Dan Hancox

Came here to say the same thing. There are good robust media studies which show disproportionality in various types of reporting, and Islamophobia is absolutely not taken seriously enough by the UK media - but pls get the facts right first

YouTube video by Paloopah The Day Today - It's Alright

Starmer's almost directly quoted The Day Today's mock campaign ad: "we know that all conflict will perish in the brotherhood of flags" www.youtube.com/watch?v=T72T...

It's had 16,000 views since Thursday, which I'm not overly surprised by, because people *really* love Burial - and Burial speaks about music with the same mesmerising passion he applies to making it danhancox.substack.com/p/burials-la...

Burial's last interview A little exclusive, because why not

Last week I published the full transcript from Burial's last ever interview on my Substack. The conversation took place the month before Untrue came out in October 2007, in my living room in Tooting. Suffice it to say people have gone a bit nuts over it 💗 danhancox.substack.com/p/burials-la...

por eso que prefiero viajar en tren espanol, jaja.. el servicio aqui es tan malo!

"Mark Rowley, the head of the Metropolitan Police in London, wants to go further. At a conference in Westminster this month, he said facial recognition would be integrated into officers’ phones so they could switch it on to “confirm suspects’ identities on the street more efficiently.” Authorities are also testing affixing permanent facial recognition cameras in certain areas of London."

missed this: the Met promising to put its facial recognition tech onto officers' phones to be used on the spot. how long until every conversation with the police involves getting your face scanned? www.nytimes.com/2025/09/17/t...

Ah thanks so much Charlotte!

- you clean up that banksy?
- sure did, your honour, leaving a perfect, permanent outline, imbuing the work with real fuckin gravitas while making its point better than the artist did himself just like you asked

Also my favourite dish in the world... made them using YouTube tutorials once, was so much fun - you should ask if you can join in!

I have a name, Jim! ;) open.substack.com/pub/danhanco...

Don’t ignore that the bbc asked a racist question here

Destination X review – the BBC’s big new reality competition will make you feel like you’re hallucinating It’s like The Traitors meets Race Across the World, with contestants sent on a deliberately disorientating 175-mile helicopter ride – and then put onto a bus with no windows. And that’s before you con...

It has been an astonishing realisation / waste of my valuable time to learn that Lucy Mangan's review was if anything too kind to Destination X - aka GeoGuessr for people who have never ever thought about the outside world - hallucinatory is bang on though www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

The emblem of modern Ireland? Not fiddles and Guinness but a soulless shopping plaza | Emer McHugh The singer CMAT dances around a retail centre in a video for her new album. It is the elegy those of us who grew up in the post-Celtic tiger recession have been craving, says Irish writer Emer McHugh

me on @cmatbaby.bsky.social’s EURO-COUNTRY and why it gives voice to a distressingly normalised post-recession malaise. i hope you read!

Loool. We should get you a badge with that on 🧡🩵 thanks as ever Charlotte - excited to get the new ep up! (Probably early September when everyone is back from holidays)

War, Memory and Tat, LIVE - with Dr Charlotte Lydia Riley, Luke Turner and Kate Clements Podcast Episode · Cursed Objects · 23/06/2025 · 59m

Can’t remember if I shared this already, but I recently did a live episode of @cursedobjectsuk.bsky.social with @luketurner.bsky.social, fab curator Kate Clements and of course @kasiatee.bsky.social and @danhancox.bsky.social. You can listen here:

Thanks so much John for your reading and commentary, it's such an honour and a pleasure to read! So glad it chimed with you

Cover of Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World by Dan Hancox

A great read this book by @danhancox.bsky.social. Thank you Dan. An excellent closing paragraph too: ‘One of the greatest mistakes we have made in recent decades is to accept the idea that freedom is a quality that can be found and enjoyed only by the individual acting alone. #Booksky 💙📚 #AmRrading

Cover of Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World by Dan Hancox

Just learned a new expression which is fascinating but does resonate a bit with the first time I went to London alone as a callow 17 year old in 1980! ‘One was now in the urban danger zone where visitors from the country were thrown to the wolves,' the Swedish academic Orvar Löfgren #Crowds

You better come over with a crucifix... The song of the year, two new Guardian features, an Essex music zine, and Cursed Objects

More love for Cameron Winter/Geese here from @danhancox.bsky.social

open.substack.com/pub/danhanco...

