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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 53m

Yeah it all looks depressingly symptomatic of a demoralised, overstretched ONS. I do really hope they can turn things round, and get the support they need from government to do so.

Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 57m

In fairness in that context the metaphor works well if the management is working well. Coxing is a distinct role from rowing; if small one can do both but it needs a specialist if you’re big enough. But they need to be very closely linked with excellent communication, or it’s an inefficient misery.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 11h

We need better official statistics! FT describes this as “another setback for the beleaguered agency”, the ONS, but from the report it seems the mistake was in information given to them by HMRC. Not a small mistake and very far from an isolated one.

Chris Giles @chrisgiles.ft.com · 11h

There goes my long held view that cash government receipts were accurate because you just had to add some columns in a bank account

on.ft.com/3J0Y6yE ONS revises down government borrowing estimates after data error

ONS revises down UK government borrowing by £2bn after VAT error

[FREE TO READ] Office for National Statistics reduces estimate for current fiscal year just weeks before Rachel Reeves’ Budget

on.ft.com

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 21h

Have been reminded of the confusing quintet: Al Gore, Gore Vidal, Vidal Sassoon, Siegfried Sassoon, and Siegfried & Roy.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 23h

Just reminded of another wildly dissimilar pair that I get confused for having similar names: Joe Wicks and John Wick.

Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 2d

Ohhh I've done that but hopefully never in public. Less of an issue than it used to be. As with Isaiah Berlin and Irving Berlin, I am quite clear that they are two very, very different people but my brain nevertheless wants to mush them together on phonological similarity grounds.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 1d

Older folk & negronis are forever linked with the poet Gavin Ewart doing Lunch with the FT at 79, which started with negronis (“not an amateur’s drink”) and ended with Mrs Ewart phoning the FT next day to say he’d come home happier than she’d ever seen him and also he died. on.ft.com/3cQK7WF

Let’s do lunch!

Bill Gates had a burger, Lord Hanson had to put out his cigar. On its 18th birthday, we revisit the big names and big bills that tell the story of Lunch with the FT

on.ft.com

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 1d

Relatedly, I've just put on Donna Summer's I Feel Love, which was a staple at discos, club nights, and raves I went to in the late 80s/early-mid 90s but astonishingly was released in 1977.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 2d

Ok yeah I see where you're going. It was played a lot in discos in the 90s, so it wouldn't be out of place. I'll allow it in that context. I would also rule it eligible for the general exception to any playlist exclusion criteria for absolute bangers.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 2d

Ohhh I've done that but hopefully never in public. Less of an issue than it used to be. As with Isaiah Berlin and Irving Berlin, I am quite clear that they are two very, very different people but my brain nevertheless wants to mush them together on phonological similarity grounds.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 2d

And I'm not just saying that because Blondie is one of the few acts that I actually did get in to (nearish) to the time.

Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 2d

I mean you can consider whatever you like and nobody can stop you, but if you're asking for wider approval: In general no and if you mean Atomic then specifically no. It's fantastic to get in to music many years after release, but that doesn't mean it happened when you noticed.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 3d

It absolutely is possible for a repression-protest spiral to reach a ‘stack overflow’ - though in that context we tend to call it a regime change, coup, revolution, or something like that.

Dr Michael Fraser @ffinlo.bsky.social · 3d

Repeated protests against anti-protest legislation forbidding repeated protests sounds like it could get a bit recursive resulting in stack overflow.

Peter Walker @peterwalker99.bsky.social · 3d

NEW: Home Office announces planned new anti-protest powers, mainly aimed at pro-Gaza protests like those for Palestine Action. Police will be able to consider the "cumulative impact" of repeated protests and potentially order that they be relocated.

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Reposted by Doug Clow

Lissa Harris🐀 @lissaharris.bsky.social · 3d

yo Scansion Bluesky, we got another one

Deanna Kreisel 🌱 @doctorwaffle.substack.com · 6d

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins:
Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
(Not sure if I spelled that right)
What immortal hand or eye
Could fashion such a stripy guy?
What the hammer that hath hewn it
Into such a chonky unit?
Did who made the lamb make thee,
Or an external franchisee?

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Reposted by Doug Clow

Andrew Ducker @andrewducker.bsky.social · 4d

Did you share your official ID for age verification? Then it might already have been leaked!

One of the worst case scenarios for ID age verification is already here, with a Discord breach compromising some users' data

The hackers "did not gain access to Discord directly," but some users' data is still at risk.

www.pcgamer.com

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

Well done everyone, you've all done really well again this week. This week this customary message of mine seems trite & superficial. But it's important: I mean it sincerely, even when faced with fresh horrors & troubles. You are all brilliant. Your love, strength and joy will, in the end, beat hate.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

Ah yes - you have told me this before and unaccountably I forget. You'd have thought "a mate of mine keeps the skull of his dead enemy in his bedroom; it was an evil goat" would be the sort of thing that sticks in the mind.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

Thank you too!

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

"Despite his misbehavior on set, Charlie's performance was well-received by critics." Well we've had that story from human actors before, not sure I've heard it of a goat before.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

I have to respectfully disagree with her view on goats though. Some goats are indeed merely mischievous and not cruel, but others are absolute gits and enjoy inflicting pain.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

I recommend signing up for Marie Le Conte's newsletter. I opened my email just now and found "do you think a very clever goat would eat you?" waiting there, which brought me joy. It is absolute A-grade clickbait of a subject line, except in that the article actually delivered, 100%.

Marie Le Conte @youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 5d

in this week's newsletter! I explain the tenets of the diet I invented, called "an eye for an eye", and which involves.....well I think it may be easier if you just read it: youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/do-you-thi... [free to read]

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. One of the things you need to establish is that there's no* mass change when things burn in a sealed vessel. That is effectively a bomb. Don't do that.

* actually, we now know there is a teeny-tiny mass change as it's converted to the heat energy released

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

One of my hobbyhorses is that phlogiston was, in its time, a good scientific theory: it explained the available evidence well and made testable predictions that held up. It wasn't stupid. Disproving it in favour of oxygen is really hard with C18th kit, and few who dunk on it could design the expt.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 5d

They don’t call it a winding-up petition for nothing!

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 7d

Yet another excellent mission playing at spaceships @bridgecommand.bsky.social We achieved all of our objectives! Although sadly one of our Marine Colonels died heroically disabling the shields by boarding an enemy battleship, so we were able to nuke it… but sadly not before the Colonel was clear.

Photo of Doug in a space jumpsuit in front of a spaceship console with the label ENGINEERING above it.

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Doug Clow @dougclow.bsky.social · 8d

Oh, how sad. Perhaps the co author has never had a very good experience with data analysis. A really rigorous analysis is not for everyone, and you don’t have to rush in with that. Maybe they might have a better time if they start with something a little lighter and more exploratory first?

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