New post up: I wrote about why Hollywood Con Queen / Chameleon is one of the smartest, best-told true crime stories ever made. Wild scam. Perfect protagonist. Top-tier narrative craft. A reminder of how good podcasting can be when it’s done with real care. open.substack.com/pub/soundsco...

thinking of this classic tweet on thanksgiving day

This is already a good post, buts it made like 39% better by the knowledge the images are from a 1970s German film, Und Zen read in a German accent, Ja? bsky.app/profile/slut...

Cover Reveal! “The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy" arrives on August 4, 2026. How extremist tech billionaires are dismantling democracy to crown themselves as kings—and what we can do about it. Please pre-order! ➡️ www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ne...

Canada made weird tv shows because it was all being done with government funded art grant money so they fell in this wacky middle ground between “shoestring budget” and “no expectation to generate shareholder value” which is really the best way to make art

Good morning to Brazilian reporter Manuela Borges, who’s been waiting eleven years for this petty moment. ❤️ 🇧🇷

Growing up, I never thought “a mad king” would be a problem in my life, and yet! bsky.app/profile/atru...

Only 2025 British defence procurement could spend £6 billion to produce a vehicle that is so wobbly it makes the crews vom everywhere. This is literally a problem WE solved with the Whippet in 1918! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

“I’m sorry but the T&C on our suicide machine clearly say ‘no suicides please” bsky.app/profile/gerr...

I keep saying, Google intentionally making its search worse is a world-historical fumble, and it's a huge opportunity for so many others across the internet, if they'll just seize it..

Big agree. It's the best star wars thing I've seen since I was 7.

Oooh model soldier achievement unlocked after 40 years of hobbying - I got cloudy varnish! Fortunately it was on my little boys water bottle where I was sealing his name we painted on so no major harm done

As an AOS player, as the budget draws near, the existence of the Office of budget responsibility (OBR) and the Ossiarch bone reapers (OBR) occasionally gives me confusion when reading the papers.

Am back to editing the novel. So merciless in exposing your own writing flaws. This morning, am going through cutting out 949 instances of the word "just"

People love AI art and hate foreigners. Dystopian! bsky.app/profile/jim....

There is no bigger red flag for a human being imho than a self-authored wikipedia page

New Sounds Complete Radio post is up — and this one’s about how we found, made, and kept making one of the biggest narrative true-crime podcasts in the world: THE GIRLFRIENDS. open.substack.com/pub/soundsco...

Last night, because google is completely enshittified, I asked chat gpt how many German capital ships in WW2 were torpedoed by British submarines. This is easily available data, I just couldn’t be arsed to read 7 Wikipedia profiles. Theoretically ideal chat GPT task bsky.app/profile/more...

"Sure. Fuck it."

Trying to read General Shaw's medal ribbons in WELCOME TO DERRY to work out what kind of service record he has. He's got a presidential unit citation, and three campaigns in Europe and North Africa. 8th AF in WW2 i guess?

As an audio guy, the best format for this would be voicing up the text messages, imagine hearing RFK’s hideous penguin-from-Batman voice saying things like “wHaEver you dO, My wIfe anD yOur EdiTOr caN nevEr, EvEr knOw” bsky.app/profile/ktho...

New Sounds Complete Radio post is up: • why one of my best story-finding tricks is breaking; • three banger pieces from Alex Sujong Laughlin on why podcasting is a tire fire; • AND a rare ray of light: we’ve got a new season of The Girlfriends out soundscompleteradio.substack.com/p/links-i-wo...

It’s absolutely going to burn down. You literally have twice daily fire watches; when I used to play games with a guy who works in the House of Lords library he told me they had NINE fires in 2016 bsky.app/profile/poli...

My sense here (and we can now see the reverse with twitter being fully Nazi) is a lot of people in the “twitter was mainstream” era had the experience of seeing that kind of beef & that felt like massive pushback to them. bsky.app/profile/jame...

Just incredible we’ve reached the stage where he’s taking literal bars of gold to make decisions. Like a cartoon supervillain! bsky.app/profile/mims...

Jesus Christ.

The long awaited time lapse of how i wrap my tentacle pots for shipping! Lots of bubblewrap around all the limbs then layered up to make a big ball and then secured in the box with paper all around!

@stelpavlou.com good answer on the bond stuff. I loved 51st state btw!

Very amused Dolly Parton and i started substacks the same week. It's trend, folks:) substack.com/@dollyparton

Nolan says he shot 2 million feet of film for his version of The Odyssey. Unfortunately looking at the pics it's all extremely beige. www.empireonline.com/movies/news/...

Mildly nightmarish story about successful self-published authors doing well off TikTok shop, and then their life just becoming packing books with their family: mailchi.mp/janefriedman...

Wrote a thing this morning about why WILD THING is comfortably the best podcast about Bigfoot ever made soundscompleteradio.substack.com/p/wild-thing...

The new Sounds Complete Radio post is up: A podcast that somehow made me believe maybe, just maybe, Bigfoot might just be real. Not really — but WILD THING is that good. soundscompleteradio.substack.com/p/wild-thing...

Always love walking past James Smith and Sons in London. Always tempted to pop in and buy a sword cane in case I need to fight a duel at the opera

Are labour really going to do a leadership challenge 2 weeks out from a nationally significant budget

It’s not bad luck it’s structural. Parties now select leaders based on direct democracy by absolute freaks, party members, and MPs are doing one of the worst jobs imaginable (with a genuine risk of death!) for the same money a supermarket manager or trainee lawyer gets. bsky.app/profile/will...

My first post on Sounds Complete Radio is up — about one of the wildest & most meaningful shows I’ve ever worked on: Harsh Reality: The Story of Miriam Rivera It's a story about a transwoman, a reality TV nightmare, and how we told her story as an award-winning podcast with a largely trans team.

Right, like this whole exchange is one of the funniest things I’ve ever read and really only works in print (or maybe, like, a Werner Herzog documentary.) Anyway @matthewdessem.bsky.social please know that I think about this interview all the time, it’s a masterpiece.

My last word on the matter

Absolutely delightful interview with Joe Marler, this: www.thetimes.com/article/7778...

Unbelievably and unaccountably, yes

I think the correct BBC response her is "GET FUCKED TANGO MAN, we'll see you in court", rely on a defence of truth (because he *did* incite that riot) and then hope for an Oliver Wilde situation in court. www.ft.com/content/94c6...

James Bond’s death in No Time to Die is causing a nightmare for the next film. Writers are stuck because Bond “was blown to pieces.” Anthony Horowitz, author of three 007 novels, says: “You can't have him wake up in shower and saying it was all a dream." radaronline.com/p/james-bond...

It’s really complex and about states of mind. Upper class is very very limited - high hereditary aristocracy basically. I knew a *literal heir to a baronetcy* who said they were middle class because they didn’t have an estate and he’d only been to a minor private school. bsky.app/profile/zach...

Welcome to Derry really interesting. Great kids on bikes vibe, superb horror moments (the lampshade! The creepy family car! Aaargh). Great decision to build a cast then kill some, nobody feels safe. Don’t feel like it’s going anywhere but kind of don’t mind.