Robert Hanks
@roberthanks.bsky.social
The man who never was but sometimes looked as though he might be. Cultural commentator for hire. Will work for food.
A great loss. Worth looking out for Bill Brand, the 1976 ITV series written by Trevor Griffiths, where he starred as a Labour MP; and he write the terrific play In Lambeth, in which Thomas Paine ends up in William Blake’s garden. youtu.be/t2mCXOdO2AI?...
November 26, 2025 at 9:07 AM
A great loss. Worth looking out for Bill Brand, the 1976 ITV series written by Trevor Griffiths, where he starred as a Labour MP; and he write the terrific play In Lambeth, in which Thomas Paine ends up in William Blake’s garden. youtu.be/t2mCXOdO2AI?...
@mjrobbins.com Possibly you feel you've done enough on Cambridge, but I'd love to hear an episode on guided busways – beloved by local government in Cambridge but, afaik, nowhere else. My suspicion is that if we want really reliable public transport, we need light rail + congestion charging.
November 25, 2025 at 10:27 AM
@mjrobbins.com Possibly you feel you've done enough on Cambridge, but I'd love to hear an episode on guided busways – beloved by local government in Cambridge but, afaik, nowhere else. My suspicion is that if we want really reliable public transport, we need light rail + congestion charging.
People are sneering, but I don't much like cars and my mother died of motor neurone disease, so…
There are some truly unhinged bits in the piece about Glasman, as to be expected when dealing with Glasman, but seriously what the actual? That's...one hell of a conflation of terminology.
November 24, 2025 at 10:19 AM
People are sneering, but I don't much like cars and my mother died of motor neurone disease, so…
The details of Ryanair's shittiness are astonishing.
Make sure Ryanair get more than £100 worth of bad publicity over this. www.theguardian.com/money/2025/n...
Ryanair expects me to take the financial hit for helping others
As a doctor I stepped in to tend to an elderly passenger … but it won’t waive £100 transfer fee to rebook
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:33 AM
The details of Ryanair's shittiness are astonishing.
Reposted by Robert Hanks
Make sure Ryanair get more than £100 worth of bad publicity over this. www.theguardian.com/money/2025/n...
Ryanair expects me to take the financial hit for helping others
As a doctor I stepped in to tend to an elderly passenger … but it won’t waive £100 transfer fee to rebook
www.theguardian.com
November 24, 2025 at 9:03 AM
Make sure Ryanair get more than £100 worth of bad publicity over this. www.theguardian.com/money/2025/n...
Reposted by Robert Hanks
big bugs bunny getting elmer fudd to marry him vibes in the white house currently i see
November 21, 2025 at 9:30 PM
big bugs bunny getting elmer fudd to marry him vibes in the white house currently i see
There’s also evidence of him having been a strong advocate of human rights, a talented administrator and on the left(ish) of the Labour Party. Is it possible he was replaced by a clone?
Starmer genuinely loves football, like, there's evidence of him LOVING football for decades. And yet...when he talks about it....he sounds like someone who has never seen a minute of it. He sounds like someone who only just heard the word "football" earlier that day.
November 19, 2025 at 1:03 PM
There’s also evidence of him having been a strong advocate of human rights, a talented administrator and on the left(ish) of the Labour Party. Is it possible he was replaced by a clone?
Reposted by Robert Hanks
I'm fucking cryinj
Worst hold music ever?
YouTube video by Unreasonable Steev
youtu.be
November 18, 2025 at 5:04 PM
I'm fucking cryinj
Can I just urge people disillusioned with Labour: don’t just decide not to vote Labour. If you have a Labour MP, it takes two minutes to find their email address and write to them, telling them they’ve lost your vote and explaining why.
My greatest disappointment with Starmer is the continuation of this same old game. Half-arsed policy with focus on electoral dynamics over effectiveness. Underlying situation gets worse. Then you complain the border is out of control, when in fact it is your policymaking which has failed.
November 18, 2025 at 9:00 AM
Can I just urge people disillusioned with Labour: don’t just decide not to vote Labour. If you have a Labour MP, it takes two minutes to find their email address and write to them, telling them they’ve lost your vote and explaining why.
Reposted by Robert Hanks
Network DVD's liquidated stock has finally surfaced here, giving you a chance to buy one of the greatest sitcoms of all time before all the copies are gone: futurenetwork.wales/product/nigh...
NIGHTINGALES: THE COMPLETE SERIES – Future Network
futurenetwork.wales
November 17, 2025 at 7:06 PM
Network DVD's liquidated stock has finally surfaced here, giving you a chance to buy one of the greatest sitcoms of all time before all the copies are gone: futurenetwork.wales/product/nigh...
Mahmoud says that small boats are tearing the country apart. So she’s decided to stop this conflict by coming down decisively on the opposite side to most Labour voters.
November 16, 2025 at 10:13 AM
Mahmoud says that small boats are tearing the country apart. So she’s decided to stop this conflict by coming down decisively on the opposite side to most Labour voters.
Christ, who thought it would be a good idea to ask John Humphrys’ ideas about anything?
November 16, 2025 at 9:16 AM
Christ, who thought it would be a good idea to ask John Humphrys’ ideas about anything?
Reposted by Robert Hanks
SATAN: So what makes you want to work here? Isn’t it a bit of a sideways move for you?
ME: Well, sideways and down, haha
SATAN: Haha
ME: But I’ve been working in the sector for a while, and I feel this is where the action is
SATAN: Your most recent role was…
ME: Cinema website designer
SATAN: Sweet
ME: Well, sideways and down, haha
SATAN: Haha
ME: But I’ve been working in the sector for a while, and I feel this is where the action is
SATAN: Your most recent role was…
ME: Cinema website designer
SATAN: Sweet
November 13, 2025 at 2:43 PM
SATAN: So what makes you want to work here? Isn’t it a bit of a sideways move for you?
