Dan Spicer

Thoroughly enjoyed @mrchrisaddison.bsky.social ‘s incomplete guide to chamber music @sheffieldtheatres.bsky.social this evening - so much music to explore afterwards!

I mean this feels quite simple: is it a thing with a purpose to prime something? In what world does one prim oneself on a subject?

How sad will Elis’ voice note be?

Also you may think you get the gist and be wrong about that! I thought I got the gist of Frankenstein due to cultural ubiquity (including understanding that plenty of people wilfully misunderstand or misrepresent the point of the book) but finally reading it recently was a revelatory experience

BUT NOT TOO OFTEN

Similarly no one under the age of 35 should be called Keith which raises the question what can they be called inbetween?

My local northern chippy has an extensive vegan menu and a developing sideline in poke bowls following the owner’s successful appearance on Faking It as a sushi chef. If it’s not middle class fast food (tongue firmly in cheek) I don’t know what is

blimey, Thomas is making John Sergeant look like a deft and fluid dancer #Strictly

I have read about it but not seen - will have to track it down

It holds up well!

Currently in series 5 of an ER rewatch so I am rooting for her to go far so she gets a break from Dr Romano

Relatedly I always enjoyed the score explanation in Edge of
10=10
9=9
8=8
and so on

For someone raised on Mega Machines and the like in which anything less than 80% meant a stone cold failure which should never have seen the light of day it was curiously liberating

I am nearly 12 years into it and remain in awe of anyone who manages to do anything more ambitious than live week to week. With transition to secondary and all the change that entails I’m not sure I can do more than day to day at the moment

Genuinely interested in the venn diagram of “people who hold these views” and “people who subscribe to your newsletter”

As someone who finally read the book recently as part of periodic attempts to read things I feel I should have by now, I can’t emphasise enough how much this is true. The tropes are such huge cultural reference points I felt I knew the story and couldn’t have been more wrong

Slightly diminish a book: The Ending Story

Georgia Gould to DfE and Jim McMahon out of govt. Worrying news for the place-based public services agenda

I find it interesting that MHCLG seems to be some way down the priority list given it’s a) the actual vacancy created and b) where devolution, one of the government’s big bets to fix the country, sits

Why doesn’t the goalie holding on to the ball too long give us an indirect free kick in the area? Why can’t we have nice things?!

Tbf “presents as intelligence but isn’t” seems like a fair description to me

But as I say does need some prep and involvement beforehand from the people in the room

You need a personal fact from at least a decent number of people there to make bingo sheets and then people have to talk to each other to get a line on their sheet- the good thing is it gets people talking to each other but no-one is put in the spotlight

I did one for a work thing that wasn’t totally cringey and did work for getting people talking - but required some input from attendees beforehand - basically person bingo

Sex, Lies and Gollum

I think it’s that the company has lost interest in the core functionality that made people like the product and the network effects are so strong that there’s little chance of that changing

Eg I get notifications saying “person x has made a post you haven’t seen” and not only have I seen it, I have reacted to it - if you can’t get that right what else is broken? To say nothing of the AI push etc etc

THIS! It seems fundamentally broken in so many ways. I don’t go on it very much any more precisely because I don’t see the things I want to - but also some really basic technical stuff doesn’t work

I have the old greyscale model - would be interested in reviews of the colour one…

Also find it excellent for committee papers, think tank reports, research etc - more pleasant than reading on screen and able to scrawl all over, add notes pages in context