Introduce yourself with 5 concerts you've been to: Suzanne Vega Salif Keita Bruce Hornsby Andras Schiff Frans Bruggen

"Runctitiononal features"? "Medical fymblal"? "1 Tol Line storee"? This gets worse the longer you look at it. But it's got to be good, because it was published in Nature Scientific Reports last week: www.nature.com/articles/s41... h/t @asa.tsbalans.se

Today's migration stats illustrate the migration doom loop in action... (from my presentation at the IMF last week)

We agree with Sam. Scrapping the MIR is the only way to ensure British citizens and settled residents can live with the people they love. It won’t shift net migration, but it will finally reunite thousands of families kept apart by these rules. No ifs, no buts — Families Belong Together

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Viewpoint with Andrew Brown: BBC protects mass media from abyss of #TikTok

Our lived experience and work with spouse-visa applicants show how exclusionary and often racist the immigration system is. We worry the Government’s harsher tone reflects global right-wing pressure and emboldened far-right ideas rooted in racial hierarchy. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Good statement from the US conference of Catholic Bishops

"To translate is not simply to transfer meaning but to attend to differences—of culture, time, thought, expression—that evade perfect alignment." www.theatlantic.com/books/2025/1...

On a rainy day, I recommend heading to your local bookshop and charming the staff into giving you treats. Or on any day, in fact.

Storm Claudia making her presence felt here.

Why do traditions get invented? Often, when there are identity gaps to fill. Reflecting on why new rituals of Remembrance mattered in the 1920s + how they can now help us address a core question of the 2020s: how our past, present + future are linked easterneye.biz/uk-remembrance-day-shared-history/

The Home Office is consulting on the use of AI for automated translation and transcription in immigration administration, including asylum applications, but is only taking submissions from technology providers, NOT people who know about language. Please sign the petition and share! c.org/nfSb77ftDk

In Japan, most of the current nuclear power plants were planned and built before plate tectonics was accepted as mainstream science. A correlation to this is that a number of power plants were built over active faults.

Tom of Finland meets Norman Rockwell.

"Let's not forget, when we remember the service and the sacrifice with this poppy, that the people who bled and died for our democracy and our freedom, weren't just my grandfather who looked like me & worshipped the same God, but people across Empire & Commonwealth, who were Muslim, Sikh & Hindu'

The Established Church needs to find a voice on this kind of dehumanising depiction of men, women and children who have come to our country, being spilled all over the place to say the only thing that has human value is a salary above £38k and thst any foreigner who ever earns less must get out

I would happily join any such group - if you would too then get in touch with Marie. The madness being proposed by Tories and Reform needs to be opposed, and migrants' rights need to be protected.

Based on the account of the Ascension, it's all in the cloud.

To be clear: deportations to increase cultural homogeneity is the text book definition of ethnic cleansing. Demands that come even close to this are so far outside any democratic norm and the rule of law. What has happened to a country when this is not condemned in the strongest possible terms?

A cake for autumn: honey, pumpkin and walnut loaf.

'Staying at Gail’s and hoping for a promotion is, for Sanjana, the only option. Like thousands of other workers in Britain’s ever-deepening hostile environment, her life is bound to her employer.' www.vittlesmagazine.com/p/at-gails-w...

Yet more evidence that #translators are true collaborative partners and deserve wider recognition: James Rion on translating engimatic author #Uketsu's debut novel Strange Houses. jimrion.com/2025/09/30/t...

NAE KINGS, NAE MASTERS! You want to keep your liberty? Guard it like a favorite stick. You let one fool call himself ‘Master of Treats,’ and next thing you know, he’s telling you when to sit and when to beg. Democracy’s a chew toy. If you don’t protect it, someone else will drool all over it.

This morning my ChatGPT quota was inexplicably exhausted. It took a while but I pieced it together. Voice mode somehow got activated when I went to bed. The bot then engaged in a 10 hour conversation with my snoring dog, answering questions the pup wasn’t asking and praising him for his insight.

pleasures of the flesh fade, other people however much you love each other will sometimes let you down, the world is filled with sorrows. but from today until the last day of your life, wherever you are if you pay attention there is something new to learn. it's a great comfort.

Translator Polly Barton talks with us about HUNCHBACK, longlisted for the 2025 National Book Award for Translated Literature. Read the interview here, as well as all our interviews in this series:

The only gigs that come my way these days are helping train the AI that will presumably replace me. I turn them down. I hope for the strength of will and financial solvency to turn them down forever. But it’s bleak!

There may be unforeseen costs to downgrading our understanding of the national language

The International Federation of Translators (FIT) published a position paper on #MachineTranslation (MT) to draw attention to the consequences of using MT both for the users and for professional translators. Read it at en.fit-ift.org/position-and.... #Translator #ai #Language #Tech #xl8 #1nt #atanet

It starts with Palestine protests. But where will the crackdown on Britain’s democratic freedoms end? | Owen Jones

Miniature kiwi fruit harvest from the garden. The vine was planted three years ago, but it's the first time they've ripened enough to eat.

Please sign this petition to restore the funding due to be cut from the Arthur Rank Hospice in Cambridgeshire, which would result in the loss of 9 of their 22 beds. www.pippaheylings.org.uk/campaigns/sa...

This is why mixed messaging doesn't work. Everyone ends up annoyed.

This remains an awful and unfair proposal. For one thing, a lot of people genuinely struggle to find time to volunteer, and for another and more importantly, it’s not volunteering if you’re being compelled to do it!

Cuddly Milo came up from London to visit, and we went for a long Fenland walk and pub lunch with him and his humans. After which we both needed a good lie down for a while.

If a woman is walking fearlessly at night, you know she is AI

There are 4.24m people with Indefinite Leave to Remain (or equivalent). 82% are in work, compared with 74% of Britons 3.8m are in relationships with Britons They have about 2.4m British-born children. This bullshit is never going to happen. Again. But... www.theguardian.com/politics/liv...

I asked the librarian for that new kids book where Pavlov's dog goes on adventures with Shroedinger's cat. She said it rings a bell but she can't be sure if she has it or not until she has a look

In this week’s Private Eye. How long before other big agencies follow suit?

We have it as a contract point that translations of my work have to be performed by actual humans, I think actual human readers deserve to have actual humans translating and making the works as excellent as they can be regardless of language

Come join us! #translation #booksky

📣 Applications are OPEN for BCLT Translators-in-Residence 2026! ✨ We're offering two BCLT translation residencies for UK-based literary translators. Find out more: www.uea.ac.uk/groups-and-c... #LiteraryTranslation #Translation #CallForTranslators

How can this possibly be "malicious communication" under UK law?

In his Viewpoint column this week, Andrew Brown considers two contrasting views on the future of #AI

£1,035. Per Person. Per year. FOR 10 YEARS. Immigration Health Surcharge + 10-year route to settlement = poverty, anxiety and hardship. Thanks to @rfuk.bsky.social, @ramfel.bsky.social, @gmiau.bsky.social + others for sounding the alarm on this madness 🚨👇 www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Very good from John Harris (and apologies for the misattribution in my now deleted post). www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...