I basically think the core problem with modern dating is that smartphones and apps, through no fault of their own, invert the dating process from “are you attracted to this person and do you like them?” to “do you like this person enough to meet and find out if you are attracted to them?”

Having met your long term partner before the app is the Millenials' equivalent of Boomers buying a house at 23.

If you want to know how and why we've ended up in a situation where tens of thousands of people rally in support of a far-right influencer, backed by wealthy North American fascists, I just wrote a book about it. uk.bookshop.org/p/books/if-w...

Sobering stuff from David Blunkett in the @financialtimes.com

Fairfield Porter is renowned for his bold paintings of quiet domestic life, enhanced by his interpretations of light and colour while painting daily life at his family home at Penobscot Bay, Maine. 'The Porch,' is a seminal example of his work from the 1960s.

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW! David gets 5 perspectives on the deeper causes behind the current crisis: historians @robertsaunders.bsky.social, Anthony Seldon and @dmk1793.bsky.social, @drhannahwhite.bsky.social from the IfG and political scientist @robfordmancs.bsky.social. Find us at...🎧 ppfideas.com

MAGA turns against Kyle Rittenhouse

Battle of ideas and new politics. Andy Burnham plans: Reindustrialisation of UK. Stronger public control of essentials, such as water and energy. A massive council house building programme. Reforms to promote technical education Proportional representation for general election.

Dear All, I've started a Substack for the lesser travelled corners of music, books, food and booze. Here I am on master crime writer Nicolas Freeling's lesser known - but equally brilliant - food writing... harrysword.substack.com/p/freeling-o...

#RIP Felicity Lott As the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier on stage at the Metropolitan Opera. 📷 Beatriz Schiller, 1990 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn--...

Love how these scenes capture, in blackly comic fashion, the surreal performative ridiculousness of what they’re portraying. m.youtube.com/watch?v=5JD_...

When I first saw this I cried. Never seen anything like it. I still think it’s unsurpassed. Why with the massively advanced technology at our disposal does so much of what filmmakers create today look like dogshit by comparison? m.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wa0...

Ear wigging on a Zoomer date. They’re talking in that ‘First Dates’ fashion of laughing at everything each other says. The girl (immaculate looking) tells the boy (thick set, sandy-haired, tattoos) “I’ve got a step-sister but she’s like in social care & she’s a bit..*taps head with finger, giggles..

Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Elon Musk

My review of ‘Barry Lyndon’, which I believe to be one of the maybe top 5 films ever made. letterboxd.com/josefk2026/f...

What is a ‘regular, average’ man?

A doctor caught while trying to flee the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD, carrying the tools of his profession. The finding is the latest extraordinary discovery at the Archaeological Park of #Pompeii, made more than sixty years after the excavation of the Orto dei Fuggiaschi. #Archaeology

If there were no more public libraries to borrow books from, I suspect book buying would decrease, not increase. I wonder if there’s any historical data which would support that. For example, what happens to the book trade in places where library budgets are cut?

It’s weird that Helen of Troy being played by a black actress is a problem, but most of the rest of the Mediterranean, Greek and Turkish characters being played by incredibly fair and blond haired people of British, Irish and Scandinavian descent isn’t. And by weird, I mean entirely predictable.

Baby, if you thought there was a male loneliness epidemic before...

Wes Streeting might be a cynical, ruthlessly ambitious fuck but he’s very intelligent. In politician years a young man still, he’s looking ahead to one day when he could be PM. In 10, 15 years. Thus even he has twigged that the Labour Party can only survive if it tacks back to a progressive vision.

Vertigo (1958) Directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock starring James Stewart, Kim Novak and Barbara Bel Geddes.

‘experts are skeptical’

Henry Lamb's 'Bretonnes Sifting Corn,' (1901) clearly shows the influence of both Gauguin and Augustus John, and in particular his interpretation of the work of Puvis de Chavannes. Lamb's paintings of this time feature simplified forms and a flatter, muted use of colour.

I'd probably have to say... the Best of Literature

Report: Starmer arrests Streeting, Burnham, Milliband, and Rayner for treason Report: Starmer to merge all major parties into three led by the Reformed Labour Party of Britain, all other parties banned Report: martial law declared across British isles, Senned and Scottish Parliament dissolved

The first lecture I went to in my classics-oriented college was entitled “The Ancient Greeks Were Strange.” All about how we needed to understand the Greeks not as the culture that shaped ours but as an Other—a society we wouldn’t even recognize as our own. Anyway I think of that every day

Honestly, I think you could make a really good Homeric adaptation was that just super stripped-back and bare-bones, and really tried to lean into what we know about Mycenaean Greek culture and history instead of being about The Classical Canon™ or Western Civilization™ or The Nature of Humanity™.

Mark E. Smith's list of recs NME (15/8/81)

Mother with Children https://botfrens.com/collections/109/contents/28548

Not sure about this. Malthus is scarcely mentioned these days. And there’s no obvious reason for the right to make an enemy of him. The right were Malthusians themselves in the 19th and 20th centuries, and Marx and Engels despised Malthus. Occam’s razor: their ‘natalism’ is simply a race panic.

My contribution to fertility decline discourse is that it's an abuse of "fertility" - which otherwise doesn't refer to actual re/production (that would be reproductivity) but rather to a capacity for it. We don't speak of a person as in/fertile bc of count of surviving births. Why of populations?

1959 Bowden Spacelander

'Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown' -John Keats, Ode to a Nightingale. @signemaene.com welcomes you to #BookWormSat.

Great stat for students of politics: "The five prime ministers before Truss had served in just three Whitehall departments between them; the five before them, however, from John Major back to Edward Heath, in 23 departments; and the five PMs before them, dating back to Churchill, in 38."

I hope this isn’t true. There are times when it’s more important to put country before party. This is one of them. Burnham’s longstanding commitment to a fairer voting system could transform our democracy & counter the dire threat of a Reform UK government elected on a minority of the vote

"if he doesn’t start drilling, stop with the windmills all over the place that are causing havoc" thanks don, take it under advisement

Love this song. m.youtube.com/watch?v=46pK...

They used to make unhinged silly little films about two guys trying to kill a mouse and it'd be one of the most beautiful things you've seen with stunning practical, fun VFX and inventive, energetic camerawork/editing. The sets are wonderful, Evans, Lane and Walken are incredible. 5/5 ⭐ 🎥 #Filmsky

I haven’t had sex in 30 years & fine; and yes no one is owed sex in the brutal sense of penetration / orgasm. But the prob with this survivalist take is the unrealistic expectation that people can turn off their desire for intimacy. Why stop at sex? Why not then say “you don’t need friends?”

The Makerfield byelection will be an odd one if Burnham is selected. Reform have been running on a "Vote for us, get Starmer out" platform. Burnham will effectively be doing the same.

Is it me or does Andy Burnham look like he’s just been sacked by Radio 2?

Does anyone know if Andy Burnham likes cats?