Isabelle Roughol
@isabelleroughol.com
Like history? Sign up for my new podcast launching soon, broadhistory.com. 🇫🇷 🇬🇧 🇪🇺, quite a bit of 🇺🇸, once 🇦🇺 & 🇰🇭, forever MIZ 🐯
For the umpteenth time: Citizens, whether naturalised or not, are citizens. In a state under democratic rule of law, you cannot apply different penalties for the same offense based on a citizen’s origins. The nature of the offense is irrelevant. This shouldn’t need explaining.
"Farage and Badenoch are free to offer up an explanation as to why Connolly should be able to incite violence without consequence, while el-Fattah should face extrajudicial punishment for it. Until they do so, there is an all too obvious one: they are openly pandering to racists."
Calls to remove el-Fattah’s UK citizenship are dictatorial
Yes his tweets were disgusting, possibly criminal, yet it should not be possible for politicians to revoke someone’s national identity just because they dislike their views
www.thenewworld.co.uk
December 30, 2025 at 9:39 AM
For the umpteenth time: Citizens, whether naturalised or not, are citizens. In a state under democratic rule of law, you cannot apply different penalties for the same offense based on a citizen’s origins. The nature of the offense is irrelevant. This shouldn’t need explaining.
I was sitting in a Belsize Park café I often frequent and had my back turned to Ryan Gosling the entire time.
Please quote this with the time you didn’t interact with someone famous - eg one time I was in Cardiff the same weekend as Willem Dafoe (but I didn’t see him or even know he was there until he appeared on the telly later)
Please quote this with your major interactions with massive celebrities. eg “I was married to the pope for fifteen years”
December 30, 2025 at 9:31 AM
I was sitting in a Belsize Park café I often frequent and had my back turned to Ryan Gosling the entire time.
Conde Nast somehow merged my digital account with someone else’s print New Yorker subscription in the US. I have their name, street address and full personal details. Have for years. Hi, Sarah.
Over the years I’ve helped several people with their online subscriptions to various Condé Nast properties, and oy vey, nothing about this surprises me. Their user authentication has always been a cluster fuck.
www-bleepingcomputer-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.blee...
www-bleepingcomputer-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.blee...
Hacker claims to leak WIRED database with 2.3 million records
A hacker claims to have breached Condé Nast and leaked an alleged WIRED database containing more than 2.3 million subscriber records, while also warning that they plan to release up to 40 million addi...
www-bleepingcomputer-com.cdn.ampproject.org
December 30, 2025 at 8:44 AM
Conde Nast somehow merged my digital account with someone else’s print New Yorker subscription in the US. I have their name, street address and full personal details. Have for years. Hi, Sarah.
Out: Audiobooks aren’t books.
In: Video podcasts aren’t podcasts.
In: Video podcasts aren’t podcasts.
December 27, 2025 at 9:45 AM
Out: Audiobooks aren’t books.
In: Video podcasts aren’t podcasts.
In: Video podcasts aren’t podcasts.
Being a woman is googling a fairly common ailment and reading “doctors aren’t yet quite sure why…”
December 25, 2025 at 9:12 PM
Being a woman is googling a fairly common ailment and reading “doctors aren’t yet quite sure why…”
I can’t believe you missed the chance to tell the weirdest Saint Nicolas story yet, @empirepoduk.bsky.social, the one I grew up with in Lorraine where old St Nick saws back together the bodies of 3 little boys dismembered, cured and PICKLED by the local butcher 7 years earlier! Happy Christmas 🩸🔪
December 23, 2025 at 10:17 AM
I can’t believe you missed the chance to tell the weirdest Saint Nicolas story yet, @empirepoduk.bsky.social, the one I grew up with in Lorraine where old St Nick saws back together the bodies of 3 little boys dismembered, cured and PICKLED by the local butcher 7 years earlier! Happy Christmas 🩸🔪
Now i’ve watched the 60 Minutes CECOT segment. You should too (now coz they get taken down fast). It’s not even anything you haven’t heard before. It’s still damning. Both US and Salvadorian govt had a chance to respond and opted not to.
