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I'm enjoying the timing of these revelations – one every few days, keeping the attention of what's happening and making sure that people have time to digest each before the next one drops. Don't want to burn through them all at once or they might all get lost in "one scandal".

This is common in situations where you have 2 sides of a debate with entrenched/absolutist positions*, and both sides know it; they know a debate from their position won't move anyone on the other side, so resort to disingenous arguments to hit perceived weak spots. *not derogatory just descriptive

Yesterday I learned that during appeasement French journalists mockingly called Chamberlain Monseur J'aime Berlin, which is exceptional work. Well done France.

Ri Chun-hee is currently cringing at this.

If Andy Burnham is really serious about both localism and music, his next signature policy is obvious: Make Radiohead Berkshire Again

The history of Pickfords is actually quite fascinating – how it grew and morphed and shrank over the centuries from a "first and last mile" company during the canal era to exclusively a removals company today, and how and why (relatedly) its ownership changed.

Far, far too much has been made over the years of the nationalisation of Pickfords – apart from anything else, it was only nationalised because it was already jointly owned by the rail companies, so automatically came as part of the package when the railways were nationalised.

I find this simultaneously tragic – a bleak testimony to the devastation of Gaza, and inspirational – a tale of the human spirit's raw refusal to yield. Good luck, Ibrahim al-Dabba, and may you be an example to us all.

Bless your little Tankie socks.

Welcome to Cambridgeshire

Khomeini Khameini You had it In for me

Looks like he's going all in. In the past, I'd have assumed that this was just bad-faith stirring, but so many on the right have been radicalised and had their brains cooked by conspiracy theories – and Philp gives plenty of indications that he's one of them – that I'm really not sure any more.

Much to unpack here, starting with Philp's assumptions that the French Navy: 1) Knew who he was 2) Knew what he was doing 3) Cared about what he was doing 4) Might think stopping what he was doing was worth causing a diplomatic crisis with one of France's closet allies. Truly remarkable self-regard

Anyone who tells me to read Ulysses gets blocked.

Interviewer: list five words that describe your character Me: I left it at home.

BECAUSE IT'S HISTORICALLY ACCURATE

Ah, OK – that makes sense.

Starting to feel a bit less special that Zack once (maybe twice, even?) liked my BSky post 🥹

To be fair to him, on some deep areas – constitutional reform and devolution, for example – he's clearly spent a lot of time thinking and developing a coherent platform in a way that's pretty much the opposite of reactive.

I'm going to conclude that O Brother, where art thou? was better than them all, of course.