Martin Coyle

I finally got The Good Ending.

It's a bit good. Give it a play if you haven't already.

Please, if good television matters to you, repost or repackage this video until everyone you follow has seen it

#televisionmatters

Dad’s books are full of empathy, common sense, and a healthy suspicion of the powerful. But at its heart his work is also about how systems keep people poor while pretending it’s their own fault. So I hope Kemi’s taking notes as well as reading the jokes.

A mugshot registration photograph from Auschwitz. A man with a shaved head wearing a striped uniform photographed in three positions (profile and front with bare head and a photo with a slightly turned head with a hat on). The prisoner number is visible on a marking board on the left.

1 October 1890 | A German, Walter Peters, was born in Nakel (today Nakło nad Notecią in Poland). A doctor.

In #Auschwitz from 10 October 1941.
No 21409
He perished on 15 October 1941.

He was imprisoned in Auschwitz for homosexuality (paragraph 175): https://lekcja.auschwitz.org/paragraf_175_en/

I didn't get a chance to see it live, but A World Just Like Our Own, But ...

by jlukeroberts.bsky.social is one of the most wonderful stand up sets I've ever seen.

gofasterstripe.com/cgi-bin/w.cg...

I’ve written about Waldemar Januszczak’s new documentary, “Art’s Most Erotic”

Picture of a footballer from the BBC Sport app with the headline, "Champions League: Gordon doubles Newcastle lead from spot in Belgium"

Love that it sounds like the game is happening somewhere else entirely

*Crosses off ‘Fellowship of the Royal Society’ as a life goal*.

👇👇

Digital ID cards – some of the issues… Since Keir Starmer announced the forthcoming introduction of mandatory ‘Digital ID’, the so-called ‘Brit Card’, there has been a lot of discussion and debate – some of…

My piece on digital ID. I conclude ‘As it is, this looks poorly planned, flimsily justified, and impractical. I would like to have a positive case made for digital ID. This is not it.’

paulbernal.wordpress.com/2025/09/29/d...

The swiftest things are the softest things. A bird is active, because a bird is soft. A stone is helpless, because a stone is hard. The stone must by its own nature go downwards, because hardness is weakness. The bird can of its nature go upwards, because fragility is force. In perfect force there is a kind of frivolity, an airiness that can maintain itself in the air. Modern investigators of miraculous history have solemnly admitted that a characteristic of the great saints is their power of "levitation." They might go further; a characteristic of the great saints is their power of levity. Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly... Seriousness is not a virtue. It would be a heresy, but a much more sensible heresy, to say that seriousness is a vice. It is really a natural trend or lapse into taking one's self gravely, because it is the easiest thing to do. It is much easier to write a good Times leading article than a good joke in Punch. For solemnity flows out of men naturally; but laughter is a leap. It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light. Satan fell by the force of gravity.

My thoughts keep returning to this bit of GK Chesterton that Margaret Cabourn Smith posted in another place.

"Seriousness is not a virtue."

"It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light "

(Full passage in alt text of the photo)

I love comedy, I think laughter saves us

Immaculate 👏👏👏

Road scene. A bicycle shape and an arrow have been sprayed on the pavement as an instruction to road painters. Beside them, the finished road has the same shapes properly marked on a cycle lane

Copycat graffiti gets bigger and bolder 📷

In Intriguing Furniture news: yesterday I visited Lichfield Cathedral and found a new 13 metre long table made from a 5000-year-old oak log discovered perfectly preserved in a peat bog in 2016. The cut planks took 9 months to dry out, losing 2 tonnes of weight in the process. Definitely haunted...

Durham cathedral from across the river, framed against a beautiful blue sky

Durham in a blue sky 📷

Petition "Do not introduce digital ID cards" now over 2 million signatures

petition.parliament.uk/signatures/1...

It is what it is, and what it is is very good

tempt them back to room with banana

Polar bears occupy abandoned Soviet-era research station Drone footage captures a group of polar bears living inside an abandoned research station on Russia's Kolyuchin Island.

Polar bears occupy abandoned Soviet-era research station

I love @mooseallain.bsky.social's work.
He's usually incredibly funny, and then appear things like this that just get me right in the feels

Great to see you back in the feed. Stunning photo to return with

Brit cards: what can possibly go wrong? Starmer says the scheme tackles illegal working and makes it easier for the 'vast majority of people' to use vital govt services. But, aside from privacy stuff, vast amount of people - disabled people/families, older people - are already digitally excluded.

i will strangle a horse by BRAINMAGE A comedy twine-based choose-your-own-adventure game where it's your first day on The Farm, and you have One Job

Ok, so I found myself at a loose end just as @brainmage.bsky.social posted a link to his new text adventure game.

It's just about as funny, stupid, clever, dark, stupid and funny as you can get.

A beautiful way to while away a little time

brainmage.itch.io/i-will-stran...

Terrorism case against Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh thrown out Chief magistrate at Woolwich crown court rules that ‘proceedings were instituted unlawfully and are null’

"on a technicality"

Not really.

A failure to get necessary consents to a terror charge is not a slight error. They are safeguards when a person faces a serious charge.

Prosecutors should take such safeguards seriously: this is terrorism law they are using.

www.theguardian.com/music/2025/s...

bonegone horsefright - now there's a thing of wonder

i will strangle a horse by BRAINMAGE A comedy twine-based choose-your-own-adventure game where it's your first day on The Farm, and you have One Job

BEHOLD!

My first ever choose-your-own-adventure game!

"i will strangle a horse" - over seven and a half thousand words of absolute nonsense, as you help Martin Jenkins on his first day at The Farm.

brainmage.itch.io/i-will-stran...

Totally free to play! I mean, you can pay, but you can also not!

I shall merely say that the lead up to, "yeah, you've got me there" made me laugh like a drain. Bravo!

JA Westenberg @Daojoan@mastodon.social My 9 year old and his classmates have started using “that’s AI” to mean “I don’t believe you.” Me: we’re having dinosaur meat for dinner Kiddo: that’s AI Sep 24, 2025, 07:36 AM

They've lost the 9yos

i feel like we’ve underestimated the power of being able to just… lie. “paracetamol causes autism” no it doesn’t, that isn’t true. so what are you, a journalist, going to do about that?