Simon Shepherd 🇪🇺

Breaking: JD Vance just arrived in the Cotswolds, UK, on holiday.

Apparently having this meme on his phone got one tourist banned from entering the US.

So here it is on a huge billboard near where JD's holidaying 👍

📍Cheltenham, Cotswolds, UK

My wife is delighted that I couldn't answer her question about words.

The word scent has a silent letter. Is it the S or the C?

Any thoughts? 🤔

He who controls the past...

Wednesday's @theguardian.com cartoon
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
#nigelfarage #reformuk

2/6d = 12.5p, surely?

That would have been a significant sum back then.

Neither Rhyme Nor Reason To make poems rhyme can sometimes be tough as words can seem to be from the same bough, yet each line’s ending sounds different, though, best covered up with a hiccough or cough.   Was this upsetting to Byron or Yeats? Dickinson, Wordsworth, Larkin or Keats? Did they see these words as auditory threats? Could they write their lines without caveats?   What does it matter when all’s said and done if you read this as scone when I meant scone? It’s hardly a crime. There’s no need to atone: language is a bowl of thick minestrone.   So mumble these endings into your beard – this poem should be seen, rather than heard. Brian Bilston

Here’s a poem called ‘Neither Rhyme nor Reason’.

Big Government. Newsday.com/matt

Think about the UK’s reputation abroad. Lack of safe routes for refugees, migrants unwelcome, calamity of Brexit, inaction in Palestine (bearing in mind Balfour Declaration) and pensioners being arrested. It’s so sad and the legacy of empire doesn’t help. (Criticism is highest form of patriotism)

Latest @theguardian.com cartoon

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I'm waiting for the van.

Is this government's line that it is OK to incite riots against immigration but not to damage property that might help prevent mass murder?

Awful lot of folk only focused on the first part of this, I reckon the second part is just as bad, politicians and commentators of the right trying to incite riots is just as important.

Arresting 400+ people for the "terrorist" offence of protesting against mass murder while large segments of the right are openly encouraging riots against immigrants is a tale of a very unhappy country and government.

A happy book says: I'm so proud you chose me as your holiday read! I can't wait to start entertaining you! A smiling drink says: And I'm right here! Ready to keep you cool and refreshed while you read! A gleeful phone adds: Yay! So great! How about we kick things off with a load of the same old rubbish you always look at, plus some gloomy news and mavbe a few emails from work!! Hours later... The drink and book lie untouched. The phone is out of view but a bubble reads: Scroll Scroll Scroll Scroll Scroll The book says “I hate that guy.”

My cartoons for this week’s @theguardian.com books
#holiday #vacation #reading

Worth noting there were more white British people marching for Palestine than the ‘racist’ protests aimed at asylum seekers. By an absolute landslide. One to note for us all, especially in media and politics.

About twice as many people at Solihull Moors versus Forest Greeen Rovers (1568) as at all the anti-asylum protests at Saturday. It was one of a dozen non-league games in the 5th tier of English football.

Many more people at Charlton v Watford today (21,178) than at all asylum protests all summer

Just when you thought it was warm enough to go back in the water … the Stephen Collins cartoon The sea is ready for the old familiar dance of the British holidaymaker

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...

Headline: How Jeremy Clarkson is keeping farm running after poor harvest?

Is the answer: "He's worth £85 million, and literally wrote in his Times column that he only bought his farm to avoid tax, while making even more money by exploiting continuously rising food prices"?

Go to Manchester… 😉

"Either their long-term game is there won't be free elections or we'll fix the election or we'll steal it or gerrymander it, or they're perfectly prepared for someone who they disagree with to be able to use those same tools at some point in the future."

The Hundred is just influencer sport and is the worst cricket thing ever invented | Barney Ronay The confected format has generated very few moments and developed no male players but has given women cricketers income

I read somewhere that the reason the ECB created the Hundred was because they had omitted to copyright TwentyTwenty / T20, so were unable to make money from licensing or franchising the name.

Sounds plausible to me.

www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/a...

Superb piece from @jonathanfreedland.bsky.social

Well worth a read

Mathematicians get their kicks on 8.1240384

Imagine being so utterly devoid of the tiniest moral impulse that you're left making Trump look like the voice of conscience.

Is the UK tiptoeing back towards Brussels? Is the UK government quietly easing its position on EU-UK food regulatory alignment to stimulate growth without attracting ‘Brexit betrayal’ accusations?

However the government decides to talk about it, closer alignment with the EU is good for our economy, and good for the British people. But the further & faster we get there - the better.

“GPT-5 is the first time that it feels like talking to an expert in any topic — a Ph.D.-level expert,” OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said.

Martin Rowson on Donald Trump’s latest wave of tariffs – cartoon The US has threatened India with 50% tariffs over its trade ties with Russia

Latest Graun toon www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

This email I received after I was on Newsnight pointing out how extreme and misinformed people are about immigration is quite something.

To move from ‘I’m a pacifist’ to ‘let’s be at war with France’ in just a few lines is impressive.

The last sentence can be read in more than one way…

"We will work towards [ending the war] in the days and weeks to come" doesn't sound as if sanctions on Russia are coming in 48 hours. This is obviously a huge shock and was in no way predictable.