Not to be a tinfoil hat, but if you cannot see all the workings of an algorithm, AI, LLM, etc, then you cannot trust *any* of its output. Seriously, why are we so eager to trust the products of an arcane machine more than we ever would the faceless corporation who DESIGNED AND PROGRAMMED it?

It's almost as if years of relentless media saturation bombing of flat-out lies, demonisation and blaming don't help the public to understand what is actually happening.

I think you’ll find that being *visible* on social media but choosing to avoid challenging ongoing oppression and late stage capitalism’s slide into fascism, is being VERY POLITICAL INDEED, actually.

Stephen Colbert on the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good: “The message from this administration is clear. Only they determine the truth. And when their forces come to your city: obey or die. And if you die, you clearly didn’t obey. This should be an alarm bell for the entire country.”

The ICE agent who shot Marimar Martinez in Chicago tried to goad her out of her car. He said “do something b*tch” and shot her 5 times. The ICE agent who shot Nicole Renee Good did the same thing. Stood right in front of her vehicle and yelled “f*cking bitch”. They hate women & it shows.

I gave up nearly 10k followers when I left Twitter (he hadn’t renamed it officially when I left) and haven’t put anywhere near the effort into building an online audience since while many in the same sphere as me have massively gone the other way… If X gets banned in the UK, I might die laughing.

Banning Twitter altogether would be a genuine act of leadership and also incredibly funny. And the drongos saying it was an attack on free speech would just have to write columns nobody would read about it, like flies nutting a closed window. Shit flies. A specific kind of fly that solely eats shit.

Reminder that “Say her name” was developed specifically to call attention to murders of Black women

“our gestapo would be good and just tho“

Keir Starmer's spokesman tells me that X and Grok's creation of sexual deepfakes of children is "completely unacceptable" but again won't commit to taking direct action against them, or to stop posting there. Says "all options are on the table" but suggests it's a matter for Ofcom, not Government

Again: If I was anyone in any position of mild authority, I’d look at the out of control wingnut cranks at this newspaper running a two-month hate and terror campaign against *the police* as being pro-Islamist radicals, and I would conclude that they can do this to pretty much anyone they want now.

This war/invasion/kidnapping is a lot of terrible and illegal things, but don't forget that one of them is a distraction from the still-largely unreleased Epstein files and what they may tell us about Trump's history of sex crimes.

"Art is our weapon. Culture is a form of resistance..." Shirin Neshat, Iranian artist #WomensArt

Techbros are having a very hard time selling AI slop to regular people so they’re now just begging regular people to stop calling it AI slop. It is still and will always be slop.

"For all the hysteria, when I look at Mamdani, I didn’t see some radical departure from the past. I see him as the heir to an old and venerable Jewish tradition – that of Yiddish socialism – which helped build New York." www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It's getting funnier with every passing year bsky.app/profile/stei...

Big Fat Quiz and Last Leg of Christmas both did "hehe, we asked AI to do a thing" and it's as funny as "I'm going to read an excerpt from 50 Shades of Grey" that every shit open spot did a decade ago. Stop it. Stop it. I'll tag 'em. Hey, @channel4.bsky.social, hey. HEY. Stop it.

In 2025, I've written three or four poems for grown ups that I'm really pleased with. Will try to get them published, and work up towards a collection. In the meantime, here is one which was published not too long ago, in a similar vein joshuaseigalpoet.blogspot.com/2023/11/here... #BookSky #poetry

Did FIFA’s peace prize recipient just bomb a country currently participating in a Football tournament? Is irony finally dead? More on this story and more on the news at ten…

My favourite thing about being a progressive is that people think I’m “too progressive, that’s just crazy” until they realise they’ve actually been duped into thinking that being “too progressive” is a bad thing.

Left: Greta Thunberg arrested for holding a placard in London Right: Labour's Baron Hain, "This gov is treating Palestine action as equivalent to ISIS or al-Qaeda, which is intellectually bankrupt, politically unprincipled and morally wrong. I'm deeply ashamed"

Really worrying. Yet more things for authors to be aware of.

Your power bill has tripled and you can't afford new PC parts just to create this.

