Everyone you meet is fighting an invisible battle but sometimes you can tell super easily when they're losing

That’s some shit Chris Farley would’ve fallen through on SNL

Mel Brooks has been around for 40% of the US's existence.

Fucking Olympian.

‘Say yes and never do it’ Mel Brooks knew how to deal with the studios

Heck yes.

I’m not thrilled that apparently the secret to success in basically every field right now is “be really good at short form video”

Tens of thousands celebrated Budapest Pride, the first since Viktor Orbán’s ousting.

I genuinely don't believe that anyone making million dollar business decisions for corporations has any actual clue just how much people despise AI. It's like all those guest commencement speakers at universities being proAI and not understanding why grads are booing them.

This is very reminiscent of tactics the Kremlin has used against dissidents.

you’re a spiritual being having a human experience? that’s nice. i’m a sack full of wire hangers and sour gummy worms who seethes.

‘when you share something thinking "aha finally something that shows perfectly how right I've been" you're almost certainly being a dumbass’ Words to live by.

The heat causes even electronic streams to stop flowing. Ended up posting a recording of this week's "live", which still has some digital cracks baked in. In this one I talk climate storytelling + Microsoft ❤️ Chevron + the new issue of our ¡AU! Journal. Watch: www.linkedin.com/posts/nealro...

Nope. Ignore all that. Our network is not behaving.

Ignore that link. Try this one: riverside.com/studio/neal-...

I'll be doing the @auworks.bsky.social weekly wrap-up live in 30 mins (4pm UK time)! Join me here: riverside.com/studio/neal-...

David Lean didn’t build an entire bridge - and then blow it up with an actual train on it so you could tell me that AI is "inevitable"

What if it is not a civil war but just the natural evolution of a party at a moment of generational transition?

I can never decide which is my favorite Powell & Pressburger film, but this one spends a lot of time at the top. Anton Walbrook’s monologue on being a refugee from Nazi Germany, a few scenes before this, is terrific.

Dear Santa, This year for Prime Day I want the breakup of Amazon as a corporate conglomerate monopoly, with Kindle and Audible being nationalized into a sort of publicly owned internet library funded by a progressive tax on the hyper-rich and an annual stipend for authors.

the Guardian is doing a liveblog of the heatwave in Europe, and manages to mostly avoid the fun in the sun vibes

In case you, too, needed this today:

Kind of great.

Returning tomorrow to a hellish 32C London from a delightful 39C Granada.

can’t believe a narcissist is being so publicly humiliated by a reflecting pool

When reality surpasses fiction! Top: fictional forecast for August 2050, broadcast by French TV in 2014 to warn about the consequences of global warming. Bottom: Real French forecast for yesterday, June 22, 2026.

Defiant and hopeful outgoing Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez Torres, co-chair of the Santa Marta TAFF Fossil Fuel Phaseout conference, delivering their report at #LondonClimateActionWeek. Watch 1/2

Periodic reminder I have a book. You can buy it. Still the only nonfiction work on love, sex, and gender in the life and works of H. P. Lovecraft, his contemporaries, and literary heirs. www.hippocampuspress.com/h.p-lovecraf...

Hard to overstate just how much of the Brexit campaign was based on lies. Looking back it’s a sad case study of a country voting to immiserate itself due to the mendacity of right-wing politicians and tabloids. But it’s almost never framed that way in UK media. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

In the end, there were just a lot more human rights abuses than I was expecting from the human rights lawyer.

Oh look! It’s government.

At the risk of igniting a public debate about the design… we prepared for days like this. There are now more than 100 water fountains all over the city, and 4,000 water refill points. Fill up. Stay hydrated.

celebrating Billy Wilder's birthday with my one thousandth viewing of 'The Apartment' 📽️

⚡️Thousands gather for Kyiv's largest Pride march since start of full-scale war. Ahead of the event in support of the LGBTQ+ community, a counter-demonstration was held in Kyiv, involving supporters of "traditional family values" and far-right activists.

Science-fiction writer Octavia E. Butler was born #OTD in 1947. A multiple recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, she became the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship (1995). #booksky #litsky #scifi #SpeculativeFiction

And for everyone's sake, whoever is Labour leader, they need to sort out an effective communications strategy as a matter of urgency/top priority, run by someone who actually understands the bloody job, knowing they face a hostile press and clickbait driven social media as a baseline.

Brace yourself now for a torrent of fury from Reform and the Tories that changing a PM means a General Election should be called. This will be the new online campaign to replace “Starmer is weak”.

Mona Khalil, Lebanon’s most well-known sea turtle conservationist, died of her wounds today after being injured by an Israeli strike I feel sick

"Something just brushed past my leg!" — Luke Skywalker, #StarWars Image credit: tempestkc on Threads #LincolnMemorialReflectingPool #USA

Matt Brittin bringing some of that Google magic to the BBC.

Nevertheless, the fact that in the UK Parliamentary system you can have a Prime Minister the public didn’t vote is still super dumb. Ok, yes, I know the PM isn’t an executive - like a president. But then stop treating them like one. Just needed to get that off my chest. Carry on.

Check out this sword stuck in a stone!!

"The Americans can't get the slime out of their capital's monument pool and will arrest you for touching it," sounds like the sort of lie they'd tell us in the Soviet Union so we'd stop bitching about bread lines.

🎯

Also: someone like Johnson couldn’t disappoint. Cos, what are your expectations? But an actual *human rights lawyer* with a massive majority? I think that’s what is most galling. You have inbuilt expectations of decency that are as on-brand as Johnson fucking his own fist, and you screw that.

The tale of the ruler whose reflection turned to slime is beyond what even the Brothers Grimm conceived. This is Angela Carter or Italo Calvino territory, and it is wonderful.

Labour won by 20 points and net immigration is down by over 80% in two years. But sure write your column again.

This is still the Reform -ie. wrong- framing. The reality is that immigration to the UK is overwhelmingly a good thing. The framing MUST shift the narrative from negative to positive, or the UK will continue to spiral into blame and hatred.