Rob Cook

Anne Michaels’ Fugitive Pieces, though I don’t quite know why. Conrad, that moment in The Secret Sharer when the cliff is looming over the ship and everything freezes; but also, oddly, in Typhoon. Kafka, The Hunger Artist. Graphic novels too: Warren Ellis’ Planetary, Matt Kindt’s Mister Mammoth.

I loved it. Mythic yet convivial, you can see what’s coming all through its inescapable pace, and yet it’s still a killer last line. (Also, hoping this is a sign of a new collection on its way…)

Duck Dodgers, without a doubt, and Operation: Rabbit, a work of unassailable (super) genius.

Sánchez for President.

“This is not Winston Churchill that we’re dealing with.”

This is not FDR *we’re* dealing with, nor Eisenhower, or Ben Franklin, or Alexander Hamilton, not Angela Merkel or Empress Theodora or Hadrian, it’s not even Genghis fucking Khan. It’s not *even* Hitler/Stalin/Franco.

It’s shit Mussolini.

The worst thing my Dad would call anyone was ‘git’, & he reserved its use for only the most contemptible of people, who were invariably men. I do not doubt that, were he still with us, every single member of the current US administration, regardless of gender, would have been, unhesitatingly, gits.

“Not only will I comprehensively trash our relationship, dismantle its historic foundations, & fire-bomb its legacy, I will then blame your newfound willingness to stand up to my bullying for all the havoc I wreaked on our aforesaid relationship.”

~ Donald ‘Gregory’ J. ‘Anton’ Trump

Extra points for ‘spiky’

“The heavy and pinpoint bombing, however, will continue, uninterrupted throughout the week or, as long as necessary to achieve our objective of PEACE THROUGHOUT THE MIDDLE EAST AND, INDEED, THE WORLD!” is a sentence I have just read.

Scorching new poem by @dharmabam.bsky.social in the latest @lrb.co.uk 🐦‍🔥

“Most of the cheap cuts of meat are very inexpensive.”

Okay, cool, great, thanks for clearing that up, Bobby. All of us who thought ‘cheap’ meant its own opposite stand gratefully corrected.

You moron.

For the most shameless person ever to have held public office to be telling anyone else they should be ashamed of themselves for not standing up and supporting his shameless lies is… well, pretty fucking shameless.

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🏆 0 hints – 2 under the community par (45,863 solvers so far).

I knew (or was reasonably sure) that the last bit was SET because they were the odd letters of SCENT. In the end though I just googled ‘six letter words ending in set’ and fortunately CLOSET wasn’t too far down the list.

I love the stuff you find in secondhand books, especially when it’s come all the way from home to here. Evidence of other lives lived with the joy of books in them.

‘But having picked these dreams up, we want to put them safely down again, rather than deal with a world in which unaccountable kings and barbarians with zero impulse control really shape our fate.’

I feel like there’s a silent ‘oh wait’ there.

Minute Cryptic - 22 February, 2026
"Looks without blinking end in tears tears tears" (6)
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🏆 0 hints – 1 under the community par (71,463 solvers so far).

The Perishers

Bop Land

(Stallone, De Niro, Keitel et al happily jiving till the small hours at the 4 Aces)

These spot-the-difference quizzes are getting harder by the day.

Thank you Virginia Giuffre. Thank you Gisèle Pelicot.

[redacted] Street

Getting shown up in the arena of elite impunity by *the British monarchy* is an incredible “America at 250!” achievement

Now they just need to arrest Epstein’s *other* wannabe-king buddy.

Well that’s one wannabe king under arrest for his criminal connections with a child abusing sex trafficker. Now what about the other one?

if you hate or love "maxxing" please be advised that guys my age think it's funny as hell and will shortly be using it approx. 500 times a day. you will be cringemaxxing and despairmaxxing but no amount of cringe & no depth of despair will stop the guys my age from usemaxxing "maxxing." just fyi

Wow.

This is how brilliant Twitter used to be (a long, long time ago in a galaxy etc).