Glynis Paxton

Comment from me (replying to a comment not shown): Yes. Lots more to be said in this area that I didn't have room for in the article. Naomi Alderman made the point that the process of writing is a way for a writer to work through the topic and 'exorcise' it. You can't do that by giving ChatGPT a prompt and delegating the writing. Delegating the writing is delegating the thinking. Comment from Naomi Alderman (replying to my comment): In that way it's like any machine, right? The strengths and the weaknesses. As an analogy: used to be when a person wanted to chop down a tree they had to get an axe out, think carefully about how that particular tree was growing, whether it was too big for them to safely control, and then swing the axe themselves again and again, they would see what was happening to it and whether a bird or an interesting beetle flew [comment continues, unseen]

Naomi Alderman and I have broken the fourth wall and are continuing the article in the comments...

Can’t believe all the time we’ve wasted down the years watching men’s football

French sign saying (in French) "Crepes and chocolates", left arrow. "Cruel world", right arrow. Harvested from the webs, no idea of attribution.

10 of the best genre-bending Booker Prize-nominated novels | The Booker Prizes If you enjoy innovative books that switch between genres, play with forms, and generally turn the reader’s expectations upside down, this list is for you

The novel that pretends to be a biography of its own author after his death; a story in the form of a report on Earth by aliens; a book that runs backwards and forwards; one that runs entirely backwards; and more.

I wrote about some of the genre-bending novels from @thebookerprizes.com library:

"i asked grok" "i asked chatgpt" yeah well i asked carl sagan and he said the greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance but the illusion of knowledge 🧪

Verification update: In April we announced a new form of verification to help you know which voices are authentic and noteworthy. We continue the verification process through Bluesky and our trusted verifiers - which distribute power of verification beyond Bluesky to other notable entities 1/5:

I'd like to thank The Telegraph for illustrating my point about the importance of liking posts on @bsky.app so clearly 👍

And the book Nigella Express is full of good things- including this tasty time saver

Absolute Units: three giant rams float over the English countryside.

Absolute Units returns!!!

In this ep, we speak to environmental historian @dollyjorgensen.bsky.social about her research into pigs in medieval England.

Topics include: taking your hogs for a walk, the Hapsburg chin of domestic pigs, Babe 2, and so much more.

merl.reading.ac.uk/explore/abso...

Unknown woman, as fresh as if she'd been painted yesterday: the pin (the pin!), the folds, but mostly the eyes. Rogier van der Weyden, 1440. Today is his day.

Happy birthday Paul McCartney - 83 today.

Here's Fab Macca - with a kerry oot - in Carnarvon Street, Glasgow, in 1970. Hope he remembered the Rizla papers...

Picture: Linda McCartney

Ruth & Boaz: good Old Testament excuse for beautiful harvest landscape in the 1660s from Nicolas Poussin, who was born OTD in 1594.

NEW: This is the road to Mar-a-Lago.

The people of Palm Beach are waving US distress flags and going to right to Trump’s front door to give the middle finger to fascism 👏

Heavy police presence.

#NoKings #50501Movement

(🎥 Brian Allen)

Unsung hero of WWII

Me too

#booksky

Antony Powell A Dance to the Music of Time

Sukhjot Singh
"This fierce peregrine mom was patrolling her territory to provide a safe airspace for her newly fledged babies. I thought she was going to attack a few gulls that flew close, but she decided to take a hard right and turn around, offering a rare face-to-face moment with the camera."

Strawberries, labne and almond brittle on a celadon dish. A strawberry flower and a scattering of mint leaves on top. A white cloth with pink flowers below.

Midweek treat… observer.co.uk/style/ukrain...

Every year on Memorial Day, I share this video of French caretakers who take sand from Omaha Beach in Normandy, and scrub them into the letters to give them the gold coloring.

They do this for all 9,386 US soldiers who died.

France also gave us this land as American soil.

Cover of the New York Times for Kids by Tom Gauld Headline: Where will your summer take you? A large illustration of a family in a car, absurdly overloaded with luggage on the roof and in a trailer, arriving in the countryside from a city that we can see in the distance. We look out at them from a lush green forest filled with children playing, painting, swimming, climbing, reading, camping, exploring, making music and enjoying the wildlife.

I drew the cover and centrespread for the New York Times For Kids Summer Special. Get one in this Sunday's @nytimes.com. This is a screengrab from www.instagram.com/nytkids/
(I will post some pics next week.)

Great Gatsby, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes — 1925 was a brilliant year for books Rediscover eight of the finest works of fiction that are celebrating their centenary this year, from Jeeves and Wooster to the Painted Veil

From a doctor who “left a third of body on the operating table” to a “hard, cruel, managing, ambitious, parsimonious and stupid” mother.

I wrote about some enduring books that show why 1925 was a terrific year for literature - and not just Gatsby and Mrs Dalloway:

I love this 'Be the change you want to see in the world' mantra. No good talking up a good game - get out there and do it!

Apple and Cinnamon Muffins There are few things I find more satisfying in the kitchen than using up produce: the very notion of waste sends shivers down my spine. So, when I noticed a couple of apples wilting in the fruit bowl,...

You are spot on! And here they are: www.nigella.com/recipes/appl...

For markets, it’s the unpredictability that’s going to kill you Investors and companies can adjust to most things when they know the rules but under Trump, the rules keep changing

This FT article captures not just the nuttiness of Trump’s tariffs but the immense difficulties business face given the volatile unpredictability of it.

“As former Treasury secretary Larry Summers put it, it is to economics what creationism is to biology. 

www.ft.com/content/814f...

Chocolate Guinness Cake This cake is magnificent in its damp blackness. I can't say that you can absolutely taste the stout in it, but there is certainly a resonant, ferrous tang which I happen to love. The best way of descr...

🍀Happy #StPatricksDay!
Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh! And of course my Chocolate Guinness Cake is #RecipeOfTheDay. It couldn’t be anything else! www.nigella.com/recipes/choc...

Good times in the renaissance garden, including gent at lower right whose friend needs to stop handing him glasses of wine! By Louis de Caullery, whose day is today.