Fuck your ChatGPT, if I want to see a caricature of myself I will make the effort to go to the seaside and pay £15 for a cruel man to give me body dysmorphia like we’ve always done.

Also see @jasonsanford.bsky.social 's post here, about AI scamsters threatening to review bomb if their kind offer of a "book club feature" isn't taken up. I do wonder if this suggests that they're not actually getting many takers, but I guess review bombing at scale is something AI would be

My book is NOT 25% off at Waterstones this month and it's almost 4 years old now but buy it anyway 🥰 www.waterstones.com/book/a-good-...

take a moment, just take a moment

When I led A level English Literature teaching in a school, I had to fight SLT to reject obviously plagiarised coursework. I’d hate to think what it’s like now.

A favourite Jesse Jackson memory - the reverend reading Green Eggs And Ham on SNL... www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXIA...

When puss comes to shrove...

Great ad. Though ironically BBC output would be 1000% better if they commissioned all of these. But please send this to all present day BBC execs as a reminder of what their job is.

I love SMALL PROPHETS and I am fond of Jerome K Jerome so I was delighted to see the bucket routine in ep 2 which is surely a distant descendant of the shoe shop scene in THREE MEN ON THE BUMMEL #oneforthegreatgreatgreatgreatgrandads

Oh, the US can do without losing good people. www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c3...

Yeah, I’ve just had to deal semi-professionally with the withering disdain of a blue blood with one of those entirely unlikely names that still persist where the Norman conquerers never stooped to marry outside the tribe.

The backlash to the backlash to Emerald Fennell is mostly putting oiks in their place. It’s still the Normans vs the Saxons in this country and fuck the Celts (ie anyone not blond and blue-eyed).

Robert Duvall was one of my dad’s favourite actors and it’s as much for Lonesome Dove as anything.

There should be one digital device and it should be in the living room and everyone has to take turns to use it and nothing is private, everyone can see what you are doing. This is the only reason why 90s kids couldn't be touched by big tech

A year ago. He seemed very jolly. Joe Brown, I mean, not David Cameron.

Oh, I adored Ashby. He was long-legged for a Jack Russell with a wiry coat and a beard. He was less yappy than the others too. Ridiculous, but I’m feeling the pang of loss again now just thinking about him (he died in 2000, aged 17).

This is an incredibly unusual result in the UK, BTW, where it is quite rare to find a ban or a crackdown that the public doesn't love.

The Puma one. One of our Jack Russells used to like to lay on it — between the handles — where I dumped it in the kitchen (I only ever entered the house by the kitchen door and just dropped the bag as soon as I was inside).

Here's a little thread collating Orson Welles material currently available on BBCiPlayer - Arena, The Orson Welles Story: Episode 1: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00plc51 (available for seven months)

FWIW, after 2+ decades in 🇬🇧 diplomacy my settled view is that BBCWS is *the* (not *a*) vital element of British soft power and the continued attacks on its funding are nothing short of barbaric and self defeating.

We had a tentative but not unserious conversation about home schooling prompted by this news yesterday.

More T.H. White. The Wart explains why corvidae are his favourite birds. I once saw a crow disporting itself around a flag on a church tower (St John’s in Coventry) in windy weather. Balancing above it, dropping under it, flapping beside it, keeping just out of range of being snapped by it.

“But in Old England there was a greater marvel still. The weather behaved itself…” T.H. White on those Brexit promises.

Oh, Daily Mail, never let history get in the way of a dramatic headline. “Will Andrew become the first royal to go to prison?” The Tower of London would like a word.

“Details are still sketchy, but we think the name of the bird sucked into the jet’s engines was Harold Meeker.”

Anyone fancy an art? That would perk me right up. And maybe you!

Rewatched BLADE RUNNER 2049 and was quite enjoying it until - omg I forgot he was in it - Jared Leto turned up and killed the vibe. Rest of the cast all fine (Bautista & Dastmalchian register strongly in small roles) thodisappointed Sylvia Hoeks didn't get more Hollywood work off the back of this.

Jude barely does social media, but she’s one of the most talented people I know. Apart from her own projects, you’ll see her playing fabulous music behind big folk artists like Jim Moray. This was a tiny gig in the Goth-af Anglican Chapel of London Road Cemetery in Coventry.

Every time someone talks about working from home/return to the office I need to know three things: 1) are they a landlord/are they sympathetic to the landlord class 2) are they a micro manager and 3) how nice is their house if they're PRO wfh

I’m excited already about the first festivals we’ll be able go to together. Festivals better not stop being a thing…

I’ve barely been going to the cinema, and really, I need to start going, because we won’t be going to the cinema for years and years after July.

Never beating the allegations of being creepily obsessed with Other People's Genitals.

Congratulations, anti-vaxxers! Bang up job.

Irene Dunne & Charles Boyer - LOVE AFFAIR (1939)

Fascism attracts psychopaths. They flourish. Look at Amon Göth in Schindler’s List. And he was hanged at a prison near Płaszów camp, whose inmates he terrorised and murdered because he believed he would never be held accountable. Until he was.

Oh, it’s five whole years since the cowardly US Senate failed to impeach you-know-who. Doesn’t time fly when you embrace tyranny with all your heart and soul?

I want to watch the people in authority who set themselves against Net Zero burn first. It would be the first ever just auto-da-fé.

The men's cross country skiing is on in the background and the British skier is doing it topless which is, something

There’s already a whole lotta love for this. Do listen and send us your thoughts by Sunday so we can include them in our next ep…

Didn’t sleep last night but put final sleepless hour to good use by listening to part 1 of @andrewhickey.500songs.com on The Who’s Pinball Wizard. Feeling pretty thwarted atm and this is convincing me that what I ought to do is form a band with some people I really don’t get on with. 500songs.com

So, I’ve settled on THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, which I haven’t read since I was twelve. Very early on, T.H. White uses his experience as a terrible falconer (see H IS FOR HAWK) to great effect.

I'm thrilled to welcome guest author @raynewman.bsky.social to Listen with Other. In series 5, Ray reads his new story The Interchange, with his own original music and location recordings. Find it at listenwithother.co.uk and wherever podcasts are found. #podcasts #fiction #writing

1/2 I’ll be making giclee prints of this & others from The Signalman & The Woman in Black. Prints are a great way to make art affordable. I know my originals are expensive but I just can’t imagine letting an illustration like this go for less than say £450. It’s difficult to price work up, I wish

Just going to leave this here

“On 19th February my book, Saltburn, is one year old. It’s been quite a year! I’d like to say that but having a book out has little impact on your life.” substack.com/@drewgummers...

I stick out my hand for the bus even though only this bus uses this bus stop and why else would I be waiting there in the rain and yet I do stick my hand out because you never know what's going on in another person's head, a bus driver's head, or what you might have mistook as a common understanding

Radio for Small Prophets fans Pearce Quigley: put-upon caretaker, Plum House www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand... Mackenzie Crook: hapless store manager, North by Northamptonshire www.penguin.co.uk/books/442786... Michael Palin: signalman-poet, John Finnemore's Double Acts www.penguin.co.uk/books/435124...

If you’ve enjoyed/are enjoying Small Prophets (I’ve just watched episode 2), then this is a hard recommend.

I am not even kidding but I've been searching for the original MS of a story with "gaslight" in the title and file explorer says there never was one.