Robert Potts
@robertpotts.bsky.social
Former Deputy Editor of the TLS. Out and about again.
I'm back at Spumoni Gardens, Brooklyn. 24 years ago, I delivered a pizza from here to Miami, which I figure might be a record.
August 7, 2025 at 7:22 PM
I'm back at Spumoni Gardens, Brooklyn. 24 years ago, I delivered a pizza from here to Miami, which I figure might be a record.
Rewatching Succession, I have noticed another (possibly overlooked?) Berryman reference, in addition to the season finale titles from all four seasons coming from Dream Song 29. Logan, in 1.10 ("Nobody Is Ever Missing"), says "Its not a good position I am in" - a line from Song 28.
August 4, 2025 at 11:53 PM
Rewatching Succession, I have noticed another (possibly overlooked?) Berryman reference, in addition to the season finale titles from all four seasons coming from Dream Song 29. Logan, in 1.10 ("Nobody Is Ever Missing"), says "Its not a good position I am in" - a line from Song 28.
I mistyped "ornery" and the spell-check rewrote it as "Robert"
May 10, 2025 at 11:24 PM
I mistyped "ornery" and the spell-check rewrote it as "Robert"
If there is, in the entirety of all anglophone literature, ever, a better epithalamium than "Til Death" by Japanese Breakfast, well, I'd love to read or hear it.
March 1, 2025 at 2:05 AM
If there is, in the entirety of all anglophone literature, ever, a better epithalamium than "Til Death" by Japanese Breakfast, well, I'd love to read or hear it.
I am whimsically attempting to find out, as an English speaker, what it's like to be a Greenlander. I have ordered three books so far (two novels, one "travel"). I am in search of good online news sources. I would welcome advice. Especially from bilingual Greenlanders.
January 30, 2025 at 11:13 PM
I am whimsically attempting to find out, as an English speaker, what it's like to be a Greenlander. I have ordered three books so far (two novels, one "travel"). I am in search of good online news sources. I would welcome advice. Especially from bilingual Greenlanders.
What I love most about this story is the name of the Mayor
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
Tiny French town left €10m fortune by a man who had never been there
Thiberville in Normandy receives windfall worth five times annual budget from a Paris resident who was named after it
www.theguardian.com
January 12, 2025 at 10:09 AM
What I love most about this story is the name of the Mayor
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
Doing school run on World Book Day, in which primary school children dress up as their favourite movie character. 3 Spidermen, a lot of Hermione Graingers and fellow Hogwartians, several footballers (?), a good Captain Hook. Two Worst Witches. Various animal onesies. And a huge green alien. Hey ho.
March 7, 2024 at 4:18 PM
Doing school run on World Book Day, in which primary school children dress up as their favourite movie character. 3 Spidermen, a lot of Hermione Graingers and fellow Hogwartians, several footballers (?), a good Captain Hook. Two Worst Witches. Various animal onesies. And a huge green alien. Hey ho.
I remain puzzled as to why our attention is drawn by newspapers and thus, helplessly, social media to appalling suffering in some countries and not others.
February 22, 2024 at 9:47 PM
I remain puzzled as to why our attention is drawn by newspapers and thus, helplessly, social media to appalling suffering in some countries and not others.
I presume that even when set an impossible target, England no longer know how to bat out a match, and so will simply aim to lose by a huge margin as fast as possible.
February 18, 2024 at 7:38 AM
I presume that even when set an impossible target, England no longer know how to bat out a match, and so will simply aim to lose by a huge margin as fast as possible.
Can't help feeling that Richard III should ideally be played by someone from the actual royal family (or failing that, Phoebe Waller-Bridge), but there you go. No one outside the royal community is going to have a grounded understanding of the royal character, they'll just be ... pretending.
January 31, 2024 at 4:53 PM
Can't help feeling that Richard III should ideally be played by someone from the actual royal family (or failing that, Phoebe Waller-Bridge), but there you go. No one outside the royal community is going to have a grounded understanding of the royal character, they'll just be ... pretending.
So, I wasted 30 minutes asking ChatGPT to solve a tricky scheduling problem - maths, essentially - and it made errors, failed to learn, etc... then a bright 13 year old human solved it in 5 minutes. I think we may be safe after all, so long as no human is stupid enough to trust and rely on the AI.
January 20, 2024 at 11:13 AM
So, I wasted 30 minutes asking ChatGPT to solve a tricky scheduling problem - maths, essentially - and it made errors, failed to learn, etc... then a bright 13 year old human solved it in 5 minutes. I think we may be safe after all, so long as no human is stupid enough to trust and rely on the AI.
Reposted by Robert Potts
Letter in the 'New Statesman'
December 29, 2023 at 5:12 AM
Letter in the 'New Statesman'
Reposted by Robert Potts
November 15, 2023 at 11:45 AM
After vanishing from view for a few years, the former Captain of the Titanic is invited to join the flight crew of the Hindenburg: emerges like Achilles from his shed, feels he has a lot to offer.
November 13, 2023 at 9:45 PM
After vanishing from view for a few years, the former Captain of the Titanic is invited to join the flight crew of the Hindenburg: emerges like Achilles from his shed, feels he has a lot to offer.
I very nearly put cumin in the kids' porridge this morning, instead of cinnamon. Not sure what that would have tasted like. My son named the potential result "curridge".
November 13, 2023 at 7:00 AM
I very nearly put cumin in the kids' porridge this morning, instead of cinnamon. Not sure what that would have tasted like. My son named the potential result "curridge".
The train station announcement "if you see anything that doesn't look right..." always prompts the thought "where do I begin"
November 9, 2023 at 5:42 PM
The train station announcement "if you see anything that doesn't look right..." always prompts the thought "where do I begin"
I've just taken a rare look at Facebook, and it seems designed to make everyone, despite their vigilance, "stupider and worse". Same is true of Twitter. It feels as if regardless of your choices, they "suggest" bucketloads of shit at you anyway.
November 8, 2023 at 10:56 PM
I've just taken a rare look at Facebook, and it seems designed to make everyone, despite their vigilance, "stupider and worse". Same is true of Twitter. It feels as if regardless of your choices, they "suggest" bucketloads of shit at you anyway.
My son's English teacher confidently told him that, contrary to what he had suggested, "the Lord of the Flies" is not a synonym for the devil. Another teacher, equally confidently, told him that "cleave" does not in fact have two opposing meanings.
October 9, 2023 at 6:20 AM
My son's English teacher confidently told him that, contrary to what he had suggested, "the Lord of the Flies" is not a synonym for the devil. Another teacher, equally confidently, told him that "cleave" does not in fact have two opposing meanings.
Reposted by Robert Potts
