You should consider yourself lucky you weren't summarily dismissed two days ago. A police constable who'd been caught fabricating that amount of evidence would have been out on his arse faster than you can say "Gross misconduct hearing". www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cw...

Okay, it's all set. We're going to do it.

Plus, seriously, who looks bad in that photo? Is it the woman who gave up a medal to a megalomaniac who said it was the price of democracy for her people, or is it the grinning megalomaniac who thinks the shiny piece of gold has meaning on its own?

Or, alternatively, Elon Musk does the bare minimum needed to avoid getting kicked out of all countries that aren't America.

The problem with Reform getting big name defectors from the Tories is that their selling point is Johnson/Truss-style politics - but without the Tories, that they claim can't be trusted to do the job. I don't see how they fight the next election without the "same old Tories" label sticking on them

The horse on Rentaghost was just two blokes in a pantomime costume.

If it's about The Goonies being the worst film in the entire universe - and he sets up a new party called "The Goonies is the worst film in the entire universe" - he's got my vote.

What is particularly reprehensible about WM Police's behaviour is that they based their case on some nasty racist lies of the match in Amsterdam. In truth - as shown by the subsequent trials and convictions - Jews were overwhelmingly the victims, not perpetrators, of pre-planned violence.

Me in 2024: James Cleverly? Please God no, not that twat. Me in 2026: James Cleverly? Fuck it, can't be any worse.

A third one now: 3) He was just trying to keep you safe. Which is about as credible as defending the racist cop - who arrests black people and then fabricates evidence against them - with "He's keeping knife crime off the street."

Ooh, just spotted a sign that: 1) Banshee Labyrinth is under pressure legally, and 2) They intend to double down. Very circumstantial evidence, might be wrong. But today's not a good day for people who made shit up to pander to obvious racists.

Re the Home Secretary being able to dismiss chief constables, mixed feelings. We don't want knee-jerk dismissals in response to highly-publicised cases that clearly wasn't their fault. BUT ... if a police force persistently ignores crimes against a minority, of course the gov should intervene.

Good God, the West Midlands Police defenders are being predictable. Two types of responses to the HM Inspectorate report, which completely discredits their version of events: 1) Ignore it and repeat their version of events again, and/or 2) It's a stitch-up from THE JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZ.

Bit of a confusing thumbnail here, not sure for a moment which country is threatening fast trials and executions for protesters. Wouldn't have been so confusing in normal-land, but ...

Much as I hate to defend AI, even if WM Police's latest story is the truth, they are still 100% to blame here. When a decision is that important, the excuse "But [supposedly trusted source] said so" is never acceptable. You check and see if your source is correct.

URGENT CORRECTION: In October I claimed that Boris Johnson goes on sheep-shagging expeditions in New Zealand organised by Trailfinders. This allegation was, in fact, an AI hallucination. I apologise to Boris Johnson for what ChatGPT made me do. Apparently, that excuse makes it okay now.

Sorry, this is too little, too late. You've changed your story and your excuses multiple times and my patience ran out a long time ago. If you really were stupid enough to do this, you should have owned up weeks ago when you realised your case didn't stand up. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Sorry guys. Next Animal Crossing update contains an option to join a draconian immigration agency and randomly deport animals deemed to look too foreign.

scott adams won’t see your tweets about him but your friends who destroyed their legacies as inoffensive newspaper cartoonists with decades long racist crashouts will

Coming soon: dancing on the grave of AI art. I hope.

This Thursday's performance of West End Gerry and Sewell is sold out already. Ticket availability is down as "medium" on most other dates. So far, so good.

New blog post. An embarassingly late catchup of at least two Odds and Sods, but with one big news story about Laurels moving out of the working men's club it's been synonymous with. chrisontheatre.wordpress.com/2026/01/12/l...

"Sure! No problem! According to the CIA's latest analysis, a military strike against the IRGC's headquarters will cause the government to fall to an uprising. In more detail: * A military strike against the IRGC will strength the regime. * The Iranian uprising against Saddam Hussein is ongoing."

