Sam Minton

Niche football result of the day - the Faroe Islands picking up their joint biggest win ever.

I had a biology teacher who regularly used to say he 'should get the Nobel Peace Prize here' for his work in quietening down the class. To my knowledge he never was recognised by the panel.

'This is what farming with climate change looks like': England endures second worst harvest on record New analysis confirms three of the five worst harvests on record have occurred in the past five years on the back of extreme heat, drought, and rainfall

That England has had its three worst harvests on record inside the past five years really should be being treated as a much bigger cause for concern than is currently the case. www.businessgreen.com/news/4520171...

Belarus rarely makes Western headlines — but it should this week.
A quiet move by the Trump administration has just handed Alexander Lukashenka, and indirectly Vladimir Putin, an unexpected gift.
🧵👇

8 Park Square, Leeds - the home of Henry Chorley and the focus of the riot Stephen Richards CC BY-SA 2.0

In 1865 Leeds rioted over… beef fat. Cook Eliza Stafford sold two pounds of dripping from her employer, surgeon-magistrate Henry Chorley. She saw it as a perk; he called it theft. Tried in private by his fellow magistrates, she was jailed for a month and Leeds was furious.

Please join me in congratulating Woman on her appointment

Would you be happy if your fossilised remains became a museum exhibit?

Happy: 27%
Neutral: 43%
Unhappy: 18%

yougov.co.uk/topics/enter...

This only happens to you once

Kyle Verreynne is the first man to win the County Championship and the World Test Championship in the same season ... and he hit the winning run in both.

John Lennon during the making of Abbey Road 1969

the #Beatles

RIP to this delightful oddball. Even if you couldn't care less about cricket, there is something delightful about a person so utterly absorbed by one thing for his whole life, so devoted to it. (Also he adored meeting the Queen and did it 29 times, which is a charming sidebar.)

A sheep in a bus shelter in the Highlands of Scotland. It looks a lot like the sheep in Alien: Earth which is the host of the T. Ocellus parasite.

Alien: Earth (N. Hawley and others, 2025)

NATO has officially invoked Article 4 at Poland’s request following the Russian drone incursion.

This is significant.

an inflatable pool fills most of the frame, with a wood fence in the background. a little brown dog is resting up against the far side of the pool, standing on his hind legs and leaning down against his back so only his head is above water. he’s got his front paws tucked in close to his chest and is staring off into space while contemplating the meaning of life. definitely either that or wondering if he finished burying his bone earlier. (he didn’t, but we’re not trying to stress the guy out)

This is Trigger. The pool may be shallow. But his thoughts are deep. 12/10 (via u/hercules25)

What is a distinctive pattern in the UK (the young are more leftwing) is treated in the UK as what seems natural. This has the consequence that the reasons why it happens in the UK but not in most of western Europe are missed, because it's thought to be a law of nature

It's an absurd anachronism that Foreign Secretary is seen as a "Great office of state". MoJ much bigger/more complicated. In the modern era the PM is the Foreign Secretary.

Right wing media has had it in for Angela Rayner from the start - they couldn’t bear a working class woman being so powerful & dynamic. She made a mistake and has paid heavily for it. Very much hope she’ll return at some point in the future - our politics desperately needs more voices like hers

New analysis from @britishelectionstudy.com highlights a critical point I made in my post about the liklihood of a Reform election win this week.

Labour's lost votes from 2024 have nearly all gone to DK/LD/Green. There is a viable anti-Farage coalition there.

samf.substack.com/p/will-refor...

Sorry. But it's totally absurd that we lose *an entire weekend* of proper football so that England can play a ski resort.

Happy new year.

Ordinary people outside hotels raging at ordinary people inside them: that’s the tragedy of this refugee controversy | Rowan Williams Anyone who has met refugees sees the ordinariness of their hopes and dreams. If we reject their humanity, how can we be proud of ourselves, asks former archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams

Ordinary people outside hotels raging at ordinary people inside them: that’s the tragedy of this refugee controversy | Rowan Williams

Oshane Thomas conceded 22 runs off one legitimate ball in a CPL match on Tuesday: NB, Wd, NB+6, NB+6, 6.

This is the most I know of in an authentic case in professional cricket.

Roger Telemachus conceded 21 off one ball in the ODI at Johannesburg in 2006: NB+4, NB+1, NB+4, NB+6, 2.

“This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector"

Plato

Image uploaded from tweet

🤴🏼🇪🇬 Mo Salah becomes the first player ever to win PFA Player of the Year Award for three times.

Fair play to any York fans travelling away today.

"Whatcha doing 'cos we'll be rendezvousing And you know we'll be getting some Getting jiggy just for fun" - David Low 1891-1963

A Friday visit to #RejectionIsland, this week for a rendezvous.

Andy Bunday @bundaycartoons on #Putin #Trump #Zelensky #RussiaUkraineWar #RussiaUSSummit #BilateralSummit #PeaceTalks #JamesGillray - political cartoon gallery in London original-political-cartoon.com

Trump Deploys National Guard To Press Conference For Standing Ovation

Trump Deploys National Guard To Press Conference For Standing Ovation theonion.com/trump-d...

Supreme Court Rules Supreme Court Rules

Supreme Court Rules Supreme Court Rules theonion.com/supreme...

Joe Root - class act.