Such pedestrian thinking. A childminding robot should have at least 6 arms (extendable), a self-contained medical kit and sin bin, wheels, wings, and launchers for a variety of heat-seeking mini-missiles (non-lethal, obviously)

I'm shocked, shocked, that Davos would allow itself to become involved with a cash-for-status scam

So sorry to hear this. Deborah Cameron was a fantastic thinker and writer on linguistics. From her superb book Verbal Hygiene to her insightful blogging, her approach to explaining complex issues was basically to assume people are intelligent but don't care for jargon.

Bone Temple is excellent (albeit gruesome) fun

Eesh, he's such a clown. Acts like Pennywise but deep down he's Krusty.

It's actually very reasonable of him to reduce his demand from Greenland to Iceland, we should be grateful that he's offering such a generous compromise

I've got a huge knife here, I could stab you to death easily. I'd be unstoppable, but I won't do that. I don't have to use force, I don't want to use force, I won't use force. All I'm asking for is your wallet and your phone.

But you're not supposed to bring people together during a pandemic

I've got a waking-up time and it is the right one and I'm not going to be buffeted around by smoke alarms.

By the pricking of my thumbs, ow

If you don't know who at the poker table is the amnesiac,

Yes that's her

Is this a Mitt Romney bit

If more people don't start giving me lots of money, I might not keep getting lots of money

I just woke up from a nap and somehow while I was asleep, everyone on the planet has figured out we are not going to the right place

Notable non-reflexive "myself" from Alec Douglas-Home back in 1962. This is a longstanding Conservative minister, hereditary earl, Eton- and Oxford-educated, clearly punctilious about "whom" - so maybe those Traitors contestants aren't as far from established Standard English as critics suggest...

"I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace"

Hang on, if he imposes tariffs then Greenland will just become more expensive

One thing that's *long* overdue is an end to using the term "strongman" or phrase "might is right" in relation to Trump. Threatening a territorial smash-and-grab / tariff tantrum on your own allies because you weren't chosen for some functionally meaningless peace prize? It's giving weak-ass bitch!

This is a very good point. The November 2025 US National Security Strategy never mentions the Arctic at all. The idea that it's a genuine security priority for the Trump administration is not credible.

Couple of days ago I was on a train and someone was watching videos out loud on their phone... including the Renee Good shooting

If I were the interviewer, I would immediately go into full Blackadder Macbeth mode

Visiting the family, getting my regular dose of cat. Aphra and Ada very kindly took the same side of my bed, allowing me some space to move. Jasmine and Luna are still delightfully tiny, alternately manic and dozy.

Feels like a bit of an overreaction

Oh, fuck off.

Drill bit? Drill lot, more like

brb, just going to cast some runes on a hilltop and offer the old gods a blood sacrifice so that they'll put a photo of my cute neighbour into a bikini

Empty tautologies. If you know, you know.

This is truly awful prose

This post about Robert Jenrick is absolutely terrible. The writing of it was an appalling act of incompetence, and then the posting of it was a cynical betrayal of this great website. Ever since I came up with the idea for it two minutes ago, I have been absolutely furious about it.

A "jenrickroll" is a practical joke that begins by apparently offering a substantive and visionary political leader but then providing a C-list opportunist complaining about the lack of white faces on the high street

Good news for Chris Philp, though, who now proudly claims the title of Shadow Cabinet's Most Odious Sociopath

Let's not jump to conclusions, could be that McSweeney has finally managed to impress one of those fabled "hero voters"

OK, but glass half full, she was presented with clear, irrefutable evidence that he was NOT plotting in secret to challenge her for the Tory leadership

...hence the expression "getting out of hand".

Hey if there's a scandal on The Traitors we should call it Traitorsgate

A significant proportion of online outrage is directed at statements that describe a bad thing but then neglect to add the words "and that is a bad thing"

it's pretty wild that the Swedes have been in NATO less than 2 years and are now somehow at "deploy quasi tripwire force against US aggression" stage

He gets twice-daily briefings from Mike Johnson

This would be one of those cherished "levers" that allow a minister to quickly and easily go from outrage to action to public gratitude, and yes stage 3 will definitely happen

This just looks terrible; cancelling an election is a big deal. If you do it to save £250k and some hassle, it's really sending a bad message to people whose trust in the system is at an all-time low to begin with. search.app/xtCUS

The term "vikings" is historically misleading, because they mostly weren't kings and there were more than six of them.

An absolutely key first principle when using AI is that you, the human, are responsible for its outputs, and that you must *check* everything it churns out. Blaming Copilot doesn't wash.

Given that any flat projection distorts in some way, the best way to look is on a round globe, or at least on a simulation of one

Some medieval clerks were so devoted to doing their work well that they would never leave their desks, so fungi and algae would start to accumulate and form symbiotic relationships on their undersides. Hence the term, suggesting approval of a source of writing or other material, "lichen sub-scribe".