First, the good news. The bathwater has been disposed of.

“But could depend on success of digital ID rollout” They’ll be no charging scheme then, I’ll tell the children 😞

Much more on this in tomorrow's newsletter, but the short version is: 1) on the one hand, essentially everywhere else in the world does this but 2) that makes the museum experience everywhere else just a little bit worse.

Some of it, I think, is part of the wider 'the 2010 to 2024 Conservative government was not particularly successful: find someone else to blame' thing.

Good chart. www.ft.com/content/bc60... Iran war tests Donald Trump’s tolerance for ‘pain’ in oil market

This is exciting. Both Reitman's Ghostbusters movies are a deeply weird watch because there is an absolutely fantastic kids' fantasy movie in there which has had the Ghostbusters brand and continuity slammed into it in a deeply uneasy and unsatisfying faction.

Every day I go onto the FT website, hoping to read 'Markets soar as scalable fusion cracked' and every day I'm disappointed:

historic moment with potentially enormous ramifications: Meta and Google found liable in landmark legal case that social media platforms are designed to be addictive to children, opening up the tech giants to penalties in thousands of similar claims filed around the US www.ft.com/content/d3d8...

My main feeling was it overwhelmingly reminded me of this:

i also think that if morgan mcsweeney was that good at foresight and planning he just wouldnt have hired a guy with known epstein files links to a high profile job

I will hold my hands up: my initial reaction to the phone story was “well, that sounds like a lie”, and it was only when an (anti-Morgan! contact went “yeah it sounds ridiculous but actually think about the timing” I went “oh yeah, fair”.

finally found a clip of that Erin Cuthbert free kick baHahahaaa

I'm going to be thinking about "In order to bring a show back on an annual basis, you do have to start from the beginning with people who know how to do it" for a while

I now have an image of John Lithgow coked up, sweating, punching mirrors as The Doors play in the background.

Every time this show is in the news I am sad there isn't an on-set crew doing a 'Heart of Darkness' style documentary.

Fan mail! Sent to my writing course Silk Road Slippers email address and CCed to BBC Feedback, who I do hope send a thoughtful reply 🐉

See also Philp's comments today, which aren't going to be reported as "man who opposes funding important public service also opposes allowing it to be a key export industry" meaning that he and Mahmood will keep competing to propose ever less serious policies on international students.

If I were to be mean, I would point out that Badenoch visibly believes that her policies will produce good outcomes because they are her policies, regardless of whether those outcomes make any sense for what she proposes.

I was treating it as unsurprising that Badenoch is entirely unserious but expecting more of Davey. But then again there's no particular reason to expect popular benefits for seriousness and certainly not benefits in elite circles.

I think this should be the other way around. Of course the Liberal Democrats are for expensive, universal welfare - that is their comfort zone when the party does not have serious economic leadership, which it currently lacks. Badenoch thinks herself a small stater yet she wants Truss 2.0?

This story is just one ridiculous vignette after another:

here’s my FT story www.ft.com/content/01e5...

Please join us in congratulating Chief Torturer on his promotion. as.ft.com/r/d091e3ec-f...

Not sure how they’re gonna keep 100,000 runners a secret but I’d like to see it

Today’s newsletter: on the government’s response to the global energy shortage:

Yeah I have… significant reservations, but reading more about the premise made me at least curious rather than wanting the Tolkien Estate to find a way to rescind media rights immediately

Grading on the "we are making a trilogy of films over two sentences in the Council of Elrond" curve, yeah using flashbacks to cover the old forest seems fine.

As @stephenkb.bsky.social says, I really think we oughtn't to be far off from a "turn your heating off a month early" public information campaign for this very reason.

I clicked this ready to despair at more barrels being scraped but as a way to adapt some of the missing bits of Lord of the Rings to screen this doesn’t sound terrible.

I’m with Dan on this one.

scoop: Nigel Farage has abandoned plans for a Reform UK government to part-nationalise Britain’s utilities as the party adjusts to the country’s stretched public finances, although it is still considering using “strategic stakes” to fix broken markets www.ft.com/content/be4b...

Very fun! Not spiritual at all until it comes to football and I believe a dodgy VAR call is karmic retribution for Stina’s legitimate goal being ruled off when we played them in the WSL.

It was a great performance by Lotte tonight, her best since her Wubben-Mother era under Jonas. (The only player IMO who looked better under him)

It's good that the government is doing this - the world really does have less energy, and the aim should be 'prevent destitutions and bankruptcies' not 'prevent people noticing that energy costs actually have risen'.

This is sort of the point I was making in my Geddes lecture: there's a difference between 'are you neutral between red or blue' and 'are we neutral about stirring up forces that would destroy the open society and with it the basis on which journalism thrives?'

Scandal it’s so low

Still buzzing about tonight's game. Not over (you'd never write Chelsea's ability to win 3-0 at the Bridge) but just so great, both because we smashed them but because I am afraid I am still besides myself with glee at what a bad bit of refereeing Chelsea fell victim to in the first half.

There has not been one Chloe Kelly interview since she moved to Arsenal where she hasn't hyped Renée. She's obsessed. 😂

Surprised that Chelsea seem *more* annoyed about a goal they absolutely should have got compared to their meek reaction to being robbed.

Alessia Russo has scored 15 goals in 20 UEFA Women's Champions League matches. #ARSCHE

Wonderful, wonderful Arsenal. And I think the first time that having Stina and Russo on the pitch together has worked.

NO. ONLY ACCEPTABLE IN AN ENGLAND SHIRT

Ah, crap.

The only good part of RoS is that they'd clearly given up trying to get a take where Oscar Isaac doesn't sound exasperated when he says "somehow Palpatinr returned" because he clearly thought it was bullshit

Grim. Every week this goes on is compounding the collective price paid. www.ft.com/content/c139...

JJ Abrams probably could have just made DUEL OF THE FATES and stuck the landing for an uneven trilogy. DotF is flawed, to be sure, but it's also, you know, not an anti-movie like RoS is

Would have only been better if they’d somehow taken the ball up the other end and scored a third off that decision.

Love that the Champions League is the bit of women's football that has been polluted by VAR, yet we managed to get a goal against disallowed that was like something out of Calciopoli regardless.

Amazing, we got away with that one.

THE GREATEST