Cover of Multitudes: How Crowds Made the Modern World By Dan Hancox

‘‘Totalitarian movements are mass organisations of atomised, isolated individuals, Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism.’’ From @danhancox.bsky.social’s Multitudes. Are we here now too? Reference is made to this in Adam Curtis’s #Shifty - did neoliberal capitalism create this too?

Starmer v Starmer: why is the former human rights lawyer so cautious about defending human rights? The long read: Given his career as a human rights barrister, it was hoped Keir Starmer would be the PM to restore the UK’s commitment to international law. The reality tells a different story

Good morning, I've written a piece about the prime minister. I spoke to several dozen sources, including government insiders, former legal colleagues and campaigners to ask: what happened to Keir Starmer the heroic human rights lawyer? www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The bicycle played a rich role in Ireland’s past. Now it is key to our future | Cian Ginty Cycling was once a mass participation activity. Ben Healy’s dazzling Tour de France performances can help catalyse a revival, says editor Cian Ginty

Great piece by @cianginty.bsky.social about the fascinating history of the bicycle as a liberating invention in Ireland (as it was in so many places!) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The cover illustration and title of the book, showing a dam at the head of a large reservoir, edged by trees and surrounded by hills

Ladybird book in the Spotlight

‘Public Services: Water Supply’ 1969
[Deep sigh]

Artist: John Berry

Man found guilty over sharing Grant Shapps’s details with ‘Russian spies’ Howard Phillips, 65, gave Shapps’s home address and private plane location to undercover officers

sure, but details of which of his identities? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

I’m witnessing the deliberate starvation of Gaza’s children – why is the world letting it happen? | Nick Maynard A permanent ceasefire, the free and safe flow of aid, and the lifting of the blockade are needed now – all could be achieved with political will, says UK surgeon Nick Maynard

You're Foreign Secretary of a G7 nation (one which went to court to fight to continue supplying fighter jet parts to Israel), but go on, write another sternly worded letter www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

“British food is too heavily seasoned” is exactly the nineteenth-century perspective that we need to counter all those tedious American takes that British food is bland

Hard to find the words to sum up David Lammy on R4 Today this morning, doing and saying precisely nothing to stop a British ally pursuing genocide, starving and massacring innocents, plotting concentration camps. Go on, write another sternly worded letter

Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die July 21, 2025 AFP has been working with 1 writer, 3 photographers and 6 videographers, all freelance, in the Gaza Strip since its staff journalists left in 2024. Along with a few others, they are now the only ones left to report what is happening in the Gaza Strip. The international press has been banned from entering the territory for nearly two years. We refuse to watch them die. One of them, Bashar, has been working with AFP since 2010, first as a fixer, then freelance photographer, and since 2024, as lead photographer. On July 19th he managed to post a message on Facebook: “I no longer have the strength to work for the media. My body is thin and I can’t work anymore.” Bashar, 30, works & lives in the same conditions as all Gazans, moving from one refugee camp to another under Israeli bombings. For > a year he’s lived in utter destitution, working at extreme risk to his life. Hygiene is a major issue for him, with recurring bouts of severe intestinal illness. Since Feb, Bashar’s been living in the ruins of his home in Gaza City with his mother, 4 brothers & sisters and the family of one of his brothers. Their house is devoid of any furnishings, except a few cushions. On Sunday morning, he reported that one of his brothers had “fallen, due to hunger.” Even though these journalists receive a monthly salary from AFP, it’s no longer enough to buy food, or they have to pay completely exorbitant prices. The banking system has collapsed, and those who exchange money via online bank accounts charge a commission of up to 40%. AFP no longer has the ability to provide them with a vehicle and there is not enough fuel to allow these journalists to travel for their reporting. Driving a car means becoming a target for Israeli airstrikes. AFP reporters therefore travel on foot or by donkey cart. (alt txt continued in next post)

A horrifying statement published today by the Editorial Committee of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.

"Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die"

Translation from French to English by @cnorristrent.bsky.social:

What is unprecedented about these times are not the events so much as the context within which they occur. Domestically, the first part of the 1980s were far, far more turbulent than what we’re living through now. But if you weren’t actually experiencing it, it was all very remote.