December 22, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Now i’ve watched the 60 Minutes CECOT segment. You should too (now coz they get taken down fast). It’s not even anything you haven’t heard before. It’s still damning. Both US and Salvadorian govt had a chance to respond and opted not to.
When you write an email like this, you want it leaked. As you should. Nobody is surprised that this is Bari Weiss’s cbs.
Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:
December 22, 2025 at 7:43 AM
When you write an email like this, you want it leaked. As you should. Nobody is surprised that this is Bari Weiss’s cbs.
No one has a natural right to that land. Everywhere, borders are stories we tell ourselves, fictions that hold for a little or a long while, usually born from a more or less steady end to a conflict. How wide we set the lens when we look at that story matters.
Look, I know this wouldn't be The Guardian if they didn't try to shoehorn colonisation into it, but if you're gonna make colonial borders half your explanation, you really ought to go back a century more and consider Thai imperialism as well. www.theguardian.com/world/video/...
What to know about the Thailand-Cambodia conflict – video analysis
Oliver Holmes looks at how colonial maps, simmering nationalism and Donald Trump have a role in Thailand and Cambodia's border dispute
www.theguardian.com
December 20, 2025 at 4:16 PM
No one has a natural right to that land. Everywhere, borders are stories we tell ourselves, fictions that hold for a little or a long while, usually born from a more or less steady end to a conflict. How wide we set the lens when we look at that story matters.
Look, I know this wouldn't be The Guardian if they didn't try to shoehorn colonisation into it, but if you're gonna make colonial borders half your explanation, you really ought to go back a century more and consider Thai imperialism as well. www.theguardian.com/world/video/...
What to know about the Thailand-Cambodia conflict – video analysis
Oliver Holmes looks at how colonial maps, simmering nationalism and Donald Trump have a role in Thailand and Cambodia's border dispute
www.theguardian.com
December 20, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Look, I know this wouldn't be The Guardian if they didn't try to shoehorn colonisation into it, but if you're gonna make colonial borders half your explanation, you really ought to go back a century more and consider Thai imperialism as well. www.theguardian.com/world/video/...
Can someone explain why, in the age of hypertargeting, I, a non-Academy non-entertainment industry random in London, keep getting “for your consideration” award season ads?
December 20, 2025 at 12:23 PM
Can someone explain why, in the age of hypertargeting, I, a non-Academy non-entertainment industry random in London, keep getting “for your consideration” award season ads?
This is a good summary of what's going on at Preah Vihear. I covered this back in 08 & nothing's solved, it's just deadlier. Int'l law is with Cambodia on this one but Thailand won't let it go. Cambodia has a lot more to lose and far less to defend itself. All it can do is beg for peace & allies.
Cambodia counts the cost of its border war with Thailand www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Cambodia counts the cost of its border war with Thailand
Despite a Trump-brokered ceasefire in July, fighting has flared up again between Thailand and Cambodia.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 19, 2025 at 4:46 PM
This is a good summary of what's going on at Preah Vihear. I covered this back in 08 & nothing's solved, it's just deadlier. Int'l law is with Cambodia on this one but Thailand won't let it go. Cambodia has a lot more to lose and far less to defend itself. All it can do is beg for peace & allies.
Always fun hearing people who don’t know French making up words and their meaning. And then calling it snooty because it’s (supposedly) French.
@thetimes.com please tell producers of the Story: the word is “metteur en scène” not métier, it just means director (literally one who puts into scenes). There is no pretension or double meaning to it. Kevin Maher just totally made this up.
December 19, 2025 at 8:27 AM
Always fun hearing people who don’t know French making up words and their meaning. And then calling it snooty because it’s (supposedly) French.
@thetimes.com please tell producers of the Story: the word is “metteur en scène” not métier, it just means director (literally one who puts into scenes). There is no pretension or double meaning to it. Kevin Maher just totally made this up.
December 19, 2025 at 8:26 AM
@thetimes.com please tell producers of the Story: the word is “metteur en scène” not métier, it just means director (literally one who puts into scenes). There is no pretension or double meaning to it. Kevin Maher just totally made this up.
