Chris Bye

Sea monkeys are now aqua dragons.

Daft frozen crutacians (which were never monkeys) are now a slightly mad masculine branding exercise.

I guess “crap old proto shrimp” is a bit harder for the marketing team

Sam Fender donates his £25,000 Mercury prize winnings to Music Venue Trust charity Chart-topping singer-songwriter adds to his previous support of charity that works on behalf of small UK venues

Fantastic work from Sam Fender www.theguardian.com/music/2025/n...

Sam Fender wins 2025 Mercury prize for his album People Watching Geordie singer-songwriter’s album reached No 1 on the UK album chart, and led to a series of stadium-sized concerts this summer

Really amazing show at the #MercuryPrize last night. Smooth production, great staffing from venue and epic performances. Fantastic result for Sam Fender, the NE and the North in general. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/o...

“I would gently point out to Nigel Farage that before we left the EU we had a returns agreement with every country in the EU. He told the country it would make no difference if we left. He was wrong about that. These are Farage boats in many senses coming across the channel” 👏

PM Keir Starmer

Ed Miliband's message to Elon Musk:
"Get out of our politics and our country."

Via Ronald S. on FB.

MasterChef: BBC faces mounting pressure to not air new series after Gregg Wallace and John Torode sacked It comes as a MasterChef contestant says she was edited out after asking for the new series not to be broadcast.

oh my god shut up about this for one day i am losing the will to live www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Yes sorry I was trying to tuck it into the 90s

Rust in Peace, Countdown and Youthanasia?

This Jenrick chap sounds reasonable I wonder what happened to him.

The readership of most of the UK press can fall into 3 categories: 1. People that work in media. 2. People that work in government and 3. A statistically ageing demographic.

If our government just said the emporer had no clothes and got on with an agenda, they might find polling stronger.

There will also be an interesting article to be written about the last wave of musicians to benefit from decent record deals from the 90s/very start of 2000s start to experience the various issues of autumnal life and if that spurs some charitable endeavours.

It does increase as more of the artists with decent deals and liquidity slip into situations and medical conditions they contribute to. That's by no means a bad thing and it remains a largely really lovely community.

Always a joy to plough through, take a looksie.

@newsagents.bsky.social re. the question as to where the biggest threat to Labour comes from (Hard L/R). That is the wrong end of the telescope: Winning parties create the vision by which opposition has to react to, not visa versa. See New Labour, Clinton, Trump etc.

@tomrobinson.com hey Tom really sorry I had to miss Mick's meal at SxLondon. I'd love to have seen you. Had a decent reason why - DM sometime for catch up?

The only thing I am taking from these Royal Kingdom ads is that whatever advice people are getting regarding facelifts, needs to be seriously looked at.

Donald Trump, more detached from reality than ever, just shared an unhinged QAnon post saying former President Biden was executed in 2020 and replaced by clones.

The new GOP slogan (thank you, Joni Ernst.)

YouTube video by The Daily Show Trump Fights ABC Interviewer Over Photoshopped Image | The Daily Show

Gold broadcasting but once again, how does this man get by on a daily basis?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_Ly...

This is a widely inaccurate & dangerous mischaracterization. The vaccine was developed in fetal cells obtained from two elective abortions in the early 1960s. There is not abortion debris floating around in the vaccine. And the Vatican has okayed its use. RFK Jr. is again spreading disinformation.

We will have @privateeyenews.bsky.social and @theonion.com leading the way with the sort of 'world sore from laughing/crying' and 'for the love of god, the man is naked' headlines. Then the UK press might just follow in as the global economy tanks.
Could we just speed the process up please?

Three Northern Line artists up for awards tonight @jazznorth.bsky.social

Who would have thunk it

Also on tv dramas

Imagine President Harris taking $10 trillion out of the global stock markets in the first 80 days of her residency what the Fox News people would be doing right now!!!!

Very bold soft reboot right there

White and orange text on a blue background and a colour photograph of a band playing on stage at the Offshoots jazz night in Leeds.

"Paying musicians as much as I can has always been a big aim for me and the New Northern bursary has allowed me to guarantee a fee to the musicians who perform at my events!"

We spoke to the Leeds-based promoter Anna Ross who runs Offshoots.

www.jazznorth.org/news/new-nor...

🚨 New entry into the Kemi Badenoch does not do her homework canon:

Adolescence's creators have denied the series is based on true events, contradicting a theory doing the rounds on X that suggested the main character was “race swapped”

Badenoch tells LBC the story was “fundamentally changed”