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Joel Morris

@gralefrit.bsky.social

15K followers 520 following 20K posts

Writer & highwayman. Ladybird, Cunk, Wipe, Be Funny Or Die, Framley, Candidate band, Comfort Blanket, Broken Veil etc https://ko-fi.com/gralefrit AGENTS, website, links, bio etc: www.gralefrit.co.uk

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · Nov 9

Hello new followers!

If you want to know anything, it’s all on my website…

www.gralefrit.co.uk

I’m doing lots of stuff on Substack, including podcasts and writing and that.

joelmorris.substack.com

Also: Be Funny Or Die, How Comedy Works and Why It Matters… from all the usual book places.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 10m

We had to use thousands of phone numbers in Framley, so (since we didn’t have a BBC style supply of corporate dead numbers) decided to put 999 in all of the phone nos in the small ads etc, assuming that way that they wouldn’t be real phone numbers.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

No idea, but this is fascinating anyway.

United Kingdom
Main articles: Telephone numbers in the United Kingdom § Fictitious numbers, and Big Number Change § Numbers for drama
The Office of Communications (Ofcom) has reserved 41][42] blocks of numbers in most
major areas for use in TV and radio dramas.
Fictitious numbers in (011x) and (01x1) area codes mostly end with the digits 496 0xxx; however, Tyneside uses (0191) 498 0xxx.
London uses 020 7946 0xxx; Cardiff uses 029
2018 Oxxx; and Northern Ireland now uses 028
9649 6xxx after a previously reserved range was allocated for actual use. 4311441 The generic (and currently unused) area code 01632 is available for all other purposes.
Ofcom also reserves blocks of mobile phone (07700 900xxx), freephone (0808 157 0xxx), and premium rate (0909 879 Oxxx) numbers for drama use. They also recently added a UK-wide range to the list (0306 999 0xxx).

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

Farming is “worthless” as a career if you decide - as many retail businesses did - that you won’t pay properly for its products. That doesn’t mean we don’t need food any more.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

Amazon started out as a bookshop. That’s how worthless the arts are.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

What’s Spotify worth without any human-made music on it?

What’s Netflix or Amazon or Apple worth without anything to watch on it?

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

Arts degrees are only “worthless” because tech cunts revalued the highly desirable product of freelance artists at close to zero, cos it made running the digital supply pipes look cheaper on the spreadsheets. Pay properly for the arts, and see how worthless artists are.

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Reposted by Joel Morris

Keith W. Dickinson @keithwdickinson.bsky.social · 3h

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

The Verge @theverge.com · May 26

Nick Clegg says asking artists for use permission would ‘kill’ the AI industry

Paul McCartne, Elton John and others signed an open letter.

buff.ly

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 1h

Oh. And I helped make Paddington too. So fuck you guys in the ear with a marmalade sandwich. Piss off doing Greatest Hits Culture War bullshit and support arts careers for everyone.

Reposted by Joel Morris

Rob Delaney @robdelaney.bsky.social · 1h

Please make the London Review of Books have more followers than me @lrb.co.uk thank you

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 3h

And one of the industries which, relying entirely on freelance workers, but requiring public audience spaces, was fucked over completely by the pandemic, without mercy or assistance, but survived, on its knees so it can now get another kick in the teeth from these soulless twats.

Corey Brotherson - ready for my close up--NOOO TOO CLOSE! @coreybrotherson.bsky.social · 3h

Hey kids!

Remember when the pandemic struck and eventually the (Tory) government told everyone to stay at home, and the arts and entertainment industries were one of the few things keeping everyone from pulling our own eyes out of our skulls from abject fear and boredom?

Remember that?

Tim Worthington @outonbluesix.bsky.social · 5h

How is this repeatedly made into a policy issue - by *all* parties - when the blunt fact of the matter is that grown adults who are obliged to pay for their own education, and relentlessly pursued to repay their loans, should be able to study whatever the fuck they want.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 4h

There’s big chunks of my degree course directly referenced in the book on comedy for a start. Mediaeval theatre, Anglo Saxon joke shapes, Chaucer, Victorian nonsense, theatre of the absurd… all that stuff is shit I picked up from my degree and remembered when I had to scour my brain.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 4h

Absolutely vital to the way I think, enjoy, consume and question stuff. I could joke and pretend it was worthless, but I wouldn’t do anything I do in the way I do it, without what I learned on my English degree, and - equally importantly - my art foundation course.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 4h

The Beatles were art students. That went pretty well.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 5h

And that was fucking books. Which even populist philistines understand have a bit of residual cachet as worthwhile. God knows how they might attempt to understand the economic importance to Britain of, say, the videogames industry.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 5h

This is a good game.

I have an English degree and boosted a major publishing house’s share price, and saved a high street retail chain from closure.

If a Mickey Mouse degree lets you create actual Mickey fucking Mouse, it’s probably easily as good “for the economy” as business studies.

Patrick Ness @patricknessbooks.bsky.social · 5h

*deep sigh* Again, I have an English degree and have contributed rather extensively to the British economy, including writing a show that pumped £10 million into Wales. But the stupidity is the point here, of course.

Otto English @ottoenglish.bsky.social · 5h

Badenoch and Co see education only as a means to a massive income in some soul destroying career.

Devoid of imagination and the power of knowledge they view life entirely through the prism of the CV.

My advice always is to study what interests you and the rest will follow

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 5h

To be honest, I don’t usually get to the end of books anyway. It makes very little difference.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 5h

“You’re a cunt” and “you’re not real” are pretty much the only political arguments of choice these days. Apparently it’s easier than fixing the NHS or investing in infrastructure.

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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 5h

You can achieve the same effect by working in a bookshop and skimming the back cover copy of everything you shelve, with the beneficial side effect of also being helpful round the place. I imagine. I wouldn’t possibly know. Ahem.

The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 13h

Abridging has always been in vogue. Now, apps like Blinkist take entire books and crunch them down to a series of what are called Blinks—which amount to around 2,000 words. “Is that what books are coming to, a handy social lubricant?” Anthony Lane asks.