friend, this is Marcus Junius Brutus

CAESAR has declared himself DICTATOR FOR LIFE and MUST BE STOPPED

can you rush a donation of ten denarii today to show that you STAND WITH THE REPUBLIC?

They should put animals on the British money, and furthermore, it should be a hedgehog, a fox, an echidna, a hedgehog (girl), a hedgehog (arsehole) and a hedgehog (robot arsehole)

Why Trump’s war on Iran is definitely taking place What's it like to re-read Baudrillard as bombs fall on Tehran?

if you want to understand how trump talked himself into an war of choice to overthrow the government of iran, you have to start where all discussions of great wartime leaders start:

with french postmodernists and SUNSET BOULEVARD

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.

we call our cat Harold Pinter because of his long paws!!! also he had an affair with Joan Bakewell

The number of global deaths of children under-5 is projected to increase this year (from 4.6m to 4.8m) for the first time this century. (FT)

The price of aid cuts.

Interview Dan Brown about the Louvre break-in.

any given work of literature was written by someone who never got to be in conversation with the works that came after their death, but every time you read another one you add it to the conversation of works that you have been creating ever since you learned to read, annihiliating time and distance

Everyone is like this. Everyone at 25 looks like some celestial being, impossibly beautiful and alive. And only old people know this. If only we KNEW we were godlike at the time. Anyway, it was very moving to see an ordinary life glorified, as all lives are in death. Sunny afternoon here, love, Ian.

Alien: Earth (N. Hawley and others, 2025)

Hjalmar Munsterhjelm's Metsälampi Kuutamossa (Forest Pond in Moonlight), oil on canvas, 1888

- My job here is done.

- What do you mean? You didn't do anything.

- See you in Valhalla brother.

I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this.

Discworld QOTD, from Guards! Guards!

So what precisely do the right want to do about the white working classes? Certainly not go to university, as they want numbers down. Nor to have a unionised manufacturing job, as they don't want unions.

No, they just want pawns as part of their culture wars. They don't give a toss.

The Diana Ross Memorial Penalty Shootout

I agree with this but - as Giles' post effectively goes on to say - there *is* a way out of this fiscal corner, it's called raising taxes, and I don't think it's as politically impossible as people make out

Hard (by Labour's own doing) but not impossible

First, welfare revolts tells us nothing...

I really loved "The Bells of Old Tokyo" by Anna Sherman. It's travel writing but covers about 200 years or so of Japanese history. Not in-depth but brilliantly written and accessible for someone who knows little about the subject (me!).

These people are… evil. In a self-conscious, gloating way that we don’t like to imagine exists outside comic books or history’s darkest chapters.

The boy who came back: the near-death, and changed life, of my son Max It was, we were told, a case of sudden infant death syndrome interrupted. What followed would transform my understanding of parenting, disability and the breadth of what makes a meaningful life

“I hate the way that disabled lives recede out of view because other people are too squeamish to talk about them, and I want to confront that tendency. Mostly, though, I think Max is already a thousand times more interesting than anyone I’ve ever met, and I want to tell you about him.”

I continually find people rallying round this idiocy with flimsy excuses for it almost as scary as the first order proposals themselves. The way people totally subordinate their intellect and judgement to manifest nonsense, all in service of an aggressive infantile wannabe tyrant. It's really grim.

What this should tell everyone is that they, personally, will become dependent on the goodwill of their wider society, inevitably, by the mere passage of time, and should act to sustain that goodwill, and the capacity to put it into action, for their own good.

somehow, the Meiji restoration returned

[Matthew Corbett passing on the family business to Harry] Now remember, son. I built this empire with my own bear hands.

‘Okay which one of you accidentally added Robert Cecil to the chat?’

I'm glad that Richard III and I are united in saying "Where's my fucking charger??" with increasing frustration.