Explained the concept of the World Cup to my five year old this morning. No Exaggeration but 1966 has come up 15 times today and I’ve been asked over 20 times if England have a chance of winning. I feel he needs to pace his years of hurt a bit better than this.

Fair play to the Sky producer who just slapped ‘Believe in Beto’ across the bottom of the screen. Always be branding.

Reform Robin Wales from Labour a few months early.

I’m not saying podcasting is a relatively narrow demographic but two consecutive podcasts I’ve listened to have opened with the hosts saying they enjoyed the **same** Suede gig in Brighton this weekend and neither of them is a music podcast

Absolutley wonderful quote from an interview I was listening to this afternoon ‘The British are a great country for stereotyping things’

My Match it has ten corners. Ten corners has my match.

James Tarkowski and Michael Keane being the easily the most Manc thing playing when Man Utd are also on the pitch is really quite funny.

‘Studies show 70-90% of people trying to learn a new language give up. Fortunately Babbel is built to that it’s really easy to get started’ The clanging logical hole in this line in the Babbel podcast ads genuinely causes me pain.

I had a chemistry teacher from Sunderland and him trying to explain alkanes and alkenes in a Liverpool school was total chaos ‘No! One with an aaaeee and one with an aaaee!’ And that my friends is why Al Carns has an uphill battle for no10.

Howard Flight dying is very sad but brings back extremely vivid memories of 2005. Chanting ‘Howard flight was right’ at Michael Howard.

Would a Labour defection to reform help or hinder their progress?

I don’t think I agree. many unknowns re Reform and Tory vote next time. But on the ‘more of the same’ issue even if voters did perceive there was some continuity …: defecting to different party that was recently seen as a pariah (it’s part of their appeal) is a pretty potent ‘clause 4 moment’.

The absolute banter outcome is the draft speech was a fake

In retrospect it should have been clear civilisation was only a fragile veneer when people persisted in putting tea bags in the sink.

Unlike its members this group never gets old go.bsky.app/B5X2Tsg

Daughter told me a boy banged his head at school and got percussion

I would love it if he beat this

The school canteen has the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever

I’ve had several pretty minor reasons to contact my doctors surgery in the past few weeks. The tech worked, it was quite efficient and I got good treatment. I feel like post pandemic chaos has ebbed somewhat.

Spending a lot of today sending folk messages and then about ten minutes later writing ‘oh err happy new year’

Cummerbund and vest is the look for 2026 apparently.

The man standing on the left of Boyzone looks like an ageing Maitre D’ at a restaurant serving a really rather well renowned Tournedos Rossini who particularly enjoys his role dishing up Crepe Suzette whenever the older lady customers order it.

Excellent to get the Everton 1995 FA cup song into the new year fireworks 💪

Reijnders scored either side of Christmas. Busy time for him.

CCHQ’s new Christmas screwball comedy

Didn’t we watch Goodfellas recently? Did we? Yeh, we watched it you know the one… ‘Oh the one with Joe Pasquale?’ ‘….’

Half Ma’am Half Brisket

Reijnders getting on the scoresheet just before Christmas I see

Implausibly … Supergrass

Florence and the machine was my guess, but I think she was probably early October (I have no idea who has been on Kimmel, Just a big fan of Florence)

Kajagoogoo 😉

Don’t google it. Name a British musical act that appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show in September of this year. You will never guess it.

Just listened to a podcast - an interview with a well known author and academic (in his field at least) and at the end the presenter - also an academic read out a list of donors who had funded the guests ‘speaking fee’. That’s a new one on me.

With the Arsenal and Everton results today - a massive swing in the title race

The press conferences at the World Cup are going to be edgy - famously the only thing more sleazy than the British Tabloids are the Panama papers

This is what happens when you play your kids ‘Blueberry Hill’ by Fats Domino every time you give them blueberries.

👀👀👀👀

Absolutely hilarious

I did say he’d be gone by Christmas. And you all laughed.

My last job in my brief stay as adviser to the then shadow Home Secretary was to stay up til gone 1am writing amendments to the absurd bill which brought in Police and Crime Commissioners. All of which work a colleague then got the full benefit of after the reshuffle. I won’t miss them.

There’s a coffee shop near my office that offers a ‘mild’ coffee option, a ‘bold’ but charges £1 extra for the ‘balanced’ option no matter what it is. This is what polarisation looks like.

That Lloyds bank ad which estimates your age…. Yesterday it got me about right. Today, I’ve had a shave and done my hair. It’s knocked 10 Literally 10 years off me. Might be a while before age estimation tech is foolproof.

I think we all agree that Andrew shouldn’t be able to call himself Mountbatten either and should revert to Battenberg.

I thought absolutely nobody from the cabinet would have a chance in this election. This is an exceptional showing for Bridget. And the fact that both candidates were fairly moderate and the ‘leadership’ candidate nearly won a sign that the Labour has substantially changed from the late 2010s

In the last 24 hours I have been invited to speak to an event by post and had a large organisation ring my office landline to ask to for a ticket to one of our events. Hello 1993.

I saw @jim.londoncentric.media the evening he conducted this interview and he had the faraway look of someone who had seen things beyond normal comprehension. It doesn’t disappoint. Mafia Snails…. www.londoncentric.media/p/terry-ball...

If someone offers to serve me Pepsi products I will simply assume They want to get rid of me

This is a real marmalade dropper