram, Jacky Chapman, Joel Goodman, Wayne Tippetts & David Sinclair.

This should include Scotland on the whisky. Only explanation for last night’s car crash performance😱

The wretched Starmer may well announce his resignation tomorrow, but you can be absolutely sure he’ll hang on in No 10 until after July 19. Just in case Ingerland bring it home & history can record he was PM when they won the World Cup & ended 60 years of hurt, etc etc.

Supermarket Lidl opened their first bar: in Belfast. And Belfast did not disappoint: police were called to a brawl on the opening night.

Just arrived in Northern Ireland & the first thing I bought after getting off the plane was a 12 pack of Tayto cheese & onion crisps. If you know you know.

“Among 13- to 15-year-olds, nine out of 10 have a social media account and say that their main sources of news are YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.” And there’s your problem, right there.

Pioneering photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White was born #OTD in 1904. * 1st American female war #photojournalist * 1st staff photographer at Fortune magazine * 1st female photojournalist at LIFE & its first-ever cover photo was hers Pic: 61st floor of the Chrysler Building, NYC #photography

Just noticed that the ITV Sport FIFA World Cup studio has a huge poster for John Carpenter’s Escape From New York on the wall😀. Sadly they don’t have Snake Plissken providing football commentary.

Finally, after 60 years of trying, England will have a good excuse for their inevitable Great World Cup Catastrophe.

Free to read: Simon Schama's 2025 appreciation of David Hockney, who has died at the age of 88 ft.trib.al/VJxZ4Sv

David Hockney’s mum visited him in Southern California after he’d moved there in the 1960s, and as they drove back from the airport she looked up into clear blue sky and said, “I don't understand it. Such lovely drying weather and no one's got their washing out." Bless.

Norn Iron rioter ran into Belfast Lough to escape cops, remained in the sea until retrieved from the water by the coastguard - and his dad. You couldn’t make this stuff up🤣

And so it begins. That time when the English media go wild with anticipation at their team’s inevitable victory in the FIFA World Round Ball Kicking Championship, encouraged by their historic win yesterday over - checks notes - Costa Rica.

Apparently one of the Norn Iron patriots managed to set himself on fire with his own petrol bomb last night🤦‍♂️. You just can’t get the staff these days.

O Winston Link. 1914-2001. Link’s best-known work, made in the late 1950s, is a celebration of the last days of steam railways in America. These romantic and atmospheric black & white photographs, some of which were achieved with pioneering night photography techniques.

Scientists say Godzilla El Nino is coming. Roland Emmerich has gone too far this time.

Finally getting to see John Woo’s Hard Boiled this evening: in 4k in a cinema. Rather excited.

Tony Blair has just demonstrated his undimmed consummate political skill by managing to unite the entire British Labour Party. Entire British Labour Party: “SHUT THE FUCK UP TONY.”

Thanks, Vonnegut. 💜

Lunchtime temperature of 44 degrees C in my North Norfolk garden. And rising😱

They’re going to need a bigger police force.

When assembling your dog, please make sure that you follow the instructions carefully.

David Byrne (Talking Heads) - "Burning Down The House" - live with Stephen Colbert

Britain is toast. Literally.

Wes Streeting is *so* wonderfully slippery. He said that Britain should rejoin the EU not because he believes it - he doesn’t believe in anything other than his own advancement. It’s simply a tactic to make campaigning difficult for Burnham, who faces a constituency that overwhelmingly voted Brexit.

So Wes Streeting needs Andy Burnham to lose in the forthcoming Makerfield by-election, or to put it another way, Streeting needs Reform to win😄. The next month will be a thing of beauty.

“If this is a coup, it’s in slow motion; they want to savour it perhaps.” Genius introduction to Radio 4 PM news on @labouruk.bsky.social leadership comedy.

Streeting stooge on Radio 4 repeatedly describing Wes as principled when the entire world knows Wes Streeting is the very definition of a corrupt, slippery little shit.

The hilarious thing about Wes Streeting preparing to resign tomorrow & challenge Starmer for the Premiership is that after he wins he’ll learn that people hate him even more than Starmer.

Break out the tiny violins!

@labouruk.bsky.social has reached the logical conclusion of its decades long project to become @conservatives.bsky.social. In government but not in power & about to engage in a psychodrama of successive ever more short lived premierships.

New Reform councillor on the radio this morning actually said “It’s about making Essex great again.” These people are genuinely funny.

Keir Starmer: most hated British Prime minister ever? The bar for that title is very high, but he’s making a very brave attempt at it.

The English gave spoken. Welcome to 1930s Germany. #Reform