If I wanted to see what the moon was like, I would simply watch the 1989 documentary A Grand Day Out.

This is a very hard read (the photos alone are heartbreaking) but such important journalism: four parents of the Iran school bombing victims speak about the worst day of their lives. www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

Always confused by the assumption that Salah's next step is a retirement destination. Salah had one of his best seasons last year, (understandably) clearly believes he should still be starting in a team that competes in the Champions League, and is leaving on a free. www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

Seems very generous to the banks to say they're raising mortgage interest rates due to "expectations" rather than, and call my cynical here if you must, due to the chance to make more money.

We must be at the peak of trader joes tote bags in London now. Simply too many trader joes tote bags for one city. The Daunt totes, the LRB totes, the lesser seen Cubitts totes must all be facing extinction

Local shopping centre has a new robot hoover. Caught it today just stuck at the automatic doors, staring out onto the street. It yearns for freedom.

Imagine finally winning best mum in the world only to find out you’re now up against mums in galaxies you’ve never even heard of.

Luckily there's no recent examples of how raising interest rates to curb inflation caused by external shocks to energy prices is ineffective at best and actively damaging to the economy at worst.

Every time I see news that an indie band I haven't heard since 2009 has a new album out.

@tuc.org.uk condemns the dangerous escalation of military actions, precipitated by the attacks launched by the US and Israel over the weekend that flout international law, undermine diplomacy and the prospects for peace. www.tuc.org.uk/news/tuc-gen...

So much of the discussion on student loans focuses on issues impacting higher earners (e.g. the interest rates) and ignores abolition of maintenance grants (starting working class young people off with higher debts), the erosion of maintenance loans over time and family income threshold freezes.

The then government cancelled the second part of the Leveson Inquiry in 2018. It planned to look at the relationship between the media and the police.

Szoboszlai bravely sacrificing himself to help those of us who didn’t captain Haaland.

I’ve been idly humming a song to myself a lot recently but couldn’t quite place what it was until today. It’s the Diagnosis Murder theme tune.

One of the reasons I find intergenerational divide stuff a bit grating is that this is often its inevitable end point - not an expansion of good policies, but either a transfer or a scrapping.

There should be a minimum goals requirement for Match of the Day. If they don’t hit it, BBC just puts on Speed 2 or Wallace and Gromit or something instead. Still with the Danny Murphy and Wayne Rooney punditry though, they don’t get the night off.

Love the buzz of the big supermarket just before it closes early on a Sunday. Comforting to be amongst my people (those who have lived in a country with sunday hours for their entire lives but always seem to forget this until 3.30pm on Sunday).

🐱📈 Happy Fat Cat Day! We’re less than a week into January and FTSE CEOs have already earned what the average worker will make in the year. And if a 113:1 pay disparity feels outrageous, remember: on average the richest 10% pay less of their income in taxes (39%) than the poorest 10% (48%) too.

The TUC joins the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) and ITUC-Americas in expressing our ‘absolute and unequivocal rejection’ of the US military attack in Venezuela, and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. Yesterday's statement:

Can confirm, for those who have spent the past eleven months wondering, that this stayed as my favourite song of the year (and my favourite album).

Big fan of the large but helpful human-like toilet roll that helps you find nearby toilets in Lewisham.

Bore on about this a lot, but really was one of the worst parts of the government's response to the pandemic that they steadfastly and repeatedly refused to improve the existing sick pay system. Instead, they brought in a terrible temporary mess of a scheme six months in and ended it asap.

Strong belief that no one has ever paid full price for a bottle of baileys. One hundred percent of its annual sales are in the three weeks when you can get it for a tenner before Christmas. Would absolutely blow my mind if I ever saw someone buying a full price bottle in the heat of summer.

People complaining about having an old listening age, but this is somehow more embarrassing.

I know it came out a couple of weeks back, but still find the section of the latest report from the covid inquiry depressing but unsurprising. Despite clear advice on the need for better financial support for people to self-isolate, the treasury and the chancellor just ignored it.

