The relative underperformance of North England’s economy is a mystery…..

The relative underperformance of North England’s economy is a mystery……

Just sat on a bus held up in traffic, having missed a ghost bus and three more in a line behind me and thinking about the “Buses are fine for mass transit, you don’t need trams….” Reply guys this morning ….. #Leeds #Trams #AmateurHour

The relative underperformance of North England’s economy is a mystery……

The relative underperformance of North England’s economy is a mystery…..

The relative underperformance of North England’s economy is a mystery……

The relative underperformance of North England’s economy is a mystery……

Ok this is lovely - search for your username and get a summary of your Bluesky year (yeah yeah woke bubble yada yada)

Andy Warhol with Christmas Tree at The Factory (1964) #TheHolidays #mood

Get in !!

Get in !

Includes me exposing the myth that Cambridge somehow earned its way into its leadership position in UK life sciences. It didn't. Leeds was in the lead, and then the Medical Research Council in London picked Cambridge and London as winners because it was their mates.

I went to a dinner with the AI Minister and I read a paper on Lovelace Institue --- a proposal from Tony Blair's Institute on how we could fund breakthrough science better. And I wrote that all up into one incoherent mess for you to enjoy. tomforth.co.uk/nationalpurp...

Must read from Tom - fascinating history of science and regional economics. 👇

If you do innovation in The UK read this by @tomforth.co.uk The relative under-performance of North England is a mystery…… We should all be frustrated and annoyed about it all. tomforth.co.uk/nationalpurp...

Bradford is hosting the Turner Prize. Highly recommended.

In the old days I’d post that I’m off to see Stereolab tonight in Leeds and it would spark a decent conversation….. Can we still do that sort of thing will it work …?

An Idiot and Grifter

Reasons to be cheerful mailchi.mp/reasonstobec...

Game’s gone

Beautiful game……

Wolf Alice in Leeds tonight, fabulous pop rock.

1-1 at home against West Ham.

Man Utd’s record against teams in the top half of the table this season: 5W 2D 1L (2.13 points per game) Record against teams in the bottom half of the table: 1W 2D 3L (0.83 points per game)

Shocked …….

On the Englishness of Sir Tom Stoppard, RIP www.britishfuture.org/on-the-engli...

Waiting for my Wetherspoons Wrapped.

OTD 48 years ago Jane Suck and I wrote the post punk electronica manifesto New Musick in Sounds. I’m still very proud of this: we caught something in our fevered queer brains. Note the very early (the first?) use of the term post punk. Articles included Kraftwerk, Eno, Devo, TG, the Residents, Ubu

Fave Beatles record…?

60

Alt text for those who need it. This is amazing.

Sheesh

Who is more likely to be unemployed 15 months after graduation the Philosopher or the Physicist? The answer may not be what you think

How about Languages v Computer Science? Hmm…

So kid, in your heart you want to study humanities but you worry about your job prospects? Let’s play a game. On the latest data, who is more likely to be unemployed after 15 months after graduation. The English Lit grad or the Maths grad? WRONG!

Wow

Self-driving cars and why I think they might fix England's unusually weak second city economies. tomforth.co.uk/selfdrivingc...

The relative underperformance of North England’s economy is a mystery…….

Santa Claus is a woman. Always has been. (Always will be?) on.ft.com/43POQET

On AI’s ‘mediocrity trap’ — experiments indicates that while AI helps the less skilled make something passable, the highly skilled don’t use it to produce something better than they could have; they produce something ok, but lose motivation to make it great. www.jin-li.org/uploads/1/1/...

My fave emergency question is what’s your favourite Beatle? This article adds a few more details to use … 👊🏼

Delighted to have had the chance to write about Beatle ‘historiography’ in @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...

Oh London mid 90s 💥 on.soundcloud.com/NKK4uYLVHAXD...

The Cricket!!

RIP Mani youtu.be/3QLMS0QsPF0

New study finds that rephrasing AI prompts as "adversarial poetry" is a highly successful way to bypass safety features from all the biggest large language models arxiv.org/html/2511.15...

Is this your team @fantasticlife.bsky.social ?

One of my favourite ever Manchester United goals. In a preseason friendly vs Juventus in 2003. The finish is deadly but the pass from Veron - oof 🤌🏽🤌🏽

We expect too much of students and younger people in work….. IMHO their essays and written work is supposed to be rubbish, they are supposed to get feedback and learn quickly…. The levelling down of outputs that we are seeing is going to get worse until maybe it gets better 🤞🏼