Even if England claw this one back, having seen all their games so far in this World Cup, they just simply aren’t playing at a champions level. Nothing about them says World Cup winners.

Congrats to the BBC 5 Live presenter this morning who called DR Congo “doctor Congo” and put that idea into my head for the rest of my life.

Don’t hate the heat, hate capitalism. The latest Philosophy Unleashed: philosophyunleashed.substack.com/p/pu-249-don...

Don’t hate the heat, hate capitalism. The latest Philosophy Unleashed: philosophyunleashed.substack.com/p/pu-249-don...

January 🎵 For the first play of Christmas my true love gave to me… Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. 🎵 My wife and I decided our Christmas present to each other would be to commit to seeing a play a month for the next twelve months. The #12PlaysOfChristmas

Currently on my third replacement train. First terminated without warning at Milton Keynes. Second at Northampton. This country’s train system is utterly fucked.

Train home just got cancelled 😂

With the house not cooling my plan for today has been to go to London, where it’s much hotter. That way when I get home the house will appear colder by comparison.

Dembélé provided magic, Norway didn’t show up, and France decided not to bother in the second half. (Well, until Doue got bored and nodded an extra one in to say goodbye). Again though, Jon Champion and Ally McCoist really need to get better at selling the dull bits. That’s the job of a commentator.

Idea for a TV show: Mbappé Days. Kylian Mbappé finds a Time Machine and goes back to 1950s Paris where he meets Le Fonz, Ralph Bouche, and Anson Williams as Potsie.

Despite having no message saying this from the train company, or any confirmation of this besides my own gut feeling, I hate already knowing full well on Thursday night that the train I’m scheduled to get on Saturday won’t be running properly because of this week’s heatwave.

My Apple Watch tells me I had a great night’s sleep last night. The pool of sweat around me in my bed and multiple times I rolled around in the sticky heat cursing God across the night tell me otherwise. Reminds me of this old article I wrote: www.philosophyunleashed.com/theblog/34-d...

I’m not convinced the ITV commentary team understand that it’s THEIR job to make the match entertaining when the football isn’t.

Ugh www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

If you think America ruined world football, then wait until you see what we’ve done to our democracy.

I fear waiting for the temperature to cool this evening might be like waiting for England to score a goal last night…

Is it not an evident failing of schools as sites of education that they remain open as staff & children swelter due to climate changes we have known how to stop for decades but not been taught to care enough about? Might better education come this week by staying home & thinking about the climate?

Excuse me if I don’t have confidence UK schools will be safe during the heatwave, but I lived through UK schools claiming to be “safe” during Covid.

Power’s back! The timing was such that I did think at first the National Grid had gone half-mast for Keir Starmer…

It’s ok that there’s a heatwave, I thought, I bought my classroom and the office nice big fans. What I hadn’t anticipated was there also being a power cut. And the school remaining open during it. And not being able to access any of my work because it’s all on the cloud and the internet is out too.

It’s almost like our entrenched political system doesn’t work?

Had a lovely afternoon at Potfest in Warwickshire today, seeing ceramics and ceramicists. Not my own way of artistic expression - my wife is the ceramicist in the family - but it inspired me to come home and play drums for an hour then rock out on my bass for an hour more after that. I love art.

Imagine - a World Cup, but without the FIFA. This should be the goal.

Americans still insisting to me that attack helicopters are a normal & fine way to mark the start of a football match. The fact that this has been so normalised that people cannot see how weird it is is part of the problem. Healthy democracies don‘t mark the start of a kickabout with gunships.

I’m not convinced the salivating anticipation of a Burnham challenge from some in the media is about the good of the country. Don’t get me wrong - Starmer is terrible - but the vibe is way more soap opera entertainment for entertainment’s sake than plausible solution to the country’s problems.

