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A man with a spectacular 1970s mullet, wearing big wellies and a v-neck jumper over a T-shirt, looks at camera as he stands on a boat which is itself standing on the muddy bottom of an empty canal. He is holding up an enormous wooden plug on a long chunky chain

Today is the 47th anniversary of this clearly unimprovable photo, from a story so absurd that it shouldn’t be true, but is: the day a team of workers from British Waterways pulled the plug out of the Chesterfield Canal, and all the water emptied out

Grandiloquent Word of the Day logo - Sepia-toned graphic with a baroque Victorian typeface and a pen-and-ink illustration of a person holding a quockerwodger up with the left hand while pulling the string at the bottom with the right hand.

Quockerwodger [KWAH-ker-wah-jher]
(n.)
1. A toy which moves and dances about when a string is pulled.
2. A politician who is bought off by corporations or other entities.

Used in a sentence:
“The shameless arts of the sycophant are not monopolized by Mr. Quocker-wodger and his congeners.”

We were chatting outside Legend's on Whitworth Street and Chris asked me if I was drunk. I was tee-total at the time.

"Ah, you're autistic!" they said.

Tributes pour in after sudden death of Wilmslow councillor Wilmslow Councillor Chris Hilliard, who represented the Lacey Green Ward on both Cheshire East and Wilmslow Town Council, has sadly passed away. Wilmslow Town Council Mayor Councillor Sally Harrison s...

I had no idea Chris had died. We used to be close friends. www.wilmslow.co.uk/news/article...

i've discovered that a friend died 2 months ago...

I'm back on facebook :(

Alma Montague, 43, took the decision to report her husband for causing excessive distress with his trademark sneeze, which has been described as “unnecessary”.

Read this and other exclusive articles on Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/103798...

Interesting isn't it, MPs who have well paid jobs can claim for free vehicles, travel, rent, energy, heating and much, much more.

But Disabled People who can't work and claim a fraction of that are scumbags ripping the system off.

Perhaps these MPs don't own mirrors?

"Nae Fascists"
Seen in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland

You think you're pretty funny don't you? Well now is your chance to prove it

If you think you can match the high journalistic standards of Hard Drive then email 5 headline pitches to ideas@thehardtimes.net

Read this page to give you an idea of what we're looking for

hard-drive.net/how-to-pitch...

Breaking: Met Police try to shut down ‘Lift The Ban’ Zoom meeting Chilling sign of mushrooming police state under Starmer regime An open call last night for members of the public wanting to take part in a ‘Defend Our Juries’ (DOJ) human rights group&#…

Breaking: Met Police try to shut down 'Lift The Ban' Zoom meeting. Chilling sign of mushrooming police state under Starmer regime...

Annie got married last Saturday.

Applied dialectics

Applied dialectics #artbots #magritte
https://botfrens.com/collections/61/contents/19481

Remember when the IDF levelled the AP offices in Gaza and the worlds journalist class - including the AP - stepped over their colleagues bodies to report the IDFs myth that the building contained a Hamas encampment?

I wonder why there’s no “on the ground” reporting in Gaza 🤔

Polynesia, La Mer

Polynesia, La Mer, 1946 #artbots #matisse
https://botfrens.com/collections/48/contents/17173

Sometimes I think about how the people we resent don't even exist anymore, bc our anger gets fixed on people at a set point in time, after which we often observe nothing about who they become.

Sometimes I think about how some of the axes we grind hardest actually apply to maybe two, three people in our personal life who we wish we could yell at, but can’t. So we universalize them.

Advanced AI chatbots perpetuate racist, debunked medical ideas, researchers find A new study led by Stanford School of Medicine researchers found that OpenAI's ChatGPT and GPT-4, Google’s Bard, and Anthropic’s Claude appeared to reinforce long-held false beliefs about biological d...

Reminder:

Wednesday, August 6th at 7 EST, @haymarketbooks.org hosts a roundtable on our latest title, AFTER ACCOUNTABILITY, with editors and contributors joining online. Register for free here: www.pinko.online/after-accoun...

A flow chart describing to self care with steps including: be honest with yourself, take care of your body, challenge negative thinking, set healthy boundaries and reward yourself

Luminara Florescu's Contract for Self Care is a free resource aimed at disabled artists to help them avoid burnout and explore sustainable working practices.

disabilityarts.online/resources/gu...

Post from "The Rundown" July 18 at 5:30 PM · DuckDuckGo has introduced a new feature allowing users to filter out AI-generated images from search results, addressing growing concerns over synthetic content overwhelming authentic visuals online. The filter can be activated through a dropdown in the Images tab, search settings, or by using a dedicated AI-free domain: noai.duckduckgo.com. The system relies on curated blocklists, including uBlockOrigin’s Huge AI Blocklist, to detect and suppress AI-generated imagery. While not perfect, it significantly reduces synthetic content visibility. This move sets DuckDuckGo apart from competitors like Google and Bing by giving users direct control over their exposure to AI-generated material. Source: TechCrunch

DuckDuckGo has added a feature to filter out AI images from search results.

He is very sour and feeling sorry for himself.

Me and My Parrots

Me and My Parrots, 1941

SOOZ KEMPNER IS UGLY - EDINBURGH FRINGE 2025 TRAILER

We're talking beauty, trolling and Noel's House Party. Plus a killer ending! See you there.

Fest⭐⭐⭐⭐
West End Wilma⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Morning Star⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Scotsman⭐⭐⭐⭐
Broadway World⭐⭐⭐⭐

Autistic woman just assumed everyone was consuming media critically An autistic woman has made the foolish and illogical assumption that other people consume media critically instead of taking everything at face value, it has been claimed. Megan Aldrich, 33, was shock...

“You can’t seriously tell me that people are unquestionably adopting things into their belief systems because someone on TV or in the papers said them? I will never allow anyone to call me ‘gullible’ again.”

Two things that always help ground me: a @sarahkendzior.bsky.social article and Twin Peaks.

Really struggle with the idea that recognising Palestine is being treated like a way to try and moderate Israel's conduct - the diplomatic equivalent of a threat to send a naughty child to bed early if they don't behave properly - rather than the inalienable right of an entire nation of people.

Milltown, painting by Manchester-born Geoffrey Key, b.1941. #NorthernArt

There are still 12 days to go before our first open submissions for new working class writing closes.🗓️

Pitch us!

See here for details:
thebeemagazine.com/open-call-fo...