Jon Courtenay Grimwood

It would help if half their team didn't look as they'd just wandered in from a conservative cabinet conference.

The irresistible urge to reinvent the wheel that seems to hit every new ceo...

Aye!

Instant flashbacks to the Waterstones central buying debacle, and the decade of ghost books that were in the warehouse somewhere, honest...

I know it's probably meant to be heather, but that lilac away strip can't have a good effect on any teams psyche.
#m6n

Starmer's reported condition - incredibly unpopular, shorn of authority, probably un-reelectable and yet will stagger on for want of an alternative - is just the new normal of how Britain is governed. It was also true for two-thirds of May's premiership, half of Johnson's and all of Sunak's.

He has always been exactly the man they thought he was, which is why the party kept reaching for him every time cynicism trumped probity.

In Those Years, a poem by Adrienne Rich

I'm thinking of Adrienne Rich more than I usually do.

This is, I feel, a dinner party invitation that needs to happen. Perhaps someone could leave the Mess revolver lying around.

Bloody Scandinavians going round believing in truth, justice and the Nordic way. (Also, empathy, and other scandalous socialist stuff like that...)

Thanks! I'll pass that on.

Good grief. Do people who don't go to uni not benefit from doctors, librarians, researchers, lawyers, architects, artists, writers, archivists, historians, designers, programmers, etc etc etc...? What is this weird unjoined up world she imagines?

SFF. Niche question:

And absolutely not my area, and asking for friend of, etc... Are there any paying UK markets for fantasy art, even if it's just pennies?

Also, why the hell did I write this chapter, and who was this character again...

Well, quite. I think one has to be upfront about blank spots, blackouts, and bits where you might have been in the wrong world...

'Teenage Druggy Brit does Sleazy NY Music Venues'

Write the damn memoir!

And yes, they were astonishing...

Promo for the event, which boldly declares: Super relaxed Fantasy Club Arthur C Clarke Award Winning Author Paul McAuley 6:30pm, Tuesday 10th February Star of Kings, Nr Kings Cross Station, London Free (optional donation)

PAUL J McAULEY @unlikelyworlds.bsky.social - free London event on Tuesday 10th February!

srfcfeb2026.eventbrite.com

The Arthur C Clarke Award winner and all-round acclaimed sci-fi novelist will be reading, chatting and answering your questions at SRFC - do come!

Okay, that I really get. And the spites in the boiler room needing to work to exist or they turn back to dirt remains with me. As does the fleeing of the others from the house (although they have somewhere to go).

Oh, interesting.

Feeding habits? (The soot sprites.)

Liz Truss waiting patiently by her phone for Reform to ring, not realising it's actually a penguin biscuit

So it's not just the Iraqis, Afghans and Vietnamese who wanted to protect their homes, jobs, farms and families? Who could have guessed it.

With luck its return is covered by listed building consent? (Assuming the building is listed...)

I hold him responsible for most things...

The Minneapolis man, who was murdered this morning by ICE agents in the street, was 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit (ICU) nurse and had previously worked at US Dept of Veterans Affairs as a nurse.

Photograph showing a low and windswept island in the distance, with sand showing where the sea would be at high tide. A low wall and rocks lead down to the sand. A spindly tree is dark, windswept and winterlike. The sky is overcast. Drizzle fills the air.

Cramond Island being picturesque. Also, freezing and windswept.

At the point universities stopped being about learning, or repositories of knowledge, and were required to put a monetary value on their courses, what degrees existed for changed. They used to be for the greater good. Now, individual good, at best, corporate good, more likely. AI is part of this.

Dr Kareem Carr man: i wish to publish @kareem_carr Jan 21 reviewer 2: your paper is no good man: i'll do anything to improve reviewer 2: it's simple. you must read the work of the great scientist Pagliarini man: *bursts into tears* but i am Pagliarini Andre Pagliarini @apagliar Jan 21 a first: in rejecting an article I submitted to a journal, reviewer 2 noted I failed to engage the work of one Andre Pagliarini Jan 21, 2026 • 3:47 PM UTC

I just thought everyone should see this

When two years of academic work vanished with a single click After turning off ChatGPT’s ‘data consent’ option, Marcel Bucher lost the work behind grant applications, teaching materials and publication drafts. Here’s what happened next.

Amazing sob story: "ChatGPT deleted all the work I hadn't done"

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Paging @willwiles.bsky.social