Blogged: "Changing Immutable Collections" - codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2025/12/31/c...

Just watched "Wicked - for good" and as well as being great as I expected, I was struck by an indictment of populism that I hadn't figured out before. Not sure if I was just missing the obvious before, or whether a new political context just makes it much clearer, but wow.

Just on our way home from Into the Woods at the Bridge Theatre. It wasn't the absolute best production of it that I've seen (that was probably at the Menier), but it was immensely enjoyable nonetheless. Every time I watch Into the Woods I end up just grinning from ear to ear. Such fun.

Just dropped @hollywebb.bsky.social and friends off at the station on their way to the protest at the new trans-exclusionary Girlguiding policy. So proud of them all. (Their signs are fab.) I gather some folks are bringing binliners for a post-protest litter-pick - the most Girlguiding thing ever.

Bingeing Traitors (UK) season two. I wonder if anyone's ever counted up how many times contestants say "100%" in any context. (Any time they say they're 100% sure of something, that seems to be a pretty good indication they're wrong.)

Gosh, Stack Overflow seems to be down. Let's check whether it's just me... <heads for downdetector> Oh.

Make no mistake, Your Party has achieved something today that I had not thought I'd see... They've made Reform UK look disciplined. (Admittedly that's on the basis of a) reporting on Zarah Sultana boycotting the first day and b) watching some of the live stream. Maybe the rest was better...)

Well here's a terrifying sentence: "Heathrow Airport's plan for a third runway, which involves moving the M25 motorway, has been chosen by the government." I'm sure that will absolutely be done without making the M25 even more of a car park than it already is at times. No disruption here, guv!

I don't know what brought Linden Lea into my head this morning, but now it's stuck there. It's not like I'm the kind of person who would enjoy a rural life, but both the words and the music are so beautiful that I'm now yearning for an apple tree to lean down low for (or at least near) me...

I suspect @ldfreedman.bsky.social is going to have a busy week. Surprised to see Russia (at least ostensibly) agreeing to the peace plan given Lawrence's analysis. I can only assume there's more going on behind the scenes - or that the supposed support is more for show/pressure than for peace.

I've just finished listening to the utterly wonderful "Don't burn anyone at the stake today" by @naomialderman.bsky.social. Thoughtful, informative, practical, hopeful (despite everything) - I can't recommend it highly enough. The audiobook is wonderful - it's "spoken" rather than "read". Amazing.

Just finished Cabaret with Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada. Even with high expectations, we were blown away. Just wow. Ruthie Henshall was fab as well - I last saw her in Les Mis in the 90s...

@benhollebon.co.uk Not sure how active you are on here, but if you are - does your role include tech *within* churches (e.g. A/V)? Would love to have a conversation about making A/V simpler and increasing accessibility and inclusiveness of worship.

@mrchrisaddison.bsky.social Did you first see The Producers at the Menier? If so, would love you to check my memory. I remembered *two* giant Nazi pigeons during Springtime for Hitler, but at the Garrick there was only one - and it was earlier in the show. Is my memory duff, or has this changed?

This needs more attention: Zohran SPLIT the straights with Cuomo. ALL of his margin was from LGBTQ+ voters. Every Dem who ever said “we should abandon the transes” needs this shoved down their fucking throat with a ramrod.

So many questions. Primarily: a) Reform UK now believes if someone changes party there should be a by-election, do they? Let's apply that consistently... b) How can you stand for Reform UK - as recently as July 2025 - and *not* be aware of their anti-immigration stance?

Every time I've watched Apple TV (on the Google TV streamer) in the last week or so, it's forced me to sign in again, which I can only do with an Apple device, of course. (I have an iPod Nano pretty much purely for that purpose at this point.) Very frustrating.

It feels to me like the Green's recent surge off the back of Zack Polanski becoming the new leader is really not what Your Party need in the run-up to their conference. If you were a disaffected left-wing voter looking for an alternative and weighing up Green vs YP, which looks more credible?

Full marks to the BBC weather site for correctly showing the repetition of 1am in the UK this weekend. (Hopefully most other weather sites get this right too...)

The Plaid win in Caerphilly, by a significant margin, with good turnout for a by-election (over 50%) is really interesting. My *guess* is that it includes quite a bit of tactical voting to keep Reform out. If that's replicated next May, it could be a slightly bizarre election.

Why do by-election results in Wales take a long time to come out? Because they count the votes so Caerphilly!

Okay, for the folks who asked: here's the majority AI view, writing up the reasonable, thoughtful view on AI that the vast majority of people in tech hold, that gets overshadowed by the bluster and hype of the tycoons trying to shill their nonsense. anildash.com/2025/10/17/t... Please share!

If you've been on the fence about subscribing to Sam's substack, just go for it. Every post is gold.