Some short and sweet common sense from @damon.kiesow.net. I read and nodded a lot. kiesow.net/a-few-things...
A few things I believe about journalism, business and tech (and yes, AI)
1. Trust and human authenticity are the last defensible moats available to knowledge creators. The internet and then mobile phones eliminated the marginal costs of distribution and consumption of info...
kiesow.net
December 17, 2025 at 5:49 PM
Some short and sweet common sense from @damon.kiesow.net. I read and nodded a lot. kiesow.net/a-few-things...
Year in Reviews received so far: my music app, my bank app, my podcast app, my games-i'm-addicted-to app, my professional network app, my trains-I-took-once-this-year app... This will stop, right? Right?
December 17, 2025 at 10:09 AM
Year in Reviews received so far: my music app, my bank app, my podcast app, my games-i'm-addicted-to app, my professional network app, my trains-I-took-once-this-year app... This will stop, right? Right?
Very happy for the young’ns. Few things are more impactful on a young life than study abroad.
December 16, 2025 at 9:11 PM
Very happy for the young’ns. Few things are more impactful on a young life than study abroad.
I wish British GPs would stop mistaking sending a youtube link for practicing medicine
December 15, 2025 at 8:44 AM
I wish British GPs would stop mistaking sending a youtube link for practicing medicine
I started covering this conflict in 2008. No, it did not get solved "pretty quickly". Or at all.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...
Half a million flee as deadly Cambodia-Thailand border clashes escalate
At least 20 killed and almost 200 injured, as Trump claims he can settle hostilities ‘pretty quickly’
www.theguardian.com
December 11, 2025 at 9:43 PM
I started covering this conflict in 2008. No, it did not get solved "pretty quickly". Or at all.
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...
when I ask LLMs for title/tagline ideas for my women's history podcast, all they can come up with is some version of "herstory" and please allow me to hurl
December 10, 2025 at 2:33 PM
when I ask LLMs for title/tagline ideas for my women's history podcast, all they can come up with is some version of "herstory" and please allow me to hurl
Once again I was not asked to do a Nieman Lab prediction (as if) so once again I’ll be petty and point out they’re more hope than prediction.
December 9, 2025 at 9:31 PM
Once again I was not asked to do a Nieman Lab prediction (as if) so once again I’ll be petty and point out they’re more hope than prediction.
And this is why you can never, nor should you try to, isolate science from the humanities.
December 2, 2025 at 9:51 AM
And this is why you can never, nor should you try to, isolate science from the humanities.
Indie media gets ripped off across borders now: spotted @jim.londoncentric.media ´s snail farm story on French public radio, uncredited of course www.instagram.com/reel/DRVTNf7...
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November 25, 2025 at 4:24 PM
Indie media gets ripped off across borders now: spotted @jim.londoncentric.media ´s snail farm story on French public radio, uncredited of course www.instagram.com/reel/DRVTNf7...
The "we went the proper route" argument from 2nd gen immigrants is like Boomers saying you just need to scrimp a little to buy a house – wilfully ignorant of reality to the point of cruelty.
Mahmood writes in today's paper on "earned settlement," which will move the goalposts for people here, about her parents from Pakistan who "became Brits."
As context, arriving pre-1973, her dad probably would've been granted settlement *immediately* and could register as a UK citizen after 5 years.
As context, arriving pre-1973, her dad probably would've been granted settlement *immediately* and could register as a UK citizen after 5 years.
November 20, 2025 at 1:58 PM
The "we went the proper route" argument from 2nd gen immigrants is like Boomers saying you just need to scrimp a little to buy a house – wilfully ignorant of reality to the point of cruelty.
I'm getting a bunch of new subscribers to my newsletter, mostly based in Germany, direct from homepage with no referral source, even though I've not published anything lately or advertised. If you can explain it, please do.
November 20, 2025 at 1:51 PM
I'm getting a bunch of new subscribers to my newsletter, mostly based in Germany, direct from homepage with no referral source, even though I've not published anything lately or advertised. If you can explain it, please do.