An impartial journalist might contextualise the Belfast knife attack with *evidence*: 282 knife offences every day on average & foreign born nationals under-represented in violent crime. Chris Mason spoke instead of right wing *narratives* of migrants, borders & crime. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cr...

Of course. As long as they have children.

If FIFA had any morals or ethics they would shut the World Cup down now due to the barring of fans, referees etc. I guess they could remove their peace prize too while they are at it. About as likely as England winning it, I suppose.

Let me guess. There will have to be some kind of 'upload' filter that determines whether the images are suitable. What could go wrong? Scammers / bad actors will also alight upon this. What could go wrong.

I can see no issues with this whatsoever, no sirree.

There is so much '80's session bass playing' on Nikita it is almost nauseating.

Decided I needed to reappraise Elton John after a lifetime of avoidance. Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word is a great song and Rocket Man is a good one. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is also strong. But man is there some dross - Crocodile Rock, Nikita, Blue Eyes etc. So very much a mixed bag....

Here is the mise en scene for tonight's Reform messaging from the BBC.

As you say @sturdyalex.bsky.social , once you start looking for the bias.....

So the BBC 6 o'clock news' 'analysis' of why so many UK young people are unemployed is that the minimium wage is too high and employment rights are too expensive - all delivered over a light blue 'graphics' background (hmm, Reform?). The only 'expert' we heard from was a CEO wanting cuts for both.

Turn on BBC Radio 5 Live Drive. "Send us a recording of where you are right now...." Turn off BBC Radio 5 Live Drive.

The relentless enshittification of Amazon UK continues. Magazines are no longer 'suscribable' on Kindle Unlimited - every month you now have to manually request them one by one. And they've cut the range available. So goodbye Kindle Unlimited and I'm on the lookout for a cheap Kobo.

I'm old enough to remember when Bjorn Borg attempted a disastrous comeback in 1991. I see Tony Blair is in the news today.

The fine margins of football management. Media is now full of presenters and pundits hailing 'Arteta's genius'. If Man City had pipped them to the title, I guarantee those same pundits would have been telling us Arteta 'lacks the bottle' to win things etc etc History is written by the victors...

I mean how obvious does it need to be that we are messing with things we have no control over. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

It's Mr Makerfield. Make me a PM, writes Andy from Manchester.

Tuesday - sign up for 2 year contract with Virgin Media. Thursday: www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news...

Continually amused that young folk think making their car sound like a cross between a wheezing asthmatic and a misfiring pneumatic drill equals cool.

Train Dreams is the best film I've seen this year. Beautiful, unhurried, deeply emotive film-making.

Already getting tired of Reform spokespeople doing the "left-leaning journalist" swerve on anyone asking them a pertinent question.

This, a lot.

Feral capitalism update. Contract with Virgin Media ending and they want to increase the price by 100%. Attempt to contact them via their web chat service as can't call It tries to hook me up with Whatsapp Fails ("there is an problem at our end"). Web chat just hangs regardless of input 1/many

Polanski must be doing something right - the media are really going for him now.

Watching Villa vs Spurs. Jadon Sancho looks like a pub team player (although that is probably an insult to pub teams).

Blimey, there is a lot of this about at the moment. "Human beaten by machine custom-designed to do one thing only" If that's the criteria it feels like we've been 'losing' since the Industrial Revolution. www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

"Accept the deal or we blow everything up" is an interesting way to entice people to peace talks.

Hmm - a F1 car could do it in around 6 minutes. And the point is (they are both machines)?

I guess it cuts costs to have 'expert insight' on events from 'anyone who happens to ring into the station'

BBC 5 Live - what are you doing? In their sports news at 730, they have a comment about how Arteta is potentially 'unprofessional' on the touchline and getting to his own players. And who is this 'expert'? A Man City fan who has just rang into their 606 phone in.

Starmer can't win this. If he says he didn't know then he just looks incredibly incompetent. If he says he did know, then he brands himself a liar. He'll be gone by next week.

Thinking a great deal about the FIFA Peace Prize.

Armageddon is terrible, but our only other option was diversity trainings at work.

Tips hat to Guardian headline writer.

Much as I think the Artemis stuff is inspiring, it does underline how incredibly slow our 'best tech' still is. We aren't going anywhere in the universe unless we invent something faster by a factor of 10,000.

Enjoyable game night last night with Lockup and Ristorante Italia. Lockup was an interesting 'variable strength' worker placement - with a fair bit of interactivity. I thought Ristorante Italia had a lot of charm as you built up your menus - but I was the only one at the table who did. #boardgames

The world may be going to hell in a hand cart but I have just earned my junior DIY badge by fixing a shower (opening up the cover, replacing bits and all sorts). Maybe I will be able to survive the apocalypse.

'Expert' on 5Live telling us that actually Trump has achieved 'regime change' in Iran as the only leaders that are left are the ones they didn't want to kill......

Anything with Gove on it is an insta-turn off for me. He might be trying to position himself as the new Portillo but all I see is a person who has only ever acted in his own personal interest.

So game night this week will be Thunderworks' Lockup and some 'old school' action with Nefertiti and Ristorante Italia. First plays of all of them. #boardgames

How does this guy keep hitting the journalistic bullseye, week after week?

This is obviously good news. However, it does beg the question: why is UK electricity so freakin' expensive?

Our local Tesco Extra right now.

Great games night last night. Madeira was brilliant (if a little brain burny) - goes into my top 20 games. No one seemed to like Knizia's Meister Makatsu but me but I thought it could be spoken of in the same breath as LAMA. #boardgames

Going to have a crack at Madeira at this week's game night. From the rules, there does seem quite a lot going on! #boardgames

Just listened to @dorianlynskey.bsky.social and @iandunt.bsky.social excellent Origin Story about Stephen Miller. And now I find myself 50% angry, 40% sad & 10% what's the point? The fact someone like him can get within a country mile of power in a democracy demonstrates the US has jumped the tracks

Watched One Battle After Another today. Enjoyed it overall but found it difficult to 'believe' in the characters. Felt I was 'watching a film' rather too much.

It's not clear any more whether Royal Mail 'Tracked 24' is actually talking about days vs hours.

Not sure how many people we'd have left in Britain if "A level English" and "mastery of the language" were the criteria.

All the problems of Britain are caused by 'unfair' rules for immigrants apparently (I personally would have gone with years of under-investment, privatisation, Brexit etc but there you are). And with high graduate unemployment, we really need the highest earners coming in (vs care home workers etc)

Caught a bit of Mahmood's speech. I got "A level English required" and "if you contribute more money, you can become a citizen quicker", all presented as 'Labour values'. I have all I need to know.