Laura Poitras’s doc Cover-Up, about Seymour Hersh’s reporting from 1969 to the present, is oddly comforting: it’s not all getting worse, it’s always the same uniform shower of shits in power there always has been

Dr No: Academic Dissent from the Johnson era to Trump

Nearly time for the family to gather around the telly for the annual ritual rewatch of Satantango on Christmas Day eve

Always lovely to wake up on Christmas Day to a Daily Work Flow reminder from your employer

My annual reminder of the structural inequalities of capitalist modernity

Knives Out: Wake Up Script Editor (and cut at least 45 Minutes, for the Love of God)

Gotta Christmas light?

Well, Henry, what do you know?

Me: But how do I pay you? I just want to know how to give you some money. Chatbot: I'm sorry, I don't understand this question, could you try a simpler question?

My book of the year (so far!)

Nice cozy Christmas chat about atrocity then!

Monday: double emergency fluffy kitten

Favourite moment at fab Robert Plant concert last night, average audience age about 71, were the enthusiastic cheers at the opening bars of Ramble On followed by a fair bit of shushing. Rock on, dudes

finally, my time has come. KILL THEM ALL.

Victorian teetotalers, life insurance & health: Dr @jameskneale.bsky.social’s Temperance Lives shows how insurers shaped drinking habits 🏛️💼🍷. Read more 👇 tinyurl.com/ucl-temp #UCLGeography #VictorianBritain #Temperance #LifeAssurance #History @bloomsburyhist.bsky.social @bloomsburyhist.bsky.social

Nearly there, but here’s a Friday mid-morning emergency fluffy kitten just in case.

Brand new barista whispered to herself as she served me “wow, do we actually charge that much for a cup of tea?”

Sad to hear of death of Michael Slater, the brilliant Dickens scholar and best source of scurrilous gossip about the post-war London subculture of gay men in the 50s and 60s. His recollection of being supervised by Lord Cecil, who was always mystifyingly in his tin bath, was worth the entry alone.

There’s a man in back of here. He’s the one who’s doing it.

Somehow I think this board game I’ve been randomly sent is not going to take off this Xmas

Just saw a screening of Kazakh Scary Tales, which is 20% Twin Peaks, 25% Von Trier’s The Kingdom, 5% Mighty Boosh and 50% nasty Kazakh folk tale horror — what’s not to like?!

Here is your Wednesday lunchtime/shouty budget emergency fluffy kitten

Proof that campuses continue to be radically divided, even as holiday season approaches

Here is your Tuesday afternoon emergency fluffy kitten

Here is your Monday morning emergency fluffy kitten

At the end of a dream this morning I woke up as I said, in Patrick Bateman’s voice: ‘I need to return Kazuo Ishiguro’s video tapes’

I made the mistake of looking myself up on Amazon and the algorithm immediately posted me some suggestions of things I might also like

Good piece. Hard to remember the absolute shower of shits that were culture secretaries under the Tories, who left the library to sink under attack because all populists hate cultural institutions

Home Office, just now

This is what happens if you leave the To Do list out of the fridge over the weekend

Many film-makers must be haunted by that line in ep 2 of Mr Scorsese when he remembers that after a screening of Boxcar Bertha John Cassavetes pulled him in for a hug and said ‘What are you doing? You’ve just spent a year of your life making shit!’ This came to mind watching The Running Man today.

Next Saturday!

Friday

Categories include: Most Insensitive Friday Afternoon email about ‘Downsizing Staff Resource’; Most Preposterously Inappropriate Online Wellbeing Provision; Best All-Staff Reply Email Meltdown; the Golden Boot for Best foot-in-mouth Communication. Good luck everyone!

Broadcasting House, just now

Someone has finally unlocked the perfect combination of words to guarantee I will immediately say yes to a request. This is niche, but for future reference, the question was: 'Would you be interested in talking to a group of Norwegian architectural students about corridors?'

Here is today’s emergency fluffy kitten

Long lost Mighty Boosh joke: ‘I told you not to mess with the occult!’ ‘Really? I thought it was good for your digestion.’ ‘No, that’s Yakult.’

Still no apology for Celia Imrie's fart. Completely disgusted.

This morning's best autoreply so far, sadly not from Vampire Quarterly, however: 'You have already been uninvited.'

Hoy a las 16:00 estaré de nuevo en el #Festival42, esta vez charlando sobre fantástico oscuro con @franceshardinge.bsky.social , @benaaronovitch.bsky.social , @theprofrog.bsky.social y @gradyhendrix.bsky.social . Se puede ver en streaming también. share.google/8B4lH3jCf5vy...

I pressed the button on this AIPhone in the elevator and a voice told me I was Montgomery Clift and that the telephone was invented by Carthusian monks in the 11th century

Airport waiting lounge logic: it’s now 12 noon, you can legitimately commence shovelling lunch even though breakfast was 3 hours ago.

Fantastic clash: what if Academic Board just read some Heidegger?

Gearing up for a couple of sessions at #Festival42BCN later this week, around Spanish edition of the Graveyards book!

@theprofrog.bsky.social examines a human history of burial rituals and how we honor the dead.

"In working on this project, I developed a kind of double vision – reading the signs of the metropolis for the necropolis that is always hidden inside it." Be sure to check out Graveyards author @theprofrog.bsky.social's new essay: press.princeton.edu/ideas/scratc... #ReadUP #History #Halloween

I did this interview with the lovely Mark Lynch for WICN Public Radio. Gotta love your NPR stations, people! Happy Halloween.