Ian Kingston

Just put the bin out while wearing a vampire costume and wondered if Dracula ever had to do that job.

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio... What 'universal appeal'? I sat through an episode a few days ago, and all I could see was the tired old clichés of reality TV, rehashed in a slightly different format.

Margaret Hamilton, the first female programmer hired to work on the Apollo project who ultimately led the 100-person team that guided Armstrong and Aldrin to a safe landing on the moon, dies at 90. www.nytimes.com/2026/10/07/o...

I've just been trying to change my email address at #CheapEnergyClub. Very briefly, the AI on the site gave me faulty instructions. The FAQ had the correct answer (you can't do it). So the AI can't even read its own website correctly... I've sent the details to the website.

This popped up in my spam this morning. How did they know that I go by '[Fname]' on the internet? #scam #incompetent

🧵 As front-page headlines go, this has to be one of the most misleading I've seen in a long time It's an out-and-out lie But notice the trick they use to get away with it...👀 *They're* not lying - they're just quoting someone else who is👍🏻 In this case, the leader of the opposition🙄 1/33

Pow! Man in Batman costume chases down suspected Norwich handbag thief

I've just started reading Pride and Prejudice. This edition has a lengthy preface by someone I've never heard of. I've skipped over it because every such preface/foreword/introduction I've ever read includes spoilers. Why do publishers do this? An afterword would make more sense. #BookSky

I have 2FA turned on for most accounts, because it's a Good Thing™. What is not a good thing is for my phone to send the text containing the 2FA code to spam. Thanks, Google - very helpful.

We have successfully grown an olive. This is strangely pleasing.

Fascinating! www.theguardian.com/news/ng-inte...

In an unprecedented fit of creativity, I wrote a short time travel story. Never done anything like it before (which is what 'unprecedented' means, but I thought I'd stress that). If you want to read it, it's on my website: www.iankingston.com/story.html

I'm tempted to show this to an LLM and ask it to itemise all of the errors, but I fear for the integrity of the space–time continuum after the inevitable outcome.

One of the first "outrageous" claims I saw as Jason Arday's media hounding unfolded was that he ran 30 marathons in 35 days! Wow! What a thing to claim! And the newspapers all suggested there was no evidence he actually did it. Well, they clearly didn't look very hard 🙄 🧵 1/26

'Everything under the Sun is in tune But the Sun is eclipsed by - a very large slow-moving cloud' (with apologies to Pink Floyd)

Haven't had a chance to listen to all of this yet, but so far so dazzling!

I've recently changed my main email address. It is amazing how many big name websites are incapable of updating this basic piece of information. Some examples: NatWest (AI chatbot fails) MoneySavingExpert (no facility) Money Supermarket (process fails)

Planted a Rudbeckia this morning and along came a Gatekeeper/Hedge Brown butterfly to say hello – first I've seen in this garden.

Tried to change my NatWest email address. App says use Cora chatbot. Cora tries to change my street address instead. Fails utterly. Try via website. Says use Cora. Same result. Why not just have a simple form?

Team TDK, because the shop up the road sold them cheap to students. Those albums that were 47 minutes long were really annoying. When I finally bought the genuine article, I still kept expecting the last song to finish suddenly just before the end.

Don't want to sound too smug (I mean I am, obviously), but the potholes outside my house are being repaired as I write.

I’m so sad Bill Oddie left us. He was sick for some time and I wrote to him. He auditioned me for The Pembroke Revue in 1963 and I stepped into his roles for The Edinburgh Festival when the Cambridge Footlights went to the West End. We watched England win the World Cup together at Wembley in ‘66.

Here it is. My manifesto for the 2026 Clacton By-Election. It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Join me, clean up Clacton and let's make 13th August Bin Day! #VoteBinface #VoteyMcVoteface #YesWeTinCan

Under a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface

Have you heard SIMPLE PLEASURES yet? emubands.ffm.to/simplepleasu...

For those interested who may have missed this, the Prog Prom at which I sang last weekend will be broadcast on BBC4 tonight at 7pm.

Doesn't sound like a joke candidate any more. You know what to do, Clacton.

Seems to me that Andy Burnham is announcing a few relatively small, but popular, policies to set the tone. Starmer, by contrast, started by trying to get some unpopular policies out of the way quickly, but the negative aura stuck with him.

The Diddly Squat Farmshop experience: well-organised car park. But a 25 minute queue for the shop in 28 °C was unappealing, so we carried on our way.

Colombia v Switzerland being referred to as Charlie v The Chocolate Factory.

This came as a surprise when I donated blood yesterday: www.blood.co.uk/news-and-cam... Not a fan of the band (not my kind of music), but this looks like a good thing. And I now have a Metallica guitar pick to give to someone who'll appreciate it.

I made a whole album last month and somehow I'm ok 🤪 This is not an apology: substack.com/home/post/p-...

Farage says: '... my personal MP expenses are zero...' Well, if you never go to your constituency that would make sense.

The most boring man in the universe is sitting behind me at Manchester Airport explaining to everyone in his contacts list why he's really annoyed that his flight has been delayed. On and on and on...

Trump thought suing the BBC would intimidate them. Instead, they turned his own lawsuit into a legal headache that could force him to defend his actions surrounding January 6 under oath. That is the kind of self inflicted karma no political strategist could have scripted.

From a local hotel today, with the subject line: It's Over 30°C Today... But Christmas Is Just 6 Months Away! Just... No.

Events may yet prove me wrong, but today's #ENGNZ match is starting to feel like test cricket in the olden days: hot weather, flat pitch, first team bats for best part of two days; second team does the same; last day is just the first side playing out time. But, you know, England...

It was inevitable, wasn't it🙄 Of course the Telegraph would run with something like this👇 So let's remove some of the rose-tinted spectacles and also look at some of that data comparing 1976 with modern heat waves Because the 1976 nostalgia porn is wearing a bit thin at this stage 🧵1/23

Hot weather update: pigeon flew in through open door, then battered itself against kitchen window and crapped on window sill before being persuaded to leave via open window.