My phone tells me it's eight years to the day since I screenshotted this dogbrained marvel of a sentence by Brandon Lewis. It's one I still dig out every once in a while, so I can marvel at it with the quiet reverence you might give a haiku, or a particularly devious crossword clue.

On arse drugs.

In travelling the past week, I've been lax in posting my column. Last week, I dealt with the mystery bug troubling my three-year-old daughter, and necessitated a return to the joys of suppositories. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Going on one of my son's school trips reminded me that my dad never, ever did the same. So I called him up to ask why and don't know what else I expected.

This week, I experience the nerve-shredding exhilaration of a school trip with my son. On dinosaurs, earthquakes, and a hundred little heart attacks. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Cruelty is anhedonic. It rarely delivers the euphoria promised because, in the abstract, what feels righteous and joyful inevitably reveals itself to be sordid and small. Then it's "No not like that". "No not enough". "No the real battle, the forever war to make this feel good starts now". Forever.

I spent time in a hospice in Roscommon and it was very sad but also moving and strangely life affirming. www.irishtimes.com/life-style/p...

This week, I experience the nerve-shredding exhilaration of a school trip with my son. On dinosaurs, earthquakes, and a hundred little heart attacks. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

In travelling the past week, I've been lax in posting my column. Last week, I dealt with the mystery bug troubling my three-year-old daughter, and necessitated a return to the joys of suppositories. observer.co.uk/news/columni...

Every time I'm in a restaurant I remember Kevin McAleer's reply to a waiter who told him the Soup Of The Day. "Where there any other contenders?" "Um, no?" "A hollow victory, then".

Comics peeps. I am finally clocking off from work tomorrow and doing my annual splurge on as many of the year's best titles as I can get my hands on. What've been your highlights of 2025? Ongoing weeklies, collected tpbs, one-off graphic novels, reissues, indies, whatever you've got.

So you feel like buying my excellent and award-winning memoir, Did Ye Hear Mammy Died but aren't sure if it's as good as I keep saying. So here's a few pieces from - and about - the book, which might entice you to buy a copy right now from mammybook.com

On the seventh anniversary of THIS image, here's a funny story about the elephants, Naomi Wolf and the absurdity of online nostalgia.

This year has been our busiest year yet- we published three very different books. Stock of The Editors Cut and The Running Man is now less than thirty of each left, and Lost Treasures is less than 90. Get these now while you can, because they will sell out. Buy them here now- hiberniacomics.com

I'm shamelssly gonna plug myself tbh . I had three graphic novels out this year: Daystar with @secondatbest.bsky.social Emmons, The Hanging at @strangers.bsky.social and Clearwater. The Hanging and Clearwater both set in Finglas. All lettering by @beccasee.bsky.social

Comics peeps. I am finally clocking off from work tomorrow and doing my annual splurge on as many of the year's best titles as I can get my hands on. What've been your highlights of 2025? Ongoing weeklies, collected tpbs, one-off graphic novels, reissues, indies, whatever you've got.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes! Yes! YES! YES!!!!!

As part of the current @thefence.bsky.social PRINT'S NOT DEAD special issue, we spoke with some of the most eminent minds in print journalism - Graydon Carter, Jo Ellison, Ian Hislop, Miranda Sawyer and many more - about how, or IF, print survived the iPhone. www.the-fence.com/rumours-of-o...

For a while, I collected the worst jokes UK political correspondents ascribed to MPs, especially those sent via WhatsApp. Because I despise you, I'm migrating the thread here, starting with this absolute *shiter* from 2022, so we can share in the horror together. Please send me the worst you have.

Got an appointment from the hospital. At the top of the first page is my name, address, NHS number and patient number. The first two pages of the letter tell me where and when and remind me that I should bring my hearing aids/walking stick/whatever other helps I might need. The usual stuff. (1/4)

feel like people say this about me all the time

feel like we all read some version of this story every single day and still nothing ever gets done about it

Genuine question as I'm trying to collate them for a piece: is there a list out there of all these documented cases of catastrophic AI derangement? Pretty sure I've seen a dozen or more examples get the long-read treatment, but they rarely seem to mention any of the other similar cases.

