This one needs trumpets and crowds pf angels. Maybe the angels can have the trumpets to save time? Its only George, in his fluffy coat, pouring tea! Look closely and he’s using a strainer. I bet he brought his own! A magical moment.

Right, this is the thing, "the Budget is not honest", okay, sure, I'm with you, "because they made things seem worse than they are" - are you on glue?

Hey @erinbiba.bsky.social I hope this finds you

Kemi Badenoch - one of the many, many politicians since Margaret Thatcher to talk about learning from Margaret Thatcher who, IDK, maybe they saw a meme about her one time?

UK digital ID plan gets a price tag at last – £1.8B

She is so profoundly intellectually incurious that I find myself fascinated how she ever learnt how to *speak*.

🙏🙏

I'm sure the revenue from flag sales will more than compensate

This is good by @robinwigglesworth.ft.com What I don't get is why investors were not a bit more circumspect when Oracle announced its Q1 RPOs ("a career event," one analyst said) when it was obvious OpenAI didn't yet have the money. It still doesn't. www.ft.com/content/d2fd...

Every time I walk past this cafe on Bethnal Green Road I think it embodies all the ways modern London annoys me

Three new T-shirt designs just added to my online shop. Birmingham Central Library Camera Trinity Car Park www.gailmyerscough.co.uk/t-shirts

There is a lot of razzamataz about Children in Need but actually paying through the tax system is somehow...

Is Santa Real? Many users feel they're getting presents from him. Scientists say it's time to consider whether they're onto something.

Last week, Manchester again delayed joining the NHS Federated Data Platform, which is based on technology from Palantir. The US spy-tech firm was awarded the £330m contract after it won a string of uncompeted pandemic-era deals worth £60m. www.theregister.com/2025/11/20/m...

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

RIP the remarkable Jimmy Cliff. www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpQr...

🚀

Oh lovely, tragic Sandy.❤️

Jumping spiders can recognise one another. This ability to learn, remember and represent images is quite surprising for such a tiny-brained animal! buff.ly/dCkwPr0

Government says Whitehall depts will have to stump up some cash for digital ID schemes. PAC members remain to be convinced because of "how government works"

International Criminal Court judge, "sanctioned" by the USA for doing his job, blocked from using internet services worldwide, credit cards, banking... And nobody cares...

just fucking staggering

🧵 I was browsing through NASA’s Photojournal archive when I found this historic image of Saturn, taken by Voyager 2 on Aug. 11, 1981. The spacecraft was about 14.7 million kilometres away when the picture was captured. Image credit: NASA/JPL ➡️ science.nasa.gov/photojournal... 🔭 🧪 #histsci 1/5

It turns out that the folks at Anthropic used two of my books to train their Large Language Models. I've gone and submitted my claim via the class action settlement. If you're an author whose work has been stolen, you should too

Stopped twice on motorway & had a look from this tower.

“We all know why,” says Matt Goodwin. And we do! It’s because the methodology for estimating emigration changed! I’m sure that’s what Matt is getting at here, right?

DuckDB's website and extension installation endpoint are still intermittently down due to today's Cloudflare outage – see our status page for more details: status.duckdb.org For a single-file PDF copy of our documentation, see our recent post.

A global Cloudflare outage as we're in Berlin discussing European tech sovereignty. A little on the nose!

Cloudflare ia having some issues, taking down lots of websites and services, including X (yay) and Bellingcat (boo).

NEW: at the Summit, 3 investigations into the two main cloud monopolies - Microsoft and Amazon, AND the whole market structure. A good start; ask any tech founder in Europe. But CMA has studied cloud in detail. Lock-in is clear. Will EC summon the will to enforce? ec.europa.eu/commission/p...

Another one for you, @dlknowles.bsky.social

We really need to stop pretending that AI is just a way to "free teachers" and "make school fun"... AI is built on theft and exploitation AI is speeding up climate change AI is good at generating BS that looks meaningful AI is convincing kids to talk to it rather than people #NihilismAndTechnology

Alright then

Leaving a very rainy Cornwall for Gartner Symposium in Barcelona. Gonna get a quick visit to see friends in East Sussex over the weekend

I have stayed in this hotel, the Amdesterdam Hilton. Thank you, Workday.

I used to run the Labour Campaign for Childcare Reform X account. We abandoned it as our supporters stopped seeing our posts, and we stopped seeing much from potential supporters. We did, however, start getting funnelled a lot of content about the merits of the racist ‘white replacement‘ theory.

UK space sector 'lacks strategic direction,' Lords warn

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

Just published: my new book "Forgotten Times" (Amberley Publishing). 180 photographs taken by me in the 1950s and 1960s with street scenes of the UK, Ireland and the outer islands and depicting a world largely unknown to the present day. #up0511

Great story from colleague @carlypage.bsky.social Defra is department which made vets buy old laptops on eBay because it was the only way to access the system which recorded bovine TB

No lying or making yourself out to be a cool kid. Post the first record you bought. I got it from our local Our Price I think. I think liked the twangy guitar and it has an interesting "wamma-wamma-wamma" bit behind the lead vocal in the chorus. An early sampler maybe. I was about 11.

What Decades of #Data Management Teach Us About Today’s #AI Hype

Something which has been evidently going to happen since the moment the pledge was made.

hats off to the team @tomfitz1.bsky.social

Wow, what a presentation by @hannes.muehleisen.org about the history of data architecture with its changes in architecture from 1985 to 2025 with DuckDB and in general. I took a lot of notes, some of which are illustrated below in my current Obsidian Vault.

By all means have a pop at Buckingham County Council which could have worked to make this a footbridge, *but* modern bridges *are* designed to a 120 year service life and if they even take the odd car, then we really don't want the risk of a track incursion. 1/2

I know a place…San Francisco - come on, I'll take you there Let me lead the way to a FREE event Wednesday November 5th at City Lights I’m hosting the 70th anniversary of Ginsberg’s HOWL - the birth of literary freedom Alright, ah, do it, do it, come on, now

“We are told that AI is inevitable, that we must adapt or be left behind. But universities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically.”

Image of the Sun. Taken at night. Not looking up at sky but down through 8000 miles of rock to the other side of the Earth. Not with light but neutrinos.

I’m attending the Gartner Symposium in Barcelona on 10/11 Nov. If any of you are attending and want to meet up, let me know. If you work in PR and have clients relevant to my beat, also let me know. I cover enterprise applications, databases and analytics. No product pitches, please. Thank you!