𝕄𝕒𝕣𝕜 𝔸𝕟𝕥𝕠𝕟𝕪 𝕆𝕨𝕖𝕟

Only, they were willing to put in the miles.

Headline from The Guardian featuring the UK's Culture Secretary saying she won't watch the upcoming series of 'Masterchef'.

'Hey Google! Show me an example of performative politics.'

Once saw Billy Connolly look up towards the 'nosebleeds' in a theatre after someone shouted out, 'Och aye tha noo!' He shot back with, 'What CUNT said och aye tha noo? I'm surprised you can fucking see me from up there, you cheap bastard!'

Because famine is funny, right? Bet you're finding the situation in Gaza hilarious.

Google 'roscoe mcgillicuddy'. You'll see what would happen if you watched Peppa Pig and friends on acid.

Or ... tasty?

And 'Hey Duggee'.

Plot twist: the 'dandelion' had a scrotum.

Yep, 'slow' is the right word here.

Calm yourself, Kev – this clearly didn't happen.

I don't think winning the cross-country race for a fifth time would've had any bearing on you getting a wedgie ...

Close editing is an act of creative generosity. Working with the poet, line by line, word by word, takes so much out of editors that they often struggle to sustain their own writing. It's a huge sacrifice!

This is why I'm so grateful to Helena Nelson for her graft with Whatever You Do, Just Don't.

What the actual fuck does this mean? Reading this felt like I'd forgotten what English is.

I'm sharing this because raw talent, ambition, a bit of nous, plenty of personal drive and a host of other qualities and peripheral advantages or opportunities can make as much of a difference to your chances in life as can any degree-level education. University is categorically NOT the only way.

Not a boast, as this is only for proper context, but I went to a failing secondary modern school, skipped college/uni, did a decade of unskilled manual work, blagged my way past 600 grads to bag one of only two jobs at the world's oldest ad agency, and eventually freelanced for six figures a year.

It's okay to admit you have an unsophisticated palate. And I say this as someone who's rarely drunk alcohol since The Incident™ at the end of his 20s ...

Tic Tacs are still available in mint flavour. Make that mint flavour the same mint flavour as Polo mints, and you'd have perfection.

Most shootings happen in schools, not play parks.

Love 'the sea is a locked amen', Matt. Nice meditative quality to this, too.

Sorry for your loss, fella. That you feel this so deeply is a blessing, despite the pain. Not all of us had parents about whom we felt this way. Nice to know some out there got the best kind of family. 🙏🏼😊

The level of patient skill and ingenuity required to produce this is as staggering as the result.

Wouldn't that be poetic?

Speak up for those whose voices are being silenced so brutally, violently, senselessly. Act for all who cannot: for the oppressed, the worn-down, the torn-down, the minimised. Israel has at last shown its true colours – colours of fear, cowardice and cruelty. Stop arming its perpetual war. Speak up.

Same, same.

Fuck! That's good.

There's nothing in @robmanuelyeah.bsky.social's playbook that says he can't use both @anonopin.bsky.social and @fesshole.bsky.social to platform his own biases (albeit vicariously through the opinions/fesses of others). The fact that contributions can come from anyone doesn't make this a democracy.

Review - The Poetry Review, vol 114 Nos 1-4 Juliette Binoche “The Poetry Review , vol 114 Nos 1-4” (Ed. Wayne Holloway Smith, The Poetry Society, 2024) In 2024, I read every single i...

Brace yourselves – I mean that, seriously – for this blistering review of all the 'Poetry Review' editions from 2024 by Juliette Binoche (yes THAT one). I owe a debt of gratitude to ‪@anthro-poetry.bsky.social‬ for sharing this in the comments of @victoriamoul.bsky.social's Substack.
‪bit.ly/4fvV6Gn

It pains me to admit this, but when it comes to the quality, quantity and cultural breadth of its obituaries, the @telegraphnews.bsky.social beats the @theguardian.com into a cocked hat.

Now I must go and shower in lavender and quinoa, and towel myself off with pages from Marx's 'Das Kapital' ...

That we've had widespread internet adoption in the UK since the end of the 1990s yet still can't reliably watch terrestrial TV channels in real time via a single phone app is something I honestly don't understand. You have Freely coming to smart televisions this year – yet smartphones get jack?

‘Poetry pulled me out of the abyss’: keeping culture alive in Kharkiv – picture essay Eastern Ukraine’s biggest city is unsettlingly close to the Russian border and vulnerable to missile strikes, but there is a determination to maintain a cultural life, and a poetry festival is testame...

It's heartbreaking to see two great nations, each with long, deep and rich cultural heritages, at war. What's heartening, however, is that the more beleaguered and embattled of these nations is keeping alive one of the most important things we should fight for: art. Slava Ukraini!
bit.ly/3Jfp2uc

A woman stitches her soul to the underside of a blackbird’s wing and the sky welcomes her home at last.

#TinyStories