Discovered my town has put a bid in for the UK's Town of Culture despite us not even having a proper Waitrose.

On the third day the betting market demanded repayment on prematurely paid out winnings.

A universal 20% vote share obviously isn't good for anyone but it does feel even worse for a populist party selling themselves as the people's army or whatever it is these days.

Considering Brexit happened under Obama, who would the Andrew Neil style Atlanticists consider their perfect US Brexit president? Because Trump, who might previously have been some of their answers has utterly killed the UK-US relationship.

This really is some soviet shit. People standing outside hospitals to check whether or not the dear leader is dead.

Is there any chance the speculation is coming from you Jon?

For reasons known only to themselves both the cats have squeezed into a shoe box on the windowsill of my study so they can watch Storm Dave do it's worst #Caturday

I often wonder if there's a difference between Boris Johnson the journalist and Boris Johnson the politician. I think as a columnist he likes to argue unique points but if he were in No 10 I'm not sure he'd be stupid enough to commit UK resources to the current US Iran war.

Does anyone still wear a housecoat?

It's interesting how spending time with family peaks with millennials, who are more likely to have young children, and then gradually decreases the more likely you are to have adult children who find your politics deeply offensive

This was very good especially how it made me rethink a group of people - Claire Fox, the Furedi network - that I had previously just dismissed without thought. From now on I can dismiss them with *some* thought.

Picturing what happens if England or another European team gets through to the World Cup finals and so Starmer, Macron or Sanchez have to sit next to Trump in the VIP box pretending they're pals

Jesus Christ

This evening a man I was visiting insisted afterwards that we should go for a walk in the neighbourhood so that he could show me the exterior of the major improvement work a popular novelist has done on their house recently. It has inspired me: I'm buying a typewriter in the morning.

As we're talking about train holidays I probably should mention the time I took the train from Mumbai to Kolkata and I somehow miscalculated and the journey took an entire 24 hours longer than I had anticipated

Finally someone is speaking up for the interests of the wealthy!

An amazing track and somehow also deeply appropriate for Good Friday

For the second time in a week I've heard an origin story of the London Underground smoking ban that simply isn't true. As anyone who lived through the period will tell you it was the King's Cross fire that saw the ban introduced.

To be honest I don't know much about the whole tradwife thing but what little I do know tells me it's hard to think about the phenomenon without also pondering the US' history of slavery.

Maybe this is a stupid question but don't fighter pilots have some kind of gps locator thing so that people can find them if they get downed? Just to say I've put one on the 12 year old's phone if the US military needs help setting them up.

If the pilots get found by the IRGC and paraded on TV Trump will be in real trouble.

Storm Dave?

I was just going to cook steak for me and the 12 year old's Easter lunch but amazingly Aldi are selling whole leg of lamb for less than two rump steaks so we're having that instead.

BBC Radio 3 Classical Live Now Playing Johann Sebastian Bach St Matthew Passion, BWV 244, Part 1

Has anyone seen anything good on specifically the geography of the UK's petrol supply? From vague googling it seems we refine a significant amount in the UK from oil sourced from domestic supply, US and Norway. So I'm assuming in terms of physical supply we may not be as badly hit as others??

Paul Krugman on batteries: "So although we are now in the midst of a severe energy crisis that could easily go on for many months, this too shall pass. A better, cheaper, cleaner energy future is on the way, and not even Trump can stop it." paulkrugman.substack.com/p/in-batteri...

🇺🇦 For the first time in the past 2.5 years, the Russian army did not advance in Ukraine over the course of a full month, – AFP reports. 👇Read Full thread

Lilac has the right idea on how to spend a rainy bank holiday

I'm afraid the doctors only allow me the semi-skinned supernatural

What I hadn't realised is that in addition to the Strait of Hormuz being closed, Ukraine have, according to The Economist, knocked out 40% of Russia's oil exporting capacity.

Notable how many state organisations have recently attempted to counter claims by the IRGC and just ended up making the Iranians seem like the more credible outfit.

I'm assuming this dude is an American or a 29 year old in Brussels who never got a single play date from anyone he went to school with

Following my trip to Manchester I'd also, at some point, like to talk about Holland & Barrett. I can remember being dragged there by my mum looking for carob coated whatevers and other hippy health shit in the 80s. How did it become some gym bro vitamin pill stockist since then?

Always a good sign that a war is going well

Not sure which is more embarrassing: Badenoch U-turning on her support for Trump's war on Iran or the idea that he'll even notice she's calling on him to sort out the Strait of Hormuz?

For those interested, a recent, very decent, podcast on Caravaggio from the LRB can be found here: www.lrb.co.uk/podcasts-and...

Any excuse to share this magnificent Caravaggio which you can see for free in Dublin. The events of Holy Thursday: betrayal, alarm, despair, resignation and the artist holding a lantern to show the scene to the world.

Study for Self-Portrait https://www.wikiart.org/en/francis-bacon/study-for-self-portrait-1980

You will be surprised to discover that the Blair institute’s solution to targeted energy subsidy is national ID institute.global/insights/pol...

Hats off to the fifth of the UK population who think the US leaving NATO wouldn't make much difference or make it stronger

Sat sipping a pint after a busy day I spot the landlord of a pub I used to frequent heavily, who I fear may be younger than me, limping through town looking dazed and utterly broken like the portrait in the attic to my ever youthful Dorian Gray...

Obligatory school break traipse around the Arndale Centre and this time I realised when all the current building work is finished the centre of Manchester is actually going to look much more impressive. Piccadilly still a rundown disaster zone though.

As a non-American this bit of the speech jumped out at me

via Adam Tooze's Substack

If you promise the electorate their food shop will be cheaper and it continues to rise, no matter how much, then they're allowed to judge you harshly on that.

Have you ever met Charles? The dude talks to flowers

We have always been 2 weeks from ending the war with Eastasia

I finally mowed the back garden. Happy now?