Alex Towells

In all three we stopped playing at 1-0. And in all three it went badly

The Guardian view on the BBC World Service: this is London calling | Editorial Editorial: With just seven weeks before its funding runs out, the UK’s greatest cultural asset and most trusted international news organisation must be supported

It’s beyond insane that the BBC World Service might end in 7 weeks when its funding runs out. A beacon of information, education and UK soft power - Ministers would be crazy not to find money to support it

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Made me laugh this morning

we did a podcast again, have a listen

We're back with a mid-season review pod, with a healthy dose of "what the fuck was that at the weekend" thrown in for good measure. Enjoy!

The Pot Shot Podcast: #136: Fix The Roof While The Sun's Shining Towells, Alex, Jake & Seb ask each other their burning questions about the issues with this Arsenal side - which, while being top of the table, hasn't looked great in recent weeks.For tactical writ...

💥MID-SEASON MINI-CRISIS?💥

#136: Fix The Roof While The Sun's Shining

🎙 @towells.bsky.social @alexcollings.bsky.social @setpiecesicko.bsky.social @eulenberg.bsky.social

🔴 Another mid-season slump
⚪️ What's up with the forwards?
🟡 Eze, 6 months in
🔵 Are Arsenal bottlejobs?

Listen 👇
pod.fo/e/38246d

My favourite thing about cow tools being real is this image being a real image from an academic paper

Text: sometimes I'm late just because I stay like this for a long time Image: bedroom from pokemon ruby sapphire emerald games with pokemon rumble spheal stood next to the bed

🎵 Have you ever seen a haddock win the league?
Have you ever seen a haddock win the league?
Have you ever seen a haddock,
Ever seen a haddock,
Ever seen a haddock win the league? 🎵

Idk if we're capable of making a short one!

We'll be back soon-ish, dont you worry. Planning a mid(ish)-season review late Jan/early Feb

We'll do another Pot Shot episode eventually but until such time just take these two messages and extrapolate them into an hour-long conversation in your head

Screenshot of a whatsapp group chat talking about Nottingham Forest 0 - 0 Arsenal. Manas said: "Felt we did enough today, that was a disgusting defensive show from Forest". Jake said: "We're unwatchable bollocks. I can't stand this season"

The two possible states of the Arsenal fan

it's crazy how much sheer feeling Arsenal generated over the past three years and now, when we're in our best-ever position, it's all gone so emotionally flat

Globally, no single day in 2025 was cooler than its 1991-2020 average.
climate.copernicus.eu/global-clima...

Unreal

Xabi Alonso. Arrived, tried to do tactics, players told him to fuck off, fucked off

Your team pummels lower league opposition because of the quality gap in open play.

My team pummels lower league opposition because of the quality gap from corners.

We are not the same

Lovely piece on the hatefulness of all this. Worth it for many little highlights, but I enjoyed the riff on a calculator that aggressively suggests sums you might want to do today.

Guest Gist: 2026, Our Already Rotting Future Seamus O'Reilly warns of AI maximum bubbledrive this year.

In what's now become an annual tradition, I've written another piece for The Gist about how and why I hate A.I.

On a bubble about to burst, a future rotted to its core, and the limits of the Mrs Doyle Theory of artificial intelligence.
www.thegist.ie/guest-gist-2...

Warra plurrrrrr

Its me, I made it across the bridge. Whatever that means

Hello

I'd like to apologise for the lack of 20th century philosophy references in this episode, but on the bright side we do talk about an advent calendar of model trains, so its still worth a listen I reckon

People have been wondering when Manuel Neuer will retire and the answer is about 30 seconds ago

Part 1/3 of a 9-panel SMBC update where robots / ai take over more and more of humans jobs, but cannot be legally liable in case of issues. So, gradually, more and more humans are hired to place their hands on a server bank and take the blame for what the AI inside it does. After a time, only one job remained, that of "blame-boys." The robots keep the humans on as a kind of spiritual residue and the humans don't revolt. In the final panel, someone remarks that all hope is dead, and that humans aren't even a cog. They have become a shadow of the grease of a cog. Any humans responds "Still I don't miss my job in customer service" while another answers "no one is arguing that".

Part 2/3 of a 9-panel SMBC update where robots / ai take over more and more of humans jobs, but cannot be legally liable in case of issues. So, gradually, more and more humans are hired to place their hands on a server bank and take the blame for what the AI inside it does. After a time, only one job remained, that of "blame-boys." The robots keep the humans on as a kind of spiritual residue and the humans don't revolt. In the final panel, someone remarks that all hope is dead, and that humans aren't even a cog. They have become a shadow of the grease of a cog. Any humans responds "Still I don't miss my job in customer service" while another answers "no one is arguing that".

Part 3/3 of a 9-panel SMBC update where robots / ai take over more and more of humans jobs, but cannot be legally liable in case of issues. So, gradually, more and more humans are hired to place their hands on a server bank and take the blame for what the AI inside it does. After a time, only one job remained, that of "blame-boys." The robots keep the humans on as a kind of spiritual residue and the humans don't revolt. In the final panel, someone remarks that all hope is dead, and that humans aren't even a cog. They have become a shadow of the grease of a cog. Any humans responds "Still I don't miss my job in customer service" while another answers "no one is arguing that".

The important thing is that net happiness goes up.

COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/blame
PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm...
STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

Well @jonmackenzie.bsky.social talking about the old gods being dead while the new ones struggle to be born in the context of Arsenal’s set piece strategy is extremely my shit

You might have seen Jon got caught up in A Discourse over on the other site, after daring to suggest that the rise of set pieces as the primary method of attack for some of football's best teams might not be great for the game.

Naturally, we got him on with our set piece nerd to talk about it 👇

Just gonna repost this. Yknow. For reasons.

"I thought, well, what two things are most important to me? And it's my family and this ground I walk on here in the great state of Maine. So, to honour that, I got the words BLOOD and SOI..."

"Graham, no!"