frankwidebottom.bsky.social

You can’t really understand yourself from your own choices. I suspect most of us don’t even know what those choices would be. We measure ourselves by our varied reactions to fixed culture. And we can discuss that between ourselves, to understand one another. Anything else is thick as mince.

What is going on with our president? Calling people "THE ENEMY" for exercising their First Amendment rights is deeply disturbing. That's what autocratic leaders do, not American leaders. Doing so for such a trivial, vain matter is just nutty.

A man builds an IED. He sets it off in a busy public street. Shrapnel flies about hitting cars, homes and a child's bedroom. It's a miracle nobody is injured. And Reform MP Sarah Pochin calls his imprisonment "disproportionate" and "two tier justice."

just remembered this NYT correction for @jillian.bsky.social, a halloween special

By Suella Braverman's definition of Englishness as being "a lineage, an ancestry, a connection to the heritage of this country which dates back a few generations," I'm no longer English. So where shall I go and live when Reform comes knocking?

Will any of the 115 punishments include an obligation for the City ownership to pay back supporters who stumped up good money on match tickets and TV subscriptions to watch multiple seasons worth of competitions where City cheated to win? No, but maybe they should…

Is it time to post that paragraph from The Road To Wigan Pier? The one about how the desperate, pleasureless poor will always refuse to just spend their pennies on cabbage no matter how much you try and insist. This isn’t a thing you can make people do. It’s not how humans work.

Solidarity with this Piddington resident ♥️✊ #Newsnight

In 2023, I nearly died when an ectopic pregnancy burst, taking out a corner of my uterus and one ovary with it. I bled 2 liters out internally, and the whole time kept asking am I dying because it FELT like I was dying bc I WAS. It was excruciatingly painful. That's how these people are dying.

It's a weekday afternoon. Do none of these people have jobs? Who's paying their bills?

‘In science, the study found that pupils who used AI “almost every day” were significantly less able to summarise or draft texts that they had read than those who “almost never” used it — although the effect was less harmful for those who used it “to help me learn”.’ www.ft.com/content/0b38...

How would you dress if you were a manager? (No "computer game" clothes, please)

Men will send me emails like this and then go rampaging on the streets of Dover and Portsmouth claiming they want to keep refugees out in order to “PROTECT OUR WOMEN!” Not a single one of the young male refugees I’ve worked with has ever spoken to me with such violent misogyny.

Another compilation video from yesterday's fascist paramilitary 'storm' action in #Dover town and at the Port of Dover. #FarRight Some national security-related observations below.

Some of us are old enough to remember Milo as a telegraph blogger who wore tweed jackets with elbow patches

Tom Savini is a fucking legend. And he lost everything. His home. His beloved pets. His life's work - work that served as the foundation of the horror we hold most dear. There isn't the character count to list his legacy here. If you can, please consider donating. www.gofundme.com/f/support-to...

This #BBC coverage is yet more evidence that sports broadcasters seem to think the most interesting thing about sport is not the actual sport itself, but the commentary.

Why do we get a lengthy dissection of the 100m semis and a build up to the 5,000m but the women's shot putt gets a cursory mention and footage of the winning throw only? It was interestingly poised at 7:55 just before they switched to BBC1. It's so insulting. #EuropeanAthleticsChampionships

Cambridge City Council has spent £1 million on state of the art toilets and thoughtfully added three... yes just three... squat toilets at the facility for tourists and others who prefer them. Cue Farage losing his teeny tiny mind.

fwiw I don't think "Cambridge University professor most people have never heard of committed professional malpractice" should actually be national headline news

🥵 WRONG HOT SUMMER 🥵 Britain is parched and burning… but Badenoch is purging climate realists and the Greens just want to tax the rich. WTF is going on? 🔥 With @rostaylor.bsky.social @rmcunliffe.bsky.social @seththevoz.bsky.social & @zoegrunewald.bsky.social ☀️ Listen linktr.ee/ohgodwhatnow...

I know we attribute a lot of wrong to social media but I’m pretty sure there was once a time when someone apologising was grounds to sheathe your weapons, not stick the boot in.

Anyone who has worked with domestic violence victims know the answer to this is too often yes.

The government will take a £12 billion hit on the public finances if/when it belatedly reduces the current [unrealistically high] OBR projection of net migration averaging 235k for next 3 years to about 130-150k. (But it could double that cost if it wants to stay closer to zero net migration).

I'm old enough to remember when the entire British right had a month long meltdown about "foreign interference" when Obama said something mildly disobliging about Brexit. The Trump administration pouring millions of dollars into far right political groups in the UK? Not a peep

I suppose we have to think positively and that’s going to really upset Ronaldo

Anyone but that racist prick. #WorldCup

My son just told me is favourite sentence is: “I didn’t say we should kill him” because if you emphasise each different word it changes the entire meaning

The system that works is that you pay for something that you want, and that payment should be affordable but slightly larger than the costs of making the product, and the company makes money from that margin. Everything else is perpetual motion.

How would “funding AI with ads” work if AI makes everyone unemployed so we don’t have any money to spend on stuff advertisers want us to buy? It’s disappointing that we gave all the money on earth to rich people who haven’t ever had to earn any, so don’t know what money is or what it’s for.

One reason why it is insane that neither the departing prime minister nor his replacement seem to want to leave X is that it is obviously bad for UK plc that so much of the global conversation takes place in places where people talk about our only global city as if it were a dangerous crimehole.

Just a re-up on how very safe London is, whether you're wearing a watch or not

Two MPs have been murderered in the last 10 years but Nigel Farage claims AGAIN to be the most attacked politician in modern times

Hat tip bsky.app/profile/huwc...

There's no attempt to try and cloak the racism now. (Also Lord Mayors don't run cities and he knows that.)

John Terry is over the moon as some foreigners will be sent home by England.

Football tl is 85% KING HARRY and 15% FUCK OFF JOHN TERRY which is v pleasing #TheFootball

I wonder if the fact Kane does tend to dive quite a bit clouded the ref's judgement there. It would've been a little soft but I think it was a penalty. #WorldCup

I'm interested to know what benefit fans think booing your own team will bring. All I can see it doing is making poorly performing players feel and play worse. #WorldCup

While it is great to see the fans, TV directors need to stop cutting to shots of the crowd while the ball is in play. It's just one of many choices that makes me think the people in control of the coverage don't think the actual sport is the most important part. #WorldCup

Weird how the right both believe Thatcher's council house sale is the best policy in history and that anyone who benefitted from it is bad and wrong.

So it turns out the massive scandal here is that Bridget Phillipson's mum bought a council house for £9k in 1990 and then sold it *33 years* later for £99k. That's the entire story

I'm going to miss Ben Stokes. A cricketer of supreme talent but, beyond that, great dedication and effort. He is my favourite current cricketer and among my favourites of all time.

Climate emergency cancels Reform's "cancel the climate emergency" meeting - council members were due to vote on Thurs on a Reform motion to rescind the climate emergency.