My eyes called?

And the two child benefit limit is abolished. An enormous victory for those who have campaigned tirelessly for eight long years through successive governments. This will lift at least 450,000 children out of poverty. Fewer kids will be hungry. No more women forced to disclose their rape.

Spare a thought for those hit hardest by the early leak of the OBR document: those of us who were about to have a quick bit of lunch at 12.

Incredibly sad and unbecoming when you have to briefly use microsoft edge for something and it asks to be made your default browser. Have a little self respect.

Core argument of this seems to be that organisations supporting a wealth tax should instead be calling for policies that make structural change such as "changes to the labour laws to encourage union organisation". TUC named as one of the organisations and can safely say we do call for that!

A bit of delusional confidence that I have is that every time I receive a verification code I think to myself “could’ve guessed that”.

Today is disability pay gap day - the day that the average disabled employee stops getting paid for the year compared to non-disabled employees. Disabled employees earn, on average, £2.24 per hour less than non-disabled employees.

Often get annoyed by other walkers blocking the path etc., but think it’s silly to believe that someone breaking your idea of what good walking etiquette is justifies filming them without their consent and putting them online. www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

New Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings (ASHE) out this morning. Pay growth over the past year highest among lowest earners (likely due to min wage rises) and highest earners (some big pay growth in finance industry this year). Median real pay growth at 1.3%.

2/2 Charlie Nunn's argument just doesn't hold water. Lloyds will announce their billions of pounds of Q3 profits tomorrow, not from 'investing in the real economy', but inflated by high interest rates. Windfall profits need a windfall tax. Email your MP 👇bit.ly/TaxTheBanksMPEmail

Very surprising that the guy who is being paid £5.6 million a year is against his employer's massive profits being taxed.

I know it's a bit much to describe lewisham shopping centre as iconic, but I do think it's fair to be sceptical of the regeneration when the development directly across the road promised a cinema it hasn't delivered and has been uninhabitable for six months. www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/2501508...

So far this year, the big four banks have made just under £1 billion profit every week. In 2023, the tories cut the bank surcharge (a tax on bank profits) from 8% to 3%. Returning the surcharge to 8% would raise £8bn over four years. Doubling it to 16%: £20bn. A 35% surcharge could deliver £50bn.

"Union membership" www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Good news on taxes on the wealthy. TUC polling shows widespread support across the political spectrum for a package of wealth taxes, whether thats equalising capital gains tax with income tax, a windfall tax on the banks and/or gambling companies, or a wealth tax on assets.

Once you have over a certain amount of characters in the book, you need to put one of those character lists at the start like Ferrante does. At least an index that tells you the first page they were mentioned. Pg. 300 reference to a character you briefly mentioned on pg. 21? You're killing me here.

Cafe near the office has celebrity quotes along the window and I feel like there’s a real vibe shift by the time you get to the third one.

Double whammy of this is how awful and aggressive council tax debt collection can be. If you miss one payment, you can quickly become liable for the full year's worth of council tax. Councils often use bailiffs to collect this debt, which then adds court costs and bailiff fees to the debt.

A reminder that we're only just out of a 16-year real pay crisis. Real average weekly pay (pay once you take inflation into account) only returned to it's 2008 level last year. Even now, we're only £9p/w above it. Real weekly pay would be £298 higher if it had grown at pre-crisis rates since 2008.

Asking people to pay for goods would kill the shoplifting industry ...

Seen this report referenced as evidence of a wealth exodus again this morning, this time in The Independent. Shocking that journalists continue to use them given that they're widely discredited.

Reading Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin

Guy in the pub watching, full volume, the Gary Neville hosted episode of Have I Got News For You from 2022.

… TUC commissioned polling found huge support for a package of taxes on wealth to invest in our local services, our NHS and more. Also huge support for a gambling levy, a windfall tax on banks, a 2% annual wealth tax, and for modernising our tax system to be more progressive.

Does it?