omg cannot believe this exists and I didn't know. I can tackle insomnia anywhere on this benighted planet. I might get a spare. store.wikimedia.org/products/int...

Oh! I am so dumb! The whole ‘there’s nothing Labour about…’ verbal tic of this Govt people have noticed is just another symptom of the tribalism which also explains why they can’t be made to understand that becoming the far right to beat the far right is both wrong and futile. I already knew this!

Last post: 1) Honestly, Batavia’s Graveyard is a much better shipwreck story than The Wager, give it a go 2) Google search is done if it can’t get me the result I need from ‘Texas bank fraud book monkeybrains’

I read thru all the many replies & QTs & at time of writing they do not contain: ANATOMY OF A MOMENT-Javier Cercas THE EMPEROR-Ryszard Kapuscinski BATAVIA’S GRAVEYARD-Mike Dash THE PICNIC-Matthew Long all of which I commend to you as well as many of the fine books already mentioned

Olivia Nuzzi is very definitely none of my beeswax but oh my goodness! If I had written this in a secret diary when I was a self-obsessed 15yo and written LANCASTRIAN CANTO on the front page in fancy letters I would still be having full-body shudders of embarrassment about it to this day

I mean I don’t want a Reform government primarily because I think dehumanising policies are morally wrong not because I think turquoise is not as good a colour as red

I have decided for the sake of my mental health to put some faith in the PLP who surely cannot stand to be associated with such a disgusting, grim and strategically stupid direction for much longer.

On a brief holiday away from my doom-laden country & on yesterday’s bus trip through the middle of Malta the two women behind me were discussing how Keir Starmer hadn’t done enough to stop either the imposition of Sharia Law or trans women in women’s prisons and we should bring back Boris

Any day you go to an aquarium is a good day but I’ve come to realise that something is up with the marine biologists and we’ve got to get to the bottom of it. pics (not mine) display: a zebra shark, a stripey, a sexy shrimp

Actually a bit worried about some of you that seem to do a lot of your assessment of character based on syntax and punctuation: ‘what is surprising is how unimpressive he is’ - what?

Ace thread. Am proud & grateful that Dimi saw enough in us to join us.

I was told it was quicker at street level, but instead found myself in a completely different station called "Monument". A strange and savage nation.

How do we engineer the situation where Noah Smith has to change lines at Bank? Imagine the fun we could have

When we got to the door of St Paul’s in Mdina we found a sign telling us to buy tickets at the cathedral museum. So we did, and the helpful man at the counter recommended we go to the museum first as it closed first

I’m having a lovely time on holiday in Malta and I cannot tell you how happy I am that when I return to London this will still be none of my concern

Sitting on my typing thumbs so I don’t come off as a Bluesky Scold™️ but I have just seen the most astonishing hijack: a famous complaint made by a famous woman about structural unfairness applied to how nice men operate at a disadvantage

Alan Carr........Best Actor Oscar. Nobel Prize. MacArthur Genius Grant. Ballon d’Or. Fields Medal. Legion of Honour. Victoria Cross. Presidential Medal of Freedom. Order of the British Empire. Key to the City. Grand Slam. Miss Universe.

Vale Cat Burns and thank you for getting the whole ‘honestly talking to neurotypicals is exhausting and that’s why I keep sleeping’ thing out there

Guys I can now buy guanciale, chinotto pop and fennel salami in a shop ~3 min walk from my house and I am prepared to hold weekly Truth Sessions with the rest of the Charlton residents to ensure that this precious business survives

Today I have had to reset the ‘days since last security incident’ sign on the cat food cupboard to zero once again. On the upside, at least Bam! isn’t letting Bonfire Night stress him out too much

The Labour Party feels to me like a 10 year old laptop that you’ve just realised has frozen because you haven’t properly closed an app in 3 months. Turn it off and turn it on again.

Dreadful, isn’t it, when you read the world’s most famous long short story/short novella of an evening for what may be the first time in a quarter-century OR maybe ever, and you want to talk about it but it’s late and who needs the tip for TWMFLSS/SN? Anyway ‘The Metamorphosis’ is pretty good

Once again, @mcsweeneys.net does not miss. ------------------------------------------------ "In 2004, you saw some college guy using me and thought, 'What a lazy cheater.' Now you’d think, 'At least he’s not asking Gemini.' In a few years, you’ll say, 'Wow, look, a human being who can read.'"

