I wonder which corporate entity gets the contract for the operation of UK digital ID...

Compulsory digital ID now, is it? Labour remorseless in shooting its feet off.

Lurid east of England sundown. #photography

Fortification. #photography (phone snap)

@cultauthor.bsky.social Rust never peeps (sorry) #photography (phone snap)

Walked too far for our age today; had to catch the bus back. Ignomious.

Vanlife.

Having my first go at an Ian McEwan book since First Love, Last Rites (1975). What We Can Know attracted me with its premise of an inundated world surviving 100 years into the future... Disappointingly, the viewpoint, so far, is (I suppose predictably) that of tedious literary academics.

A few enjoyable days in North Norfolk marred only slightly by the frequency of flags and flag graffiti and the near constant reverberating roar of jet fighters hosing my taxes from their exhausts over the North Sea.

The British state is an embarrassment to its people. Well, to this one, at least...

Nice late-summer red admiral in central English woodland. #butterflies

Media reporting Google's proposed 'massive new data centre' in Hertfordshire as if it is unequivocally a good thing...

Wishful thinking maybe, but if I were Reform, I'd be worried that inoculating my system with Tory 'expertise' might backfire and introduce fatal political sepsis...

Who's selling all these bloody flags? Bet it's Tice or Farage.

Fucking dream-brain decided last night that the quickest way to get to an airport for a vital flight was by narrowboat river ferry (captained by a sly cockney chancer) through a chaotic urban hellscape of fire and disaster... nagged by awareness that my passport was forgotten. I awake serene.

It becomes apparent that my own level of awareness of the global significance of Kirk was deficient when compared to that of my grandsons (16 & 12) revealed in conversation last evening.

Cyclamen antidote.

As I hinted a couple of days ago, it seems likely that Mandelson's relationship with Epstein is actually the reason for his appointment as ambassador to the Court of Trump.

A cynic might suggest that, considering their common 'interest', deploying Mandelson to represent UK in the sick court of the US king was politically pragmatic...

What the fuck is Newskies, and why does it keep posting gay porn to my feed?

Unlikely juxtaposition at the nature reserve this morning...

Angle Iron #photography

Good. Streeting wants NHS trusts to feel the "sunlight of disinfectant."

Quite a thing —> Banksy painted a mural on the Royal Courts of Justice in London in opposition of recent protest crackdowns. www.bbc.com/news/article...

Increasingly feel that this image may come to define Starmer's premiership. Charitably, it is just an Englishman's courteous instinct to assist, but the man is a politician; why the fuck did he not just click his fingers in the direction of an (American) aide and let them grovel...?

Whoever is running live sound for channel4news these last few nights is having a bit of a nightmare... unless it's my old ears that are fucked.

John's art on those early Hellblazer stories perfectly set the tone. Sometimes, a writer is not sure what they want until see it. I recall being overjoyed when I received the first Xeroxes...

It's almost as if all these 'centrists' were always just looking for cover to shift to full fascist... It becomes increasingly tedious to wake up each morning on a dying planet to the hateful babble of racist arseholes.

Spawn of evil. www.facebook.com/share/r/1CR4...

a message to the british media

Those foaming self-righteously about 'abuse' of the EHRC and Human Rights Act might want to ask themselves which of the following rights they would be content to deny themselves in order to deny them to others... Article 2: Right to life

Green bottles making art with fox shit in my old mum's garden. #insects

Another remarkable episode in our ongoing series We Actually Watched As It Happened But Nothing Got Done

Vance, here, flying a little too close to the sun...? eu.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

Back on my bullshit (and very pleased to be writing for @the-breakdown.bsky.social).

Been puzzling over this slogan posted on a local motorway bridge (UK). Can find no Internet reference to context. Anyone have any insight? (A union flag appeared alongside it earlier this week, but someone has now removed that)

Jackie our hackdaw familiar with the rock collection he has spent the day creatively assembling in our shed. (He comes and goes... off with his wilder pals for a couple of days at a time, before returning to croak a friendly greeting in our ears). #birds

Go ahead and delete your data. It's just clutter; we've already mined it for whatever we deem of use or value... so you might as well save a few glasses of water.

Bought my wife one of those neck-ring fan things for her birthday yesterday, and now we're fighting for it.

Today's goodwill doormat gifts from our familiar jackdaw. #birds

Sinister horse.

40 years of John Constantine! Come raise a glass with me at @prospectmagazine.co.uk. With @jamiedelano.bsky.social @damedenisemina.bsky.social @ianrankin1.bsky.social www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/culture/70761/the-most-important-british-character-in-us-comics-john-constantine-hellblazer-alan-moore

Nice out among the woods this morning.

A few birds. Humber estuary, UK. avocet young avocet meadow pipit (with lunch) #birds

Still listening out for Zeppelins at the muddy mouth of the Humber.

Civilised here.

Age verification: my first word processor (or rather, one very similar)

Lots of 7/7 2025 bombings coverage. 52 tragic fatalities, plus Jean Charles de Menezes (executed by police), of whom I have so far heard no mention.

After the President cut the ribbon on a concentration camp, his obedient Senators voted to starve the hungry and let the sick die.

Neil Young at Glastonbury; not bad for an old fuck.