Scrooge (1951) with Alaistair Sim, available on youtube here in a good copy here. It became popular because of television showings years after release. Other films that is true of? /1 www.youtube.com/watch?v=knpv...

I remember the time when I was blissfully ignorant of the difference between the Single Market and the Customs Union. Happy days.

Here is why Cook, at least, should be remembered. On Parkinson, half cut, with the boxer John Conteh. youtu.be/yzazJqOV_Eg?...

Just starting a running thread for “once famous figures now slipping into recondite knowledge now that they’ve died and society moves on” to come back to as and when I remember =1 Peter Cook and/or Dudley Moore

Why is there so little football on this week?

Portes is very disappoitned in lack of pro-growth tax reform. I am a bit more than that.

War is peace. Russia is fully committed to peace in Ukraine.

I first saw this on a flight to Australia, expecting nothing. I expect it was the thin air at altitude but the heartfelt Grabthar's Hammar scene had me tearing up.

From the perspective of a jurisdiciton other than the US, what is wrong with SCOTUS is not SCOTUS itself, which has not operated for 50+ years in the way that courts behave elsewhere, but the open textured constitutional values it is asked to "interpret". /1

Another complete rotter.

The Graun's "You've Read X articles this year" pop up is curiously counterproductive. Althugh I read the football reports and the film reviews, my score is now very low, making me reluctant to put my hand in my pocket.

Has there ever been a comparison of the predicted ex ante and known ex post costs/benefits of the Elizabeth Line? (I think HS2 was always doomed, sorry. The predicted numbers just weren't good. I wish it were otherwise.)

Has the ever been a comparison of the predicted ex ante and known ex post costs/benefits of the Elizabeth Line? (I think HS2 was always doomed, sorry. The predicted numbers just weren't good. I wish it were otherwise.)

Would pin, but this is bluesky. (I also have views many will dislike.)

that UK debt crisis in full

Could the world's second Wrongest Man have called it wrong?

It is bad for everyone that the Tories are not trying to occupy the space of the sane right. Their shift to try and out Farage Farage pulls Labour rightwards too, leaving space for the 6th former appeal of the Greens and the Nats. /1

This is potentially one of the most transformational policies this government has done if it holds its nerve.

This Trump chap seems to be an absolute blighter

He says this like it would be a bad thing.

"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." Am so glad this important satire on Stalinism is getting the serious treatment it deserves.

Go straight from the early Boomers to Millenials.

Did we already hit 90-95% of what LLMs can usefully do? It is nice to have, and will lead to some job losses (eg note taking of meetings is now easier) but what it seems best at is reproducing quickly what we can do already. Which is why it is so "good" at GCSE standard essays. Is this datf?

Well, there's a photo I never expected to see in my life. Noam Chomsky palling around with Steve Bannon.

It is godd that the full awfulness of Legrand has now broken out into the wider community. Up until now, it had been a few Anglos muttering to each other about what a shit he is. (The review is brilliantly funny. Reflects well on Barry Nicholas.)

I didn't get passed the ** footnote, and the opening couple of paragraphs. What were the editors of the journal thinking accepting this?

I’M LOSING MY SHIT THIS IS SO FUNNY

Isn’t this just a form of protracted phoenixism?? So is he engaging in a.216 Insolvency Act 1986 activity? I seem to remember some of his previous ventures owed substantial amounts to creditors - wasn’t it about £90million? #LAW373 #insolvency

Kelly or Littler?

I should perhaps add, in fairness to our friends in the north, that these are also all English, not British. (Habeus corpus was introduced into Scotland by legislation).

I dislike this. It is a reply to pieces by Policy Exchange and Jonathan Sumption arguing for withdrawal from the ECHR. As a reply by a think tank, or an individual, it would be fine. But it is an advocacy piece, it shouldn't be going out as academic research from a University. /1

Oh dear, I had hoped looking at the full version would improve my view. Alas no. /1

I don't think these ten bullet points are credible academic outputs that a University should be endorsing. /1

I'm younger than Farage and didn't go to private school but I call bullshit on these claims in The Spectator that racism was acceptable and just one of those things. It was not. /1

I must have visited the US 20-30 times. Lived there for a year. I have set foot in almost all States. (Missing North Dakota, Hawaii, Alaska maybe one or two others.) Love being there. Some of my most cherished memories. Not expecting to go again until regime change.

Because of various, errr, missteps, I have been balance sheet insolvent for much of my life. Indeed, so far into overall indebtedness that I have probably been in the bottowm 0.1% of global wealth by this measure. I have never been poor. www.theguardian.com/inequality/2...

This is now out as Lorren Eldridge, 'Section 53(1)(b) and the Rest is History' [2025] Conv 363 - full text on Westlaw.

Watching sport in the US is impossible because of as breaks ever few minutes. Case what they're trying to do to football? God I hate FIFA.

"Commercial implications" FFS

@dsquareddigest.bsky.social and I had a NYT piece on this and have more coming soon www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/o...

My reading of this? We already have a good idea about the impact and commissioning an official report into it is really not much more than postponing the doing for the sake of a govt-approved analysis.

I think I'd watch a movie about Louis and Rick and their further adventures. Indeed, given copyright lapses, and AI advances, I expect I will.

“Pele…who I assume is one of the greats” says Donald Trump

There were 64 matches in the 2022 World Cup. In 2026, the first 72 matches (12 groups of 4) will send 16 teams home, while 32 go through to the last 32 games that decide the World Cup

You have to stand back and just applaud the shamelessness of it all.

$77bn Who amongst us could have foreseen that this might not be a success?

Winner of the FIFA Peace Prize seems a lock but who'll get the FIFA Prize for Physics?

It really does take something special for me to feel nostalgic for the leadership of Sepp Blatter.

As those who follow these things know. other than the steel tariffs which are covered separately, my own view is that Trump's tariffs have no basis in law at all, and that this is so obvious that it is a test of whether SCOTUS is a court in meaningful sense. /1