Stuart

James A. Lovell Jr., Commander of Apollo 13, Is Dead at 97 He led the three-man crew that survived a near catastrophic explosion in space in 1970, and was later immortalized by Tom Hanks in the movie “Apollo 13.”

Breaking News: James Lovell Jr., commander of Apollo 13, the spacecraft that survived a near catastrophic explosion as it approached the moon, has died at 97.

This is only the tip of the iceberg of incompetence. I could write a book

They've also booked me on a flight tomorrow morning. The check in system also isn't working, of course, but that's tomorrow's problem

easyJet has a very clever system for providing accommodation when they have to divert a flight overnight: they send a link you can use to book a hotel. The link doesn't work, but it's very clever that it's there

This is by no means my main issue with Harrow Tories, but pledging to "Treat residents and businesses like valued customers" fundamentally misunderstands the relationship of a resident to their local council.

There is a credible role for the sort of broad church conservative party that used to exist, even if it wasn't one I was likely to vote for. But at this point that's long gone and I see no obvious prospect of its recovery.

I am fascinated by the political strategy that looks at the current state of the Conservative Party and thinks, "We need to narrow our electoral coalition immediately".

Almost every single part of this result is striking

I think we need to move away from the idea that every series (or worse, every episode) of a major TV series has to have some major IP-defining twist.

Ironically, the weather in Nice is not nice

Popes are chosen by God, making them the ultimate Dei hire

It is nice and calm on here in the mornings. Just gently bemused Brits, landscape photos and complaints about trains. Then America wakes up and it becomes endless screaming for the rest of the day. In that regard, Bluesky is a metonym for the global economy.

I have tariffed
the penguins
that are on
Heard Island

and which
you were probably
assuming
did not export goods

forgive me
they were taking advantage of us
so cunning
and so cold

I had no idea global economic disaster could be this boring to listen to

The Rise of the Gurus This piece originally appeared in last week’s Times Literary Supplement. I thought it would be of interest to subscribers and they have kindly agreed to let me reproduce it here. It’s a review of “Get...

New post just out:

"The Rise of the Gurus"

Looking at how unelected advisers have ended up being so powerful in British politics.

(Free to read)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

White House claims "plenary authority, derived from...the mandate of the electorate" to lift itself above the courts.

This is what I mean when I talk about "authoritarian democracy": the idea that constraints on an elected govt - whether courts, laws or oppositions - are inherently anti-democratic.

Liberal Democrats are the only party in British politics speaking up in defiance of Donald Trump.

The only ones willing to state the obvious truth: that he is no leader of the free world.

F10 seems like a constitutional approach to what is fundamentally a resourcing problem to me. Very Lib Dem, but not in the best way

I had a dream last night in which I discovered, to my surprise, that I had successfully managed to close a bank account

The BBC is so committed to ensuring that their viewers can understand Mark Carney that every time he switches to French they wait for a bit and then talk over him as he switches back to English.

I'm mostly annoyed because I had to wait 11 minutes for a tube train, admittedly

First TfL ticket check I've seen in months, and they were waiting basically just inside the barrier, re-checking what the barriers had just checked.

La démocratie et la liberté valent toujours la peine d'être défendues. Slava Ukraini.

The security of the Western hemisphere is built on the assumption that the US can be relied upon, and that assumption is clearly false.

Every time I think I'm coming to terms with the horror that is 2025 geopolitics it somehow gets worse

This is thuggery from Trump and Vance, plain and simple.

They are bullying the brave true patriot Zelensky into accepting a deal which effectively hands victory to Russia. Unless the UK and Europe step up, we are facing a betrayal of Ukraine.

"We're all different people all through our lives. And that's ok, that's good, you've got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be."

What a line, in what a mess of an episode

Also, I would like to enter a formal protest that an episode from 2013 qualifies as old now. I can only attribute this to a wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey mistake somewhere

Nobody tell FBPE twitter

Re-watching old Doctor Who episodes, there is a reference to "E numbers" in "The Time of the Doctor".

Apparently it is Doctor Who canon that EU law ultimately prevails across much of the known universe.