This arrived today 😁. Even up to this moment there's this lurking voice in the back of my mind that the uni will eventually catch up with me and realise that this idiot has been blagging it all along, and there's no way his shoddy thesis is phd-worthy. But they can't take it back now!!

Last Thursday, after years of steady decline, Tinks finally succumbed. She just became too ill. After 19 years together we're devastated. It's true that that decision you need to make at the end is the terrible price you have to pay for decades of love & company. So long, Tinks. You were best.

If I have any credibility with you from 20 years of reporting on rightwing & fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Leave aside morality: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite & we would not win.

The challenge I see for the new leadership is to not allow the vote to coalesce around one type of voter (urban, progressive, uni town), but use the non-sectarian goodwill the Greens have across most voting blocks to show how we're ALL being screwed - working class, middle class, farmers, urban etc

Draw the line. Join the Green Party today ⤵️ join.greenparty.org.uk?utm_source=s...

So, a London Jewish former actor, a northern Muslim gardener, and a community arts and conservation champion from the midlands are the new Green Party leadership team. If nothing else, this is going to absolutely annoy all the right people! greenparty.org.uk/members/inte...

Finally finished submitted PhD thesis revisions. Now with added Foucault! 6 months of revisions has transformed my thesis from a shoddy mess into something that actually isn't too bad (I hope). Spending the rest of the day reading *fiction* (vaguely remember that!) in the corner of a cosy pub.

Watching the Proms playing John Williams'woderful film music on BBC4. I always imagine how the Jurassic Park conversation went between Williams and Steven Spielberg:

This is a dark, long night. We think Tinks is fading fast - this evening she started staggering around, banging into things, staring at the wall for ages, looks really confused & a bit scared. So I'm standing vigil tonight to make sure she's comfortable until we take her to the vet in the morning...

The Trevor Francis of women's football (if you know, you know!). Positive news, I suppose, raising the profile of women's football & valuing the player's worth in the hyper-capitalist f/ball market. Just bummed it had to be my beloved LFC losing an amazing player www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Has...has anyone congratulated @zaltzcricket.bsky.social on his sterling cover star turn on indie royalty Half Man Half Biscuit's new album All Asimov and No Fresh Air? Talk about hiding your light under a bushel, Andy. @thebugle.bsky.social @lastweektonight.com

Don't mess with me and my Gorky's! Britpopple #1043 🔊🟩⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ #Britpopple #Heardle @Britpopple britpopple.glitch.me

Ever since I joined the Greens (20-odd years ago) I've always argued that we are unique in having the policies and vocabulary to talk & appeal to all working people in all areas: farmers, small businesses, uni grads, minimum wage workers, public & private sector employees, & even environmentalists!

🥀 Labour as you knew them are dead; don’t let Starmer hold your vote hostage any longer. 🤝 Help us build better, for the many. Step 1: join.greenparty.org.uk Step 2: Vote for Zack in the leadership election. #BackZack

I made a Downfall video

We can be the unapoletic voice in UK politics standing up for ALL working people (whatever their colour or nationality), tackling climate change, challenging neoliberalism & going toe-to-toe w/ Reform and other fascists (because nobody else seems to be willing). Right behind you, Zack ✊️

[email protected] has been the highlight of my year since I can remember. I even tune into the national heats of other countries & follow them for months leading up to the big day. But as of last year I refuse to celebrate a competition that cheers a state that dances & sings while it commits genocide

Met Samuel Jackson in a Liverpool cafe when he was filming 51st State. Because I was/am a giggling idiot, I just went over and said 'Are you Samuel Jackson'. To which he simply peered over his coffee and said, 'Sometimes, yeah.' I wilted in his brilliant shadow and retreated, far too cool for me 🤣

Our Tinkerbell turns 19 this year. Born in 2006. She was alive when Milosovich & Saddam were, when you could still smoke in pubs, Blair was still PM, Obama was still a Chicago senator, financial markets hadn't crashed. She's older than the iPhone. She's... seen things other cats wouldn't believe!

Just watched Holy Grail at the cinema. The last scene, ending the film like that, is Python's greatest, most enduring joke they've ever played on us. As soon as the film finished the lights went up & I turned to look at rows of bemused faces (mostly young) nervously wondering what just happened! 👏👏👏

If you look at most things wrong with Britain, whether latent iffy racism, stupidity combined with confidence and power, the decline of cricket because it is so badly run, or terrible middle of the road music. The origin is in many cases simple. "Private schooling".

Of course he is, by the way, a private school boy who thinks everything should revolve around him.

3 men in the pub last night complaining about the price of their round. Me: 'I know. It's just quite an expensive place. Sorry.' Him: 'No wonder Nigel Farage is taking back control.' Me: 'Yes, I'm sure Farage will bring down the lager prices here.' Him: 'It's not about that. It's about the boats!'

