I love big books and I cannot lie

Is this some weird Oxonian “See it, say it, sorted”?

I mean I know how to wipe my own arse but that doesn’t mean I’m doing yours, Pete

It would be nice to see a large philanthropic gift used to really build something new rather than just pouring more and more cash into institutions that already enjoy huge advantages. A failure of imagination

“Olaf Pirlo” is nicely done though

Remember to be wary, as today is the only day of the year that incorrect or misleading information is posted on the internet.

It’s not even that Italy has become bad at football. It has become bad at qualifiers.

There is something slightly underwhelming about “Mission Around The Moon”

“ChatGPT, how would Joseph Heller have satirised me?”

How would anyone know?

Just feel like Italy should be given a bye to every tournament. It’s not the same without them.

This is the one up-side of Poland going out

If the peer-review was anonymous, how could Goodwin be sure it was done by a world-leading demographer, as stated in the debate?

I watched the first two episodes of Chernobyl yesterday. I saw an Orbán and a Szijjártó.

Looking forward to the Dylanologists rationalising this as some brave new push to the artistic frontier rather than just grandad pissing around with ChatGPT

“Benjamin David Stanley, you have pleaded guilty to the charges brought by this court, and it is now my duty to pass sentence. You are an habitual criminal, who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard, and presumably accepts imprisonment in the same casual manner…”

Everything is always someone else’s fault. If only the publishing industry had been less woke; a decent editor might have saved him from the consequences of his dishonesty.

*stares in ‘person who lived in the north east of England in the early 1990s’*

In "The Five Families", Selwyn Raab argues was that the mafia, which had proven resilient to law enforcement for a century, declined because it became more desirable for promising Italian kids to become lawyers or accountants rather than capos, so the mob was reduced to just the family's worst kids.

Not a lot of things I miss about the UK, but the concept of the quiet pint is one of them

This. This. This. This. This. My dad’s last six weeks are a blur, but I remember entering his room a week before he was discharged to die at home and sitting there for five minutes before I realised he hadn’t been taken to be bathed; the crumpled bedsheets on one side of the bed still contained him.

I have often wondered which one is the magic repost that unleashes the wankers

Went straight to Blackwell’s, then

‘Succulent Chinese meal’ speech added to Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive

An extraordinarily cruel and complacent title, whatever you think of the arguments. That wasn’t my dad’s choice to make; it was a suffering imposed upon him.

Just remembering how good Bowie was at losing his marker.

This is the same Jarosław Kaczyński often to be found complaining about “foreign intervention” in Polish political processes and the nefarious influence exerted by the Russians?

“Aglo” - Zbigniew Rokita

Anaesthetist here

Always nice to come back to the UK and realise 4G is still a thing that exists. Like Brexit never happened.

“We ask for your attention while we demonstrate the safety features on this aircraft”

Flying halfway round the world to spend 15 minutes failing to show 47 slides to four people, one of whom will respond by talking off topic at length while everybody sits there hoping someone else will tell him to stop, is a rational use of time and resources

The most dispiriting phrase in the English language: “We’re expecting a full flight today…”

As someone who has lived outside the UK for the thick end of the last 20 years, what amazes me on coming back is just how much of a gap continues to open up between the price of a supermarket bottle of beer (moderately higher than when I left) and a pub pint (Sherpas, death zone, cerebral oedema)

I was, I have to admit, working on the assumption that the *baseline* would be an order of magnitude greater

actual thing I saw on linkedin which I was pretty floored someone would admit to lol

Flying to London, available for the Spurs job

There are some Polish translation mistakes where I can understand how they got things wrong - śledź po żydowsku / follow in Jewish being the classic - but I don’t even know what they were trying to get right here

Every single demographic projection in this book was reviewed by some of the world's leading demographers

Someone just started playing “A Thousand Miles”, which surely comes under human rights legislation

Another cracking thread on the Hungarian election from @gabrielagreilinger.com, and my opinion remains entirely unaffected by the fact that she mentions an article of mine

I mean I’m not sure about the tuna, but I could live with this

I don’t know whose idea it was to put pianos in airports but I do have a fair idea of what he’d have been doing in 1943

What always amuses me about this guy is the thought that, come the reckoning, he’s going to be left behind shovelling documents into a shredder as the last helicopter takes off from Orbán’s Temu-Escobar hacienda and the sound of the sirens closes in. The very epitome of a lickspittle bag-carrier.

On the train to the airport for #psa26. First timer, too.

“Hey, I’ve jabbed this button while the train was still going at enough of a clip to kill a wild boar and it turned red, I wonder what will happen if I keep jabbing it” - Person Who Should Definitely Be Allowed On Public Transport Without Supervision

The “I think you’ll find neoliberalism leads to fascism” Reply Guys fail to account for how historical cases of fascism were not preceded by neoliberalism and to explain why we don’t have more cases of fascism given the normative ubiquity of neoliberalism, but otherwise make sound points.

Can’t remember if this is @andrewmueller.bsky.social Is Annoyed Day, or Peter Hitchens Is Annoyed Day

A probability sample of 1000 can give you a high level of accuracy when measuring public opinion.

America did not meet the universal adult suffrage criteria of democratic governance until 1965. Gatorade is the exact same age as American democracy.