Zak Polanski giving a lucid account of where we are. Seven minutes saying what so many of us think, but no one dares to say in public. Thanks news.sky.com/video/home-s...

Zak Polanski on channel 4 news tonight. Absolutely 💯 spot on!

Populist thinking struggles to get a foothold in academia because it dodges facts, rejects trustworthy sources, and offers untestable assertions. Rejecting it is not bias; it is standards doing their job.

Although the first three words gives it away #EMCA

Keep thinking of arguments for why it would be completely insane to dump a prime minister with a huge majority just 14 months in, and also about how if he's not going to say a single word in opposition to the kind of shit we saw today then I no longer feel convinced by any of those arguments.

It's physically unsafe for people like me to go into the centre of our home city this Saturday on account of the colour of our skin. Most politicians are either failing to stand up to this or actively contributing to the situation. We don't owe any of those politicians our votes. Not one of them.

An interesting radio story about detectorists... and crime.

7- Karl Ci serà sempre un cantu by Voce Ventu (Corsica: There will be always a song) Karl being inspired by my grandpa, the playlist contains a lot of Corsica songs, and it was difficult to pick up only one, here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYul...

Stuff like this. Detectorists / Inside No 9 producer Adam Tandy talking about making sitcoms… pod.link/1779990694/e...

An AI converted a paper of mine into a podcast? 😕

Right. Tax it to the fucking skies. Make it cost what it costs. Make it unfeasible to use. Then stop using it.

A comprehensive comms success.

Do we need a sort of corporate Magna Carta? Something that provides a definition of the limits of power for transnational interests?

Fucking hell. I know nobody’s in greasy overalls for you to fetishise, Labour, but this is still an industry full of working people on marginal incomes that you are voluntarily destroying, you dumb tech-fetishising goons. You just sold us for corporate strip-mining. Up the workers.

Just north of Limoux yesterday.

France and EU to incentivise US-based scientists to come to Europe. Meanwhile UK universities are being decimated by job cuts. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Something marvellous has happened in Hertfordshire but i bet the press won't mention it. I've now got a Green/Liberal Dem council, Liberal Dem/x county Council and Labour MP. 10 years ago this was a Tory stronghold. Please stop going on about Reform www.bbc.co.uk/news/electio...

Labour are going to learn exactly the wrong lesson from this, aren’t they?

My favourite key to unlocking the Detectorists - Andy and Lance think they are respectively a romantic and a pragmatist, but they have it the wrong way round. Perfect flaws.

Yet another episode… www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand...

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p... This is marvellous - and lets you in on how England came about.

"No single political party can get away with lying, stealing, and cheating forever. That's why we have two political parties." ~Alexei Sayle

The Sex Pistols rock London with first gig at 100 Club in 50 years. What a wonderful thing! 🤣

Life would start to make sense again with BBC4 comedy commissions.

They spent about 4 quid an episode on The Detectorists and got a better score on Rotten Tomatoes. I don't have a point

A highly respected fellow conversation-analyst Alexa Hepburn has made an excellent turn-by-turn analysis of the attack on Zelenskyy by Trump and Vance in the Oval Office: "Zelenskyy was certainly the victim of a coordinated, asymmetrical, and at times personal, attack." @rolsi-journal.bsky.social

Just finished Joel Morris' 'Be Funny Or Die' and I might have just found a new personal bible If you are in *any* way interested in the mysteries of comedy, and storytelling in general - how it works, why it matters... I cannot recommend this book enough. (And his new podcast is brilliant too)

Decided to transcribe the worst few minutes of the Trump-Vance ambush of Zelenzky - working on stuff like anger and conflict ATM - lmk if you want a copy. #EMCA

**SECOND #EMCA Starter Pack!** The 1st is full: go.bsky.app/DHMkXcX so the 2nd is linked below. If you're a #ConversationAnalysis #DiscursivePsychology #MCA #Ethnomethodology researcher and want to be added (or removed!), reply below. Repost to keep building our community! go.bsky.app/6p8x2UZ

Bored of the same old research methods? Why not join us⭐️in person⭐️5-6 June 2025 in sunny Oxford for our popular "Introduction to conversation analysis and health care encounters" 2 day course #EMCA @iscaupdates.bsky.social @OxQualiCourses @oxprimarycare.bsky.social phc.ox.ac.uk/study/short-...

Keep going you 900+ Labour rebels - don’t give in. 👏

These boastful Labour Party adverts on FB are getting 1000s of frustrated and angry replies, mostly criticising how they pander to Reform. The second one is also a painfully poor mocked-up messenger 'chat' 😕

Starmerism sparks yet another huge selloff and induces another drop in council housing.

It’s straight from the Trump playbook: Labour is tearing up the machinery of government | George Monbiot

We @kevinawhitehead.bsky.social @raymond-sociology.bsky.social are very happy to announce a new book and a new paper, both on conversation analysis and membership categorization, published rn in Jan 2025! 📕📄 🧵 1/4 "Categories in Social Interaction" is out now from Routledge #AcademicSky #EMCA

Very pleased to have raised a hand on methods here: so few accounts of ‘lived experience’ show how they are rendered thus by those living them. academic.oup.com/bjsw/article...

Don’t forget that the ideal Christmas gift for the most annoying person in your life (who maybe enjoys pushing their glasses up their nose and saying “I think you’ll find…”) is my book on how comedy works! Even if that annoying person is you! www.waterstones.com/book/be-funn...

**Updated #EMCA Starter Pack** We're almost at the 150 max and therefore onto a second! Please repost to keep building our 🦋 community. If you're a #ConversationAnalysis #DiscursivePsychology #MCA #Ethnomethodology researcher and want to be added (or removed!), reply below. go.bsky.app/DHMkXcX

This is all meant to distract you from the fact that 25 years into the digital revolution, none of these alternatives to journalism or music or cinema or advertising or radio or whatever are actually working. Nobody can keep their jobs. Or get paid. Nothing works.

The ideal Christmas gift for people who not only like laughing but wonder why. You must know someone like that. Maybe it’s you? www.gralefrit.co.uk/books.html

In a few hours time, Fiona Bruce will defend having Nigel Farage on #Bbcqt for the 38th time, by saying "He's an elected MP. We have to invite him"... ... as if Question Time's constant platforming of him for years, isn't part of the campaign that made him an MP. 😑

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... Syria and the human consequences of the ongoing crisis on everything that has happened in the last 14 years in the world (ISIS, far right populism, Brexit etc) - interview with Charles Lister (17.07 minutes in). Such crucial radio - marvellous analysis for us to hear.

If you haven't already got this, it's full of excellent stuff.

We always tell people geography is a super employable discipline, but nobody believes us! My theory is we need a hit TV show where a team of historians and geographers fight crime while skateboarding or something. That's what young people want, right?

Nice to see Cunk in here, @gralefrit. Comedy is a huge part of the common denominator of British culture, and the BBC's place in preserving and promoting national identity via comedy is crucial. More important than any of its other functions, except maybe music, I'd say. www.ft.com/content/c14e...