David Smith

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.

The Ski Mountaineering event at the Winter Olympics just needs water balloons and big fat heads to turn it into an It's A Knockout race. #OneForTheTeenagers #BBCOlympics

I wonder if he's sweating now.

"I can see the Traitors castle!"

a stat i always cite is the number of anti-trans articles in the press went from 60 in a year, to 7,500

"I say! Are you Georgina?" The child in the opposite bed sat up and looked across at Anne. She had very short curly hair, almost as short as a boy's. Her face was burnt a dark-brown with the sun, and “Famous Five 01 - Five On A Treasure Island” By Enid Blyton 7 her very blue eyes looked as bright as forget-me-nots in her face. But her mouth was rather sulky, and she had a frown like her father's. "No," she said. "I'm not Georgina." "Oh!" said Anne, in surprise. "Then who are you?" "I'm George," said the girl. "I shall only answer if you call me George. I hate being a girl. I won't be. I don't like doing the things that girls do. I like doing the things that boys do. I can climb better than any boy, and swim faster too. I can sail a boat as well as any fisher-boy on this coast. You're to call me George. Then I'll speak to you. But I shan't if you don't." "Oh!" said Anne, thinking that her new cousin was most extraordinary. "All right! I don't care what I call you. George is a nice name, I think. I don't much like Georgina. Anyway, you look like a boy."

To give you an idea of how deranged the UK has become about gender stuff, here's Enid Blyton - the absolute avatar of classic English conservatism and a huge fan of racist "gollywogs" - casually describing a gender non-conforming kid in the 1940s and having their friends be totally cool with it.

NUDE ELON MUSK: The invisible clothes I'm wearing are a product of xAthleisure, which will roll out self-dressing outfits within two years at the latest

THE CREDULOUS PRESS: Fully Clothed Tesla Innovator Does It Again

New School Guidance announces:

Full bathroom ban.
Full PE ban.
Full school trip accommodation ban.

Trans kids will not go to the bathroom, do PE or go on any school trips. 1/

Bit unfair on the other skiers who remain on two

Just beyond parody at this point

"Take your hand off my Peter" or something

Odds on next Chief of Staff:

4-1 Gregg Wallace
5-1 Allegra Stratton
8-1 Stephen Yaxley-Lennon
16-1 Peter Mandelson

Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism

www.theguardian.com/media/2026/f...

…a Guardian investigation has just noticed

New Grindr bio just dropped

As opposed to the Bee Sea Gee Devils, who turned up at school one day to stab your arm with a needle.

SSE Airtricity I Account Balance h Submit Meter Read * Retrieve Top-up Code I would like to disconnect my gas supply 09:47J/ I'm really sorry you're feeling this way, but I'm not equipped to help with this. It's important to talk to a mental health professional or reach out to a trusted person in your life for support. @ Message U 09:47

An attempt to disconnect our gas connection earlier today👇
SSE Airtricity’s AI chatbot is going a little out of scope 😬

I don’t want to laugh at a small business but also VERY funny

This is an immensely significant document that continues to get virtually no attention in US media—but lots abroad. In Jul 2015, Epstein arranged a meeting between a known highest-level Russian intel operative, Sergey Belyakov and Peter Thiel,

So the official line is that a random White House staffer can and does post public statements in the name of the US president without any oversight or review process.

Either a lie or a scandal, take your pick. “Both” is acceptable.

Given that Starmer rapidly abandoned the principles on which he campaigned and was elected as leader of the Labour Party, the correct response to this scaremongering from “Keir Starmer’s allies” is laughter and a boot up the backside.

A career-ending post for literally everyone except one special boy with a curdled brain and the nuclear codes

In my experience when managers and leaders care about accountability, they actually talk about empowerment and safety, and when they talk about accountability, they actually care about firing you if you don’t hit a target they made up to impress their own boss.

Who could this be? Hmm…

It’s not the most important thing but the world being plotted like bad television is making it pretty confusing for those trying to write good television

A cartoon from Viz called Terror in NYC

This piece of brilliance from @vizcomic.bsky.social is the story of my life

#bbclaurak tries to get a gotcha. Zack, you refuse to fly. How can you be a candidate for high office if you'd refuse to ever get on a plane?

Well Laura, in that situation I'd get on a plane.

Epstein files: Latest emails and pictures dig even deeper hole for Andrew More unedifying pictures and words mean it doesn't get any better for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

This has sadly not reached the royal correspondent, who treats Mountbatten-Windsor as if he's mononymous, like Madonna or Pelé. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Honestly what is the point of having a programme that is *not* live if you are not going to use that function to aggressively factcheck the people on it?