I wanted to abolish the monarchy before it became fashionable.

Let’s not pretend that Andrew’s activities are separate from his royal status. The whole concept of royalty is based on undeserved privilege, lack of accountability, luxury and hedonism, and the idea that others are beneath you, and can be used.

It's right at the bottom of the story, but important to note as Simons's entire claim rests upon allegation of material being hacked, not leaked: "Holden recently showed the Guardian his source materials, which indicate the story was based on files leaked from the Labour party by whistleblowers."

I mean yeah, ok, sure. But y’all let him get away with the child raping. He didn’t face justice until he did some email fraud. Maybe not exactly something to brag about.

If Fuentes does his poasting over a wifi network, have I got some news for him..

Will the penny ever drop for Starmer?

It’s definitely eroded here. I can look at my post doc pay slips from 2009 & see that the pay for Grade 6 Academic has now been ‘aligned’ with non academic roles - those extra 5 years training on top of the 5 spent getting a BSc(Hons) then an MRes were not at all worth it. My empty pension shows it

France is attempting to limit climate damage by setting increasingly stringent limits for construction every 3 years. The jump from 2025 to 2028 does not even appear to be more expensive (negligible). Example building from the great treasure trove: www.ifpeb.fr/wp-content/u... <-Read Translated:

bookstore chains are hibernating in february, you must seize advantage of their weakness and raid their caves before they grow strong again in the summer months and begin hunting livestock near the mountain villages www.waterstones.com/book/isabell...

They basically decided to apply only the first half on IBM's old advice but not the second; "A computer can never be held accountable Therefore a computer must never make a management decision"

Okay, this is quite outstanding from Bedford Council.

I’m no legal expert but the documents leaked to Epstein by Mandelson seem even more market sensitive to me than the Prince Andrew ones (Mandelson leaked information about imminent $500bn eurozone bailout, £20bn of UK gov asset sales, tax changes etc)

Princes in the tower

Since when did a pavement become a footway - seems relatively recent use in UJK by utilities when a pavement is dug up. Both are old words, but why did utilities dig up (no pun intended) footway?

Just checked the BBC website. Couldn’t find a mention. Laughable for those of us who can remember the Corbyn years. Staggering lack of balance

I tend them often 'I know you're okay but I have a boss breathing down my neck' and then they send a lovely reply. But feedback says they know I will fight the uni on their behalf and I am very pleased about that 🥰

Mary Anderson invented the first operational windshield wiper. It was a lever-operated arm with a rubber blade that could be moved across the outside of the windshield from inside the vehicle, keeping the driver protected from the weather. Patented, 1903. #Inventor She was born #OTD in 1866.

Been chasing up the stragglers in work with silly emails (left), and enjoying some success with it (right). I am at 94% student engagement so far this academic year. The average is 54%. Quite pleased with that.

At this point everyone in the media with access to officials not directly asking representatives of this govt why they protect pedophiles more stringently than any other country in the world should simply be considered a collaborator

"authoritarians have co-opted #technology... The Filipino #journalist @mariaressa.bsky.social, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2021, has spent years raising the alarm about the dangerous ways the online landscape is being weaponized to silence and intimidate #women, particularly #journalists...

In another 'AI is helping' moment, just realised the 512gb cards I could buy for £129.99 a piece in November are now, er, £260 thanks to the global memory shortage.

One has to wonder whether Mountbatten-Windsor is now sweating more, or not at all with this turn of events. I’ve always been quite unclear about just how this peculiar anatomical issue that he supposedly has actually works.

to put in context how warped this country is with regard to education, I paid more for a Big Mac and fries yesterday than I did for 3 years of a bachelors in one of the best universities in the world

“The nadir came in March 2022, in what became known as “Researchfishgate.” When Christopher Jackson, a geoscience professor at the University of Manchester, innocently asked on Twitter what Researchfish actually was…” 😇

Norway🥰 www.youtube.com/shorts/8vAVP...

My penny's worth: This is the cleanest, shrewdest way for monarchy to cauterize the wound: misbehaviour while in a politically-appointed civil position, rather than alleged sex offences enabled by royal status. My hunch is that no UK police force would arrest the King's brother without a Palace nod.

