Jon Naylor

A dog sits near a tall shoe rack filled with various types of shoes in a room with wooden flooring. All shoes are stacked on high shelves, out of the dog’s reach.

“Guys, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe I’m sensing a lack of trust here, and frankly, it hurts my feelings.”

Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.

1 Nurse: It’s become a real problem in this area 2 Nurse: We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction 3 Show a building sign posted: Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it Nurse: Ministers, Spads, Researchers… 4 Nurse: Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely [Nurse on phone taking a call] Ok - we’ll be right over 5 Nurse: We just have a gentle chat [Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster Minister: I understand your concerns… 6 Nurse: Are you OK love? Minister: Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters 7 Nurse: That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian [Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters] Nurse 2: Give us your phone, love 8 Nurse: At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to [We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.] 9 Minister: YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR [woman looks baffled] 10 woman: I just want a bus service Minister: LOOK AT MY FLAG [produces a St George's flag] [ends]

I guess you're right there. There's also an interesting omission of clarity in the message. 'Skilled Worker - Medical' is treated as a different category in the immigration statistics. Is it a different visa category too? If so, does the change apply there also?

I welcome the move. I'm surprised they're currently giving skilled worker visas to B1 level, which implies they would only need an IELTS score of 4. I agree with you though. It's a misleading headline, which leads to an impression that the change applies to migrants in general.

Nor is this regulation concerned with a particularly high proportion of worker visa cases, only about 30%.

Will a single Tory MP this week have the nerve state that ‘industrialised nations do actually need to reach net zero by 2050 to avert catastrophic levels of risk, and to pretend otherwise is utterly ridiculous’?

#TimelineCleanse

Trust me, you'll want to take a few minutes to watch this, if you're feeling down about the state of the world.

A labrador sits on long grass with his back to the camera gazing out across low, rolling, green hills, looking to the horizon. On closer inspection, you can see he is on a lead/leash.

Godwin's Law will have a corollary attached to it in future years. Mentioning Trump will have the same effect as mentioning Hitler.

So vivid!

Academic authors, here's a peek into the black box of journal publishing from an journal editor if you can bear it:

Reform: the voice of the voiceless, ordinary people.

A man on the streets of the UK is asked about the “problem of immigration” and dismantles talking points with ease.

here’s a version where the POV is blacked out whenever the driver takes their eyes off the road

A middle school I interact with is in a state with a school cellphone ban and y’all everybody in there is relieved. EVERYBODY. The kids, the teachers, the janitors. They are so relieved. Nobody is really uptight about it…except some parents.

1. The philosophy of science sometimes gets an unearned reputation as a purely academic exercise that offers little by way of concrete tools for advancing research.

This is wrong.

And today, as we grapple with how AI is changing the nature of scientific activity, it's desperately wrong.

You're welcome! She also says it's now on three of her friends' reading lists.

A hardback copy of Lev Parikian's 'Into the Tangled Bank'

Stocked up on reading material at @booksonthelane.bsky.social before Mrs Naylor's big op. I suggested this one, after glancing at a short passage, as a good one to accompany her bed-bound first week of recovery. She says it's "the best book I think I've read". Thanks @levparikian.bsky.social :)

Fun Lovin' Miscreants

Half Man, a Quarter Biscuit

Doze Token

Letter of the day (in the Times)

When I was in middle school, I learned there were only two genders. When I did my bachelors in Biology, I learned that there are also people who are intersex and the importance of the SRY gene. When I completed my Masters in Neurosciences, I learned that sex is already hard to define, and gender is both social and in the brain - making everything a lot more complex. When people say "it's basic biology" they are telling you they haven't moved past middle school. - Rebecca Helm

🎯

Your future doctor is using ChatGPT to pass med school so you better start eating healthy.

Mine asked me what the 2000 perforations do for the flavour.

Turn 3 was a kicker!

Wordle 1,494 4/6

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Picture from Bookbrunch of first part of Anna’s feature

www.bookbrunch.co.uk/page/free-ar...

Banbury? Were you at Feral on the Cut, by any chance?