In 2017 Yvon Chouinard, founder of @patagonia.com was so appalled to be included on a list of Forbes billionaires that he became determined to give away his company. And his $6 billion fortune. I learnt this in fascinating new biog by @dgelles.bsky.social 🧵

"Swan Bake" was a headline – and a false one at that – from the Sun way back in 2003. How long before Farage claims Freddie Starr ate his hamster?

I am not surprised Amazon has axed its Amazon Fresh convenience stores. They just weren't very good. I wrote about them back in 2023:

To John Lewis Oxford street Christmas shop to examine 2025’s festive chocolate, bauble and sex toy trends. Yes, you read that correctly…🧵

May I venture to suggest “Toward that white line 100 metres in front of you”?

It literally has boundaries.

💰🍔I’ve only once met the Duchess of York. Way back in 2006 when I was on a journalist trip to McDonald’s HQ in Chicago. I’m not sure integrity is her middle name…

Separation of church and state going well

Do HR execs now see their job as not just making workers more productive & engaged? Do they see their job as changing culture? Even policing workers’ social media posts. Here’s my long read in Sunday Times Mag on how HR took over the workplace: www.thetimes.com/article/2d1a...

Many of these surveys are used to calculate workplace “engagement”. Which then are used to calculate CEO bonuses. E.g Charlie Nunn, ceo of Lloyds Bank, received a bonus of £1.27m last year some of which was decided on a “culture and colleague engagement score”

Back in 2010 there were 284,000 HR workers in the UK. Last year there 476,000. Partly, this has led to a surge in workplace training & engagement surveys. “Do you have a best friend at work?” etc

There are now more HR workers than lawyers or doctors in the UK. How did a job – once a back-office function – become so central to the UK workplace? I’ve investigated in today’s Sunday Times Magazine…🧵

Oh, the deliciousness of a properly coruscating review. In which Graeme Richardson tears into TikTok poet Len Pennie in Sunday Times Culture And suggests some of her writing might not be, err, completely her own…

🇬🇧🇧🇼Pretty dire performance from TeamGB at World Championships. No gold medal. Which means if Collen Kebinatshipi, the Botswana 400m runner, was a whole country, he would have been higher than GB on the medal table.

There are now more HR workers than lawyers or doctors in the UK. How did a job – once a back-office function – become so central to the UK workplace? I’ve investigated in today’s Sunday Times Magazine…🧵

🏃‍♀️👩‍🎓 Amy Hunt – who has won v impressive silver medal🥈 at Athletics World Champs for @TeamGB – has an English degree from Cambridge. "You can be an academic badass and a track goddess."

🕵️'Bossware'. A useful tool for managers to ensure staff are not spending their days 'working from home' working on their golf/side-hustle? Or creepy and self-defeating – generating a lack of trust between workers and their managers? This week's @thetimes.com biz column...👇

Today is the 81st anniversary of Operation Market Garden. In which Mjr Digby Tatham-Warter went into battle with an umbrella. And led a bayonet charge against a tank. Successfully.

Times births column today

No scene in movie history captures the pre-Google journalistic thrill of tracking down a crucial source – and them answering the phone! – more than this 6mins of Robert Redford... youtu.be/Qeemjaosp-E?...

The BBC has the rights to World Championship Athletics. It’s produced some amazing sport. But all we get is a very rushed 29mins highlights on iPlayer. Can’t we get a bit more, BBC Sport? A bit of analysis?

Not sure there are many newspaper journalists over the age 40 who weren’t desperately hoping that – one day – Robert Redford would play them in a film. RIP to the handsomest actor

Steven Bartlett proving, once again, that Maths is his forte.

Is this going to be like HIGNFY after Angus Deayton got caught with the hookers?

🍔🍕🍜 I’m looking to speak to anyone who’s recently eaten at a ‘casual dining’ outlet (Waga/Byron/Pizza Exp etc), been presented with the bill and thought: “How much?!😱” Or stopped eating out regularly because of menu 📈 It’s for a Magazine piece about UK high street restaurants. Get in touch!

Mondo Duplantis has just broken the pole vault world record. Again. 6m 30cm. Which means he has now jumped the 14 highest heights in history. A sensational athlete.

