Mark Vent

Poor Girl Jilted For Rich Old Lady GIRL BREAKS LRG IN LEAP OUT OF SENATOR'S WINDOW --Washington Times, 22 Nov 1924

Washington DC scandal, 100 years ago today

Caption: Photo diagram showing how Miss Clara Miles jumped from the office window of Senator Irvine L. Lenroot of Wisconsin when his secretary, John C. Dugan, who was her escort, urged her to escape following a knock on the door by the Senate Office Building police.

There should be more stuff like this in newspapers again.

This echo chamber nonsense is predicated on the notion that bigotry is a valid perspective. It isn’t. Grow up! Think better!

Screenshot of a Washington Post email asking me to resubscribe on the basis they will “hold power to account,” which would be funny after Bezos killed their endorsement of Harris if the consequences weren’t the world domination of billionaires, the destruction of democracy, the loss of Ukraine and Palestine, any chance at fighting the climate crisis, and the now-all-but-inevitable rise of a chaotic mix of anarcho-fascistic, theocratic neofeudalism in a post-environmental wastescape.

Hi @washingtonpost.com thanks for telling me I should resubscribe because you promise to hold power to account.

Sadly the reason I canceled my sub was because you’ve already broken that promise. Before they even took power. Shame on you.

Signed a sometime contributor as well as former subscriber.

“The problem with Fox News: It won’t broaden our horizons.”

“The problem with Truth Social: It won’t broaden our horizons.”

“The problem with the Manosphere : It won’t broaden our horizons.”

Come back to us when you’ve fixed their echo chambers.

Hi!

Look amazing Alec! I'm diving in as I type - starts not far at all from where I used to live ;)

The Wolves Are Running! can't wait for a rewatch all these years later.

you gotta use your body and your brain if you wanna win the game ...

I mean Gremlins was fine - but it didn't really have any kind of narrative arc did it? these are gremlins, gremlins are horrible & chaotic, film ends with gremlins being horrible & chaotic. less an arc more a flat line.
Ghostbusters had narrative, characters, fun, scary/jeopardy (for its age range)

This is terrific from @gralefrit.bsky.social

Really enjoyed doing this podcast for Dan (QI / No Such Thing As A Fish) Schreiber.

My two favourite topics - comedy and the strange - colliding. Got a chance to talk about life, the universe and everything, as well as the book…

https://pod.link/1687199754/episode/026995dcbd9ac34886ef2f588fad7e7a

if you write it - we will buy it 💜

Neil Armstrong's first step on the Moon - was his second favourite step - his favourite was stepping on some steps that Jesus may have stepped on in Jerusalem.

Once upon a morning dreary, while I slumbered, weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore
    While I nodded, clearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my window for
            a hotel biscuit, only this and nothing more.”

answer 65p a litre and sit there glaring whilst they do the conversion!

If you have a bookshop near you, make sure to pop in regularly and check that your favourite bookseller has enough water and is being taken for regular walks

(Or just buy a book on their website)

NYT push alert: “Breaking News Israel has begun an invasion of southern Gaza, images show. The long-awaited ground operation could decide the fate of the war with Hamas.”

Are they calling it “long-awaited” because they think we will forgot that 10 days ago Israel said Hamas’s HQ was in the basement of a hospital in northern Gaza? Cause we did not forget it was like last week ffs.

Life was just a routine round of milk bottles for milkman Richard Atkinson until a wild moment when he yielded to an impulse to join the Foreign Legion. Now he's facing trial for theft after a crowded 8 weeks which took him from Canterbury to Paris to Sidi-Bel-Abbes to Oran & back to Canterbury. When the impulse struck, a court was told, Atkinson: Parked his milk truck in the street, pocketed the day's proceeds and took off for Paris. Lost his money in Paris & joined the Legion. Was sent to Sibi-Bel-Abbes, Algerian HQ of the legion, where he was issued equipment & sent to Fort Mascara to fight Algerian rebels. Made his way to Oran stowed away on a German ship bound for Marseilles & arrested on arrival as a deserter from the legion. Escaped from his guards enroute to Paris & got to the British embassy, where he was given papers for his return to England. Pleaded guilty to taking $19.60 -- the proceeds from the milk sales on that first day. --Beaver Valley Times, 1 Jan 1957

This needs to be a movie.

“These are personal and secret terrors made appallingly substantial, hallucination but tangible. The skeletal shapes retain the strength to catch and kill. It is not the soul they threaten but the body – or the brain, with madness... Often they possess the most basic threat of all-they can change their shape and nature. This stirs a dread that must go back to our primitive past, that if we cannot identify our enemy we are lost. He will kill us before we know him. It gives rise to the myths of the werewolf, sometimes man sometimes beast, and of the unidentifiable vampire.”

A grimacing, gruesome skull creature emerging from grey slime.

From Nigel Kneale’s introduction to the 1973 Folio Society edition of ‘Ghost Stories of M.R. James’, illustrated by Charles Keeping. 📚

[whatever]-as-a-service ...

Software
TV
Film
Books
Theatre
Music

AND even paying for these things doesn't guarantee you no f*cking adverts

as they say ... Games gone.

nor has it even remotely worked I'd add.

My heart obviously breaks for the newborns and children killed but this kind of thing, the killing of an old man in cold blood, is no less horrific to me. x.com/muhammadsheh...

Many thanks to #WedLikeAWord (#stevyncolgan #PaulWaters) and guest #ajaychow for their competition in which I won an #MadeByGoogle Pixel Fold - a wonderful podcast, a great guest and a stunning prize!

First-Gen Social Media Users Have Nowhere to Go The collective erosion of X, Instagram, and Facebook marks a turning point for millennials, who are outgrowing a constant need to be plugged in.

Everyone who was on USENET, IRC or had a blog looking at Millennials being labeled "First Gen Social Media Users":

The fuck did you just say, my dude

www.wired.com/story/first-...

absolutely made for reading aloud - get right into your characterisations!

While everyone is thinking about favourite books, I have a question: if you were to choose a book to read out loud to a loved one (adult), which would it be?