‘Thoravej 29’s ‘off-the-shelf’ raw structure was still replete with idiosyncrasies and challenges to overcome to enable its full reuse; the architects’ deft navigation forms the essential dexterity of the new architecture’ writes @reubenjbrown.com on NGO Bikubenfonden’s new HQ by Pihlmann Architects

The more things change, the more they stay the same?

1,553 days until the next UK general election. Perhaps Labour MPs should spend at least some of them (the next 1000, say?) arguing and thinking about things other than electoral strategy?

This is so incredibly kind and thoughtful of you, Lord Woolley. Thank you so very much. (Please see my previous post for information on how to register for the election of the next chancellor of Cambridge University.) #cambridge #cambridgechancellor @cambridgeup.bsky.social

Fascinated by the use of the word 'Eurosceptic' here.

Missed opportunity for Reform to not go with "Make England Great Again" hats and take the acronym MEGA ... MGBA hardly rolls of the tongue

If I didn’t want the UK to succeed, I would find all the ways the government is hobbling its growth strategy so funny. Pro the Oxford/Cambridge arc, provided we don’t make it easier for researchers to come here, and not so pro as not to pass a *one-line bill* for metro-mayors.

Watching a recorded church service from a local Progressive Christian church. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is mentioned. I am laughing. I can’t escape this.

The main reason UK electricity prices are so high isn’t net zero but the fact that gas sets the price 98% of the time.

Some belting quotes in here

Tim Cook once again proving himself as the greatest political operator of our times. I reckon he could set up a supply chain in Hades www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04...

Huge and mental scoop from @willdunn.bsky.social. ‘Australian media advertises the fact that a UK state pension worth “thousands of dollars” can be bought cheaply by Australians who live in Australia: “It almost sounds like a scam – too good to be true,” it observes.’

The king has spoken

you know things are going well when they break out the turnip photos

my offer to america: we bring woke back

In other news, I just bought a bottle of scotch from myself for one quadrillion dollars. By the end of the night I’ll probably only be a billionaire though. on.ft.com/41OQ2rw

Intently trying to work through a theory of how Covid punctured the Climate Movement. I'm not sure *how* yet, I've just got a sense that it did; and it turns out the data backs me up. Big levellings-off for a range of climate terms on Google Ngram post-2019: (CC @climatewords.bsky.social)

A yes, my favourite part of the 1940s: the 1950s

the left wing in Britain basically thinks debt doesn't exist and isn't a problem. It's not like Clive Lewis is saying 'we should do a land tax rather than welfare cuts to curtail our huge debt payments'. he's saying 'just forget the huge debt payments don't exist'. but they do

A government so preoccupied with why it won that it hasn't thought at all about why Sunak lost:

Think this piece on hippy punching from last year still stands up www.economist.com/britain/2024...

There has never been a better time for Rage Against The Machine to come back with a new album that seems tepid compared to their original work and gets a 5.6 from Pitchfork

When UBS bought its rival Credit Suisse in 2023, it got roughly a half of a trillion dollars in assets as well as customers and offices around the world. It also took on a fleet of model ships and more than 13,500 artworks.

I've asked ChatGPT to cite its sources and it's just given me blank bullet points and said it *has* cited specific sources but can't tell me what they are??? This some childish-ass withholding of information man

This is great and the photos really make it. Hat tip to photographer Alberto Bernasconi. Follow a gold bar as it makes its way from London to NY via Switzerland. www.ft.com/content/2289...

Another @louisashworth.bsky.social classic: www.ft.com/content/d6c3...

Tired: everything is romantic Wired: everything is computer

little land grab here little land grab there this is not normal www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m... / www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...

My saga continues – I've been put on hold by my case handler for 20 minutes because he's so desperately useless ... it's a little bit adorable

*sigh* time to break this one out again, huh

If you missed today's newsletter, in which I said 'look, come on, we really do need to be increasing spending back to 1966 to 1990 levels and it's mad to think you can get political consent for that without increasing spending elsewhere', don't worry: I will be saying it for most of the year I think

Why is this person who is usually so swift to reply not replying to me, I ask as I uncover my email in draft folder

Maybe I wasn’t clear about this. I wanted more egg and no plane crash, not many plane crash and no egg.

every day I think about the comms strategy of the korean opposition party in the wake of the coup and I get so burningly resentful that other countries have legislators who are awake

the true crime of the HMRC helpline is that instead of bland but ignorable music they blast you with a series of spoken messages about how you need to pay more tax or take a survey or something

Labour should be using the need to increase defence spending as a off-ramp for their promises on tax, not letting their defence policy (like everything else) be constrained by their promises on tax.

UK emissions from agriculture exceeded those from power generation last year. Quite insane ... need to stop eating meat www.businessgreen.com/news/4409707...

The Wall Street Journal is a great paper, but this is the most pure 'liberals is when someone denies my wants' bit of posting to describe 'the WSJ's subscription strategy' as a thing that 'liberals' control or influence.

Materials Recycling World is a really great read: www.mrw.co.uk/news/pair-pr...

PFAS is the most bipartisan environmental crisis going on right now. And it might be the one thing this EPA actually makes progress on this term. Gift link: www.theatlantic.com/health/archi...

I wonder how the folks in Dearborn, Michigan are feeling this morning

Dumbshit Treasury brain stuff this: India and Denmark etc just said 'we would like to electrify our rail network, we will set up an arm of government to steadily do it all'. Their teams finish one project then go straight to next. In the UK we do it piecemeal with no future work guarantee, costs ££.

I can be as critical as anyone of the government's occasionally muddled message on growth but Look! At! This! Chart!! Anything they've done pales next to this GIGANTIC UNFORCED ERROR COMMITTED IN 2016! (fagpacket maths follows) on.ft.com/4hzyvbJ

what does this graph mean I am dumb

The problem with twitter is it’s still extremely funny

don’t mention this to modern Thatcherites but the tax rises at the start of the Thatcher period were bigger - proportionately - than Labour’s October 2024 Budget yes Mrs T cut taxes but only after increasing them massively taxpolicy.org.uk/2022/06/08/u...

So glad the facades got de-hospitalized. wishing for a swift recovery.

Fascinating article in that it tells you a lot about how architecture as an industry works without ever interrogating it. Really just glides past the “The offices don’t close at night, or on Christmas” and “He could just come downstairs on a Sunday morning to make sure somebody’s working.”