Ben Fenton

This may not be top of everyone's mind, but I think we can assume that Series 5 of Tehran will get the green light.

It does look a snap from the prizewinning couple from an online Target competition in Groyne, Nebraska, who were allowed to go into the secret room and get to choose the name of the op too.

I suppose it is superfluous to point out that the number of top officials apparently taken out in one day means the Israelis have always been able to do this, but were just waiting for the right guy to be sitting in the Oval Office. And for his polls to dive for the floor.

How many Brits who decided the tax paradise of Dubai was the place for them are now having second thoughts? Always helps to check a map when emigrating.

The "critics" who would be saying this, were they still with us, include the Founding Fathers and I would imagine pretty much every justice of the Supreme Court in the last 249.5 years.

But why not 'both sides' the War Powers Act and Article 1 of the Constitution?

Trump’s Unilateral Attack on Iran Paves Way for Broader Dispute Over War Powers

Trump’s Unilateral Attack on Iran Paves Way for Broader Dispute Over War Powers

Critics say the president is violating the Constitution, and many Democrats and at least two Republicans in Congress say they must vote on whether to enter such a conflict.

www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/w...

I’m looking forward to the future reveal of White House tapes that show Trump delayed strikes on Israel for a day because he wanted Clinton’s squirming over Epstein to lead the evening news.

It’s coming up to the 25th anniversary, a few days after 9/11, of a Pentagon analyst connected at the hip with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and co solemnly telling me that his neocon mates would seek regime-destruction in “Iraq, Syria, Iran - probably in that order.” He expected the US to fail.

Prem: Relegation scrapped as league switches to franchise-style model Traditional promotion and relegation to and from the Prem will be scrapped from the 2026-27 season as landmark changes to the English game are voted through.

This is precisely what the Whole Game Union warned the game of English club rugby they were facing and the clubs ignored it.

Everything else bad follows from here. Franchises, the hollowing out of community clubs to become zombies feeders to a bankrupt Prem cartel.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-...

The actor playing the TW engineer on Dirty Business implied that the prevailing spirit did not survive its first encounter with Macquarie.

It is a textbook and literal case of enshittification...

And the GOP applause every other sentence also looked even more North Korean than usual.

So they all looked scared.

Add this to the C4 Dirty Business programmes and you have the true extent of the problem, but also an answer, if only the Govt took the risk involved.

Sums up our rulers, really. They aren't brave enough to succeed in doing even the simple things we want - cheaper bills for basic services.

Revealed: Thames Water's environmental and financial disaster New research reveals Britain's biggest water company has been illegally polluting rivers at an even greater scale than previously thought.

Shocking scale of Thames Water's vandalism revealed by the always excellent @willdunn.bsky.social:

Rare snail cited in approval for Trump Doonbeg ballroom Clare County Council has given the green light for a new ballroom at the US President Donald Trump-owned Trump Doonbeg golf resort in west Clare.

"However before work can commence on the permanent ballroom structure that will have capacity for 320 people, the Council is requiring Trump Doonbeg firm - TIGL Ireland Enterprises LTD - to draw up a management plan for the protected snail - the 2mm Vertigo Angustior."

www.rte.ie/news/munster...

Dirty Business on C4 is an incredibly powerful piece of television.

Politicians have to recognise that scandals like the pollution of seas and waterways are symptomatic of the broken society and the corrupt agreements that destroy trust in democracy.

And act, not watch. Because we are watching.

It's when I see jobs like this advertised that I wonder what would have happened in my life if I had followed Peter Carter's advice and become an academic historian. Instead, I spent all my time looking into the future as a Fleet Street reporter. The footsteps of Janus.

Yes, I think it is part of the slow move to depersonalise shopping. Which I assume is being done to save money, but is incredibly short-sighted because surely the single thing that differentiates the physical from the online experience of retail is human interaction?

Chocolate kept in anti-theft boxes as retailers warn it's being stolen to order Retailers and police forces tell the BBC that thieves are targeting chocolate and selling it on.

Petty crimes seems so...petty nowadays. The infantilisation of shoplifting is a symptom of a juvenile nation.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The power of journalism. Those "mainstream" media that don't wake up to small, independent news outlets doing their traditional job for them, will be washed away.
It's probably already too late for local "mainstream", betrayed by decades of poor management. Nationals could be next.

Billionaire halts mass eviction after London Centric investigation Exclusive: Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital hoped to replace hundreds of tenants with more lucrative temporary accommodation. That plan has been shelved – for now.

Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital halts mass eviction after London Centric uncovered what was going on. Hundreds of Londoners now receiving bizarre door-to-door visits blaming misinformation and being asked to record videos saying they don't want to be evicted. www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

Cambridge University has just announced that the proposal to close its undergraduate course in veterinary medicine, which would have led to the end of its Vet School and Hospital, has been dropped.

The vets will carry on with the reforms they had already launched and the course continues. Victory!!

I don't think that was by choice was it? When your financial sustainability depends on fortnight-long begging campaigns to your audience, it does not suggest the necessary capital to be significant producers. Also, because of federated structure, production is very piecemeal.

I just finished writing an anecdote about my recently deceased friend Chris Boffey and how he spent the Gulf War in a Royal Navy destroyer where his berth was an electrical cupboard that was six inches narrower than he was long.
Then I looked down to see Moby impersonating my anecdote.

The political effects of X’s feed algorithm - Nature Among users initially on a chronological feed, 7 weeks of exposure to X’s algorithmic feed in 2023 shifted political attitudes and account-following behaviour in a more conservative direction compared...

All evidence from research the X algorithmic feed showing it moves user views to the right also invites the corollary: remediating that needs an algorithmic feed established in the public interest.

Public Rebalanced Interest Social Media - PRISM. Let's do it.

(www.nature.com/articles/s41...)

What Ted Sarandos did not tell the listeners to the Today programme just now about the Britishness of Netflix shows is that eg Adolescence came from talent discovered and nurtured and funded by British public-service broadcasters, not just found lying on the ground by US streamers.

Am this moment pitching mixed format reality show blending Dragons Den for oligarchs with Would I Lie To You / Call My Bluff

But it is mostly to do with overseas rights for programmes made by external (non-BBC) producers. Currently, the BBC can't afford to pay even the whole cost of many programmes and have to co-produce or co-finance instead. So paying for international rights wouldn't make sense.

Yes, absolutely true and you are the second person to say that to me in the last 12 hours!

Hello, it's very kind of your friend to say that, but my co-panellists all had useful and wise things to say. Roger Mosey, the chair, tells me that the whole session will be available on the RS YouTube site in the next few days. I will send you a link when he alerts me to that happening. Yours, Ben

I suspect the likelihood of the attack on Iran is inextricably linked to how badly the SCOTUS ruling on tariffs reverberates in the next few days.

Look away now from the collapse of my centrepiece economic policy while I bomb some foreigners for your entertainment!