Thinking of changing mobile providers out of pure spite, even if it means paying a little bit more per month 😂 EE did us so dirty as broadband providers but we’re stuck in the contract. As a phone company I have no signal inside my own house. Time to get out, right, even if it costs more?

My report on the conference: www.philosophyunleashed.com/theblog/asso...

When I see police at the front of a demonstration “for security” it usually feels like oppression. Why does seeing them at the front of far right marches always feel like participation?

Oops - having been on the train and without signal I didn’t know about the Bedford train crash today! Obviously it goes without saying my piddling problems are insignificant!

You’ve gotta love UK trains. My one to London this morning was fifteen minutes late and the air conditioning was broken. My one home has been delayed en route by 90 minutes.

The philosophy teacher who got me into philosophy died this week. philosophyunleashed.substack.com/p/in-memory-...

I’m off to the annual conference of the Association of Philosophy Teachers today in London. The 4th since it started. Will I see any of you there too?

Burnham won. We’re all enjoying the drama of the possible end of Starmer. Although different isn’t necessarily better, something might be better than the nothing we’ve seen from Labour since 2024? But more likely is just a different kind of nothing. And the continuing inevitability of Reform. 😢

The philosophy teacher who got me into philosophy died this week. philosophyunleashed.substack.com/p/in-memory-...

It wasn’t the 35 minute delay to my commute this morning that made me mad, it was getting to work 35 minutes late to discover the car park was closed to staff today for a private event and no one had told us. In the traffic jam I was calm. It was at the car park’s locked gate that I was raging.

We lifelong, happy, human users of the em dash need more of this, standing up to the assumption that em equals ai (squared?) — it really doesn’t.

I’m loving these Emma Hayes breaks during ITV coverage of the World Cup. Genuinely educational and interesting insight that feels like nothing else we’re usually shown as punditry.

me, walking into the British museum

Went to a restaurant for the first time since I’ve started eating fish again. I still ended up ordering tofu summer rolls, vegetable spring rolls, and veggie noodles. Fish is now an option, but not a requirement. Was lovely to have the choice though. philosophyunleashed.substack.com/p/pu246-i-ea...

A great way to cure imposter syndrome is to go to a conference where you are actually an imposter and discover what it's actually like

Dream last night — I was meant to be on Have I Got New For You as a last minute replacement. Realised I hadn’t seen the show in years. Didn’t know if Merton and Hislop still did it. Hoped I’d be on Merton’s team so we could chat improv. Realised I hadn’t paid attention to the news for months. Panic.

One of those days with big plans for what I needed to do at work that gets totally knocked aside due to “events”. One of the drawbacks of being a HOD is that other people’s problems become your problems and your own problems often have to take a backseat. Oh well…there’s always tomorrow…

Any parents here (UK-based) still get an annual school report for their child? You know the one - full prose paragraphs from every teacher? Do you actually read it? Would raw data be enough? Or would you rather the teachers writing them spent that time planning better lessons for your children?

Spoke to some 12-14 year students about the proposed social media ban. They laughed, said they’d use VPNs, fake accounts using older siblings’ ID, and who cares anyway because it’s the companies that get fined, not them. But they all also said they needed the ban because social media was harmful.

As always, for those who don’t like Substack, Philosophy Unleashed is also available free each week over at www.philosophyunleashed.com (though my Substack is free too!) Hundreds of weird and wonderful philosophy essays designed to apply philosophical thinking to everyday life…

Do you remember when we used to be worried that people were getting their news from The Daily Show and Bill Maher? Turns out, for all its faults, that was much better than when they started getting their news from social media.

Do throat sweets like Strepsils actually work for anyone, or are they just a placebo based on the idea of them possibly working? I always find myself coming to the end of a dissolve and thinking: my throat’s still sore but now there’s also this terrible taste in my mouth. 🤷

A whole bunch of people who got Cape Verde in their office sweepstakes just felt their luck has changed.

OK…which member of the Spain squad pissed off an evil spirit and got the team cursed?