Switzerland Colombia : The Nil Nil Vortex. The ultimate hatewatch. The sort of nil nil that deeply unsettles you as it gathers and builds + yet remains nil nil. You can't keep watching this. But you do. Because you've watched it up to now. You're in the NilNilVortex You've wasted your life.

Scotland supporters scratching their heads rn wondering if any of their current strikers would be worth reinstating via corrupt lobbying.....

Getting nostalgic for FIFA's good old days of hotel hookers, bags of cash and cocaine parties. This new era of transparent sunlight corruption is going to kill the investigative reporting profession.

Pretty cool crash course in Toddler Mafia 101 for the rest of the world, if they didn't know already.

It's worth stressing that the *magnitude* by which some of these records are being broken is nothing short of astonishing

Anyone questioning why the rest of us on this island don’t want England to win the World Cup needs to listen to Thought for Today’s struggle up the mountain altitude-victory-God allegory. Insufferable. #r4today

Lee Dixon with all the tonal excitement of a Health and Safety officer going through his routine for the fifteenth time that day.

BBC commentators hilariously desperate for Paraguay to win here. Rotten football.

ITV idiots not actually knowing that Cabo Verde finished TOP OF THEIR AFRICAN QUALIFYING SECTION!! God these people are paid to be experts. No wonder we get exasperated. Really terrible imperial levels of lazy.

How in holy hell have we not got rid of Belgium? A terrible watch.

No, that's fine pal, I'd love to hear yer da shouting at you on high volume on your phone. My book here can wait. I'll just look out the train window and quietly die.

Thing is, to a Scottish voter (and most Scottish people) Manchester is just as distant from Scotland as London. And it might be "the North" but it's not their North. Any PM of the UK should be able to figure this out. They don't seem able.

This is absolutely batshit. Anyone who knows anything about this knows it. She knows it. There are umpteen points of difference but that does not matter any more to someone desperately seeking a hit - her dignity for a hit.

Ah, the next phase of the World Cup, traditionally known in the UK media as the "England's Path to The Final" phase.

🎵Scotland is tepid, your defence is not too bothered🎵 Damn.

Exc: First Government department quits Twitter over racism and violence concerns Richard Hermer sent a directive to staff last week saying the Attorney General's Office would be coming off the platform observer.co.uk/news/politic...

Just when I was getting fairly Zen about the possibility. I'd been working hard at this. I had built my defences against the Matterface-Dixon line. All was going ok......

Call me biased but I think if you take a stuttering run up to a pen then the keeper should be allowed some movement.

coughs: boo-oo

Mon the Iraq! What a game.

Lots to think about social media ban, but also, to the online prominent journo belt on here going all capital L Liberal about it: lads, not everyone grew up thinking about quirks in election results when they were ten + were predisposed to figure out the internet in adult, controlled fashion.

Top Tier Trolling.....gotta say

It is staggering, STAGGERING that one can saunter wistfully and starry-eyed through a discussion of Musk’s achievements without framing it through his extreme politics. That should set the tone for every subsequent remark about his achievements. Not just an engineer. A racist engineer. #r4today

utterly appalling, shocking tale from the interviewee on #wato about #Belfast on the racist pogroms there. Healthcare workers needing rescued from homes, people threatened in streets, vigilantes checking cars. Notes zone flooding agenda generated on far-right social media by actors all over world.

So here we are at the flagship national news prog and one of the presenters is pushing the “legitimate concerns” line of questioning during a genuine crisis of abject violence and racist discrimination. And then asking if “social media” is the problem. Worrying. #r4today

The FM posted the same thing on X; if you can stomach it it's educational to see just how different, bilious and hate-filled the response has been on there, and similarly the response to the equivalent post from Starmer. There could not be a clearer demonstration of why the platform needs shut down.

