Simon Gibbons

Correction: Boris got the hugely vocational degree of Literae humaniores (The Greats) but see D. Cameron and R. Sunak for the power of a PPE.

As opposed to Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford where the whole country gets ripped off? #LizTruss #BorisJohnson
Mind you, I wouldn't be surprised if more people with massive incomes have e.g. English degrees than narrowly focussed specialist ones. #whoyouknow

The Spin | Cricket in Corfu causes confusion but also unexpected delight for a few Seeing a match on the Greek island may be unusual but it gave one American boy a touching link to his dead father

One for parents of aspiring cricketers. I think that something got caught in my eye when I reached the end. #cricket www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/o...

Calling English a 'rip-off degree' is one of the most blatant exhibitions of personal barbarism I've ever seen. You've demonstrated nothing but the poverty of your own mind.

Listening to Tex Morton over a lovely curry and thinking that either 1) I've not been listening to @cerysmatthews.bsky.social on Sundays enough or 2) She's not played enough #yodelling recently.

YouTube video by The Covasettes - Topic Such A Dream

🇬🇧 The Covasettes - Such A Dream
#MusicSky
New single released August 29

Indie/Alternative band from Manchester

open.spotify.com/intl-ja/trac...

youtu.be/V5mMnG-Rcz0?...

Duvet Thief The Covasettes · Song · 2023

Alright, convinced the covasettes can’t write a song that’s not an earworm

https://open.spotify.com/track/5BYFTBHpnDxOzZKFnI2fXp?si=M5Uhql56Sz6OxVGV0T6YEw&context=spotify%3Aartist%3A5dDVWJvBFaoMJrOfI6xnOt

It was a great gig. #thecovasettes

015a-2025 ‘Such a Dream’ 🙏🏻👍🏻 Colour palette borrowed from The Covasettes new single ‘Such a Dream’. Pre-order their new album! #Art #Abstract #ModernArt #ArtYear #ArtShare #UKArtist 🇬🇧🧑🏻‍🎨

Looking forward to the Glasgow gig...

It was a joy to hear live.

@stuartmaconie.bsky.social

#AckerBilk 's cover of #Dylan 's Lay Lady Lay on #RadcliffeMaconie - Gosh! @bbcradio6musicbot.bsky.social

It's pretty accurate. I note that he focuses on the country's systems as a whole and doesn't name either of the two mainstream political parties... I suggest that it is because he sees both of them through the same lens.

Ed Davey and Zack Polanski certainly would have, if they could get their voices heard. Another #R4AnyQuestions Another panel of 2 right wingers, a loony (Mayor of Lincolnshire) & a trade unionist because they need a left of centre view in the absence of one from Labour @bbc-politics.bsky.social

#Covasettes check them out - jangly jolly tunes.

open.spotify.com/track/1JijrF...

Whoop, Whoop to @trentbridge.co.uk and Captain #HaseebHameed

Over on the Other Place I would occasionally put this thread together, most recently during lockdown, four years ago in fact, and I realised I'd not done it here. So, bear with, and feel free to mute as this is an epic (genuinely, I’m not sure we won’t reach hitherto non-invoked thread limits tbh).

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1965: 20-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio in 1990: 75-1

CEO-to-worker pay ratio today: 280-to-1

Trickle-down economics was always a sham.

Nothing has ever trickled down.

It takes two: the best pop duets – ranked! As Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue’s Where the Wild Roses Grow turns 30, we count down pop’s finest two-handers, from career-revivers to celebrity meta-texts

Some absolute bangers in this list. #kylie FFS! Shame "don't you want me" didn't make it but then #spookymenschorus is the best version. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

What if UK were in, say, a single European market? #BigPharma might have less leverage and more incentive to want UK skills and know-how. #brexit #EU @teamlabouruk.bsky.social @greenparty.org.uk @libdems.org.uk

#R4today - perhaps #healthoutcomes not fraction of budget spent on drugs should be how we measure the NHS. Yup - US pays above intl mkt rates for drugs. #BigPharma also gets low cost access to NIH (US taxpayer) funded research results. These are US not UK problems.

Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams - Ultimate Test: Episode 2 Freddie Flintoff is determined to prove that anyone can play cricket, whatever their background, but he is up against a lack of funding, uninspired teens and derelict cricket clubs.

#Fieldofdreams #FreddieFlintoff #KyleHogg bring inspirational TV to the screen again and get kids onto green fields in the summer. #lovecricket
Freddie Flintoff's Field of Dreams, Ultimate Test: Episode 2: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002j858 via @bbciplayer

@greenparty.org.uk on #Radio4today sends message to ordinary people that their dream of a long-haul flight to Florida will never be affordable. Tax the rich (and jet fuel) may be fair but save it for policy wonks. Msg that green growth is the future. e.g. more, better, rail. Encourage aspiration.

Pure bloodlines? Ancestral homelands? DNA science says no. — Harvard Gazette Geneticist explains recent analyses made possible by tech advances show human history to be one of mixing, movement, displacement.

“Harvard geneticist David Reich said … increasingly sophisticated analysis of genetic material made possible by technological advances shows that virtually everyone came from somewhere else, and everyone’s genetic background shows a mix from different waves of migration that washed over the globe.”

In summary, almost nobody in Springfield (there's a town called that in nearly every state) ever read a national newspaper. Their nightly TV news comes from local affiliates to big corps and hardly covers up-state issues, never mind national. They just get on with their lives.

It suits US policy makers, who live in bubbles and mostly don't engage with the majority. And the foreign press fail to connect with, understand and explain middle America because if they do venture out of NYC, DC or LA then Middle America sees no reason to engage with them.

Within communities trying to get on with their lives, articulate progressives are dismissed as "coastal elites", but also bear in mind that those noisy populists that get extensive coverage overseas are also mostly ignored by middle America.

It reflects something that outsiders don't get about the US. Middle Americans don't engage much with national news stories. They have and have always had a parochial mindset. Most US news comes to the outside world from a noisy minority.

It is a cracking earworm. A top titles' theme tune. Up there with Dangermouse or Inspector Gadget