Mackenzie Crook puts all the correct birdsong in the stage directions of Detectorists. Respect.

Maybe I've just trained my alorithm to be spectacularly factual and progressive, but ALL I see is endless think-pieces explaining WHY immigration is a no-argument economic necessity, and HOW RADICALLY it's already been cut. How is this not crossing over into "known facts"?

"Dirty pool"? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU UP TO AMERICA? WHY IS THIS A THING?

Any London bird-watcher would be THRILLED to spot a Redstart. Except if it was somehow madly trapped between two panes of glass in your window, and singing because it thought it was dying. This week's column: www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

What the country needs right now to bring us all together is a disappointing Winter Wonderland.

I hope the Berghain is "techno techno techno"

Wondered if any what3words addresses consisting of a repeated word actually hit something related to the word. It only took three attempts to find that nature.nature.nature is slap bang in the middle of Whitaker Ponds Nature Park

It's on days like this that New York Times Connections really alienates the British audience.

This must at least partly be due to the unwritten media rule that bad news is (almost always) bigger than good news

The government is, y’know, the government. They could announce policies of their own in Monday’s papers, which the media would cover. But instead they just leave an endless news void, and end up chasing their tails trying to keep up with Reform on its strongest issue. It’s woeful.

Reform hold a press conference every Monday, for which they trail a policy announcement in that morning’s papers. Given Monday is a slow news day, that often means they lead the papers – and so the breakfast shows, and so they set the agenda for the week. It’s a good trick, but easy to counter!

If you write professionally in the UK, make sure to sign up to ALCS for your fair share of royalties

[Withnail, close to tears] “I have become vulnerable in the night-time economy”.

Some people would think OK, my name's Farley Funk, that's a pretty good name for a pop star. It takes real vision to add "Jackmaster" to a name like that. #totp

I feel like this should pop up on everyone's computer screen or phone when they're about to start an argument online.

coates is genuinely a generational writer

If you are someone, like me, with VERY DIFFICULT FEET and arthritic hands, good news: the new Doc Martens range won't rip your feet to shreds AND it has no laces: www.thetimes.com/article/5a67...

Someone’s you just gotta say enough is enough and stand up for what you believe in.

Yeah - but they will look a lot more fuckable.

[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that

Thank you, @Franabouttown and @StylistMagazine, for the lovely review of my debut novel. The Dogwalkers Detective Agency is published by @MichaelJBooks on 9th October. Preorders are open now! www.instagram.com/p/DOn_B7SiA2...

How US cash and being unbanned by Musk transformed racist thug Tommy Robinson into a poster boy of the far right. Most transformative was cash from ultra Zionist US tech tycoon Robert Shillman, who has also backed far-right “influencers” Katie Hopkins, Laura Loomer, Charlie Kirk and Geert Wilders.

Channel 4 to mark Trump's state visit by dissecting more than 100 of his lies, in what the channel describes as “the longest uninterrupted reel of untruths, falsehoods and distortions ever broadcast on television”.

Another thing I love about the present moment - Musk regularly goes 'don't worry, we are going to change THAT' whenever Grok produces an answer that doesn't align with his priors, yet the British Labour government thinks that they are going to be able to land an argument on there in 2029.

It is pretty weird that, following Musk's comments on Saturday (as well as many many others), democratic governments are still posting on X and therefore giving him content. It's beginning to look a little like buying adverts in Pravda in the 1950s or, let's be honest, in Der Sturmer in the 1930s.

The primary aim must be getting the govt off X. This offers the possibility of a cascade effect taking journalists etc off it. We need to seperate the national debate from the extremism engine.

And this is a platform that MPs, government departments / officials think it's appropriate to retain an active presence on?

This may explain why there’s an aggressive response to people who merely post Kirk’s own words. It threatens the existence of the alternate Kirk - the motivational speaker that had been marketed to young kids and white Christian groups through selective quotation & clips.

Someone's found the perfect response:

Horses with cummerbands now is it

The last few months have been difficult. An old nemesis returned: cystitis. www.thetimes.com/article/9eb4...

Over in London @petepaphides.bsky.social show @sohoradio We’re on at 6pm. Listen live via sohoradio.com/how-to-listen/ we’re chatting about about @needlemythology.bsky.social re-issue Brian album Understand & Planes EP Great music from #TheBlueNile #REM #TrashcanSinatras #TheGoBetweens

This frontispiece in my book just made me laugh a lot. Is this Buddhist reincarnation, or some other form of afterlife?

my god - they're trying to put alcohol out of business, too

Ironically, it appears that AI chatbots hallucinate for the same reason that students feel compelled to use them: They were socialized in a high-stakes testing culture that rewards guessing and maybe getting it right over admitting when there's something you just don't know.

why won’t they put a glass door on a dishwasher. why won’t they let me look in there

But, but, I do this for myself.

In other ‘Look At Me!’ news, Radio 3 are repeating the Satire & The Stave series I made with them earlier this year and it was Pick of The Week on Radio 4, no less. Ep 2 went out on Saturday. Some great music in this - yer Bernstein, yer Smyth, yer Britten. Get on it. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I’ve never felt so disheartened. My small business means everything to me and I want to keep going. Please have a look at my website. Buy things, commission me or repost. www.gailmyerscough.co.uk Thank you.

Obviously deeply mourning Melvyn Bragg finally stepping down from In Our Time - he was our king. But in the discussions of who should take over, I loved @petepaphides.bsky.social's suggestion: Frank Skinner? Another smart working-class autodidact with a true passion for learning. I think he'd be ace

waka wake

Happy birthday a day late to Gerry Love, who should have been knighted by now for this song youtu.be/jdeqYx-9-AQ?...

Increasingly I look back on the time when everyone was on Old Twitter like the undivided Church of the first few centuries - now social media feels as though it’s fragmented into denominations: the Xians, the Blueskytes, the Threadsians, the Substackites, the Instagramarians &c

We cannot stigmatise AI music hard enough

#algorithmchat: who is making these rugs THIS DIRTY? And why do these men with pressure-washers care about them THIS much?

It's Minnesota State Fair time! It's time for Minnesotan folk art! Here, for example, is Saturn Devouring His Corn, in the seed art category!

What's London's flag? Lime Bike, smash burger and a vape?

BRITAIN BRACED FOR HUGE WAVE OF SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY DEMONSTRATIONS THIS WEEKEND - ARMED FORCES INSTRUCTED TO PREPARE FOR DEPLOYMENT

I honestly think it was a matter of historical importance that this was captured on film and I couldn't have excused letting it pass without getting a proper film crew to capture it. The gasps when James Roberts from The Sea Urchins walked on stage after a 30 year absence will stay with me forever.