This is the DUP politician Radio 4 interviewed this morning and has on repeat on news bulletins. No wonder we are where we are

Musk fomenting violent race riots in Northern Ireland should have everyone to the left of Reagan fleeing the platform he owns and directly controls but they've already excused so much more, they've abdicated their capacity for moral indignation and disgust

Wild what Twitter became. Open discussion about concentration camps, etc, in the tone of folk that consider themselves in Gerard Butler films. People that gravitate to Netflix’s array of medieval crusade shows.

The tragedy of modern Britain is that a major political party, desperate for attention, focuses its energies on “identity politics”. Coded dog whistling because it is fundamentally bereft of new or effective economic, social, environmental or in fact even cultural ideas. #r4today

I am hoping that (cough) Justin Webb really presses Badenoch on what “common sense” means and how it is neutrally applied as an accurate measure of fairness and value-free judgement across UK institutions and civil life. Or just more tedious culture war tactics. #r4today

Every single time a commentator from the government or a political party appeals for the use of “common sense” they should be asked straight up what they are implying by that term and what they mean by it. #r4today

Shut it down. Or if you genuinely think shutting down a Nazi, child abuse and misogyny site is a step too far, at least shut down all government and public service accounts on the platform, remove your own personal account, and tell your MPs you don't consider it a fit platform for them to use.

Infantino isn’t fit to lead FIFA. 
And FIFA isn’t fit to govern football. Agree? Add your name to this mass complaint: rebootfifa.com/sign?source=...

Left: Nigel Farage using the murder of Henry Nowak to sew division in society, "rights of white people matter less than ethnic minorities" Right: Henry Nowak's father, "We do not want his death used to create further division hated or tension"

Regular message that Edinburgh Airport is a total embarrassment and a disaster zone. Totally overstuffed. Bodies everywhere 40 minute security queue. Who is profiting from the pain? @edinburghairport.bsky.social

Must be amazing to spend about 70 gazillions of quids on your football team full of amazing skilled attackers and then you get to the big final and you barely attack or have shots at all. Arsenal .

Absolute kudos to JD for hitting the tracksuit uncle demographic square on….

Oh wow, well, that is certainly very fortunate timing, isn’t it. And oh look, who does that nice lady Laura work for? I’m sure nothing has been storyboarded and choreographed, and the stars have simply aligned this week by natural means, like an eclipse or a meteor shower.

The spectrum of acceptable politics, ladies and gentlemen. If you don’t like this, there’s Farage and his crypto millions, just to ensure everyone is properly represented.

This 👇 from Stefan Collini's recent article in the @lrb.co.uk is jaw dropping. But it's also the logic of late extractive capitalism in the university funding system and in many other sectors. (Also the kind of scheme Tony Blair would recommend, only to disappear as it went South.)

Blair's AI knowledge seems to be at Guardian Long Read level. He's not even at the LRB long essay stage. Clearly has the shares tho.....

Tony Blair on my radio doing full AI Silicon Valley boosterism Unrelatedly…. Tony Blair’s personal think tank has had or been pledged $350 million from Oracle boss Larry Ellison democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-the...

All he has is cliched narrative on AI. He’s reheating magazine articles and op-eds on “the 21st century Industrial Revolution.” Won’t say how it can happen without “pain”. No mention of redistribution deals from the “Revolution”. Ask him if he financially benefits from it! #r4today

At what point is the actual real world pushback on AI from workers, students and data centred communities all over the world represented on Today? Interview people who are wrestling with it. Ask Blair about it. Ask him if he is close to the investment boom in it. #r4today

Man with huge investment in AI recommends this job destroying “technology” as the way to economic growth. I suppose this fits with his “difficult decisions” (ie more austerity) guff. How many more former PMs will be doing zombie walks this week? #r4today

Shankland > Rangers is *exactly* why so many folk wanted a non Old Firm club to win the league. You get one good go at them and then they digest you. Then - back down the ladder you go.

I see Scottish Establishment Conservatism won a media award.

I can excuse @iaindale.bsky.social's ignorance here. Just because anyone with a very basic economics education should recognise the lump of labour fallacy doesn't mean he should. But the arrogance combined with the absolutely deliberate refusal to think is quite remarkable.