ME: Well, sideways and down, haha
SATAN: Haha
ME: But I’ve been working in the sector for a while, and I feel this is where the action is
SATAN: Your most recent role was…
ME: Cinema website designer
SATAN: Sweet
ME: Well, sideways and down, haha
SATAN: Haha
ME: But I’ve been working in the sector for a while, and I feel this is where the action is
SATAN: Your most recent role was…
ME: Cinema website designer
SATAN: Sweet
Reposted by Robert Hanks
It's another one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I value my heritage; you trade on past glories; he hears ancestral voices prophesying war.
November 13, 2025 at 3:00 PM
It's another one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I value my heritage; you trade on past glories; he hears ancestral voices prophesying war.
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p... This is a pretty good overview of the fuck-ups in the Labour Party and the BBC.
Why is the Labour party in such a mess?
Podcast Episode · Politics Weekly UK · 12/11/2025 · 36m
podcasts.apple.com
November 12, 2025 at 8:44 PM
podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/p... This is a pretty good overview of the fuck-ups in the Labour Party and the BBC.
Reposted by Robert Hanks
Trump Still Polling Well With Working-Class American Pedophiles https://theonion.com/trump-still-polling-well-with-working-class-american-pedophiles/
November 12, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Trump Still Polling Well With Working-Class American Pedophiles https://theonion.com/trump-still-polling-well-with-working-class-american-pedophiles/
The Today Programme? *The Today Programme* is woke? Justin Webb and Mick Robinson are men of the left?!
Ladies and gentlemen, Sir Robbie Gibb, the BBC Board Member with the impartiality remit
November 11, 2025 at 10:29 PM
The Today Programme? *The Today Programme* is woke? Justin Webb and Mick Robinson are men of the left?!
Deeply unimpressed by Arthur Laffer on Radio 4 – just trotting out the same old defence of low taxes and "trickle down".
November 11, 2025 at 1:35 PM
Deeply unimpressed by Arthur Laffer on Radio 4 – just trotting out the same old defence of low taxes and "trickle down".
Reposted by Robert Hanks
I have found this whole episode incredibly distressing and isolating, so I'm grateful to see Rory Waterman's analysis shine a light on both the poetry and the poison. Whatever your views, we need a more courteous and humane public discourse, from and for all parties. Please.
My comment, for @pnreview.bsky.social, on the Len Pennie & Sarah Doyle affair - or Canongagegate, as I like to think of it. Honourable mentions: @naush.bsky.social, @thetimes.com.
Feel free to share, to attack me with your little jelly pitchforks, or to ignore.
www.pnreview.co.uk/archive/rema...
Feel free to share, to attack me with your little jelly pitchforks, or to ignore.
www.pnreview.co.uk/archive/rema...
PN Review Print and Online Poetry Magazine - Remarkable Coincidences - Rory Waterman - PN Review 286
One of the outstanding poetry journals of our time.
www.pnreview.co.uk
November 7, 2025 at 6:28 PM
I have found this whole episode incredibly distressing and isolating, so I'm grateful to see Rory Waterman's analysis shine a light on both the poetry and the poison. Whatever your views, we need a more courteous and humane public discourse, from and for all parties. Please.
They should have been arguing this from the start. But credit to Reeves for getting it right at last.
NEW: Rachel Reeves signals she intends to remove the two-child cap *in full*
"I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own," she tells BBC.
"I don't think a child should be penalised because they're in a bigger family through no fault of their own," she tells BBC.
November 10, 2025 at 4:25 PM
They should have been arguing this from the start. But credit to Reeves for getting it right at last.
Astonishing scenes
Last night, Dick Tice launched Students4Reform (See what they did there, the scamps? They replaced "for" WITH THE NUMBER).
It will be led by Matt Goodwin, a man in his mid-forties, and it looked exactly like you imagine. ~AA
It will be led by Matt Goodwin, a man in his mid-forties, and it looked exactly like you imagine. ~AA
November 10, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Astonishing scenes
Reposted by Robert Hanks
Happy Circulatory System Walking Through the Kitchen Day! Don’t forget to smash your clocks!
November 10, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Happy Circulatory System Walking Through the Kitchen Day! Don’t forget to smash your clocks!
Reposted by Robert Hanks
I think my colleague, Jeff’s theory that the Bay City Rollers and the Wurzels were the Blur and Oasis of the 1970s has a lot to commend it
November 10, 2025 at 9:51 AM
I think my colleague, Jeff’s theory that the Bay City Rollers and the Wurzels were the Blur and Oasis of the 1970s has a lot to commend it
Popular music.
What is your biggest musical blindspot for someone precisely your age?
For me - an elder millennial - it is that I have never knowingly listened to INCUBUS, nor could I name even one of their songs if you put a gun to my head.
For me - an elder millennial - it is that I have never knowingly listened to INCUBUS, nor could I name even one of their songs if you put a gun to my head.
November 10, 2025 at 9:42 AM
Popular music.
I'm old enough to remember that the footage was shown in one bulletin quite early in the morning before the mistake was corrected, and the BBC's explanation (involving a folder containing archive footage that had been used in the previous day's trailers) was entirely plausible.
I’m old enough to remember when the BBC used old footage of Johnson at the cenotaph, to cover the fact that he was hung over and looked like a burst mattress on a tip.
The DG didn’t resign though
The DG didn’t resign though
November 10, 2025 at 9:39 AM
I'm old enough to remember that the footage was shown in one bulletin quite early in the morning before the mistake was corrected, and the BBC's explanation (involving a folder containing archive footage that had been used in the previous day's trailers) was entirely plausible.