Second Hadestown poster acquired. This is now my 18th time seeing it - but it's been 2 1/2 months since my last visit and (illogically I know) that feels like an absolute age. Looking forward to seeing Nicola Roberts as Persephone. Tough part, but everyone does it differently.

It's very kind of US and French politicians to go to these lengths to make UK politics look normal.

So, now that Your Party has an Electoral Commission ID, and is in the new ElectoralCalculus/PLMR MRP, I should add it to election2029.uk It's unclear what colour I should use though. Maybe it'll become more obvious after their conference.

Read my two letters to the #UK: 1. Protests: I call for a review of the legal framework and the reconsideration of provisions in the Crime & Policing Bill that could restrict freedom of assembly. 2. Trans people: I warn against exclusion&zero-sum approaches 👇#HumanRights www.coe.int/en/web/commi...

Booked to see Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada in Cabaret in November. Totally stoked for it.

I'm currently working on tooling to ingest results for the 2029 UK general election - providing random results for test purposes. In order to see the site work "properly" (as opposed to just on my personal laptop), I'm planning on running this on staging.election2029.uk.

"Dragon" is to "pile of gold" as "cat" is to "coffee machine".

This is a really excellent post, even by the normal Freedman high standards. The timeline of September meetings and events is particularly interesting.

Why do studios pay so little attention to subtitles? I'm just watching something on Disney+, and the subtitles included "H&amp;R". Where's the quality control?

BBC news: "Denmark says 'professional actor' behind drone incursions over its airports" Me: I bet AmDram societies all over Europe are breathing a sigh of relief. ... Me: Oh, *that* kind of professional actor.

One of my favorite poems since childhood, and a poem I share every #autumnequinox. By the 12thc warrior poet Xin Qiji 辛棄疾, sidelined during peacetime, demoted, drifting through a decade of minor posts in remote lands. Poetry, then, is that which is left unsaid. “My, what a cool and lovely autumn.”

@janschne1der.bsky.social Found your account while looking for the #FindingHester tag. Reading it now. It's a small world...

Lib Dems: We have 12x Reform's MPs, can we have the same coverage? BBC: But Reform has 2x your poll rating. If there were an election tomorrow, they'd be running the country. Lib Dems: So you're putting their people and policies under scrutiny, right? BBC: Lib Dems: Right?

On a long weekend away with friends, with a lot of boardgames. (It's so lovely.) I'm considering a variant on Splendor - exactly as normal, but with the top card on each card pile face up, so you know what *will* be available to buy once one of the current cards has gone.

Listening to "Dear Bill" from Operation Mincemeat and crying all over again... and at the same time I'm utterly frustrated that it's tickling some memory of a song from another musical, and I absolutely *cannot* figure out what.

Well that was a fun day. Another theatre double bill - this time "Stranger Things: The First Shadow" and then "Operation Mincemeat". Both excellent - and very, very different from each other...

@moreincommonuk.bsky.social Gentle nudge for the VI tables for August 22nd-26th :)

@wobblygoose.bsky.social Our church (Tilehurst Methodist Church) is going to have four services on Radical Welcome soon - I'm mulling/planning at the moment, and I think some of the linocuts from your web site could be really useful. Would like to discussion permission/licensing.

I'm not a fan of insomnia, but as I was only going to work a half day today anyway, working from 4am to 7:30am where my internal log ends with "Holy mackerel, it works!" feels like a good start to the day. (Admittedly the code that "works" is pretty horrible, and I want to remove it ASAP, but...)

Hint for those submitting a bug report to open source projects: writing "please prioritize" while only providing a repro which contains hundreds of lines of test code with zero explanation does not go down well. (Having the repro is a good thing, of course. Long and unexplained - not so much.)

One for followers who are interested in elections/polling: currently, election2029.uk has navigation items for "Map" and "Sankey". Election geeks might know what to expect from that, but I suspect most folks wouldn't. Do you think "Seat Map" and "Seat Flow" would be better? Any other suggestions?

Reeve Carney and Eva Noblezada together in Cabaret in London from late September? Sign me up...

Watching Brie Larson in The Bear and picturing what would happen if she got the parts of Francie Fak and Elektra mixed up (either way round). (Gotta say, enjoying her more as Francie than as Elektra. That probably says terrible things about me.)

Just watching The Bear (S4E4), and Ayo Edebiri is just amazing. Sure, she's working with a great script etc - but wow is she watchable.

Doing a double again today: Hadestown this afternoon (it feels like it's been *ages*) and then Stereophonic this evening. What a day!

Oh joy, I've started the "once every three years" process of getting a personal code signing certificate. Of course, every three years the process has changed a bit - and it's all business-oriented (which is somewhat reasonable) making it a pain to do as an individual...

Follow-up blog post to my previous one about C# records and the "with" operator... now with added Roslyn analyzers: codeblog.jonskeet.uk/2025/07/29/r...