She never lived to see this moment, but it’s worth remembering that none of this would have happened without Virginia Giuffre. She had the courage to speak out against power and privilege when it was just her word against Andrew’s. Thanks to her, justice & accountability may finally have its day.

🇫🇷 Macron: I do believe in free speech. Free speech means I will listen to you, you will listen to me, and we are in an equal relationship. A lot of people defending free speech do it based on algorithms without any transparency, with a lot of bias, and political agenda. It's not free speech.

Died (alas!) on this day in 1622, in Paris, my colleague Frans Pourbus. Here, his magical portrait of Elisabeth of France at age 8, 1610. He had just arrived in Paris. You can see why they asked him to stay!

I'd forgotten how vociferous Boris Johnson was in defence of Prince Andrew as the Epstein scandal started to rattle the iron railings of Buckingham Palace. Here he is in 2015 1/2 youtu.be/q8sclKL37JU?...

1Died (alas!) on this day in 1455, Fra Angelico, the Angelic Friar. Here, Annunciation from the 1440s on the stair landing at the convent of San Marco, Florence.

This sort of framing of stories about 'left behind' places is getting very tired. How have they been 'failed' by politics? They are the product of political choices - which organisations like the BBC have often failed to explain to people.

Where does the chronic underestimation of soft power by Western governments come from? A glance at China and the collapse of international cooperation with the US should perhaps make the UK reconsider this decision.

No wonder he wanted to get rid of the UN. Epstein files suggest acts that may amount to crimes against humanity, say UN experts www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/...

I used to take Americans on educational tours of Europe to finance my studies. We were advised to plan rest stops every 400 metres. When I worked with Europeans, we walked for miles — no guidelines. American efficiency eh? Her argument is intellectually obese methinks.

Alison Hargreaves was the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest solo, unaided, and without bottled oxygen (1995). She was also the first person (man or woman) to solo the six "great north faces" of the Alps in a single summer season (1993). She was born #OTD in 1962. #mountaineering

An extraordinary new column in the Daily Telegraph (no, that's not a typo!) by Ambrose Evans Pritchard. Yes, it includes two charts by Carbon Brief, sure. But stay for the concluding few paragraphs about the electoral suicide of climate denial... www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

Susan knows that "I bet you can't do this, it's too hard for children" is in fact a phenomenally effective motivational tactic because one thing they do not lack for is sheer contrary bloody-mindedness

"Indeed, it’s a little disturbing how closely this discourse follows climate-debate patterns set down 20 years ago by the right. Either a man-made phenomenon isn’t happening or, if it is, it’s not important."

it's really ugly: rude, tetchy, thin-skinned. It's a shame the other reporters didn't stand up for her and with her when he started being an arsehole. That kind of bullshit needs to be shut down immediately.

Mr. Pickering tells me the story is very true of a child being dropped at the ball at Court; and that the King had it in his closett a week after, and did dissect it; and making great sport of it, said that in his opinion it must have been a month and three hours old.

Went to the Turner exhibition at the Walker in Liverpool. Well worth a visit. Not just Turners in it. Wasn’t expecting Damien Hirst sharks…

We've been on the Northern Line. The idea that it's 2000 years old seems completely reasonable.

@mrjamesob.bsky.social @lbc.co.uk

Anniversary of a confession in the clear: The networked evil that brought us Farage’s, Putin pleasing, Brexit. Here is the missing clip in which Farage confirms that Brexit would not have been possible without Bannon, Breitbart and by implication Cambridge Analyitica’s “help.”

OTD in 2024 we killed Navalny. A short history of what we anti imperialists believe. 1 In 2020 a Russian in Russia, under surveillance by Russian intelligence, left a hotel in Russia & got on a Russian plane going from Russia to Russia & consumed a Russian nerve agent only Russia by the CIA.

Dan wasn't even born before decimalisation (nor was he anywhere near the UK when he was born) but still he yearns for Britain's pre-decimal times 55 years later.

Premier jour de service commercial des nouvelles rames BOA du métro de Lille. Depuis le temps qu'elles sont attendues !

Blimey. Looks like Matt Goodwin, who seems to think the Handmaid's Tale is an instruction manual, is in the pay of an Orban think tank, funded by Russian oil money.