Proffered by @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com at the time, an absolutely turgid slice of steaming hot shite from Labour SpadsApp, and the first real sign that Starmer's government had what it takes to stand toe-to-to with the Tories in the tumbleweed stakes.

Absolutely torn on this one. Is it so bad, so cosmically dense that it flits straight through the space-time continuum and becomes funny somehow? There's no easy answers, and I won't promise that there are. This may be too hard to calibrate to any great certainty for generations to come.

The secret to comedy is timing and what better time for the Conservative Party to curl out a shiter this abysmal, than in June 2024, three weeks into a snap election they called, during which they've shat the bed about eighteen times a day, and went on to lose by a historic margin.

A rare one two-punch of absolute DEFCON 1 shiters. Two of the worst jokes I've ever heard in my entire life, one after the other. A lack of comedic skill so profound it's almost exhilarating.

I mean, fuck me, this is dire. A top-to-bottom, Grade-A, Category I, burn-everything-and-beg-for-mercy shiter.

Staying with plutonium-grade shiters, this is the level of terrible politician comedy we're aspiring to here, the utter dregs, the blackness of the abyss. This is the proper high strength stuff that keeps us going everyday.

For balance, I am duty-bound to include this actual certified banger of a joke from Mark Drayford from that same conference.

Who can forget when the 2023 Labour Conference got off to a winning start with this gut-level groaner from Da Lord Of Chaos himself.

Shout out to Oliver Dowden for this absolute titanium-strength, five-star shiter. Pro-tip: ending a joke with a question mark perfectly recreates the sense of you being hauled off stage with a shepherd's crook and flung to your death in the centipede pits.

This beauty earns its place in the mirth morgue, for its full trifecta of: - totally unnatural statement-speak that has no business being in a text message - some truly tortured mixed metaphors - a bonus non-literal "literally" into the bargain Exquisitely dire. 10/10.

What would you do if a friend - someone you loved, someone you *trusted* - texted you a joke this bad? Would you get over it? *Could* you? Knowing what they'd just done?

This is actually it I think, this is 100% the worst joke I have ever heard in my entire life.

There was an entire section devoted just to WhatsApps received by Steve Hawkes, truly the Robert Oppenheimer of being texted shit jokes by politicians. A man cursed with some horrible genius for marshalling the most powerful and inscrutable cringe particles emanating from Westminster.

Why, exactly? Why do your colleagues need to take up yoga? What do you MEAN?

Not a joke, per se, but this risibly purple three-pronged metaphor will earn it an honourable mention in any all time list of political tumbleweeds.

Pound for pound one of the worst jokes I have ever heard in my entire life, from 2019.

This strong effort suggested by @daraor.bsky.social.

For a while, I collected the worst jokes UK political correspondents ascribed to MPs, especially those sent via WhatsApp. Because I despise you, I'm migrating the thread here, starting with this absolute *shiter* from 2022, so we can share in the horror together. Please send me the worst you have.

fucking HELL

I worked at Argos while at sixth form, and a customer once brought in a slice of bread as evidence his toaster wasn't working.

J.D. Vance was meant to be a guy you see for 3 seconds on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives as he goes "oh yeah, so good" with his dumb BBQ sauce-covered face. But instead he's the Vice President, explaining how you can be for a pure nation while having an Indian wife, because "one less wife for them"

Jonesy

I’ll tell you who used to be afraid of Christmas - Noel Coward.

The Irish Nazi Party used to be run by a fella who lived with his mum in a cottage in Ringsend. In those days, no one said you lived in an "echo chamber" if you didn't go around to listen to him.

A friend on Facebook has just reminded me of the time I did the maths and worked out that Santa's life is a living hell.