Rupert Cook

This morning in London, first photograph with the River Thames over Waterloo Bridge looking east towards St Paul’s and the City, and second looking along the Strand towards St Mary le Strand.

#London #WaterlooBridge #Strand #Thames #StPauls #TheCityofLondob

The Future of Intelligence with Demis Hassabis (Co-founder and CEO of DeepMind) Podcast Episode · Google DeepMind: The Podcast · 16 December 2025 · 50m

Demis Hassabis and Hannah Fry

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/g...

Palantir Sues Swiss Magazine For Accurately Reporting That The Swiss Government Didn’t Want Palantir If you run a company whose entire value proposition is the ability to see patterns, predict outcomes, and connect dots that others miss, you’d think someone in the building might have flagged…

"using Palantir’s software would increase dependence on a U.S. provider. It also poses the risk of losing data sovereignty and thereby national sovereignty.

"Above all, however, the army’s staff experts say it remains unclear who has access to data shared with Palantir."

Successive interviews by Nick Robinson this morning perfectly sum up the BBC:

with Zack Polanski: sneering, aggressive, constantly interrupting.

with David Bull, Reform's Chairman: polite, nodding along, barely any interruptions.

Amazing. Will share the link when it's up so you can listen too.

Congratulations to The Green Party and Hannah Spencer for such a strong victory in Gorton and Denton - Matt Goodwin seems to be blaming a dirty tricks campaign of the Greens persuading people to vote for them by having policies people wanted to vote for

Hannah Spencer: the Green MP speaking to everyday people’s frustrations Winner of Gorton and Denton byelection was driven into politics by growing gap between super-rich and the ‘rest of us’

The small, brave band of MPs who represent the trampled, not the tramplers, has a very welcome new member.

We should all ask ourselves why, in a supposed democracy, such representatives are so rare.

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

Extraordinary that in these fractious & divided times, so many of us can unite around the single, simple fact that Matthew Goodwin is an irredeemable twat.

My friends tab is just one long homage to Zack. He had everything thrown at him, as leader of the Green Party, by the UK media & by other parties. His use of social media in responding to the attacks, with authentic humour, is a lesson for all politicos.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Inquiry brought up the case of Denholm Elliott's daughter - PAUL McMULLAN: Oh, yeah - BROOKE GLADSTONE: - which is one case that you truly do regret. PAUL McMULLAN: I do, yeah. After Denholm died, she hit rock bottom, was allegedly doing methadone. And although she had, you know, the half-million-pound flat that Denholm had bought her, she didn't have any money to get her ten-pound bag in the morning. So she'd get up and go begging at the tube station. Here was a young girl crying out to be helped, and she met a police officer who didn't help her but rang up the News of the World and asked for money because he couldn't believe that this is the same girl who'd walked down the red carpet behind Eddie Murphy with Denholm Elliott, you know.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And you offered her 50 pounds - PAUL MCMULLAN: Yeah. BROOKE GLADSTONE: - if she would come to your place and have sex. So you led her into prostitution, which she wasn't in that space for. PAUL McMULLAN: No, indeed. But she was in such a bad place that someone offering her 50 pounds for sex. I mean, that's five bags.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So how do you justify that? Yes, she was a drug addict, yes, she was begging. Why push her that extra step? Why take pictures of her topless? PAUL McMULLAN: I was keen. It was in my first year. I wanted to impress Piers Morgan, who was my boss at the time, and just wanted to say, not only have I caught this girl begging, but l've got pictures of her topless and I've got her offering me sex for 50 quid. How great am I? BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is a pretty dehumanizing enterprise, not just for Jennifer Elliott, but for you, yourself. PAUL McMULLAN: Yeah, that's why I feel terrible about it, not just 'cause she killed herself afterwards, but I, I actually liked her as a person.

Sharing from a friend, a passage from the Leveson Inquiry regarding the British actor Denholm Elliott, who died of AIDS in 1992. Three years after her death, the News of the World journalist Paul McMullan did the following to his daughter—neither a celebrity nor even someone of public interest.

#MakeVotesMatter make it Green ✅✅

*In fact the Nazis hated, persecuted & murdered Jews, trans & other Queer ppl & Roma, amongst others. Some of the false claims against Queer ppl are being recycled by today’s far right.

