John S

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Inquiry brought up the case of Denholm Elliott's daughter - PAUL McMULLAN: Oh, yeah - BROOKE GLADSTONE: - which is one case that you truly do regret. PAUL McMULLAN: I do, yeah. After Denholm died, she hit rock bottom, was allegedly doing methadone. And although she had, you know, the half-million-pound flat that Denholm had bought her, she didn't have any money to get her ten-pound bag in the morning. So she'd get up and go begging at the tube station. Here was a young girl crying out to be helped, and she met a police officer who didn't help her but rang up the News of the World and asked for money because he couldn't believe that this is the same girl who'd walked down the red carpet behind Eddie Murphy with Denholm Elliott, you know.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And you offered her 50 pounds - PAUL MCMULLAN: Yeah. BROOKE GLADSTONE: - if she would come to your place and have sex. So you led her into prostitution, which she wasn't in that space for. PAUL McMULLAN: No, indeed. But she was in such a bad place that someone offering her 50 pounds for sex. I mean, that's five bags.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So how do you justify that? Yes, she was a drug addict, yes, she was begging. Why push her that extra step? Why take pictures of her topless? PAUL McMULLAN: I was keen. It was in my first year. I wanted to impress Piers Morgan, who was my boss at the time, and just wanted to say, not only have I caught this girl begging, but l've got pictures of her topless and I've got her offering me sex for 50 quid. How great am I? BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is a pretty dehumanizing enterprise, not just for Jennifer Elliott, but for you, yourself. PAUL McMULLAN: Yeah, that's why I feel terrible about it, not just 'cause she killed herself afterwards, but I, I actually liked her as a person.

Sharing from a friend, a passage from the Leveson Inquiry regarding the British actor Denholm Elliott, who died of AIDS in 1992. Three years after her death, the News of the World journalist Paul McMullan did the following to his daughter—neither a celebrity nor even someone of public interest.

Not the key point, but all the 'Andrew Mountbatten Windsor' coverage shows how quickly and easily the entire UK media complex can switch to someone's new name/title, even after using their old one for decades, when it's an incredibly pampered white male deviant. So, you know, it's not *that* hard...

No, bitch.

Worrying about kids playing a ttrpg with orcs and elves or listening to metal (or hip hop) is moral panic

Raping stolen children is a moral evil.

And it is literally only my long-held beliefs against the death penalty keeping me from burning every one of you at the stake.

She needs to go to jail.

A draft cover for The Umbrella Man and Other Stories by Martin Fitzgerald

My new book - The Umbrella Man and Other Stories - is available to pre-order online at @waterstones.bsky.social and, if you hurry, you get 25% off*

*Offer available until midnight on the 20th. Just add FEB26 at the checkout to claim your discount

www.waterstones.com/book/the-umb...

Seeing as the UK is finally arresting people for misconduct in pubic office, I have a list. Who do I send it to?

The last 50 years has been dominated by right wing governments who, with various degrees of restraint, have reconfigured the state around the sort of interests Allister Heath is employed to push. Not that you'd know that from this drivel.

Notable how the richest people are falling over themselves to buy media / social media for the express purpose of making them more bigoted, even if it means the elites losing money.

If the public was interested in bigotry, elites wouldn't need to do that, the market would reward bigotry.

Seeing guys claim that AI is *already* intelligent and capable of original thought really gives the game away. It’s not about waiting for the technology to miraculously become better, it’s about convincing you it’s something that it’s not

the overseer of project 2025 is telling you out loud that every inch you cede on trans rights is part of the plan to create a white christian fascist state

Are we all aware that the actual US Department of State is putting out statements that ape the most deranged dark corners of the web white supremacy Nazi bullshit?

Really don't want it to, that sounds annoying as hell

It’s like the Samsung ad that’s all “if your friend texts you a question, and your phone knows the answer, shouldn’t it just answer them?”

FUCK. NO.

Well said!

Football, Politics & The Billionaire Boys Club Jim Ratcliffe's recent comments on migrants in Britain shone a spotlight on billionaires in football looking down on the game's lifeblood...

TAW column

About the people who bring the game into disrepute more than most others.

www.theanfieldwrap.com/2026/02/foot...

Wuthering Heights is at its heart a story of class and race. Emerald Fennell has got it all wrong | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett By turning the novel into just a corset-heaving love story, the director has stripped it of what made it so boundary-pushing, says Guardian columnist Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

Wuthering Heights is at its heart a story of class and race. Emerald Fennell has got it all wrong | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

OMFG, not sure I'm ready

agree with this (hah) but also think a particular mistake the left made for a long time online, and still makes to an extent, is failing to understand that the person whose mind you may actually change is the one reading the argument you're having, not the one you're arguing with

If you smugly announce in writing & on public record that you couldn't be a teacher bc you can't guarantee you wouldn't sexually assault your students not only should you be barred from writing about schools ever again but you should forcefully & permanently expelled from public life

The billionaires' eugenics project: how Epstein infiltrated Harvard, muzzled the humanities and preached master-race science Edge - Jeffrey Epstein's favourite intellectual salon - was sold to me as a gathering of the world's finest minds, writes Virginia Heffernan. The files reveal it was something far darker: a decades-lo...

NEW: Read this terrific piece @virginiaheffernan.bsky.social for @thenerve.news in which she unpicks Edge.org, the hugely influential 'salon' funded by Epstein & threaded through with race science & eugenics.
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www.thenerve.news/p/epstein-bi...

Milos Kerkez great tonight. And has been for some time. Just needed time to adapt to new club, patience given poor form of team he was coming into and for Slot to stop inverting and letting him play his natural game. All coming together now. And just wait until Gakpo starts regularly passing to him.

Why MAGA Wants You to Think Slavery Wasn’t That Bad Both the left and the right try to co-opt it, but the real story of American slavery doesn’t serve any one faction. By Thomas Chatterton Williams

Sanitizing slavery has become a core objective of the reactionary right under Donald Trump—a malignant response to the progressive left’s oversimplification of American history for their own present-day ends.

Physically incapable of analyzing politics outside of this insipid frame.
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

Liverpool. Better than you think.

A vibrant Kingfisher in flight, captured in a streamlined position as it darts through the air. The bird's striking electric blue back and wings contrast with its bright orange underbelly. Its long, pointed beak is sharp and focused, as if it's hunting for prey. The background is a soft blur of green and brown hues, highlighting the kingfisher’s swift movement against the natural environment.

Zooming into #FlyDay!

📷 Martin Abbess

Honest question for the British: do you feel the monarchy personally benefits you, and if so, do those benefits outweigh what the House of Windsor has done over the past 15 years to cover up Andrew's sex crimes and close relationship with Epstein?

No, I don't. Even without their awful behaviour re Andrew/Epstein, I'm against the idea of power through birthright. And I'm certain, as a country, we could get all the tourist benefits without the actual institution. For instance, Versailles is the busiest tourist attraction I've ever visited.

UK ban on Palestine Action unlawful, high court judges rule Protest group’s co-founder wins legal challenge against decision to proscribe it under anti-terrorism laws

Wow!

Palestine Action win judicial review - Guardian report.

This is a *big* legal win.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.

Every photo from Minneapolis looks like this. Cops decked out with guns and full tac gear facing off against people in bathrobes, parkas, and sweatpants armed only with whistles and cell phones.

Yet every verified MAGA chode on X dutifully calls it a riot or violent insurrection.