just got a letter from my landlord saying my rent - for the one bedroom flat I live in, alone - is rising by £183 PER MONTH from April? knowing that it went up by £100 a month last year? what the everliving fuck
every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds
The only thing that really surprised me in this story about UATX’s devolution is that there is a marble bust of Bari Weiss in the University of Austin’s library. www.politico.com/news/magazin...
Yes I am still in love with Hayley Mills.
#booksky
Here's what I managed to read in 2025. I really enjoyed Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death (so pertinent to what is happening now with AI). Anna Funder's Wifedom and Lara Haworth's Monumenta really stood out. Also loved Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection and Flanagan's Question 7.
How To Train Your Sandworm
Got my tickets for New Years Eve. It’s going to be a fun night!
If you’re wondering why your friends in academia are a little on edge right now, it’s because an eighteen-year-old who hasn’t done the reading, doesn’t look at the assignment, and has does no critical thinking skills more complex than “because I think it’s in the Bible” can literally end your career
My Dad is minding the dog today. I messaged him to see how things were going and he replied with this.
Trump has just added this vindictive plaque below Obama’s White House portrait and it bears all the childish pettiness and chaotic capitalisation of his 4am Truth Social rants.
‘John Carey, who has died aged 91, bestrode the ever-narrowing bridge that connects the academic teaching of English literature to the world of literary journalism like a colossus.’
RIP John Carey. This book changed my life, and I wouldn’t say that if it wasn’t true. 🙏
Having talked to literally hundreds of writers on my podcast WRITERS ON FILM here is what I’ve learned:
1. No writers makes money selling books. A minimum wage job worked for the same number of hours would earn far more
"They're trying to change our habits, because all of the projections rely on people becoming truly dependent on the technology. Whether or not it's actually a good thing for society isn't considered to be a factor."
"All of this falls apart if humans don't adopt the tech. This is why you've seen Meta cram its lame chatbots into WhatsApp and Instagram. This is why Notepad and Paint now have useless Copilot buttons on Windows. This is why Google Gemini wants to "help you" read and reply to your emails."
The Trumpist majority on SCOTUS, like Trump himself, is spending down a trust fund they did not create, apparently believing it refills automatically. But it doesn’t. The whole system depends on other key institutions treating their rulings as legitimate.
there is no question in my mind that rfk jr is the most dangerous person in this administration and that his eugenicist ideology threatens the lives of millions of people www.advocate.com/politics/dem...
UK government asks everybody to stop using VPNs.
"everybody who's out there thinking of using VPNs...verifying your age keeps a child safe...So let's just not try and find a way around. Just prove your age."
- UK government
usually if you ask experts why an empire fell they’ll say it’s nuanced and multifaceted, so i think it’s kind of cool that with America future historians will get to just say like “oh they took the idiot train to moronsville”
Everyone who has written a long read about Britain being at boiling point should be required to write a follow-up in October about what actually materialised.
Good Observer piece on the Unbound shitshow. (I was one of the many affected people interviewed for this.)
observer.co.uk/news/busines...
I have seen this over and over for decades: just about everything shit and useless in this country is the fault of The Left, people who have spent exactly zero seconds in power, because that is what people are told by every radio they turn on, every TV they watch and every newspaper they pick up.
An Iranian national who is married to a US citizen and is in the pipeline for a green card was pulled over by ICE while driving his child to daycare in the suburbs of Portland. They broke his car window in the day care parking lot and he’s now being detained in Tacoma. www.opb.org/article/2025...
There’s a colloquial French way of saying “zero fucks given” that translates to “I’m painting my balls with the brush of indifference.” A Finnish version is “it interests me as much as a kilogram of shit.” But my favourite is from old Greek slang and it goes “flowers on my dick and bees all around.”
A list of five more animal-themed phrases for not giving a fuck…
5. Narrate that to a tortoise (Tagalog)
4. It bothers me like a cardboard duck (Danish)
3. A big heartbreak and ten parrots (Greek)
2. I care like a cat cares if it’s Wednesday (Yiddish)
1. Even the dog is uninterested (Hungarian)
The Labour leadership responds:
Well, @brandyjensen.bsky.social has written the best review of anything I’ve read in years.