This is becoming increasingly predictable. AI vendors releasing shit unrealiable products and claiming you're not supposed to do the thing it was obviously created for. You may as well claim the Death Star is not intended for blowing up planets. bsky.app/profile/thev...

Only a side-note, but a little sad how Zahawi destroyed his reputation. His work setting up YouGov was ground-breaking, revolutionising political polling with the first online operation. He could have quit whilst he was ahead, but instead got into politics - and every kind of sleaze known to man.

Is it just me, or does Farage look like he's just cracked a very racist joke that lackey Zahawi had to humour?

I'm sorry to hear that Edinburgh Horror Festival is taking a hiatus for at least a year because the team are burnt out - but not sorry that Banshee Labyrinth now has one less arts festival. Until and if they say sorry and make amends, the less performing arts they have the better.

One pedantic but important point. This new* law only applies to adults. Creating sexualised images of children, even deepfakes, is already illegal. But Grok is doing that already. So really Twitter/X should be getting prosecuted now. (*: Primary legislation passed in 2025 but not yet enacted.)

News of this in odds and sods coming up shortly, but in the meantime ...

Searched Google for the pub landlord from the classic TV series Bottom, famously named "Dick Head". Wish I hadn't done that.

Surely the first step is to clamp down on Amazon and the like and force them to pay their fair share in taxes. If they have to raise prices in response, good. High streets become more competitive.

Okay, folks, a belated review of my 2025 theatre year is finally online. Featuring the good, the bad, and the ugly. No prizes for guessing what was the ugly incident this year. chrisnevillesmith.info/wp/2026/01/0...

Still mildly amused that I entered Iran into Google, and Google's first reaction is to suggest I go there on by hols with flights from only £535.

The problem with Khamenei's line of "You're with me or you're with Donald Trump" is that - even with the USA spiralling into a dystopia nightmare - the Iranian Government has achieved levels of insanity Trump can only dream of. Takes a lot to make Trump a less bad option, but by God he's done it.

I am, of course, pretty hopeful that the Iranian regime falls and something better replaces it. I do, however, note a number of people in the west are doing a “you protestors have nothing to worry or protest about, unlike the heroic Iranians” shtick which feels more than a bit mmmmmm to me.

It's coming ...

Commiserations to the British media personality Jonathan Ross, who has just lost his title of biggest hate figure named Jonathan Ross.

NOOOOO!!!!!!!! Why, @thestage.co.uk, whyyyyyyyy?

HEADLINE: LOCAL SUPERMARKET TURNS OFF ACCESS TO SAUSAGES subhead: The supermarket ended their free 1 hour tasting table and have now limited sausage access to paying customers

Not sure how limiting the revenge porn machine to paying subscribers is any better than a free revenge porn machine.

Tomorrow we are going to have USA and Iran each telling the other to stop shooting citizens who protest.

Really don't want to be seen as provoking any sort of violence, but if anything in the world is going to tip the USA into civil war, it's going to be state law enforcement taking up armed resistance to extra-judicial ICE actions. Probably won't, but the mere possibility of this is shocking.

Brighton Fringe is bringing back Caravanserai. I assume they've learnt lessons from the fuck-up of 2023, but, boy, this is still going to be controversial.

All right Mr. Weatherman, I give up. I now support global warming. Excuse me, I'm off to build an AI data centre powered by fossil fuels.

Latest grief to a Brighton Fringe venue from an unlikely source. www.thestage.co.uk/news/open-ai...

Whilst I can understand which politicians might be reluctant to leave Twitter, they should, at the very least, cross-post the content to other microblogging sites like Bluesky. I really don't see why the rest of us should be expected to register for the hellsite to read this.

For anyone who's not been following a blow-by-blow account of this play since 2022, this is a good account of its journey to the West End.

Since there was no rule against shameless self-promotion, here's my favourite entry I wrote in CeeFaux's competition. Discussions are ongoing with Hugh Grant and the ghost of Gene Wilder to get this made. #ifyoufollowceefauximightwinanmug

amazing how the entire machine can pivot within 24 hours. no need to slowly upsell the argument; just issue new marching orders