I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

My friend just fuckin showed up with a corncob pipe & that’s when it hit me that we are all in our 40s which means we get one new accessory slot

My favourite part of the AI Kingston on Thames christmas mural is the man using a severed dog's paw on a stick to subdue his chimera dogwife

Outstanding UX design by the local leisure

Don’t think enough is said about how the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind is one of the best films ever

Folks it pains me to ask so bluntly, but could anyone use some work doing by me? I've got to find income for three months until my next royalty payment, and I'm not having much luck.

OH MY NEEPS

This is just to say I have told the old lie that was with high zest and which you were probably saving for some desperate glory Forgive me it was delicious so dulce et so decorum

I made a “how do you do, fellow kids?” joke to someone in their mid 20s who, it turns out, was too young to have heard of that meme. So “how do you do, fellow kids?” is now an example of “how do you do, fellow kids?”

BBC really burying the lede there

The perils of large font sizes in emails

Joey Barton’s lawyer questioning Lucy Ward about his posts likening her and Eni Aluko to Fred and Rose West. Just about the most perfect response I have heard in a very long time.

Yeah, Labour and the media keep doing this with Zack Polanski too - assuming it's the style of his social media that attracts people rather than the content

emojo

emojopods

Always felt “emoji” didn’t sit right as a singular but uncertain how to fix this. An emojum. Emojus? Emoj

Huge thanks to everyone who has donated wood to our woodchuck enclosure. We have reached an undetermined percentage of our goal.

Can't call them "mothers" any more, because of woke

It's the most wonderful time of the year.

A traveller from a land antique Said "I once saw these two legless feet I think an old king Constructed the thing Now a desert, what royal conceit"

ladies and gentlemen...we got him

The thing is, while all of this fuckery plays out, thousands of refugees in bad situations around the world are stuck in limbo with their files held by the US. This means their cases can’t be submitted to other countries which might actually consider accepting them www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...

You'll pry these Oxford commas out of my cold, dead, third thing hands

A moth got into the shelter tonight and it was the event of the season.

Nothing warms my heart as much as seeing someone doing this. The world is *full* of people doubling down on shit they don’t even believe out of a sense of pride, and seeing someone graciously acknowledge being wrong, in full public view, is quite inspiring.

4/ Using evidence gathered from old postcards, maps and the accounts of shepherds and botanists, I want to rebuild a picture of the chalk downland that existed until the 1940s - and in doing so, help efforts to restore it. Please get involved here: ghostsofchalkcountry.org/2025/09/14/h...

The proliferation of auto-playing previews on streaming services and websites must be an environmental catastrophe

We need a standard disclaimer: “Sir Paul McCartney, who is alive and well, has not been Milkshake Ducked in the past 72 hours, and is currently neither Nottingham Forest manager nor Prime Minister of France,…”

I’ve seen just one counter-protester at No Kings San Diego. He’s got a Trump 2024 flag and this guy has been following him around for probably an hour playing Benny Hill and circus music.

When our media platforms far right rhetoric daily, it's impossible for the left not to experience these views. Social media echo chambers are an issue predominantly for the right and we're watching the effects of that in real time as they slide into conspiracy theory, utterly divorced from reality.

POV: you are a skeleton trying to do better

Pollock and McLean Pollock and McLean One of them solicits The other is a pain

Hindsight is 20-20, but I really think they should have taken Maxwell's silver hammer away before the trial.

This works well for "revisions required" following a PhD viva as well. The omerta around discussing it means very few realise how common it is, how it's not the end of the world, and how it's not going to haunt you for the rest of your life (even if it does mean a few more months of graft).

This, from @catherinedevries.bsky.social, is really useful advice for young (and, tbh, old!) academics. Worth passing on if you know any, maybe? catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/fail-bette...

Post you from a different era (Not my usual attire. Perhaps it should have been)

"Fucking reform leaflet" is a good cryptic crossword clue for "FELLATE".

Higgledy piggledy Timothée Chalamet Has a name meriting Endless design Much like his forerunner Benedict Cumberbatch: Hexasyllabically, Easy to rhyme

This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. @aptshadow.bsky.social @abraham.bsky.social

Fanny Burney was still alive when the solar cell was invented

I know statistics are poorly understood and are misused. But facts matter Between the 1991, 2001, 2011 and 2021 Census *every* ethnic group in the UK has become *less* geographically segregated and *all* groups, majority and minorities, are more likely to interact with people not like them

Q. A. Thank you for asking, yeah - I got the idea when I was buying £10 worth of Robux for my kid and I thought, ‘There *has* to be some way of applying this to poetry.’ Q. A. No, it didn’t work at all, no.

"there are no atheists in foxholes" is a terrible expression. sure, the things that foxes worship do not resemble our "gods". that does not mean that they are atheists

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

This is INCREDIBLE. The Bearded Vulture has multigenerational nests that last for hundreds of years, built in very secluded places — and they’re FULL OF ANTHROPOGENIC ARTIFACTS.

Don,t forget to occasionally refill your apostrophes with helium or they,ll sink

Meanwhile, in the small German town of Bad Kerning, the Burnout conference has gone predictably awry

slightly ominous mailer from the Red Cross

Hi! We've made the Put This In Your Ear Object. It is the ideal size and shape to put in your ear, feels really nice when you put it in your ear, and can be used to clean out earwax, by putting it in your ear. Just one thing, though. Under NO circumstances should you put this in your ear.