Vicky Powell

We live in a hellscape where people struggling to live are forced to apply to menial jobs in order to receive benefits and then stripped of benefits because of the menial job they were forced to get

Walter Sickert's 'Noctes Ambrosianae,' (1906) holds a pun. Ambrosian Nights: ambrosia is the food of the gods; 'the gods' is the nickname for a theatre's gallery, the high place where the cheap tickets are, where the impecunious, sit.

Three children in front of the building. An older smiling brother holds a tiny girl in his arms. Their sister, with a big curl on her head, embraces them.

24 October 1939 | Dutch Jewish girl, Mirjam Rokach, was born in Rotterdam (left).

She was deported to #Auschwitz from #Westerbork in February 1944. She was murdered in a gas chamber after arrival selection with her elder siblings Issachar and Szejna.

The Public Wants to Ban ‘Politician Presenters’ Like Nigel Farage But Ofcom Isn't Listening The broadcasting watchdog is refusing to act despite research suggesting a majority of viewers oppose politicians like the Reform leader being allowed to host current affairs shows

🔴The Public Wants to Ban ‘Politician Presenters’ Like Nigel Farage But Ofcom Isn’t Listening

The broadcasting watchdog is refusing to act despite research suggesting viewers oppose politicians like the Reform leader being allowed to host current affairs shows

bylinetimes.com/2025/10/24/b...

Introducing the Children’s Booker Prize Drumroll, please – today we’re announcing a brand new prize for children’s fiction

Introducing the Children’s Booker Prize
open.substack.com/pub/thebooke...

Studio photograph of three children - from smallest, to largest: a boy, a girl and a boy. They are standing on a fur rug. All have their legs exposed. Some are holding toys in their hands.

23 October 1943 | A transport of 1,035 Jews deported from Rome arrived at Auschwitz. After the selection 149 men & 47 women were registered in the camp. The remaining 839 people were murdered in gas chambers.

Mario, Mara Cesira & Sandro Sonnino among them.

Reeves considers breaking manifesto pledge with income tax rise to fill £30bn gap Exclusive: Treasury discussions include possibly adding 1p to basic rate or raising higher or additional tax rates

EXC: Rachel Reeves considering doing the unthinkable at the budget - and raising income tax.

Story by me, @jessicaelgot.bsky.social and @guardianheather.bsky.social

www.theguardian.com/money/2025/o...

Freedom...
#Stewkey

Developers encroach on 2,000-year-old Devon wetland citing ‘blockages’ to Labour’s housing plans According to planning conditions, Wolborough Fen in Newton Abbot must be protected as groundworks are prepared for 1,200 homes

Much of Newton Abbot, downstream from Wolborough Fen is in a flood risk zone. Building here could increase runoff into the river, damaging wetlands will reduce their ability to absorb + slow the flow of that extra water, placing homes downriver at greater flood risk.

share.google/4x4VaUWzRdmg...

Over the years I've posted numerous cartoons based around Venn diagrams, and occasionally I will get mathematically minded people telling me that they're not actually Venn diagrams.

They are correct, of course. They're not Venn diagrams, they're cartoons. They have completely different functions.

What HE managers fail to understand is that in the context of the Humanities, ‘employability’ isn’t teaching coding or carpentry, but skills around writing, presenting, reasoning, evaluation, analysis, research etc. In an 80% service economy, these are the skills that fundamentally matter.

SHAPIRO: OK, so you've spent your career creating television without Al, and I could imagine today you thinking, boy, I wish I had had that tool to solve those thorny problems... SIMON: What? SHAPIRO: ...Or saying... SIMON: You imagine that? SHAPIRO: ...Boy, if that had existed, it would have screwed me over. SIMON: I don't think Al can remotely challenge what writers do at a fundamentally creative level. SHAPIRO: But if you're trying to transition from scene five to scene six, and you're stuck with that transition, you could imagine plugging that portion of the script into an Al and say, give me 10 ideas for how to transition this. SIMON: I'd rather put a gun in my mouth.

David Simon, creator of ‘The Wire’, being interviewed by Ari Shapiro (NPR)

Cley, Stiffkey

The £1.7m bill: Essex Police under pressure from Epping asylum protests As protests outside the Bell Hotel drag on, Essex Police face spiralling costs while residents grapple with division

The right to protest is protected.

But Essex Police warn that keeping order in Epping has already cost £1.7m.

Piers Meyler reports

BRITIAN ISN'T WOKRING.

A quote by Kazuo Ishiguro: But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I'm saying? Does it feel this way to you?"

That Ishiguro quote, one more time.

"Charities and statutory bodies must stop creating fear by exaggerating the likelihood of developing dementia, and must stop presenting every stage of dementia as devastating."

Absolutely 🎯 💯 👏

Controversial solar farm that would cover huge area goes under spotlight Plans for a huge 3,600-acre solar farm, the Tasway Energy Park, are to go before the public as part of a series of consultation events.

www.edp24.co.uk/news/2549878...

Autumn equinox, 53deg N. My old S. facing solarPV are generating 2.4kW. The newer E/W facing ones (not on graphic) are generating 1.5kW. That makes 3.9kW in total. The house is using 1.8kW (tumble dry on, heat pump on etc.). So I'm exporting 2.1kW to the grid and earning 30p/hr. #heatpump #solarPV

"Nibbling pan-seared salmon in a dark T-shirt and jacket at a West Village restaurant," begins a sentence in The New York Times.

what the well-dressed salmon will wear

OpenAI admits AI hallucinations are mathematically inevitable, not just engineering flaws In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limi...

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits."

www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

Christ carrying the cross; busy people pause to watch, then move on. By Abel Grimmer of Antwerp, 1593, whose day is today.

Do you sell table mats? I once saw someone walk all the way round a bookshop and then ask this question.

By a student of Tracey Emin?

“They’re going to kill me here,” Neri Alvarado thought.

Alvarado was allegedly targeted by the Trump administration because of his tattoo of an autism awareness ribbon. Now, free from El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison, Alvarado wants the world to know what they lived through.

A Teen Was Suicidal. ChatGPT Was the Friend He Confided In.

Adam Raine, 16, died from suicide in April after months on ChatGPT discussing plans to end his life. His parents have filed the first known case against OpenAI for wrongful death.

Overwhelming at times to work on this story, but here it is. My latest on AI chatbots: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/t...

I've just read the preface - so lovely to discover a really good novel that I've never even heard of before.

Not just me then...