wild story on how google commissioned then fumbled judy chicago for the new thompson center floor, what the hell news.artnet.com/art-world/ju...

The life of a parent navigating the SEND system for their child: at the moment we are simultaneously preparing for mediation ahead of tribunal to challenge the council, and making a complaint to the school over provision. And researching secondary schools. And both working full time jobs

in his inclement, howling old age, Ahab’s soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the sullen paws of its gloom

I have today been informed that, despite personal assurances to the contrary, the Green party have once again used my image and misrepresented my words on a second leaflet circulated in Gorton and Denton ahead of the by-election. I have now lodged an official complaint with the returning officer.

Hate-filled fake videos about London are everywhere. We've obtained a recording of a TikToker confessing to secretly filming Londoners in their homes for clicks. He says it's not political. He just wants to make money from far-right anger. Read what he says: www.londoncentric.media/p/london-tik...

Obviously mischarging is bad, but probably does put this story into perspective when you get several hundred words in and find that the actual charges involved are £50-£600 per flat apple.news/ASozXAjNXRW6...

The Times has a new SEND agony aunt - so much of this resonates with our experiences www.thetimes.com/life-style/p...

It feels almost gauche to say it, but This American Life has become a really indispensable listen again. The latest on 991 calls from people about ICE, and the recent episodes on Venezuela and trying to do a comedy tour in Syria www.thisamericanlife.org/880/what-is-...

Meanwhile in the too online left, prepare to lose a bunch of people you thought were friends if you disagree with 1 item in the batch 👀

oh I've written about this before! one of the big problems with people developing those assumptions is also that they become entirely unable to then engage with normies who represent like.....98% of the population, and whose beliefs are formed on a much more case-by-case basis

exactly. this is not difficult. as.ft.com/r/58ed1b23-d...

1. Interesting to see Reform abandon its flirtation with nativism / birth rate boosterism in favour of the policy of the last Tory government 2. “Starve a kid for a cheaper pint” is quite the policy. Be interested to see how that performed in focus groups (especially all male versus mixed).

What can the ESG reports of 50 housing associations tell us about how social housing is preparing for the massively increased risk of flooding that property faces in the coming years? Loads of actual practical measures that are/could be adopted here: www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/floo...

If Christopher Nolan doesn't show Helen of Troy being hatched from an egg after her mother slept with a swan then it just shows he hates Western Civilization. These people do get that this is mythology right? Not sure the colour of her skin is the biggest issue here.

Just relearning short division to help my kid with it, and, yep, I had forgotten the entire thing. Bbc bytesize is more than worth the license fee

I’m not sure I can unlearn the wrong pronunciation at this point, even via the means of a musical

Well, the kids didn’t want to read a bedtime story, they wanted to look at a picture of the selection box of crackers I’ve ordered and chose which ones to eat first when they arrive tomorrow

Surely south London has a disproportionate number of bowling greens to the number of people actually using them.

It’s out! The saddest, most honest song you’ll ever hear about mental illness - and here’s the video, starring me and the cat who wanted to be the star. I hope you love it. youtu.be/whGTRxRzyIE?...

Name your favourite time traveller

this lives in my head

Distraction January

Opened TikTok, was immediately served a video defending the reputation of Ghengis Khan, closed TikTok.

Years ago I went to cover the Lilac project in Leeds, in a story that unfortunately got deleted from the internet during that weird transition between nothing and everything going online. It really made a good impression, with its lovely straw brick walls. Also thick walls=castle vibes to me

The US government has tried and failed to get a magistrate judge to sign off on an arrest warrant for Lemon. And then to get a more senior judge to grant it. Seems like they’ve now found a way to get it done – arresting a hugely high profile journalist for reporting is a real threshold.

Excuse you

I somehow missed this announcement in 2024!! Two new Cazalet novels!! I just saw someone on instagram reading a proof of the first one and lost my mind for a second www.theguardian.com/books/2024/n...

The advent of PIN log ins is brilliant. Security has now done a full 360 in the name of extra secureness, and so we can have “password” as a password again like nature intended

Is there a support group for parents who have had to learn the extensive rules of the game Hero Slam

Shout out to my painstaking FOI on this very subject www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/bigg... Councils actually completed roughly 10% more homes last year. It’s nowhere near the level to meet need, but there’s great projects across Britain

I’m rereading Howard’s End again, but I could only find the copy I made tepid undergraduate notes in. One in the introduction refers to a “diacotamy” (sic)

They’d much rather write a ‘grabbing parents of perfectly normal kids are stealing your taxes’ piece than anything like ‘concerned parents doing their best to navigate a broken system to try & advocate for their children’. But very happy to run a ‘How my diagnosis at 50 explained everything’. 🙄

Wow all the detail of this, including the idea Farage was advising on “impact investing”

Another extremely important story by @peteapps.bsky.social, this time about a positive ventilation system gone wrong because it was installed in a mouldy loft. An extremely shocking story, which put at risk a very young baby www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/indo...

I just crossed the street to avoid a skip pick up gone wrong, trying not to breath in because of the huge cloud of construction where half the contents had spilled onto the road as frantic workers tried to scoop it back in while holding up traffic.

The hanging chads, some of us remember! Though if he was president would Al Gore have gone on to make arguably the most impactful PowerPoint presentation in history

This might be a bit contrarian but if there’s something that I don’t want to happen in a novel it is climate change

Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, post the second sentence. “Not out of them are the shows of history erected: the world would be a gray, bloodless place if it were entirely composed of Miss Schlegels.“

Do facts matter or do vibes matter - the green party knows how to say things that progressive left wing people vibe with. but on this and other matters, where is the grip on the exact facts.

There are some people it's very easy to interview because they are a font of stories and anecdotes. One of these from me today: www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/rive...

An interesting insight here into one of the backbench Labour MPs who has been focusing on how the government's been delivering on homelessness, or in her words how government can "get our shit together" www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/paul...

I'm good thanks. I think I probably won't move to the country where the authorities pump out neo-Nazi memes and masked militias roam the streets.

Today's bemusing "why is this not a Spelling Bee word and have I just misspelt it or hallucinated and it's actually not a word": "filmic"

Just blinking at Otter which has transcribed a 1 hour+ recording of at least four different speakers with different genders, and very different accents, as "Speaker 1 (100%)"

We have quite the interview today with James Cleverly, shadow housing secretary www.insidehousing.co.uk/insight/sir-...

Debris fell off the roof of this tower block during Storm Goretti www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/tower-b...

This story is so worrying, and not least because this is with the legal avenue of the EHCP which the government may cut. A child missed two years of education - not sure an apology and compensation could make up for it really. apple.news/AeyGTdSPBSii...

Toward the end of last year there were allegations posted on LinkedIn of the GLA embellishing housing start figures, which Copley has now pushed back against very strongly at a public meeting >> www.insidehousing.co.uk/news/row-eru...

All this effort to from a human to make AI generated writing sound human, when you, a human, could simply write the thing in the first place and achieve instant success in sounding like a human being