I was rewatching Tim Burton's Batman Returns last night. By today's standards, it's set in an optimistic world, where upon hearing an audio clip of a loathsome politician talking about committing crimes and having contempt for the people, they don't then vote for him anyway.

Crime done, time done, zero regrets. She'll go far.

Your regular reminder that cryptocurrency does in fact have a use case and that use case is crime

We do have an attitudinal problem whereby people want firmer regulation but also vocally resent bureaucracy. Thing is, they're two sides of the same coin: effective regulation comes with red tape. It's like people who want to tax the rich not realising they are, in fact, "the rich." Tricky balance.

This is a problem in itself but it also reinforces the feeling that the country is lawless and people are just getting away with stuff. That leads to demands for a correction (usually draconian) and/or a 'why should I play by the rules' attitude.

Tragic, but fascinating & resourceful.

QTWTAIS

“As I descend the stairs I enter not a museum, but a reconstruction of the festival itself. There are psychedelic posters espousing the values of Nova: ‘Find Your Peace’, ‘Good Vibes’.” The Nova Exhibition is in its final week in London. If you have time, go. www.newstatesman.com/culture/2026...

Almost everyone who can be persuaded to support this necessary reform is going to have a nasty surprise when the revaluations happen. It's going to be WFA/WASPI times a million. "Tax the rich" people sitting on unearned land wealth are going to lose their fucking shit.

Fucking hell

– gentlemen, we appear to have a sizm – umm, it’s pronounced skizm – no, sizm – I agree with him. It’s skizm – no no no, definitely sizm – gentlemen, we appear to have two sizms

This, the finest news story ever published, has once again appeared in my inbox, and it would be rude not to share it.

Stop listing things! Listing things doesn't magically guarantee that they get restored! It makes restoration inordinately more expensive & dooms the listed asset to moulder away & blight the area before collapsing in a mysterious fire!!!

It's a good book.

Gen Z?! *I'm* planning for life without retirement or pension, and I was born in 1973!

you see the difference between Iran and America is that in one country ultimate power lies with a cabal of robed theocrats that pays only lip service to democracy, whereas the other is in the Middle East.

People want to rejoin the EU in the dance way they wanted to leave: generically, without any consensus on a specific deal & without understanding the trade-offs & complexities. Trying to push rejoin now would result in the same political chaos & buyer's remorse as leaving did.

Well that was weird Wordle 1,837 6/6 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩 ⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩 ⬛🟩⬛⬛🟩 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Only on men's rights websites.

Free Kosovo Palestine is Serbia

The areas where we got screamed at the most about removing the benefits cap went Labour 》Reform in May. One ward went to the Tories because they had established candidates. It's easy to say that the obvious explanation is not the explanation when you're not accountable for the thing being explained.

Absolutely not with today's Wordle. Absolutely not.

We have literally just lost a prime minister partly over our inability to find money for wars.

When we said that screaming at women or banning feminist events & speakers etc. was bad for democracy, this is what we had in mind. If naked narcissistic rage becomes an acceptable form of political discourse, it's bad for everyone.

These are the good guys.

New heights of "where are you from" have just been reached: was asked if I was American by a heavy breather who was trying to put through a booty call to Sophie (who must have sensibly given him a made up phone number, it's just a shame it was mine.)

Both Richard Horton and Ian Hislop suffered no professional consequences for their part in Wakefield's scam. Now look where we are. As a society, we should punish people who get things as extraordinarily wrong as this. A retreat from public life and some form of decades long penance, at least.

The utterly glorious porch roof at St John the Baptist, Burford. Anyone who uses 'medieval' as a pejorative should be made to look at this until they promise never to do it again. Photo taken lying on my back shuffling around the floor until I was happy with the framing.

I visited Meta's metaverse on the day it was supposed to shut down. I ended up in a virtual reality off-brand McDonald's car park – "a horribly designed, ultra-capitalistic space—a car park with no cars, for a restaurant that can sell no food, an earthly purgatory we have built for ourselves".

Imagine a country which beats its chest about its committment to human rights etc and which all the while has been exporting alumina to Russia and insults your intelligence by holding an inqurity as to whether the resulting aluminium might have military uses. No need to imagine, it's Ireland

The Hove Amber Cup, crafted approximately 3,500 years ago from a singular piece of Baltic amber, was discovered in 1856 within a Bronze Age burial mound in Hove, Sussex. It's the best preserved of only two such Bronze Age vessels identified across Europe. 📷 me 🏺 #Archaeology

The reflecting pool is where #metaphors go to die. The perfect article in The Atlantic: www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/...

The amount of human suffering, injury, and illness that has been avoided by the advent of hormonal contraception is staggering; the amount of human potential, talent, and innovation that it has unleashed should make you weep with gratitude.

Children are not "consequences." Babies are a joy & a light in the world, not something to hold over women as a potential punishment for promiscuity.

If this isn't made into a film immediately I'm giving up on humanity

This post is so 2002 core

Such elitism

A friend of mine had a hysterectomy she wasn't sure about needing, but gave in to after years of pain, & during the surgery they discovered that she was riddled with endo. Two different consultants SIGNED OFF ON REMOVING A MAJOR ORGAN rather than diagnose & treat endometriosis.

It is a very British trait to huff and puff about business as usual when you could make a slightly different choice that makes everything nicer for everyone, but is perhaps slightly less usual.

Britain is more than halfway towards reaching Net Zero. Most people don't realise this, not least as the fossil-fuel fanatics want us to think achieving it is impossible. Via YouGov

Politics is just like football. You don't change who you support just because you don't like the manager.

I've seen a lot of wars, a lot of suffering. The war in #Sudan is agony. And largely ignored. Why? My reportage just out in @VanityFair with photos by the incredible @lynseyaddario www.vanityfair.com/story/sudan-...

Today is a day to be pissed off at unions & how they've degenerated into moribund social clubs for nostalgics, part one

I didn't really know anything about the 1976 heatwave, so this was really interesting.

can’t believe a narcissist is being so publicly humiliated by a reflecting pool

It's probably time European journalists wrapped their heads around Heat Index (temp + relative humidity). In high humidity, sweating is less efficient, making heat worse, e.g.: Experiencing 35°C in London UK (70% RH) is more dangerous than 50°C in Phoenix Arizona (15% RH)

I'll see you and raise you @timbale.bsky.social - I don't agree at all - just knock it on the head and don't even engage with the possibility - the country wants some governing to actually happen, not to have it all thrown back at us again

This is particularly infuriating when you see the cars British people choose to drive.

Regardless of whatever insane thing people believe on the internet, in what earthly context do NHS doctors working in the UK need to express ethical concerns about the actions of a different country while at work? Are they being prevented by Israel from treating patients?