On Viewless Wings

Feel like Michael Owen asked Claude for three words to describe his Ballòn d'Or.

"Songwriting is like a hospital. We see the patients and the wounds." www.theguardian.com/music/2026/o...

I knew we should have told that talking paperclip to fuck off.

Some pro-Royal, anti-Meghan guy on 5 Live just now opined sagely that Meghan and Harry could have chosen to ease the workload of the older royals because "the older royals have been working like trojan horses"...

The headline says 'bizarre', but I bloody love this idea. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

How on earth is it viewed as being "outspoken" or some kind of trouble-causer or rabble rouser to say AI needs to be annihilated, instead of being yet another person who just shrugs, rolls over and accepts its ruination? How do we live in a world where that is not viewed as a normal, sane opinion?

Battle of Holbeck Moor, Leeds (1936): 30,000 anti-fascists with red flags and trade union banners turfed out Oswald Mosley's Blackshirts, who'd wanted to foment hatred against Jewish immigrant workers in the area. #racism #history #Fascism #antisemitism #Yorkshire #England #nationalism

Spent my extra hour sipping coffee and watching the storm. How about you?

There's a scene in Anchorman where the different news teams come tooled up and face off in a violent streetfight, and I was idly wondering how such a situation might play out if the Anne, Charlotte and Emily Bronte fans were to face off in similar fashion on the stony sloping streets of Haworth...

They're really leaning into this 'we are unreal in every way' vibe, aren't they?

Huge crowd at Boggart Hole Clough, Blackley, Manchester, early 20th century. Scene of many political meetings with speakers such as Keir Hardie and Emmeline Pankhurst.

FFS www.theguardian.com/books/2026/o...

If you own a pub that does food or a restaurant or whatever, do not call it a pie when it is clearly a stew with a hat.

I must say it is upsetting to see Man Utd performing so poorly I really am struggling to hold back my tears...

I feel seen

In a world better than this It would be written across the sky When poets die. www.theguardian.com/tone/obituar...

Sad to hear of the passing of Scots’ poet Douglas Dunn (1942-2026) Ar dheis Dé Love Poem I live in you, you live in me; We are two gardens haunted by each other. Sometimes I cannot find you there, There is only the swing creaking, that you have just left, Or your favourite book beside the sundial.

As a teacher in the UK, when discussing texts which engage with environmental issues, I operate in discussion from the perspective that climate change is real, is human made, and acting to ameliorate its effects is a sensible approach. Come and get me, Daily Mail.

My sons grew out of hotwheels when they were about 8. The richest person in the world is spending millions still pissing about with it when he could do so much good.

Simon Jenkins just says a bunch of stuff, chucking assumptions & generalisations here there & everywhere, doesn't he? Not that I'm anti-oracy by any means, & there are things in here I don't disagree with, but, wow, the privilege to be paid for this shit... www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026... Corruption and cover up in the police? Well I for one find this very hard to believe as there has been no indication whatsoever of such a thing over the last 50 or so years.

I know this is no news to anybody, but sometimes you just have to sit back and express with your whole chest what an absolute shit of a person Donald Trump is.

Solidarity with all those on strike today ✊

A local building company renovating a house next to our picket opened up a tab for us at the local cafe

This is so dispiriting. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🧵The Jarrow march or crusade reached Harrogate OTD, Monday, 12, October in 1936. They had walked fifteen miles from Ripon and they then departed for Leeds the following day. The march faced various challenges not least of which was the Labour Party conference's

Well, our annual LOTR extended edition rewatch is over and we're at the you-bow-to-no-one bit and these are fine, fine films.

During our annual autumn LOTR extended edition rewatch, my sons have declared that the most disturbing and horrific moment in the films is Denethor eating a tomato.

It's time to confess: I disagreed with Rishi Sunak on nearly everything, but when during the election campaign he was ridiculed for saying his favourite food was a sandwich, a part of me was thinking: yeah, you can't beat a good sandwich, to be fair.

I had a fess published a few years ago about how I couldn't connect with my lifelong pals cos all they wanted to do was booze and take coke. I told them how I felt, turned out they thought the same and now we climb Munro's on Sundays. Lads, talk to your pals.

Bernard Hill is the best actor in the LOTR trilogy.

Transaction fees are bullshit.

The boys have decided that an autumn weekend 'feels right' for a rewatch of the LOTR extended edition, and I am very much up for that.

My God, the relief when I get a checkout person at Aldi who is relatively slow at it.

A critical review called Death of A Salesman a time bomb under capitalism. Miller replied: I hope it is, or at least under the bullshit of capitalism: this pseudo life that seeks to touch the clouds by standing on top of a refrigerator, waving a paid up mortgage at the moon, victorious at last.

From my classroom I can see Drax power station on the skyline. An AI data centre may be built there. Teaching Keats this week while storm clouds gathered, & feeling that what I & my students do in the classroom is fundamentally antithetical to AI, I felt like a wee hobbit looking over to Mordor.

Eng Lang GCSE post-Gove is not a fit benchmark. I've taught students who got A*s in A Level Maths, Further Maths, Chem & Biol, & can use spoken & written English perfectly well to function in thw world, but struggled with the requirement to infer meaning from texts written over 125 yrs ago.

Anne Carson. Yes. Just absolutely, yes.

I have a lot of thoughts about this, both as a former state school pupil who attended one of the more 'old school' universities, and as a state school teacher whose role involves supporting students in the process of doing the same. But basically: good article. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Typos and errors regarding author names I've encountered when marking essays today, but which I quite like: Saliva Plath F. Scott Fitzgerlad Anthony Beegees.

The book is Guards, Guards by Terry Pratchett. His description here perfectly prefigures the recruitment process for ICE agents :

This is like Caspar Friedrich's Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (see my profile pic), except shit.

In reflection, these leaves fallen across a puddle, have found a way back into their parents’ arms.

All the best decisions I have ever made have been ones where I have initially thought: is this a really crazy idea?

The Tories really believe there is a straightforward relationship between how much you earn and how hard you work.

This here atheist honestly thinks he is on basically the same page as the Pope when it comes to AI, and that the Pope articulates it very well.

I bloody love this film. And Postlethwaite. I directed a school production of it about 20 yrs ago, with the kids whose faces didn't fit for the big school production (Joseph or somesuch). Pared down; gritty; 5 Yr 9s playing a brass section. So bloody powerful. www.theguardian.com/film/2026/oc...

I've heard people make claims that AI would lead to a new Renaissance, but I didn't imagine it'd happen like this: