George Walkley

My website is beyond insignificant in the scheme of things but never been more glad than today that I moved off Wordpress onto an SSG.

If anyone else is morbidly curious about how this goes, RAJCLOTH CONNECTIONS LTD (company number 11721998) is the one to follow.

Go to your camera roll and search “boat” and then post a photograph of a boat you like. Looe, 2018—feels like a century ago.

An important, beautifully written thread. Happily the two RNLI volunteers collecting in the entrance of Waitrose this morning were getting a lot of support: most people seem to have no difficulty seeing this exemplary institution, and its critics, for what they are.

Technically true but misses a point: are nation and unified sovereign state synonymous? Germany is an old nation with a young state and America is a young state that became a nation.

Damnit. RIP Dolly Parton.

Never felt more like this m.youtube.com/watch?v=GpBF...

Last year I published research on the size and scope of the UK book publishing industry, based on Companies House data. I've just published the 2026 update, including population statistics, regional growth figures and a measure of London's dominance of the sector. Details on LinkedIn 👉

Is your backlist content fully accessible to all? Our new online 90min course (led by Simon Mellins) on 23 Sept is packed with practical tips on how to turn the intimidating mission of making a backlist accessible into a series of bitesize and achievable tasks. For more info visit buff.ly/zNV3Juj

Do you know, it’s the damndest thing but three months after regime change in Hungary, my local newsagent is no longer stocking weird conservative political journals (compare image with the one in quote). Did the market dry up, or was it propped up in the first place?

100 years ago all of my grandparents were children. Go back to the end of the war, and you can pick from army/intelligence, civil servant in the Board of Trade, railway worker, cinema usher.

@zeroecho.uk This may be of interest.

Except—the quoted text in the headline is a paraphrase, not a quote from the research, and the 6% seems to relate to a particular, specific usage rather than AI in general. The Creative Access research is useful, but this headline and framing doesn't help. Details: www.linkedin.com/posts/george...

Deep Dorset. Pre-decimalisation shorthand on the signs.

Useful & interesting stuff from George on AI vs publishing in the courts…

I respect France's commitment to not working on a holiday.

Sacrebleu 😳

This is @nickharkaway.com’s fault but a short thread with thoughts on the new publisher legal action against Google over AI training 👉

Related to this, I'd love to know what proportion of successful AI experiments/POCs are using an LLM or coding tool to develop a script that runs independently of AI. A lot of the good publishing examples I've seen and built are vibe coded Python scripts or VBA macros.

LHR-DUB

It's been a busy week and I almost missed the milestone, but Wednesday marked six years of running my own business. The pandemic seemed to destroy all sense of the passage of time: it seems simultaneously like six minutes and sixty years.

Good for Lisa Nandy and DCMS. Your periodic reminder that most large publishers are still using the platform.

For the second time recently, someone at a conference has referenced the emergence of the web in the 1990s "for those old enough to remember" and it is triggering me.

Great evening at Parliament celebrating British Intellectual Property Day with my @independentpublishersguild.com hat on. Thanks to hosts Sir John Whittingdale, the Alliance for IP, @alcs.co.uk and @plslicensing.bsky.social.

James Frith MP, speaking at Parliament for #BritishIPDay2026: "Whether you're a songwriter or artist, copyright is vital to ensure you are paid for your work. This Government wants to ensure that we continue to encourage and reward investment in human creativity."

Today, Mel Brooks is 100. Post a gif of your favourite of his films to celebrate.

Wiltshire turned up to 11.

@hbr.org has a new piece on how AI companies should pay fair rates for content, suggesting that the answer is a Hollywood-style profit share: hbr.org/2026/06/how-.... 🤨 I've written a response comparing this with "Hollywood accounting": www.georgewalkley.com/AI-and-Holly...

@hbr.org has a new piece on how AI companies should pay fair rates for content, suggesting that the answer is a Hollywood-style profit share: hbr.org/2026/06/how-.... 🤨 I've written a response comparing this with "Hollywood accounting": www.georgewalkley.com/AI-and-Holly...

Excellent piece by @ciaranm.bsky.social on X remaining a government comms channel. There's also a really important lesson here for media and publishing companies—including many of the largest—that continue to use it. Perceived lock-in is the same, as is the remedy. www.thetimes.com/article/e895...

Instant preorder 😀

SOU-FAO

Walking across London to beat the tube strike, I can’t help thinking that it would have been safer for riders and society if some of the people who decided to get on Lime bikes had instead walked or stayed at home.

Is there a worse feeling than hitting send on a newsletter and then spotting the three horrible errors in it.

LHR-PDX

Downing Street strategy discussions rn

On a call and someone just used the phrase “trust recession” and man, that hits.

I am generally a fan of James Marriott's writing, but this section of his column today is extraordinary. What is utterly abnormal is the hold X continues to have over the mainstream media and politics. There is a very simple solution to his problem.

Terminal 3 at ORD at cocktail hour is almost enough to convince one that Malthus had a point.

“Open the pod bay doors, Hal.”

"the dire and ever-circling wolves of disrupted circadian rhythm"

In Chicago, no thanks to British Airways for possibly the worst flight/customer service experience I’ve ever had in a long time: they oversold the flight, my seat was downgraded, staff at T5 were useless, rude—for a service-based, premium brand, making RyanAir look good is a questionable approach.

Film you’ve watched more than six times with a gif. Hard mode: no Star Trek, Star Wars, LOTR, DC, Marvel, Disney, Pixar, Spielberg, Cameron, Wachowskis, or Ghibli.

LHR-ORD

This was surprisingly addictive Which London Underground journey is faster? Test your tube knowledge! I scored 25 on Play Your Tubes Right. edjefferson.com/playyourtube...

A lovely reunion with the @bayesbschool.bsky.social Exec MBA Class of 2016 this evening. Where did the last ten years go?

The probability of obnoxiously loud people on a train skyrockets as soon as you realise you left your headphones at home.