Trevor McCarthy

And this morning the Shed is the outline of an ancient shed, painted on rock in red ochre by a tribe of shed-dwellers long vanished...

🧪 I've been interested in female agency in ape dispersal for a long time, v cool to see new work in gorillas.
It's fascinating to imagine their, and young female chimpanzee, experience in making these choices - going off alone into forest, encountering other groups, trying to find friends

‘Flyovers can be incredibly beautiful!’ Long Blondes singer Kate Jackson’s new career as a motorway artist In her neck scarf and beret, she sang songs that defined the 2000s. Now the frontwoman has a second life – turning unloved roads, bridges and service stations into dazzling ‘pop art’ scenes full of ro...

Kate Jackson

Loved the Long Blondes & her Solo album was every bit as good …

Her painting is brilliant too …

[I’d still like another record though]

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

Thatcher’s right to buy policy is celebrated but here’s the cost: losses to us all of £194bn and a fractured society | David Madden A new report details the damage. This was an ideological ploy from which we have yet to recover, says LSE’s David Madden

🫵🏻 PSST!

Margaret Thatcher was economically illiterate …

Pass it on …

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Well it’s caught a fully grown human in this photo …
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

HMRC could claw back VAT from private school advance fee schemes, experts say More than £500m deposited with schools upfront by parents hoping to avoid tax

What’s that you say?

Wealthy tax avoiders will be made to pay their taxes … what’s the world coming to?

www.theguardian.com/education/20...

🍺

Lord Dannatt urged ministers to crack down on Palestine Action at request of US firm Police officer was concerned ex-army chief, a Teledyne adviser, sought to have ‘input’ into factory attack investigation

👀

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Click a random school on that map, look them up at companies house, see how much debt they were carrying three years ago.

👀

More than fifty private schools shut since Labour put VAT on fees Department for Education defends ending tax breaks for independent institutions, after parents lost a legal battle at the High Court this year — view map

The headline here should say:

"Number of private schools increases by 35 - showing fears of an exodus to be unfounded".

(The increase is mentioned way down the article.)

www.thetimes.com/article/19ef...

Why I changed my mind on the genocide charge against Israel For the past 21 months of horrific violence and heartbreaking suffering in the Gaza Strip, I’ve been wrestling with the contentious…

A tipping point is happening.

From the Chair of Israel Studies at UCLA:

Right to buy in England ‘fuelled housing crisis and cost taxpayers £200bn’ Common Wealth report calls discounted sales of council homes one of the ‘largest giveaways in UK history’

Tory Something-For-Nothing Politics

It wasn’t the option to buy rented 🏡 🏠that caused problems

It was failure to use income for replacements

Social Housing is a national economic asset

Margaret Thatcher was economically illiterate
www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

In short, this policy agenda, article, headline & front page placement is, I believe, a crock of shit.

Observer readers, you deserve better than this.

Meanwhile the Observer won’t even disclose who owns it. We have no idea if there’s an agenda being spun or for what reason.

Or if an uncritical article about a billionaire-funded 2 week-old think tank report is simply what the editor believes is *the* most important news article today

It’s also the same Tony Blair Institute that were ‘partners’ with Tortoise Media (now the Observer) on another big tech solutionist project 9 months ago.

Tony Blair thinktank worked with project developing ‘Trump Riviera’ Gaza plan Staff at former UK PM’s institute took part in calls as proposal led by US consulting firm and Israeli business people evolved

Yes, that’s the same Tony Blair Institute who’s been working with Trump on the Gaza Riviera.

It is incomprehensible that anything this organisation is doing gets a free pass in the UK press let alone front page treatment

www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

The idea of ID cards has been revived – thanks to immigration A once controversial idea is now being seen as a silver bullet for Britain’s illegal immigration problem

I assume the Observer’s new-found appetite for billionaire-funded big tech solutionism is naivety not nefariousness but given the paper is *still* refusing to disclose its investors who knows.

The Telegraph ran this same piece a week ago but with more balance

www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

The Economic Case for a UK Digital ID The Economic Case for a UK Digital ID

This front page framing ‘the real immigration crisis…& the solution’ reads like a report from Tony Blair’s Institute. Because it is.

institute.global/insights/eco...

Digital ID is a Blair obsession. ‘Solving immigration’ is simply the latest spin on it.

But it *is* spin. Blair has taken hundreds of millions of tech money to push a corporate AI agenda on Starmer’s government with huge success. This is part of a vast massively resourced big tech lobbying op
2

This is a billionaire-funded Tony Blair lobbying project being funnelled unchallenged onto the front page of a national newspaper.
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Isn’t it because the shockwaves from earthquakes travel really quickly across a flat surface?

A Not-So-Fond Farewell to Vinay Prasad The Steve Urkel of COVID Twitter turned out to be incompetent at both drug regulation and being an authoritarian apparatchik

open.substack.com/pub/rasmusse...

Former Sun editor announced as UK government’s new communications chief The appointment of David Dinsmore, who has served at the top of Rupert Murdoch’s News UK for years, has drawn consternation

Don’t Buy The Sun #dontbuythesun

Don’t Buy Government Comms

www.theguardian.com/media/2025/j...

Zuckerberg claims ‘superintelligence is now in sight’ as Meta lavishes billions on AI Ahead of Meta’s quarterly earnings report, CEO says his company aims to bring powerful AI into the lives of millions

🚨 International Data Thief vows to carry on with the heists …
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

✊🏻

Personal story - when I was doing my PhD years ago, 2 senior male academics were fighting each other about my work & I had no idea what to do. Michele saw what was happening, stepped in & made a big difference at a crucial time in my PhD.

I've never forgotten it. A great scientist & a great leader.

Ancient pots found near Pompeii contain 2500-year-old honey A mysterious residue inside a set of ancient Greek pots from Paestum, Italy, has now been identified as honey thanks to modern chemical analysis

Ancient pots found near Pompeii contain 2500-year-old honey | New Scientist
www.newscientist.com/article/2490...

Motherfucking wind farms…

Palestine Action co-founder wins permission to challenge ban Huda Ammori argued that home secretary’s decision to proscribe group under terrorism laws was ‘abuse of power’

👀✊🏻🇵🇸

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...