"..carrying out unprecedented surge in public executions... The June 14 execution of Turki al-Jasser, a journalist known for exposing corruption within the Saudi royal family, raises concerns that the Saudi govt is using the death penalty to crush peaceful dissent... HRW www.hrw.org/news/2025/08...

I will never forget having to edit Jamal’s final, posthumous piece for the Washington Post, after he was murdered. He was calling for free expression in the Arab world. You can read it here : www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/glo...

See if you can spot the "people on Bluesky couldn't spot a joke if it was introduced with a brass band playing a Sousa march and a phalanx of majorettes carrying huge banners with "JOKE" written on them" moment in the replies.

Shop Thy Neighbour.

RED HOT "YOUTHFUL HI-JINKS" NEWS

THE THING (dir. John Carpenter, 1982) is a Christmas movie, and I will not be taking further questions at this time. Thank you.

Six weeks since the PM said Britain faced a choice between decency or division and our bad, obviously, for not understanding that he was in fact Team Division

One Battle After Another is just a "your family is wherever you find it" movie really, isn't it?

For fuck's sake, what kind of "assets" does this fucker imagine they have? Stocks & shares? Holiday homes? Krugerrands?

Drop this in a room full of bemulletted RA spods whose frame of reference barely extends beyond Beatport chart/sample-pack deep house and get ready for them to rush the booth.

Polite reminder that, for just about his entire working life, Harry Cole has worked for or contributed to the absolute dregs of UK print media, including a lengthy period at The Slum, a newspaper written by liars, drunks, drug-dealers, murderers and also, one must now assume, rapists and nonces.

🧲 🐭

Rain Man made $354M in 1988 & won 4 Oscars & don’t get me started on Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

I've seen reunions where the audience has had a great time and the bands have performed at least as well as at their peak (Gang Of Four, Pop Group, Specials), and I would pony up like *that* to see a reunited Talking Heads. But it really doesn't surprise me at all that Byrne just doesn't get it.

$1 billion data centre to maybe create 100 jobs. That's likely an overstatement. It is truly not worth draining the living word for this vampiric tech and people are starting to realize it. www.wisn.com/article/meta...

this is how you do investigative journalism

The pastor is truly one of the Bluesky greats.

I can't speak for anyone else but when I was 15, 16, 17 in the 70s, I was trying to find out about Charlie Parker, Gene Vincent, Sonny Boy Williamson, Lester Young and Roland Kirk in amongst all the regular shit I listened to. Incuriousness is a skill issue.

i'd love to read a real evolution of "stay woke" - i saw it evolve as: 1. in black culture, a way of pointing out structural racism 2. on black twitter, same thing but often a joke about something silly 3. white people adopt woke to mean generic antiracism 4. conservatives learn a new n-word

Sorcerer (1977) dir. William Friedkin

This latest instalment of The Epstein Files has reminded me, not for the first time, how so much of the way society is ordered rests upon an assumption that the rich & powerful are rich & powerful because they're smarter than the rest of us, and this is quite plainly not true at all.

Something the US needs to accept too is that without a large-scale correction imposing consequences on a large number of people, the crisis of governance here will continue indefinitely

Currently watching SLEEP, MY LOVE, a 1948 Douglas Sirk noir, and trying to figure out how the hell Hazel Brooks never became a huge star.

When the tribute band is as good as the real thing.

Lovely stuff, and a reminder that this platform is diminished without the presence of @metroadlib, because I would love to know what she had to say about this.

just like the diplomat except real and terrifying

Yeah, this has been coming for a while. Go to a Berlin flohmarkt any weekend and all the little herberts are congregating around the CD stalls, when five or six years ago they'd be frantically Discogs-app'ing Boney M or Goombay Dance Band vinyl thinking they'd found some afro obscurity for peanuts.

I have just avoided becoming entangled in "Die Hard is/is not a Christmas movie" discourse for the first time in 2025, and possibly the first time ever, so I am adding that one to the column marked "growth".

One of the things I like about this story is that Ronson doesn't give up the name of the record that drew Prince to the DJ booth in the first place. I suppose there could have been a follow-up question but whatever, they're called secret weapons for a reason. www.instagram.com/reel/DQxJQ-c...

Post a non-religious photo you think of as holy.

Kelvin Mackenzie can't die soon enough. The day dawn breaks on a world without him in it will be a day worth celebrating. #JFT97

Anyway, if Konate still wants to go to Real Madrid, I'll fucking drive him there myself.

the right winger who was appointed to lead the BBC in the hope of appeasing right wingers has been driven out by right wingers for not appeasing right wingers enough and the BBC has the chance to do the funniest thing ever

Something to listen to, should you be so inclined. www.mixcloud.com/Paul_McGee/m...

He was definitely thinking about Rico when he said that.

Before Klopp came to Anfield I'd sometimes say I wanted to live long enough to see #LFC win the title again, but now I want to live long enough to see the "BREAKING NEWS" alert about the PGMOL spot-fixing scandal.

Death metal* isn't really my bag, but this is a long way from Gracie Lee Freebush playing Lara's Theme on the wineglasses. Looks like Penelope Cruz, sounds like the demon from The Exorcist. * Anyone who tries to well actually me about how this isn't death metal is getting blocked.

Heh.

Co-produced by #NewOrder’s #BernardSumner & #ACertainRatio’s #DonaldJohnson, #Manchester vocalist #MarcelKing’s 1984 12” single “Reach For Love” was called by critic #EllieGershakovich “eternally perfect… enthralling & euphoric”- it was a Starck fave #80sMusic #1980s #80s youtu.be/OA22fKMDSlY?...

Just watching the week's Champions League highlights and I don't expect to see too many better goals this season than Micky van de Ven's for Spurs against Copenhagen. Proper "run to daylight" shit.

Poisonous Huyton trog Joey Barton, a/k/a Municipal Barthes, is only ever in the news these days in connection with either crimes of violence or abusing people on social media. This time, it's the latter. www.theguardian.com/football/202...

We may as well get used to this; players who are just passing through and treating a few seasons at #LFC as a shop window on the way to PSG, Madrid or the farmers. Fine by me - you can count those who've flourished away from Anfield in recent years on less than the fingers of one hand.

Important news for all Bobbie nerds, in particular @craighamilton.bsky.social

Speaking as part of the very demographic at whom all that John Lewis rave boomer nonsense is being pitched, here's a very welcome and very necessary corrective to that load of old toot. www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCsv...

captain_renault_shocked.gif

"Mortimer, your brother is not well! We'd better call an ambulance!" "Fuck him."

By my reading, it's hard to remember a more scandalous example of a social media company being negligent in their responsibility to users. It's so so bad, and deeper investigation and regulatory action must surely follow.