Today’s target for fascism is trans ppl. If you hear a politician talk about trans ppl, replay what they said but

Just as an example of how media & politics lie & spread conspiracies against trans ppl it’s worth examining the rhetoric around puberty blockers. The Labour UK govt & NI Exec banned them for trans kids as they were allegedly unsafe [there is no scientific evidence for that claim]. Yet the main …

… users of puberty blockers are non-trans kids experiencing early onset puberty. The medicine is not banned for them. It’s quite impressive that the UK govt, NI Exec & the media think that a drug can tell the difference between a trans & a non-trans kid. Why is it safe for non-trans kids but …

February morning, London: St Paul’s , National Theatre, River Thames - blue sky

#BlueSky #London #StPauls #NationalTheatre #RiverThames

Join the Green Party Join the Green Party from just £6 a year. Become a member today - join the only party standing up for people and planet.

Reform are always obsessively challenging others to debates.

But my invitation to debate Nigel Farage - leader to leader - still hasn’t been taken up.

What are they running from?

The Green Party will stop Reform.

Join.greenparty.org.uk

ADHD patients stripped of NHS prescriptions under crackdown GP practices are increasingly withdrawing from shared-care agreements with patients diagnosed by private clinics

Henry Shelford, chief executive of charity ADHD UK: it is "hateful and cruel how badly the overall NHS treats people with ADHD”.

Wow.

Dr. Dominic Ng (@drdominicng) Every time you replace “this is overwhelming” with “what’s the first step?” you shift brain activity from your amygdala (fear) to your prefrontal cortex (problem-solving). That’s neuroplasticity in r...

“Every time you replace “this is overwhelming” with “what’s the first step?” you shift brain activity from your amygdala (fear) to your prefrontal cortex (problem-solving).

That’s neuroplasticity in real time.”

substack.com/@drdominicng...

Let's get a grip and learn how to live with the rain | Emma Beddington Wetter winters are set to become the norm, so unless we’re farmers or flood victims, we need some coping strategies to keep our spirits up, writes Emma Beddington

Let's get a grip and learn how to live with the rain | Emma Beddington

We must treat existing buildings as material banks and embrace electro-tech. Are we doing enough to prioritize climate-conscious design over aesthetics? What will the new & retro-fit era actually look like? 2/2

#SustainableDesign #Urbanism #RegenerativeDesign #BarnabasCalder

Just finished @barnabascalder.bsky.social ‘s Architecture: From Prehistory to Climate Emergency. Highly recommended!

It’s not a history of style, but of energy. From wood to oil, our fuel has dictated our forms. Now, we need a seismic shift in our approach and choices. 1/2

Russell Tovey joins the Green Party after being 'let down' by Labour government (EXCLUSIVE) Russell Tovey spoke highly of Green Party leader Zack Polanski at the 2026 Attitude 101 charity lunch, admitting the UK deserves better.

Love this from Russell Tovey.

"I’m really following what the Green Party are doing, and I think we should all get behind them. As a community, they’re a party that we can really look to, to represent us.”

www.attitude.co.uk/culture/russ...

In this story, there is a lot of support for trans people that you rarely see covered in the media unless they're being attacked. Businesses and individuals all standing up and saying 'I will not be a part of this' and I think that needs to be highlighted because it can feel lonely out there.

"A scientific truth does not triumph by convincing (all) its opponents and making them see the light but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."

Max Planck

#science #enlightenment #rationality #empiricism

Dr. Anthony Fauci says empathy motivated his medical career but an old phrase from high school kept him going | CNN “Don’t let the bastards wear you down.” That phrase, instilled in Dr. Anthony Fauci as a student at a Jesuit-run school might as well be the motto of his professional life.

“The Jesuit priests, when you thought that all of a sudden the whole world was pounding on you, they would say ‘Illegitimi non carborundum,’ which means ‘don’t let the bastards wear you down,’ which … lately, that is a very relevant and appropriate saying,” Dr. Anthony Fauci told Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

View of St Paul’s Cathedral from Waterloo Bridge, on a gray day in London

View from Waterloo Bridge this morning.

#london #thames

"We need politicians who will tell it straight..."

@zackpolanski.bsky.social on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.