Dr Dion Georgiou 🇨🇾❤️🇬🇾

Tbh I think it's probably a slightly moot point in any case (as I don't think Starmer lasts much longer and I think numbers will shift around a bit under a new leader.

😭

Lenin lying flat on his back in the mausoleum, iPhone surreptitiously in hand, endlessly scrolling, reading and replying furiously.

People who post all the time and do nothing else assume other people who post do nothing else.

just saw someone claiming Madeleine McCann was killed by Epstein so yeah that’s enough internet for today time to log off

Chingford has long been recognised as the natural home for English eschatologists.

It looks unimpressive as a governing bloc, but wouldn't be bad as a test innings scorecard.

Didn't bat: Your Party

Oh, she thought it was hilarious, immediately afterwards wanted to see if I'd caught it on film so she could watch it.

Small girl and her mum.

Made her mum and me proud in any case.

Her shouting “wait why isn’t working?” suggests the latter lol.

Keir Starmer’s comms strategy.

Having watched my 8yo ace it in her class assembly*, am spending the rest of the day working on my article on Passport to Pimlico, focusing on how the film's plot and comic elements evolved from its conceptualisation through to its production.

*accidentally turn off her microphone while speaking

Greens, Lib Dems, Labour, Plaid & SNP 335 is it not (so slightly better but not much)?

Wouldn’t be able to command confidence of Commons. It’s a mess but a slight majority one of Greens, Lib Dem, SNP, Labour, or Plaid.

I mean, this scenario makes Zack Polanski PM probably, doesn’t it?

And that’s without including Plaid and SNP.

Also Robert Higgs, Depression, War and Cold War: Studies in Political Economy; David Edgerton, Warfare State: Britain, 1920–1970; and the introduction to Part I of Michael Geyer and Adam Tooze (eds.), The Cambridge History of the Second World War: Volume 3: Total War: Economy, Society and Culture.

Peter A. Hall, ‛The Role of Interests, Institutions and Ideas in the Political Economy of Industrialized Nations’, in Mark Irvin Lichbach and Alan S. Zuckerman (eds.), Comparative Politics: Rationality, Culture and Structure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 174-207.

We’re an ancient civilisation; they can’t even spell.

That’s where I’m form

My partner's Mum is one of the many Filipinos working in the Middle East. Please spare a thought for the Global South workers in places like the UAE. They're much more likely to be at risk than wealthy Westerners.

The Arsenal-Palace League Cup shootout was ridiculous for this.

I think there’s a tendency to think because Arsenal’s full backs are tall players who can also play at centre back that they’re not proper attacking full backs and I think that overlooks the shift in the nature of full back play over the past few seasons from just constantly overlapping.

Calafiori is an incredibly unpredictable footballer who routinely turns up in the opposing area in open play. G+A are an only partial indicator of attacking output obviously, but in open play in our last four league games Hincapie has a goal and assist and Timber an assist.

I think there’s absolutely a balance towards minimising risk over maximising reward in our style of play, just less so in player selection. I think we’re also capable of being more potent if we play the same passes quicker, and our forwards’ form/fitness and understanding with each other was better.

The answer to why is partly that the stat is slightly misleading (Arsenal were not much off first on that category in 22/23 and not much off third in 23/24) and partly that Arsenal have really struggled to keep their best attacking players fit since then (and to integrate new attacking signings).

But those converted centre backs are objectively pretty good attacking players! Wenger’s best Arsenal teams were also pretty physically intimidating!

Today’s main agenda: Looking at Sapphire and race in British film with my Postcolonial London students, and then at state and non-state actors in memory politics and the pursuit of historical justice with my Historical Controversies (focusing especially on gay rights and queer communities).

I think we’ll have to tell people, there’s not much to otherwise let on that we’re disguised as ourselves.

WhatsApp convo: Me: Do you have a sweater, shirt, and jeans that fit her? And the just put on a wig and draw on a bit of a beard. Nicole George: l've settled on flopsy bunny seeing as that only requires ears and a pink Me: (Profile photo me wearing sweater over shirt) Nicole George: No it's okay Dion, I think we're good. You can use Romeo as your muse

Every World Book Week I remind my kids their dad’s a published author who they could dress up as, but they are all unfortunately old enough to realise I’m painfully uncool.

I did think my one-year-old niece and her nursery might be an option, but my sister is a spoilsport.