It’s not a refusal to re-enter society. It’s not shaping your life around Covid avoidance. It’s adaptation. It’s a desire to protect health. It’s being willing to accept that things change, and masking & clean air are the way forward. Mass death & disability is not normal

I keep saying this but this has to be a form of public delusion to look at men who are so weak they shrivel at the sight of anyone with moral character and say “these guys are the epitome of manhood.”

In all seriousness the red pill Alpha Male movement’s heroes and role models are an incoherent Trump, a broken jawed Jake Paul, a humiliated Andrew Tate and a wretched Tommy Robinson. And they expect to be taken seriously.

A Lord of the Rings cover band called The Gondors

This tweet has become canon for me tbh

This is eugenics. This is a disability rights issue. This is what we’ve been warning about for years. “Choose your baby” is another way of saying “eliminate the undesirables”. It’s out in the open and it’s wrong.

More sorely-missed old English slang… 7. A muffin-walloper (a gossip) 6. Gigglemug (always smiling) 5. Plum full of bug juice (drunk) 4. Tight as a boiled owl (very drunk) 3. Feeling like a stewed owl (hungover) 2. Put your flute away (shut up) 1. Go fry your face and play with the gravy (go away)

Ten archaic English slang phrases… 10. Got the morbs (sad) 9. Bumpsy (drunk) 8. Whittled as a penguin (very drunk) 8. Scandal water (tea) 7. Bitch the pot (pour the tea) 5. Sauce-box (mouth) 4. Cupid’s kettle drums (breasts) 3. Dash my wig (OMG) 2. Poked up (embarrassed) 1. Not up to dick (unwell)

Seven names for ailments / illnesses in the Victorian era… 7. The collywobbles (upset tummy) 6. A queer cog (a rotten tooth) 5. The horrors (depression) 4. Dropsy (oedema) 3. Strangery (rupture) 2. Scrivener’s palsy (writer’s cramp) 1. The unpleasantness (nothing good)

People who have escaped the unimaginable horror of torture are increasingly being targeted by far-right violence in the UK | Sile Reynolds

In 2026 I will be launching a new project… As dementia has slowly taken my dad, I increasingly felt that it might be a healing thing for family, friends, and carers of dementia patients, to write, share, and mutually aid somewhere. This is These Golden Hours bsky.app/profile/thes...

What a brilliant idea: Give all newborn babies library cards automatically www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Spectator have not yet had a full on right wing melt down. They're very close, though! Join.greenparty.org.uk

I'm on my way to a Chanukah event. It should be a celebration but instead our community is once again mourning. I will be thinking of everyone in Australia and those around the world in the Jewish Community who know this fear and loss. We stand with you.

OMG! - Brave bystander disarms one of the two shooters at Bondi beach. This man and the woman behind him are heroes 👏 The attack on a Jewish festival 'Chanukah by the Sea' is absolutely disgusting As democracies we stand up for the rights and safety of all people in our society

Nope, targeting families is *still* no the answer, I thought we covered this.

A reminder this holiday season, that while the writing of a poem is an inherently generous act, we all know those gift givers who manage to make it all about themselves… Chag Sameach Merry Christmas 🙏🏾

Hahahahaha it's sincere!!

I don't want to be a "I'm not surprised" guy but covid made it clear that a substantial part of the population wants the freedom to do whatever they want even if it kills them and/or others

If you don't know any trans people you may be completely unaware of how the rising tide of transphobia has led to the BBC actually editing pieces, not to update the story but to insert slurs to make a story more transphobic

Dump Him, Girl www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Support the hunger strikers In prison for over a year without trial. They are victims of a system that has used the Terrorism Act to attempt to silence opposition to Israel’s genocide. They are now at serious life-threatening risk. They must be given fair trials. www.prisonersforpalestine.org

MAGMA POETRY COMPETITION 2025/26 is open for entries in both categories: The Judge’s Prize – poems of 11 to 50 lines The Editors’ Prize – poems of up to 10 lines Deadline 31 January 2026 This year's judge is Rishi Dastidar @betarish.bsky.social Good luck! magmapoetry.com/competition/

Big Brother Will Make You Tough Your nonchalant has me reframing my chronic illness: The war is not meant to be won it is meant to be continuous…

I have outlived my youthfulness so a quiet life for me where once I used to scintillate now I sin till ten past three. ~ Roger McGough