The next Lord of the Rings adaptation should simply take the script of the 1981 BBC Sibley/Bakewell radio drama and do it like a televised BBC Shakespeare play.

This seems very tentative but i will nonetheless seize the moment to reiterate my view that a fundamental reason Jackson LOTR works and almost no other Tolkien adaptations do is that it has actual Tolkien dialogue/prose to work with and is extraordinarily creative about finding ways to use it

At last, we have Swifts over the house. Late this year

Hmmmmm I'm starting to think that maybe not everyone buying 50mph Sur Ron e-bikes in the UK is using them exclusively for their one legal purpose of off-roading on private land???

Personally I think if you have algorithmic feeds pushing certain content towards users, I struggle to see how you’re not a publisher or broadcaster making editorial decisions - so why are social media companies not subject to the same rules and regulations as publishers and broadcasters?

i repeat myself, but “if you decide what people see, either by human choice or by algorithm, you are a publisher and must take legal responsibility for what you publish” is an unarguable position for any regulator to take

I covered that march. Here's the first paragraph of the story I wrote about it: www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-t...

I followed the 2013 Labour reshuffle whilst walking round Disney World. With a cast of colourful characters and a loyal cult following, the Labour Party was established in 1900.

Looks like he hosts a "Palpatine has some valid points" podcast

Here we go again. The music all goes downhill after the Eurovision fanfare from Charpentier. #Eurovision

it’s such shibboleth of modern politics to blame politicians for failing town centres when the primary driver is - surely - all of us buying more and more stuff online

My favourite David Attenborough sequence isn’t the iconic scene with the Rwandan gorillas, or the Galapagos iguana and snakes, but the last ten minutes of The Life of Birds. Starts at 41:00 here - www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...

The really sad thing is that a lot of these new populist councillors, particularly Reform, clearly won't finish their terms under the banner they were elected with. *gestures at Kent County Council*

Commiserations to Sir David Attenborough on his 100th birthday, as he is now too old to be allowed to play with LEGO.

Ah yes, Richard E Grant, most famous for his role in *checks notes* Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties.

Private equity doing its thing again huh?

Prime with ads. Just how Kubrick intended.

Monthly ebook releases on Amazon were basically flat before the release of ChatGPT and other LLMs. Now around 2/3 of all ebooks released on Amazon are fake.

New Cumberland ward boundaries dropped today. Neither of these are the names of suburbs of Whitehaven. The former is one (1) street and a nearby station, the latter is the name of a farm. Almost like you shouldn't rely on area names listed on OS maps for naming wards.

Well it is a Bank Holiday…

All the Old Republic era Star Wars content is uninteresting.

May the Fourth is to Star Wars Day what Cinco de Mayo is to Mexican Independence Day.

People who tell you they can deliver European style social welfare while cutting taxes on everyone except the "super rich" is lying to you because they think you're stupid.

Aragorn kneels. Gandalf places the crown on Aragorn’s head, and proclaims: ‘Now come the days of the King, and may they be blessed while the thrones of the Valar endure!’ The streets are strewn with flowers as Aragorn enters the City and begins the climb up its seven levels.

It’s the first of May. The bells in Minas Tirith all start tolling as the bright morning Sun rises into the clear skies that now stand above the mountains of Mordor on the eastern horizon. The argent standard of the Stewards of Gondor is raised over the Citadel for the last time.

I've just been reminded that the Act which will take women out of the criminal law in relation to ending their own pregnancy yesterday received Royal Assent. It's been a long fight and I was proud to add my name to the amendment that brought it about. humanists.uk/2026/04/29/s...

Got to feel sorry for people like Lord Inglewood "I don't think anybody enjoys being sacked.. if the reason for it, which curiously enough seems to be the identity of my father..." Conveniently forgetting that he only has the job because of the identity of his father.

Happy “Commission under the Great Seal” Day to all who celebrate. Le roi le veult.

In my experience, politicians are significantly more likely to be religious than the population as a whole.

How about no?

The one change that worked: I swapped doomscrolling for reading comic books

A lukewarm take: I think there would be genuine merit in (another) fly-on-the-wall documentary series about how parliament actually works, that follows MPs (in Westminster AND their constituencies), members of the Lords, and staff

The Mandolorian and Grogu (2026)

Disney Promises ‘Star Wars’ Fans A New Era Of Blind Stabs At What They Seemed To Like Before https://theonion.com/disney-promises-star-wars-fans-a-new-era-of-blind-stabs-at-what-they-seemed-to-like-before/

Don’t turn up naked, a squirrel might steal your nuts.

Who's in Core Group Plus? labourlist.org/2016/03/leak...

I'd love to know how much local Nimbys think our county's population has grown by. Because it's 3.4% since 1991. (16,000 people) The people who need all these homes being built are ALREADY HERE, USING THE SERVICES. *waves* Population growth and housebuilding aren't causing service pressure here.

Labour MP gets dragged publicly by a pub landlady for having the audacity to go into her pub, order food and spend money. Honestly no wonder decent people don’t want to go into public life. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

Bold choice for the new Top Gear line-up from the BBC.

I am shocked. Shocked, I tell you. And none of the drivers know how to drive them either. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

We should regulate road vehicle drivers as strictly as we regulate train drivers.

We could improve both the Boat Race and University Challenge by making it so every Oxbridge college needed to have their own boat in the race, and that they could each only field one team in University Challenge.

Truly something for all the family at Whitehaven Civic Hall.

My (American) wife, after introducing me to a friend from home, asked them “Was it nice to hear a British accent for the first time in a while?” only to be told they thought my Northern lilt didn’t really count.

Cancelling Jonathan the Giant Tortoise because frankly at his age he should know the correct plural is “Attorneys General”.

I think the reason AI propagandists are so flustered by the fact that no real writer wants to use their idiotic tools is that they themselves don't enjoy writing. They see it as a boring arduous chore to be avoided, while real writers actually enjoy writing and actually care about the quality of it.

Not the funniest, but definitely the last great joke I saw on Twitter.

So much AI slop on Facebook this morning, and that’s saying something.

this is turning out to be one of the onion's all-time classics

Uncle Monty was played by an actor under 40 too, of course