i hope it goes without saying, but i think the under 16 social media ban is so stupid. smacks of old new labour, a political miscalculation that’ll bite labour in a couple of years. but also illiberal and ethically flawed. it’s not like there are youth clubs and print media to fill the vacuum.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... the 9/10 parents figure at the top here is sus. surely it is 9/10 parents that voluntarily responded to the consultation. not a random sample in the least.

#2 has been told she get more points in PE if she shows a “growth mindset”.

mid 40s and the advertising algorithms really started throwing shit about various ailments and their cures hoping something will stick. anyone else getting mad adverts for feet warmers/circulation devices?

1860s @nytimes.com had a billiards column. what happened guys?

the city i live in is the city of angles

donald duck in the cool blue mathematical land of billiards youtu.be/cdVRvYnqj6w?...

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... is there anything more english than an exploitative over-entitled landlord?

FT says US in talks to expand nuclear weapons deployments in Europe. I say the team behind Netflix’s ‘Adolescence’ cannot start shooting the remake of ‘Threads’ fast enough.

the planets seem to have aligned and i’ve been asked to review a book that i really wanted to read. it happens like, every few years or so.

youtu.be/9-pkeLfy-ho?... this is excellent. "snooker seems to thirve in times of recession". i wish somebody had told me it was added to the amazing bbc archive 4 months ago. c'mon guys

centre alignment for text over 3 lines long. e.g. a page long abstract. seeing it more and more. and in professional settings. is it a gen z thing? whatever the cause, it needs to stop.

today i defeated a domestic fat-berg. it was a not-too-distant relative of the whitechapel fat-berg (sorry thames water). it was a truly filthy and odious experience. but spiritual in its own way. atoning for infrastructural sins.

read that as ‘sarah connor’ at a glance

its eid-al-adha, there’s a breeze and a hundred family meals are being prepared round here. i wish i could tell you how good the neighbourhood smells. star anise, warming onions, loads of citrus and fish. a lot of fish. and plumes of rice steam. but it transcends the sum of its parts.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202... hard to imagine what Robert brown-envelope-from-porn-baron/property-developer Jenrick would have against planning officers.

i given it less than a week before the daily mail rehashes an old article on uk bushmeat trade and the threat if ebola.

i’ve found around 20 feature films (not yet all verified) that depict people having sex on a pool table. are there any that feature sex on a snooker table? or is this too disrespectful for the green baize? or just too english?

“we have to make sure both protests are scheduled for the same day ok? and to make sure the media predict a riot.”

angela rayner’s is the only name that you can chant to the tune of seven nation army. that’s all i’m saying.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/m... ❤️

now is the time for the PM to be photographed in that Stone Island jacket again.

love a good typo. especially one that makes me thirsty. “entrepreneurial sprite”.

local elections got us all enervated. rightly so. watch out for the algorithms exploiting this affective shift.

YOU should probably come to this 👉@goldsmithsuol The CUCR Summer Lecture Series presents Dan Hancox: Music Sound and Cities. It’s right up your street. Book here www.eventbrite.com/e/dan-hancox...

interesting chance convo with a ‘safety by design’ 👮officer today… she told a story of a really brutal attack in woolwich next to new build offices… wherein the residents heard non of the screaming outside because the advances in sound proofing and glazing technology.

YOU should probably come to this 👉@goldsmithsuol The CUCR Summer Lecture Series presents Dan Hancox: Music Sound and Cities. It’s right up your street. Book here www.eventbrite.com/e/dan-hancox...

many voters ’angry at the status quo’ actually quite like status quo.

www.cityam.com/grosvenor-es... ftfy junior landlord who benefits hugely from market mechanisms, quite likes them and doesn't want them messed with. always the same push back whenever local or national government suggests subsidising or regulating rental markets.

Fear beats the leading brands of Hope in nine out of ten consumer tests

amazing disrupter idea: nice plant pots with drainage holes. 💡 💰 🪴

www.bloomberg.com/news/article... behind a paywall but happy to be cited a few times in this nice bloomberg piece on the future of snooker in the UK

Gen Z are enchanted by the aura of millennial technology, and their parents are swooning in the torrent of a Proustian rush.

@labouruk.bsky.social mandating phone bans across schools, while giving academies an accountability-free approach to curricula, bat-shit term dates, unqualified teachers and undemocratic governance structures. ya’ll love a moral panic.

www.theguardian.com/politics/202... i bet Experian knows where they live

i can’t always remember what was in my emails from earlier in the week. but i can remember a beautifully formed sentence i read 12 years ago (sufficiently so to find with a quick search). maybe emails should be more poetic.

www.theguardian.com/environment/... in stark contrast to “Eat Out to Help Out”, the birds are subjected to sensible collective dining advice

www.theguardian.com/food/2026/ap... I have a tub of Gentleman’s Relish in the fridge. 1) How long could I make it last? Is there a re-sale market for slightly used tubs of vintage anchovy paste?

i really enjoy reading student work, wherein they outline a theory or concept more elegantly and thoughtfully than you ever explained it to them. heartening.

did chatGPT and @samaltmanofficial.bsky.social just discover venerable late 20th century four-day week proponent André Gorz?

if you haven’t seen the nuclear social-realist horror ‘threads’, don’t watch it now. i don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that it starts with gradual escalation over iran (and a young family getting their first home). 🏠 💥 🍄‍🟫 ☠️

the phenomenology of car driving, the sense that the driver is an island, hermetically cut off from the clamour around them, and that this can and ought to be extended across all spheres of life, has A LOT to answer for.

www.theguardian.com/education/20... i’ve given a taster lecture to several secondary schools recently, on the theme of losses to leisure space and the ‘crisis’ in masculinity. we do a q&a afterwards, 🧵

it is IMPOSSIBLE to “wear a quarter-zip jumper without looking like” somebody i would never trust.

the challenger disaster was my first news memory. it’s a haunting one. 40 years ago this year.

the way the ‘leader of the free world’ signs off social posts with “thank you for your attention to this matter” - like a poorly articulated work place grievance sent over group email. hella triggering.

www.wst.tv//news/2026/m... What could have possibly happened for World Snooker and the Hearn boys to realise the sport’s future in the Middle East might not be so rosy. #snooker

big love to @alcs.co.uk how to spend this windfall? i could get a small petrol mower (no garden but i love the smell of 2-stroke fuel), a ninja foodi smart cooker, a shark classic vacuum cleaner… or next week’s ‘big shop’. choices.

just saw some 14 year olds totally nail ‘enter sandman’. reassured that, maybe, things could be ok again one day.

www.theguardian.com/society/2026... the guardian stigmatising air max 90 wearers again 😒