Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it's really important you know that the scene in the Seminary's Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.

Packaging and why it matters. 1. The riot of sparkle, rustle and colour in a tub of Cadbury Roses from 1990s 2. The soulless, corporate “flow wraps” that Mondelez now uses. It makes me despair

Georgian wine! Adjika! Half-caff coffee! What are the food and drink trends of 2026? I spoke to chefs & food trend analysts to get their predictions. For @thetimes.com: www.thetimes.com/article/e8cb...

Thoroughly enjoying Andrew Ross Sorkin’s ‘1929’. But I can assure him that Jack Morgan (son of JP Morgan) did not go to Scotland to shoot grouse in June. That would have been illegal. The grouse season, famously, does not start until Aug 12 – ‘The Glorious 12th’.

📻 Back on presenting duties on @listentotimesradio.bsky.social duties 1pm - 4pm. Do tune in – especially if you’re driving home for Christmas…🎶

Back on presenting duties on @listentotimesradio.bsky.social this weekend. Do tune in!

Kylie becomes the first female to have a no1 single in 4 different decades, joining Elvis, Queen, Elton John. Tho’ she’s going to have keep churning out hits for another 5 years to match Cliff Richard – who’s had No1s across 5 decades. www.officialcharts.com/chart-news/c...

🍻🧑‍💼Is free beer for workers a clever way to entice people back to the office? One of the perks at Beyond co-working spaces is that you can help yourself to beer from 3pm. The boss argues offices need an element of socialising, otherwise you might as well Work from home 🧵1/3

Really good long read, interviewing Kristin Cabot, the woman in the Coldplay kisscam scandal. And how her life has been ruined. There are Some lighter moments, including this about Goop!

Don’t worry, chaps. Gail’s is open on Christmas Day! For those tho cannot survive one sodding day without a matcha latte and expensive cinnamon bun.

Revealed: Exactly what a week of drinking is doing to you. HARRY WALLOP took heart, liver, brain and blood tests to find out the truth. Read this before you pick up your next glass December is a time when many of us drink more than normal – that extra glass of mulled wine after the carol concert,…

🍺🍷🥃 Once again, I put my health on the line to conduct cutting-edge and highly dangerous journalism…

Here is my email inbox of press releases right now. Happy Christmas everyone!

not the kind of behavior I expect from the winner of the fifa peace prize

Rob Reiner: I'm going to make a coming of age drama, a fantasy adventure story, a romantic comedy, a psychological horror and then a courtroom drama. Us: Across your entire career? Reiner: In a 6 year period. Us: That sounds- Reiner: -Each one will be arguably the best movie in that genre.

I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork

I think this is rather clever. Certainly as a recruiting tool. Or is it just cheaper than paying these people a decent bonus 😆

My investigation into the disturbing content that YouTube shows to kids. Yes, there’s healthier YouTube Kids but 33% of all children's time spent online is on main YT; 4.5% on YT Kids. mol.im/a/15359375

What does the YouTube algorithm show pre-school kids when they know those kids are into Bluey & Peppa Pig? A weird selection of blood, horror and AI slop. What I discovered after spending a week on YouTube “being” a young kid…

What does the YouTube algorithm show pre-school kids when they know those kids are into Bluey & Peppa Pig? A weird selection of blood, horror and AI slop. What I discovered after spending a week on YouTube “being” a young kid…

Job titles. “Performance Creative Alchemist”, “Director of First Impressions”, "Happiness and Vibe Co-ordinator", "Chief Firestarter". Pretentious twaddle. Or a useful way to stand out from all the other "consultants"....? This week's @thetimes.com biz column www.thetimes.com/business/eco...

🫘🧈🥃Labneh, burnt butter, a jar of Bold Beans, Spanish vermouth. Is your pantry on trend? Every year, Waitrose publishes a food and drink report, analysing what it claims are the hot trends. I took a look for @thetimes.com...

Here's the 1996 paper in which Baum proposes the paradigm shift regarding the mechanism by which breast cancer metastasizes: medicaljournalssweden.se/actaoncologi...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

What’s gone wrong at @zipcar.bsky.social? It would seem perfectly suited to UK market where owning your own car is v expensive. But people often need short-term rental…

Tom Stoppard anecdote via David Mamet. This has the whiff of 'too good to be true'. But I love it anyway...

Perfect Tom Stoppard story from DTel obituary: His response to a letter from Harold Pinter canvassing support for a proposal to have the Comedy Theatre in London rechristened the Pinter Theatre, “Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?”

So sad to hear about Tom Stoppard. Such a supreme writer of dialogue. From the zingers in ‘Indiana Jones & the Last Crusade’. To the cricket bat scene – when Henry demonstrates bad writing vs good writing – in ‘The Real Thing’. Loved his work so much.

