Marina Benjamin

From one writer to as many others as I can reach. You're welcome.
aeon.co/videos/ai-is...

Had to laugh listening to debates on the @bbcnews.bsky.social about whether Andrew MW was or wasn't in public office when 'serving' as a trade envoy for the UK. His very existence is a public office, from nappies to prison cell.

Really? You're reporting on rubble?
Why aren't you asking why Trump is the only person of interest missing from the redacted Epstein files? Why aren't you asking whether Pam Bondi isn't in contempt of her office? Or why the DoJ is in the pocket of the POTUS?

It's a funny feeling seeing a longlist that you've carefully poured over with your fellow judges @stuhennigan.bsky.social @susannacrossman.bsky.social - both of them discerning and serious about Indie fiction. You feel a tenderness towards each book. Every one on this list was a brilliant read.

We're very good in the UK at making a lot of noise & feeling outraged. Mandelson is self-serving, treasonous, under investigated. But what will come of it? I'm wiling to bet nothing. Nothing has happened with Baroness Mone, Boris Johnson is still a free man. etc

It’s the Epstein files deja vu: how many more powerful men knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway? | Marina Hyde I’m sorry, but this is not just a political scandal. Time to refocus on the horrific mistreatment of women and girls, and the role of these ghouls, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

She's always good, but today she's raging and righteous. And it rocks.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Getting off US tech: a guide I’m in the process of dropping US tech services. Here’s how I did it, and options you should consider.

Just sharing a guide from @parismarx.com to getting off US tech and switching to politically disinvested and largely European-owned companies like Proton and Zoho.
disconnect.blog/getting-off-...

Excited to announce the new Psyche profile. A portrait written from the inside out.
psyche.co/portraits/st...

AI has no imagination, empathy or inner life, so can it write novels? Hell yes, just not good ones.
aeon.co/essays/sure-...

‘To say I was the favourite would imply I was liked’: Mark Haddon on a loveless childhood As a bookish child with a distant father and a disapproving mother, the Curious Incident author retreated into a world of his own. Looking back, he asks what it means to lose parents who never showed ...

This is unbelievably sad - for me there's so much recognition, same era, equally complicated time with parents who saw their children as alien. The mother who had next to no kindness in her. So painful. Bravo
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/j...

He's astounding in it Surekha

Me too. As a concession to Greg. I was bored out of my skull after 10 mins. crap acting, crap script, crap everything.

Thouh Ethan Hawke is up for best actor for Blue Moon, and by any measure surely he should win.

Just when you think, just maybe the Oscars might be rewarding merit for once, you look at the nominations and are instantly disabused. That pile of crap F1 is up for best pic. In what warped world is that possible?

‘I could not stay silent’: Palestinian prisoner tells of sexual abuse in Israeli jail Sami al-Saei has defied social stigma to speak out about what a report calls a ‘grave pattern’ of sexual violence

It happened to Japanese POWS to Jews in the camps, to women in every war zone. Rape is a weapon of war. Brave Palestinian prisoners speak out about their treatment in Israeli prisons
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

Congratulations Koss. Fantastic!

Maccabi Tel Aviv - again In which our politicians sided with football hooligans and against police chiefs

"It looks like a British government has, most unusually, turned against a police chief – and for the sake of an Israeli football club."
@rachelshabi.bsky.social offers the most clear-eyed analysis yet of Birmingham police vs Maccabi Tel Aviv.
rachelshabi.substack.com/p/maccabi-te...

A dazzling essay from a young American writer, on why Hume is better than Marx at explaining the landholder/stockholder divide and why Right and Left don't always neatly align with class. Read it. Share it. It will change the way you think.
aeon.co/essays/why-h...

Carole Cadwallader fighting the good fight.
On the UK deal with Palantir:
'We have embedded a notorious US military surveillance company whose founder is a close ally of President Trump into the heart of our military at a moment in which the US is threatening to invade our NATO ally, Greenland.'

Bristoleans this is for you.

I've been dormant on X for a couple of years. Today I deactivated. Feeling cleansed tbh.

Maduro in Minneapolis Murderous Lies

Another razor sharp analysis from Timothy Snyder
snyder.substack.com/p/maduro-in-...

Post-Brexit UK is America's whore, unable to call out #regimechange as an international crime. Labour now spouting hokey US cover up - 'evil dictator' gone / smooth change to democracy! - while Tump anoints current deputy PM & refuses to recognise already elected democratic leaders. One word: Oil.

Congratulations Kate. I read your extract. Wow! amazing work.

Amen to critiques like this one. On the banality, intrusiveness, and unreliability of AI: the everywhere technology whose use is far from obvious or clear, and yet power-driven by mad over-investment on the say-so of socially deficient libertarian man-children.

Well, the submitted book which I loved is called Mistress Koharu (Hornford Star)

Hallelujah

What a brilliant start to 2026. One in the eye for Trump.

Wonderful organisation with first rate platform and resources. I've had a great experience teaching and mentoring upcoming writers with them.

Ronan, been meaning to ask - have you read any Noburu Tsujihara? v.much enjoyed one of his books, submitted to Queen Mary Prize (which I'm judging this year).