Important not to over-interpret the signs and portents but it does worry me quite a bit that while I have never before listened to an audiobook on Spotify, it thought I might want to start with the Unabomber manifesto:

Gang, this has been a life-affirming if heterodox week: I saw John Shuttleworth! I bought a (ahem) ‘groovebox’! I applied for a scary course! I went to Little Simz at the O2! Charlton beat Sheffield Wednesday! I read that bonkers judgment about Vivien Saunders! The frogs on the American streets!

Just submitted an application for a MA that scares me a bit so might be what I need. Let’s see, eh?

Completely embarrassing stuff going on the BBC news at Ten as Chris Mason attempts to form a synthesis of an 18 page document (witness statements on the China espionage row) in real time, flicking back and forth between pages of a printout.

Slightly aside from the point here but I remember saying in 2016 that it’d take a decade to recover from Brexit and I didn’t have one to spare and ah, well

Recency bias v obvious in my unhinged literary takes there

You should read more poetry, it would make you a better reader of novels. Also, Life of Pi is a horrible novel and the *~* Wonder Of Stories *~* does nothing for suffering 9 times out of 10

Anyhow. I’m in a bit of pain right this moment, relieved by keeping my limbs locked straight for as long as I can and by paracetamol. I still have ambitions to leave the house now and then and I just dislike thinking that every stranger is mentally assessing my laziness when I avoid stairs. Nbd.

[subtweet of a much bigger account cos no one needs more of these types of argument] Ah you can have all the mild mannered TfL signs you like saying that not all disabilities are visible and yet people seem pretty confident they can spot arthritic joints from the outside

Give the Nobel to the Portland frog you cowards

Hey this absolutely never happens but I have read a book by the Nobel Laureate! I think it was one of the most rewarding books I’ve read in the last decade. A review of Seiobo There Below by Hari Kunzru here: www.theguardian.com/books/2015/m...

A strong contender for the month’s most effective insomnia-busting Wikipedia page en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_in...

I get the name right but keep hearing it in my head as The *Smashing* Machine [laudatory] as if it were a pastel-coloured 1960s lark starring Julie Andrews and Michael Crawford

My theory of Kemi Badenoch is that the only type of thought that she respects is passing through logic gates in real time. A thing is correct or not based on how the neurons fire in the moment. Explains why she doesn’t respect the need for briefing & can’t see the value in the humanities but also

[niche content] I’m on my way out of payments regulation but I am glad that there is challenge to the BIS view out there because I’ve been watching well-respected people attempt to determine operational payments matters with reference only to monetary policy theory for a while

Jose-Mourinho.gif

Download the pdf instructions and make your own puffer fish automata from conkers and paper clips! #STEAMjunk #WildMaking www.robives.com/project/puff...

By the way, do yourself a favor: Disco Elysium is only 10 bucks on Steam right now.

Omg you guys I’m on a new dlr train and as you know by now ‘new transport thing’ is the most exciting thing that can happen in a Londoner’s life

Anyway never mind all that there’s a sandgrown elephant now! Should have called her Petal www.blackpoolzoo.org.uk/blog/elephan....

I try not to be one note politics posting lady but the essay linked in this good piece has made me angry. Dereliction of responsibility! The Labour Party does not have the luxury of despair and it does not get to roll its eyes at white collar workers as if we’re the ones with the identity crisis

I’m taking this as part-confirmation of my hunch tho. Authoritarians like ID, sure, but basing your pitch on that doesn’t account for the rise of the chaos-authoritarian or ‘Reform voter’

Despite my little whine above I actually don’t have a religiously held belief about gov sponsored digital id. I mean both sets of you are right and we’re not going to know which set of you are more right until we know more about functions, protections, so on

On my commute into work yesterday I took a lift to avoid one of the three broken escalators on my route and found myself staring at a huge misspelled sign that Westfield had stuck to the lift doors. To me this is somehow relevant to my reading this morning that our tone-deaf PM has announced

As an officially-certified Neurodiverse Person I would like to say that my heartfelt belief is that some neurotypicals actually can do trains or quilts or cataloging if they put their minds to it. Some of them seem to have interests beyond sport and Love Island, even.

Spitalfields Life @thegentleauthor.bsky.social Suresh Singh’s Tank Top spitalfieldslife.com/2025/09/24/s...

Ah but think back 9 years and remember how well this worked when the we all fact-checked a bus.