Pete Braham

'Stay Home: BT Tower in the Snow' by Edward Luper
edwardluperart.com

That's a good shout

Same for me from 93. Seemed standard.

Radio 6 is a tribute to all that is best at the BBC. It is inform, educate and entertain in musical form: Utter loveliness. And then they periodically allow the news department to mutilate it with these context-free anti-asylum bulletins, reminding you of all that's worst about the BBC.

🚨Now on 86,000 signatures! Let’s get it to 90,000 tonight!

If a petition is what it’s going to take let’s get this done!

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/74...

Dolores Previtali

The chart shows where spending on social security is shown as a share of GDP. As this makes plain, total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP. This is 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than it stood on the eve of the global financial crisis in 2007-08. But since 2012-13 (the peak in the post-GFC recession), total welfare spending has fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP. Added to this, welfare spending is expected to rise by just 0.1 per cent of GDP across the forecast period until 2029-30 (after U-turns and before any decisions made at the Budget).

Is welfare spending ''out of control''?

Total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP.

That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️

buff.ly/s5mz97u

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.

They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Good evening! This week's theme is South London.
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'Camberwell Flats by Night' (1983) by David Hepher

(Guildhall Art Gallery)

Centre for the Arts Jose de Guimarães, by Pitagoras Arquitectos, Guimarães, Portugal, 2012

Centre for the Arts Jose de Guimarães, by Pitagoras Arquitectos, Guimarães, Portugal, 2012

Given that you're going to get stung, better to grasp the nettle and go for a big three option. Shame they can't see this.

Preemptive unraveling

More like, politicians 'have been tearing this country apart'. We need reasonable sanctions against this troubling group to help fix society's problems.

What towards Russia?

They sound like Reform. Which is fine, as that's what they're aiming for.

"What is certain, and felt instinctively by almost everybody, is that things cannot go on in their present way" – The Times, May 1975

“It is difficult to imagine a previous period when such an all-pervasive hopelessness was exhibited at all levels of British life” – Professor Stephen Haseler, 1975

Art Deco NiMo Building in New York c.1932

Art Deco NiMo Building in New York c.1932

TikTok has gone too far. This is end of days behaviour.

What I most like in this graph from @britainelects.com is that they are all distinct journeys, albeit to roughly the same destination. Each graph tells a different story.

Actual LOL when I saw the Truss chart.

Maybe Keir should demand the heads of major US news networks any time they imply Britain is on the brink of civil war or that we live under sharia law. Or does it not work both ways?

ZOOM conference call users. When asked a question you are not prepared for, open your mouth and then 'freeze. Your colleagues will simply assume you have a bad network connection. Wait until the agenda has moved on to another topic before 'unfreezing' yourself. Make sure you are not sitting with your back to a window when doing this, in case a vehicle drives past while you are 'frozen' Don, Newbury

subscriptions >>> shop.viz.co.uk/viz350bs

First one brings to mind Otto Dix.

Two favourite Lowry's.

This is a good start, but people should also be free to drive on whatever side of the highway feels appropriate to them.

I know nothing about Dr Who, but, for Londoners, the phrase "Going For Dinner With Billie Piper" is the absolute best way to remember the order of the vertical streets running east to west in Soho (Greek, Frith, Dean, Wardour, Berwick, Poland) and has saved many a late night out

if you see this post, your actions are:
- if you have a spare buck, give it to Wikipedia, then repost this
- if you don't have a spare buck, just repost

your action is mandatory for the world's best source of information to survive

Someone at Disney overdid it on the copy and paste.

Worth reading. And contemplating.

"This, to me, was the greatest irony of the Riyadh Comedy Festival. With its Cheesecake Factory outlets and newfound interest in comedy, Saudi Arabia is becoming more American—just as America is becoming more Saudi."