Prue Leith’s son has joined the fruitcakes…

🎄🦃 I’ve spent the last week at a lot of the supermarket ‘Chistmas in September’ events. Trying a lot of wild new food – so you don’t have to. Strap in…🧵

Employment Tribunals have leapt from 34,000 to 42,000 in the last year. Have workplaces become more racist? Are bosses more sexist? Or…is Chat GPT making it easier for workers – who have a grievance – to lodge a claim? This week’s @thetimes.com biz column: www.thetimes.com/article/a284...

A story in three acts. The Burger King £12 Wagyu burger…

found out what former Wondery COO Jeanine Wright is up to: flooding the internet with unlistenable AI podcasts Her company has put out around 156,000 AI podcast episodes in two years and has averaged about 64 listens per podcast total in that time (less than one download a week)

Today is the ten year anniversary of my proudest ever achievement in publishing, RUSHOMON: the time I got both a Rush Hour Crush and a Good Deed printed on the same page of the UK Metro, both of which told a single, horrifying, story from two different angles. It's been all downhill ever since.

I regret to inform all sane people that M&S has launched Marmite caramel sauce and some Marmite-infused brownies.

Meat Liquor, the upmarket burger chain, has closed its Leeds branch citing the cost of doing business/consumer slowdown. The next few months is likely to see more announcements of closures in the hospitality industry.

What an amazing tale. From illegal immigrant to Ambassador via Oxford Uni. (From Fraser Nelson’s column in @thetimes.com)

💰 🛥️ £300 million super yachts. Symbols of the worst excesses of late-stage capitalism? Or 21st Century versions of Medieval cathedrals – employing 1000s of skilled craftsmen? I visited some Dutch super yacht shipyards to find out…

“We will police the streets and not the tweets and change all that damaging legislation,” says Nigel Farage on stage at Reform – just after welcoming the minister responsible for passing the Online Safety Act onto the stage with him, and into his party.

Driverless cars may get all the attention, but why not rubber car mats? This week's @thetimes.com biz column is on entrepreneurs that make small improvements to our daily lives through great, simple product design. Such as the Aeropress, Zyliss Easy Pull and WeatherTech mats. Full column below 👇

“If someone sees a tweet they think might qualify as hate speech, just reporting it to moderators is no longer an option. They either have to just tolerate it and do absolutely nothing, or they have to report it to police.” www.jamesrball.com/p/why-are-so...

Lovely to be at the launch of Eleanor Doughty’s book, Heirs & Graces, about the aristocracy. And by page 2 I’ve already come across a cracking anecdote about the 9th Duke of Marlborough…

John Lewis and TopShop have announced a partnership. In February 2026, the brand (now owned by ASOS) will be stocked in 36 John Lewis dept stores. The pleather jacket (£85) is one of the products. John Lewis hopes the brand will help it attract younger shoppers – and their nostalgic mothers

Melvyn Bragg is a titan of broadcasting and In Our Time is the very best of BBC radio. But, arguably, he should have stood down a year or two ago. He’s noticeably less sharp than he used to be – and the format relies on a forensic chair to lead the show.

Busy man

First Direct online banking is having a bit of a shocker. Had a payment (made over the phone) declined at 11.30am. And I can’t access my online current account. Now it’s 1pm…

Amazing nomenclature etymology via Dr James Fox’s ‘Craftland’. Who knew Kelloggs were originally pork butchers? (In a review in @thetimes.com Culture)

Two years late to this but what a wonderful, totally engrossing, book. Helped, I think, by not have read or really knowing David Copperfield – so every character and twist & turn were, to me, freshly minted.

Been out of the country for a week. And suddenly it appears to be a good time to be a manufacturer of flags…🤷 Genuinely curious when this happened. As many as 1-in-8 or so footbridges across M6 have 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 on them.

In Carrefour supermarkets, France you can buy Carrefour Playmobil. Cute

🧸 🚂 Gary Grant is an unusual businessman. Not because he’s giving away his toy shop business to his staff. But because he talks about God. I interviewed him for @thetimes.com: (Here in The Entertainer HQ where all meeting rooms are themed)

🫐The blueberry. Arguably, the world’s most successful fruit. It was cultivated for 1st time in 1916, and wasn’t sold in UK supermarkets until 1990s. But M&S now make more money from 🫐 than 🍏 & 🍐 combined. What’s the blueberry’s secret? I wanted to find out…1/6🧵