Good luck today to #LFCWomen in the Merseyside derby at Anfield. I tried to be there, but our trains are so goddamn awful that I literally couldn't get a train from 45 miles up the road to arrive in Liverpool before the midday KO today. Rail nationalisation really can't come soon enough.

So, sadly, that's a fortnight break in New York this summer cancelled. Just can't support/legitimise a fash government. Besides, I absolutely can't trust that ICE wouldn't throw me in prison with my (fairly light) history of environmental protest.

Tinkerbell is 19 this month, and is tired of your nonsense.

The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters

'This is for the 3 biggest c*nts in the world: Trump, Netanyahu and Musk.' And then launches into 'Which Side Are You On?' @dropkickmurphys.com last night representing white America NOT lost to the darkness.

In a pub in Manchester for a few drinks before bobbing over to the Academy to see the @dropkickmurphys.com, and for the first time in my life, @ricardoautobahn.co.uk's opus Teenage Life blasts over the speakers, to surprising cheers and a singalong. Dropkick crowd, man. Diverse (and quite old!).

So you can all (finally) call me Dr. Matt 😁

Me, reading an academic paper: This is really interesting. This new knowledge is fascinating and exciting. Reading my own PhD thesis (prep for viva): What the hell is this shoddy nonsense?! Badly written, sloppy methods with the most obvious conclusions. They're gonna laugh me out of the room 🤣😪

My friend can't come with me to the soldout @dropkickmurphys.bsky.social gig at the @manchesteracademy.bsky.social on Thursday 6th Feb (this week). So I'm selling his ticket, and I'm going solo, baby! Standard price. Selling it on Ticketswap here. www.ticketswap.com/listing/drop...

It is ten years today since I got my favourite ever Rush Hour Crush published in the Metro.

Of all the clubs, of all the cities. Almost worth wanting it to happen, if only to see him walk into Anfield as the new king and see him met by 2 hours of utter, foul-mouthed contempt from 50,000 scousers. Repeatedly. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

I've just had a final full health sign off from the ENT specialist after a shitty Christmas & ny. A lovely Chilean GP saw me just before Christmas in an emergency appointment. The charge nurse on my ward was Caribbean & the ENT chap was from Latvia. Bloody immigrants, keeping our NHS going! ❤️

Well this makes me feel quite vindicated. Since day 1 I've shouted into the void that something like VAR has no place in football, that it would damage the game rather than help. But I could never get further than "Because it's a game of chaos and fine margins. That’s the joy & how it should be run'

Our Tinkerbell turns 19 this year. Born in 2006. She was alive when Milosovich & Saddam were, when you could still smoke in pubs, Blair was still PM, Obama was still a Chicago senator, financial markets hadn't crashed. She's older than the iPhone. She's... seen things other cats wouldn't believe!

Hear we go again 🤣

I've long said this. January is a terrible time to give up booze or start running in the freezing cold. Batten down the hatches, prioritise cosiness, enjoy your favourite things and wait til winter breaks. Spring sunshine encourages rebirth in so many ways.

Over at Dame Magazine I wrote about how America's right wing propaganda problem--and our bipartisan refusal to take media reform seriously--might very well be terminal:

A reminder that the complexity of our world is due to nested systems interacting with each other to affect the whole. There just aren't any easy answers to be had to complex problems.

Mentioned this to my girlfriend tonight, and she said "Not really. The problem is that these sex robots still aren't being programmed to understand women's pleasure or needs. Because they're still being made by men." She's researched this pretty thoroughly...

I've come to realise that growing up doesn't necessarily mean stopping those hedonistic nights out. Rather, it means cleaning the house & getting in morning-after supplies before heading out, so recovery the next day/s is in a clean living room & there's no need to leave the safety of the couch.

The last image of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya — detained by Israel for refusing to abandon patients — defines 2024. It’s a testament to Palestinian resilience & a damning indictment of those enabling genocide, including the UK government. In 2025, the fight for justice continues.

As the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, 'environmentalism' must be an issue of racial, social, and economic justice. Otherwise, it's just gardening.

I was pointed in the direction of this interview with @lewisgoodall.com - it's very indicative of what's going wrong with politics. Of course this isnt one person or podcasts fault but it's very revealing of why we get the politics we've got. youtu.be/1Gy2sTZY6Ds?... 🧵/10

Ghostbusters, one of my favourite ever films. Though revisiting recently. Bill Murray's character Pete Venkmen plays an absolute predatory dick, from the opening scene currying favour with an research participant, until the closing credits where he takes advantage of a traumatised Sigourney Weaver.

Wonder, if applied here, we could make the evidential link between the Tories' austerity and the rise of far right/Faragism in the UK?

A truly important piece of work that shows how government failure can lead to support for the radical right. By @catherinedevries.bsky.social and colleagues.

I’ve reported on homelessness for years and met many, many people who have found themselves in awful situations Every single one of them had more decency and integrity than this privileged plutocrat