I’m pleased to see @FTMag has picked up on the joy of a fruit sticker album as a Christmas gift. I’ve long been a fan…🍌🍎🍍🍋

Does LinkedIn have a problem? With the way it encourages us to communicate. 🥊 In Ernest-Heminway manqué, muscular prose. In punchy, paragraphs. 🏃 Sometimes four words long? 💥 Or two? 🤔 Each starting with an emoji...? I wrote about LinkedIn’s problem in my column…

Fascinating TFL journey data. Londoners are taking 20% fewer daily trips than 12yrs ago. It's not just WFH, it's fewer shopping trips, fewer evenings out. Via (the always interesting @londoncentric.media).

👅🐷 🎁 Aldi has made some lickable pigs-in-blanket wrapping paper. Why? I don’t know. But I licked it so you don’t have to.

Can I congratulate the casting director of Prisoner 951 (BBC drama about Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe). Richard Ratcliffe, played by Joseph Fiennes, and his father, played by Nicholas Farrell, look remarkably like father & son.

Is this a warning…?

Times births column today

It’s my birthday today. England’s dismal #Ashes performance has taken edge off celebrations. So I thought I’d treat myself to a free bun from Gail’s. Wait! You now have to make a purchase to get your free treat?! When did Gail’s do this? Why does everything get worse?

Ben Stokes! Truly, one of the great Englishmen of all time. Philip Sidney, Horatio Nelson, Winston Churchill – he's up there with them. When all else is bleak, Ben Stokes can guarantee to swell your heart with pride

📣“27 people have bought this in the last hour!” Why are so many retailing websites so shouty. And frankly so ugly? This week’s @thetimes.com biz column: www.thetimes.com/article/a022...

Any sponsors of the The O2 / music industry bods who have x2 spare tickets to #Radiohead in London this week…I will pay full cover price + admin etc!

Scotland! Scenes!!

🧑‍💼🖥️Meetings. How did they take over many office workers' lives. And how can we do them better? I'm trying to track down a few people who feel they spend *all day* in meetings. Who have, say, 15+hrs of meetings a week. And are willing to talk to me for an article... Can be anonymous. Get in touch!

Here is my piece in Sunday Times Magazine on indoor salmon farming. And why keeping 60,000 fish inside indoor tanks might be a better option. Explaining why the likes of Abel & Cole and – possibly soon – Rick Stein’s Restaurants think it’s the future 🧵/ends www.thetimes.com/article/f512...

So we need to farm it better. The Icelandic indoor farm says mortality rates are 3% or less. They can’t escape. The filters stop any pollution. The fish are healthier Is it really the future. And are the fish happy indoors? I investigated for the Sunday Times Magazine 5/🧵

🍣🇯🇵We could switch to wild Pacific salmon. Not endangered. But – oddly – we’ve learnt to love farmed salmon more than wild. Salmon was not eaten as sushi in Japan until 1980s – but took off thanks to Norwegian marketing. We now love fattier & milder farmed salmon. 4/6🧵

Farmed salmon a) can escape & breed with wild salmon – diluting wild 🐟 genes b) cause pollution. Their 💩 damage lochs & fjords c) on av. about 20% of farmed salmon die every year. On some farms it’s as high as 80%. We could stop eating salmon. But it’s nutritious protein 3/🧵

Why indoors? 1st Let’s look at the huge 📈 in salmon farming & consumption. Salmon were 1st farmed commercially in early 1970s. In 1974 av UK adult ate just 2g of salmon a week. Now it’s UK’s most popular fish. By far. We eat £1.5bn it p.a. But it’s causing huge problems 2/6🧵

🍣 🇮🇸 This is an indoor salmon farm in Iceland. A tank the size of x1.5 Olympic swimming pool. It contains 60,000 adult salmon. Indoor salmon farming is championed as the future. Better for fish & the environment. I investigated these claims for Sunday Times Magazine…🧵1/6

🍣 🇮🇸 This is an indoor salmon farm in Iceland. A tank the size of x1.5 Olympic swimming pool. It contains 60,000 adult salmon. Indoor salmon farming is championed as the future. Better for fish & the environment. I investigated these claims for Sunday Times Magazine…🧵1/6

In 1965, the average US chief executive was paid x21 the average worker. In 2023 this was x290. Is Warren Buffett – once the world’s richest man – right when he says this has been driven by “envy and greed”?

🍞In the 1940s, UK households ate around 1.6kg of bread per person per week (two whole standard sliced loaves). In 2024, it was 446g. Bread consumption has halved since 1989. Interesting fact from latest Defra / ONS Family Food Survey. A few more to come...