We’re on our way to see the new house and are finding the train really quite stressful!!

I’ll never forget my ex, then aged 26, saying out of nowhere, “oh, SHAUN the sheep!! Like shorn!!”

Professor of engineering at Oxford 🤝 toddlers.

If this intends to make it legally compulsory for every adult in Derry to carry something called a "Brit Card", then I'm willing to offer some high-paid consultancy on why this plan might be flawed.

Mo Salah remains the footballing love of my life, my number one, my all-time fave, but we are fast becoming a Chiesa-obsessed household

One of the best shows on television right now, can’t understand how it doesn’t get more gushing hype

Well, the solicitors insist on communicating solely with J but as I understand it, it's done. We've bought a house. Thank you Granny, couldn't have done it without the inheritance. I think she'd be thoroughly pleased - not least because I finally have a garden.

Every day I have to learn about a guy with untold power and influence who I would not trust to fill up my car

Crowd singing Jota’s song at the twentieth minute still making me cry

Christ that was a proper agency-type day, that was. Newsletter for a fuel supplier, blog plans for a coworking space provider, case study planning for a renewables company, social posts for a medical supplies firm. My brain!!!

Repost for Irish Film Classifications by Damien Owens, because it's just come up in FB memories and it's still *brilliant*.

Going for dinner & drinks in a couple of weeks to celebrate a pal's resoundingly successful cancer treatment and her little stepdaughter wants to join us briefly at the start so she can "chit chat with the grown-up ladies" and my God, MY HEART

Springsteen's birthday today. A good day to remember the time my mate couldn't remember his name or nickname and called him The Job.

The National Trust is a good one because it's undeniably Tory coded and it's a government-funded organisation dedicated to taking land and mansions off the aristocracy and opening them up to public use.

Springer spaniels, champagne, and Vaughan Williams (but this is misleading because RVW was in fact very progressive).

“Some say”, “controversial”, “experts disagree”. Just say they’re talking bollocks, man, the world is ending and we haven’t got time for this

we have gone from a world in which we were told not to cite wikipedia because it was unreliable to a world where wikipedia might be the only reliable source left on the internet and we all owe a lot to the pedantic nerds who got us there

Just watched J cancel the Disney subscription and in the 'reason for cancellation' free text box he typed "You know."

I am sad to be moving out of Brighton and so am drafting the inevitable Substack about leaving here after a decade (don't say you weren't expecting it). Just tallied up the number of pubs that are within a ten-minute walk of my flat and I think it's more than 12??? How can I leave this city?!?!

Just lay in bed having a panic about house-buying money only to get up and discover I was panicking about numbers I'd entirely made up.

Rude of series three of The Newsreader to appear with no warning!! Extremely glad to have its soapy plots and bombastic eighties soundtrack back!!

People getting the internet at home meant young men no longer got a basic grounding in arthouse cinema while looking for nudity on TV.

this exists it is called thinking

J back from Romania, with a suitcase full of yet more Brancusi books. Dog following him round the flat like a lost sheep. My gift is a notebook (naturally).

Anticipating a stressful day (I'm the only one working today), I looked at our booze stash at TEN THIS MORNING to ensure we had the necessary ingredients for a 6pm emergency negroni. Turns out I was right to do so.

Those pesky intellectually curious young people, going to university in pursuit of research and knowledge. I say it almost daily now but: Jesus fucking Christ, Labour

Say what you will about them but at least Change UK managed to have a Nando’s dinner first

Interesting to note the household items that last much longer with a husband out of the house for ten days. Food, mostly.

2 of my colleagues have just absolutely terrified our 25-year-old male art worker with tales of their respective perimenopause experiences. I reckon it'll stand him in good stead.

every headline today: "Man Who Could Absolutely Get It Dies at 89"

Yes Robert Redford did some excellent films but let's not forget he was also in that masterpiece The Horse Whisperer, seducing an uptight Kristin Scott Thomas with his rugged outdoorsy horse-taming ways

my favorite robert redford story is that mike nichols considered him for dustin hoffman's part in THE GRADUATE. during their conversation nichols asked redford something like, "have you ever struck out with a girl?" and redford's response was basically, "i don't understand the question"

Don't mind Lewis Goodall as a broadcaster but good lord the man is not a writer. Not everyone needs a Substack, I promise you!!

Just casually exchanging messages with Vikki Ross, no big deal (This will mean NOTHING to anyone outside marketing/advertising, but never mind, the important thing is I'm being an awful fan-girl)

look yes it's a very 'my diamond shoes are too tight' complaint but honestly, an absolute pox on our sellers for deciding the time for completion is when the only sane one in my marriage (i.e. J) is away for 10 days!!!

I don't think Peter Mandelson is PM's biggest problem. The biggest problem is not standing up to the literal violent racism on our streets, supercharged by the richest man in the world, and threatening the very fabric of our society. If he and so many commentators can't see this, we're truly lost.

is chin zumping the solution to dopamine cheeks? is nose bongling the solution to serotonin brows? is eye vooming the solution to adrenal ears?

(trying to explain "fuck, marry, kill" to a black widow spider) no it's *three different* guys

Many shocking things about the last 24 hours; but the contrast between the Labour government’s response to peaceful protest against genocide, and its non-response to violent racist protest against liberal democracy, is high on the list.

Every little compromise with the ‘legitimate concerns’ is what led us to yesterday’s match. Every bit of ‘I understand the protests’ will be what leads us further into hell.

The absolute fucking cowardice of the Labour lot on this morning’s media round, I simply CANNOT

I know a lot of people have expressed similar sentiments but I’ve lived in London for 20+ years and never felt threatened or a even a bit scared to be here until today. This needs to end.

Keep thinking of arguments for why it would be completely insane to dump a prime minister with a huge majority just 14 months in, and also about how if he's not going to say a single word in opposition to the kind of shit we saw today then I no longer feel convinced by any of those arguments.

THEY'RE CALLED GROYPERS COOP. A GAGGLE OF YOUNG MEN ONLINE WHO CAN'T DELINEATE BETWEEN VIOLENCE AND ENTERTAINMENT. DARNDEST THING. ONE OF THEIR SHELL CASINGS TURNED THREE OF OUR BEST AGENTS GAY.

This. London felt grim today, tbh, and I’ve never ever felt that way about it before

Recorded a podcast episode this morning all about my copywriting "career" and honestly if you'd told me five years ago that I'd have any sort of copywriting career at all I would not have believed you

Sorry I do not know what has to happen for someone important to realise that McSweeney clearly has the political nous of a fucking Hula Hoop

“awful people don’t deserve to be killed, but they don’t deserve to be praised, either” is apparently a thought too complex for the pundit mind

Christ alive, what writing. "Terrorism is simply a display of potence... It’s a one-act play with a single message: I can do this, you have to watch and you will always remember. I’m left now with a loathing for any kind of theatrical politics — flags, costumes, armed patrols..."