people online are constantly saying shit like "the average person is now post-literate and returning to medieval peasant mindset" while neglecting the corollary, namely that our elite aristos are once again scrying for angels, summoning demons, distilling elixirs of eternal life, etc.

Two dudes whom despite their best efforts have no power in Canada.

Imagine you're at a writers' retreat with the lads and you're all showing off a draft after dinner and then your mate's girlfriend goes here is the novel Frankenstein which I just wrote

Find yourself someone who loves you as much as Vladdy hates the Yankees

It may destroy the global economy but it’s still kinda fun to take a tiny active role in the bursting of this bubble in Bartleby fashion

So if I’ve grasped the galaxy-brained strategy here, it’s: ✅ Day 1: reassure target voters that migrants are a problem & you’re ready to make them suffer ✅ Day 2: tell target voters their ideas are racist ✅ Day 3: reassure target voters that migrants are a problem & you’re ready to make them suffer

you can learn plenty about Scottish politics just by placing the graphs and images from this report side by side www.sfc.ac.uk/publications...

Doctorow on the impending economic collapse when the AI bubble bursts. pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e...

Yep since 2019 we’ve paid £10-£15k in visa fees including around £5k to the NHS during which time my wife had no access to public funds and was paying income tax and NI like everyone else. Stop pretending it isn’t already a massive rip off and overwhelmingly net positive for the country.

Analytic philosophers - this is it, this is the moment that the grounding literature actually becomes relevant to something.

‘World-class research capacity at risk from cuts to staff time’. University leader warns institutions rowing back on research time could lead to “tipping points”. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...

This final post from Kaleb Horton is very beautiful and hits hard. This is just so sad. RIP.

It seems that Kaleb Horton has passed away. A devastating loss. One of the best writers of this generation. Kaleb was a friend for ten years and in all our conversations I was trying to convince him how good he was, something he seemed to know but also never fully believe. I am going to go cry now.

There have been a ton of 20th anniversary "best of" podcast lists lately, and it has started to feel a bit like an obituary for an industry. [gift link] defector.com/the-future-o...

Re the new Reform pledge, a sports writer has already got to the heart of the matter better than the politics commentators www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Please pray for the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team. Do it instead of a loved one if necessary.

It doesn't make up for all of the bad stuff of course, but being the first generation of parents who can tell their kids that things were better back in their day, dadgummit, and actually be right about it is weirdly satisfying.

Too much American news the past few weeks. Once in a while is fine.

'As universities close courses and departments in response to financial pressures...students in parts of the North, South West and East of England, as well as large areas of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, are losing access to social sciences, humanities and arts (SHAPE) courses.' 1/2

Patricia Lockwood’s new book explores illness. Getting sick, she said, thrust the questions that lurk at the heart of all novels, and all lives, to the center of hers: “What is the performance of a self? What is a person? What am I?”

I’ve written for @lrb.co.uk on the closure of Scotland’s last oil refinery at Grangemouth by Petroineos and the unjust transition in British manufacturing. A committed workforce was betrayed by multinational employers as governments failed to meet their promises.

"Are asylum seekers the biggest political issue in Britain?" Asks radio 4. "We interview man who is determined to make it the biggest issue in Britain. And make it a headline every morning until it definitely is"

Exactly this - we are at a dangerous cusp where appalling people have crawled out of the woodwork and values-led pushback is vital. But the most hostile anti-migrant voices remain a tiny minority, given a platform because they reflect the obsessions of our hateful media

good explainer if you’re confused why some people are calling for Sally Rooney to be charged as a terrorism supporter

Showing children of the future the unacceptable hair rendering on the left to explain why we had to get rid of the rainforest.

Desperately trying to flush my hardback copy of Intermezzo down the toilet as the police kick in my front door

I wrote about this willfully stupid logic a couple of years ago www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The old world is dying, and the new world is so fucking stupid dude

What Labour is proposing now was considered too extreme for North Carolina in 2016. The man who proposed it lost an NC election by 150k votes *last year*

One of the biggest obstacles faced by my first-gen students is a fear of writing. Fear that they'll be called stupid or wrong. Fear that they won't use "smart" words. Instead of working through that fear, LLMs give them a way to never confront it, never overcome it, never learn. I hate it so much

New YouGov polling. A monumental failure of our political class to educate, a monumental failure of our media to report fairly, for a generation

"The BBC World Service has compiled material on over 160 cases where children have been shot in Gaza, and found that in 95 cases the child was shot in the head or the chest. In most of these cases the victim was under 12 years old"

PUP TINY DESK

Thinking that LLM-ish AIs could soon lead our science and philosophy and art is tied to thinking we already reached the end of science and philosophy and art anyway. Nobody thinks an LLM-ish AI trained only on variations on 17th century texts could get us to 21st century civ

Ozzy Osbourne, Take Me Out To The Ball Game

for Bills Week I decided to read the new 1000 page Buckley biography

Even declinism gets worse - nice from @johnmerrick.bsky.social

But do you condemn the violence at the Bastille?

The terror lies in the normalisation. Another 40 today. It could be 100 tomorrow, 200 next week. There’s no ceiling.

If this doesn’t alarm you, it should.

If you haven't heard the MJ cover of Dancing in the Club for some reason you should listen to it! Song of the year so far. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BUI...

Just a complete snapshot of where we are as a country even down to the BBC asking the BBC to comment.

Jordan Peterson is proof that if a Canadian becomes a continental philosopher and a right wing Christian as well as a psychologist they become too powerful. Canadians must be banned from that exact combination.

Day after day, the Israeli government continues its project of the physical elimination of the population of Gaza. The world does nothing. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Today's newsletter is one of the few places where you'll read about Clayton Kershaw defacing his Pride Day cap with a bible verse widely used by homophobes to discredit the LGBTQ+ community. Imagine if it was someone doing that to an American flag cap logo. www.cupofcoffeenews.com/cup-of-coffe...

Tom Leonard’s 1984 poetry collection INTIMATE VOICES was banned by Scotland’s Central Region school libraries in 1984. The Education Committee said “There are some harmful words in it… Sometimes the naked truth has to be clothed” But Leonard had anticipated this sort of reaction… #BookWormSat 1/3

I was fighting fascism with the power of love and kindness and just really getting my ass handed to me. flaminghydra.com/issue-243/

In advance of When the Clock Broke's release in the UK, I have an essay in this weekend's @financialtimes.com magazine www.ft.com/content/43b8...

babe wake up the richest man in the world and the president of the united states are calling each other paedophiles online