Anyone using any RSS reader (I presume browser extensions) they'd recommend? Am looking to go back to The Old Ways.

Classicsfest 2026 seeking treatments for 30min play about Greek/Roman cookery at @alphabettitheatre.bsky.social - see www.culturednortheast.co.uk/p/a-tasty-ro... and www.cinziahardy.co.uk/classicsfest...

If you're looking for some kind of rock-like constancy in this alarming and uncertain world, then why not buy a copy of the new issue of Viz? It's in the shops today, it was in the shops yesterday, and it will still be there tomorrow.

Rewatched The Holdovers. Still excellent. Is it a 'Christmas film'? Didn't see it mentioned in much xmas film chat. I suppose it is: important to the plot to be set then, does have *some* of the xmas film type themes, but.. hmm... doesn't quite feel it. A good 'new year film' maybe.

Labour defends Trump.

As Tees Valley mayor Lord Houchen's defence of his deal with local businessmen crumbles, here's the Eye's recent special report on how Britain's flagship regeneration scheme secretly turned into one of the biggest giveaways of public money on record. ➡️ www.private-eye.co.uk/special-repo...

On #WorldQuittersDay, what have you been giving up? Has the New Year Resolution started dipping? Well... If it was to 'write more', then I can help you get back on track! www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B... Here's a prompt for every day of the year... #amwriting #writingcommunity

rules for life

X is now permitting archive downloads again, so am currently wiping my account with CYD - which kind of automates manually deleting individual tweets, and you can WATCH it - so am watching over a decade of nonsense flash before my eyes vanishing into the air. Having FEELINGS.

Pictures that explain things Contour lines Artist: Ronald Lampitt (Understanding Map, 1967)

Chicken & bacon bacon bacon

Skimming through my twitter archive before obliterating it all, may save a few bits and bobs for posterity. Here, probably my only real achievement of 2022.

Would you like an award-winning mash up of news and pop culture to deal with the current shitshow that the world is in? Well you’re in luck as a BRAND NEW series of #TheSkewer starts tonight 11.15 on BBC Radio 4. Also BBC Sounds. Enjoy.

Great piece on great telly. I watched it maybe 15 years ago via arduously-obtained imported DVDs - but now it's on ITVX! You can just watch it! Amazing. Luxuriantly imaginative teatime 80s fantasy-action fare pushing the 'family' tag surprisingly far with weirdo folky occult elements!

Don't know what exactly I'd define this aesthetic as but marauding semi-sentient zombies + motorbikes + loads of mud (look at the floor! brilliant!) feels fresh and v metal.

I feel I cannot stress enough how 'AI' products serve, intentionally or not, to reestablish the control of a very small group of people over language and expression, a new form of digital boot. One hopes the proliferation of open models may push back on this. Or the Butlerian Jihad. Either way.

This short turned 69 and holds a special place in my heart, as it was one of the first LT cartoons I ever saw. Stan Freberg’s singing alongside Shorty Rogers’ composition, makes it one heck of a catchy short and is hard not to tap your feet along. Cartoon: "Three Little Bops" (1957, Friz Freleng)

Also enjoying PENELOPE GRITSTOP, BASIL SALTY, and SIR ANDY FLURRY

Just checking with how Starmer's crusade to ban apps that produce deep fakes is going

Writers! If you're in/near North Tyneside, the first North Tyneside Writers' Circle of 2026 is on Saturday 17th January, 1000-1200, North Shields Library. www.facebook.com/events/85991... Hopefully see you there! #amwriting #writerslife #writingcommunity

Delightful, obviously, but that 2D 3D animation style is fascinating - it's like Paddington is just more... REAL... than anything else.

Tell me we should trust AI to give us the facts. Tell me it's a future we can put our faith in. Come at me. I'm right here, waiting.

Making beans on toast singing 'beans on toast' to the tune of 'Girls On Film'

He said, 'Well, talk to yourself if you like, but don't scold yourself, because you don't deserve it.'

Oof, that’s a brutal decline data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflo...

Update: yesssssssss. Minesweeper + dungeon crawl = Dragonsweeper. Super game (free, can be played in-browser), using logic & tactics - great sudoku-ish fun, learning the secrets of the different enemies gives it surprising depth, & achievements: surprising longevity! danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper

YESSSSS danielben.itch.io/dragonsweeper

Given that all the moons of Uranus (except Belinda) are named after characters from Shakespeare, I propose that S/2025 U1 should be called "Bottom".

Expect to see a lot of this classic Onion headline, from 23 years ago, over the coming weeks.

NEW: A mass propaganda event is about to engulf the US news cycle and what, if anything, survives it will be a lesson for our times. But it’s what the rest of the world does now that’s key. When someone tells you who they are, believe them. broligarchy.substack.com/p/the-threat...

I like musical mashups, so I've collated a few of my favourites of 2025 here: oscillatingbrow.blogspot.com/2026/01/alex.... Some are funny, some are genuinely emotionally resonant, some are dancefloor bangers. Cheers to all the creators putting in the time to make such fun stuff.

I like musical mashups, so I've collated a few of my favourites of 2025 here: oscillatingbrow.blogspot.com/2026/01/alex.... Some are funny, some are genuinely emotionally resonant, some are dancefloor bangers. Cheers to all the creators putting in the time to make such fun stuff.

Uh… check out what ChatGPT allegedly told a man before he killed his mother and then himself. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Enjoyably astute. Will now think of AI in terms of an unwelcome TeaMaster 3000.

File under, we never quite know what's coming next. One of my favourite embassy reports. The UK ambassador in East Berlin reporting in after the fall of the Wall...

podcasts

From: A Town Called Panic (2009), dir. Stéphane Aubier and Vincent Patar, La Parti Productions

HORROR

In a few weeks (24th Jan) I'll be spinning a few choons as support to three fantastic acts (Brindle's Manse, Amateur Ornithologist, Surf Electro) at the Engine Room (North Shields, not far from Tynemouth Metro), and it's pay as you feel tickets! Bargain! www.terns.co.uk/tm-event/bri...

Been looking through old family photos and contemplating my limited achievements. Mood:

Standard procedure for me arranging dates with @inkjunkie1984.bsky.social

The letter's explicitly NOT about gen-AI in creating the writing. What's unclear is if it's genuinely about fair enforcement of "no AI was used in this submission" rules (surely speech-to-text is ok??) or thin-wedge-end pro-gen-AI shilling (it mentions 'no putting genie back' so I suspect latter).

I think about this a lot

Snoopy Art by Moebius

30 YEARS AGO TODAY: Alexei Sayle writes and stars in Sorry About Last Night, in which a couple on a first date try to continue their adventures in central London after closing time, from which eccentric light mayhem ensues.

Wisdom from the old man

A whale and three fish sitting down to a formal dinner of Russian sailors, in a propaganda cartoon created by Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915), during the Russo-Japanese war (1904-5). View more from this superb series of prints here: https://buff.ly/2w0DK1S