You'd think after all these years Microsoft Word would not be an utterly unusuable pile of garbage that goes to shit as soon as you drop in an image or try to vary the formatting.

It’s on Google, even though it is making search worse. It’s on WhatsApp, even though I absolutely do not want “homework help” or “relationship advice” from my messaging app. In the year of our lord 2026, it is everywhere. And it *doesn’t work*.

Glasgow old-stuff nerds: did you know NLS had put Sulman's 1864 Bird's-Eye View online? Not as colourful as the GCHT version, but faster to load and scroll. maps.nls.uk/towns/rec/13...

Just seen that “AI is punk” take and… gosh. Was not aware that “counter-culture” in 2026 meant participating in a trillion dollar industry pushed by the world’s most valuable companies and the world’s most powerful nation.

Some wee tweaks to make, and I need to sign it, but Billy is essentially finished. #caricature #art

And to this day Piers Morgan is still paid big bucks, given television shows, paraded around the TV studios. Tell me that billionaire tabloid media are not a huge part of the black heart of evil corruption in this country. And some wonder how the Epstien scandal was allowed to happen.

I regularly see people wondering how it's possible that there are so many musicians and writers and film makers and artists from a tiny nation like Iceland. And the answer is really simple: State funding for art education and artists. I literally get a salary from the government to write books.

Walter's poodle Queenie was played by an acting dog named Darla. She also played precious in The Silence of the Lambs, and appeared in Batman Returns. 20/37

THE ‘BURBS was released 37 years ago today. A Tom Hanks/Joe Dante collaboration that has earned ‘cult classic’ status over the years, the story of how it came to be is as out there as the Klopek family… 1/37

Second change: invest in education and the creative industries. These are a far better bet than steel or fish. Third change: get the authoritarian shit off the books. In a world where people want stable, just democracies, be the island they flock to.

Outtake of a narrative art book thing I’m working on. #art #illustration #noir #conceptart #csp #drawing

What's so amazing about Jim Henson as a puppeteer is that he could literally be explaining that Kermit is made out of felt and ping pong balls and yet Kermit still feels alive the whole time he's doing it

Living under capitalism is like being forced to play a board game you dislike where the rules are boring, unfair and nonsensical but which the winners, who started with an advantage, keep explaining are excellent, and if you try improve the game you’re “cheating” but if you stop playing you’ll die

They want to work us to death.

What's the point of press conferences if you leak the content of that press conference to the press in advance? Feels like a meeting that already was an email.

It's a day ending in Y, and Anas Sarwar is once again throwing whoever under the bus he thinks will help him get a sniff at some more votes. In these dark times, it's at least a confort to know that this too will fail to halt Scottish Labour careening off a cliff.

I'm no political strategist but has anyone in Labour considered *not* alienating any huge chunk of their base? I just feel like they tried alienating the left and the centre left and the public sector workers and the academics, and none of those things worked great, so maybe give my idea a whirl?

It’s politicians like Sarwar who have broken politics. They come with no principles or vision apart from their own tawdry ambition and the pursuit of power for the mere sake of power. Decades of their lies and failures and venality have brought Britain to the sorry state it’s in today.

Obviously fuck Mandelson and Andrew, but it does annoy me that the UK media at large seems to have singled these two out as the only Epstein associates to face consequences. Peter Thiel is all over the Epstein files, and him facing similar excommunication would majorly change UK for the better.

Trying out a slightly different rendering style. #art #illustration #sketch #csp

Trying out a slightly different rendering style. #art #illustration #sketch #csp

Correlation? Causation?

The reason is that CEOs since the 1980s have had a smash-and-grab approach to the companies they run, where the goal isn't the long term success of the company, but rather inflating it's value on the stock market so that they themselves can cash out for as much money as physically possible.

Labour did as much as they could to *avoid* announcing any policies in the run up to 2024 and won by allowing the Tories to lose, rather than by creating any kind of movement. It should be no surprise that they're hugely unpopular now, because it was never entirely clear who they were to begin with.

Narrator: AI cannot help us do that.

'It is not right that people who don't get cancer treatment bear the costs for others that do.' Education is a right, not a priviledge. Education is available for all and an educated population benefits everyone, which is why we all pay for it through taxation. A LABOUR politician should know.

Unfriendly reminder, AI is being used to destroy trust. Do not normalize the use of AI. AI can not reliably enhance videos or low-quality images. This is the quiet replacement of reality. Do not let this be normalized.

Gads. I despise these people. So what little money the country supposedly has will go to propping up profit-less AI companies rather than fixing public services. Not. Serious. People.

Liz Truss waiting patiently by her phone for Reform to ring, not realising it's actually a penguin biscuit

I've said this several times but this is the only reason Reform exist. They are a cabal of already-rich asset strippers, with the sole aim of extracting as much wealth from the UK as they possibly can before leaving the country for dead. They must not get even a sniff of genuine power.

Memories of Creedmore, Swan Lake and Trump's Dystopian Gerontocracy bellacaledonia.org.uk/2026/01/25/t...

Cringer looks really, really bad.

StArMeR pLaYed A bLiNdEr

"I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of peace.”

in the plus side, watching the president of the United States destroy the entire geopolitical order because he didn't get a shiny award has successfully cured all my hangups about subtle character motivation in writing

Universally-known cynical opportunist we promoted for cynical opportunism, sacked for pursuing other opportunities cynically.

The increasingly common habit of screenshotting the AI summary of a Google search and presenting it as evidence must be nipped in the bud immediately. That is nothing. That is not anything, it is not a thing.

Govt minister Heidi Alexander on #trevorphillips this morning urging the Iranian govt to protect peoples right to peacefully protest

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One of the (Many) problems with Media and public discourse is way too much weight given to 'commentators' writing opinion pieces, and not enough to Journalists reporting on facts.

Please STOP posting caps of shit takes from the other place. We all know its a hellsite, we came here to escape it. The majority of these bad takes are intentionally trying to be provocative for engagement. Better still, instead of constantly reminding everyone of how bad it is, just leave!

The neoliberal brain rot affecting Western Governments has led us here. Successive Governments have undermined their own ability to do ANYTHING. So we're stuck capitulating to whoever has the best buying power.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

In what's now become an annual tradition, I've written another piece for The Gist about how and why I hate A.I. On a bubble about to burst, a future rotted to its core, and the limits of the Mrs Doyle Theory of artificial intelligence. www.thegist.ie/guest-gist-2...

*excellent* joke

every two weeks an incident happens that's so egregious that I truly get mad that everyone will just move on and absolutely nothing will happen- nobody will be punished, nobody will be arrested, nothing will even be changed. I'm so tired

What was the last movie or TV shoe you watched in 2025?