I despair of Labour. Can we not just have a sensible budget, delivered on the day, that apologises for hard choices and then just gets on with giving us something that will give us some hope? All this briefing and speculation makes them look like clowns.

It’s slightly odd when a big new Edgar Wright films comes out to remember being one of what seemed to be a very small group of people watching Spaced in 1999.

I guess there were actually quite a few of us but we only had dial-up internet so cult TV was less visible in them days.

When I see people having wildly different opinions about films (cf @kermodemovie.bsky.social and @stephenkb.bsky.social on Die, My Love) I’m reminded of Big Talk with Raymond Terrific:

Come on boffins! Let’s sort this out! It’s a simple question, is it a good film or not?

Ailbhe back at the NS, Ed gonna be PM, bluesky bringing back old Twitter vibes
It really is like the old days

Running the [insert]* has become an impossible job on.ft.com/4oE2cwk
*BBC
*ONS
*British Library
*country

No no no begs every archivist. You are never going to be able to find anything. Please don’t start using emojis in file names. Who asked for this? What fresh hell is next?

Marcyliena Morgan, Founder of Harvard’s Hip-Hop Archive, Dies at 75 📜
www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/a...

I see Noah Smith has said something stupid about the UK again.

It comes around earlier every month.

Yep. I think the only reason I was aware it was a big thing was via @samiraahmeduk.bsky.social noting that they would be covering it on Newswatch.

This is most revealing part of @matthewcobb.bsky.social's piece on Rosalind Franklin: "Franklin did not succeed, partly because she was working on her own without a peer with whom to swap ideas. She was also excluded from the world of informal exchanges in which Watson and Crick were immersed."

In case anyone is wondering if Watson was really THAT bad, @lpachter.bsky.social compiled a list of quotes that are absolutely not for the faint of heart.
liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/j...

@oldenoughtosay.com FYI

So, the BBC has the Executive Summary of the investigation by Penningtons Manches Cooper into Oxford Brookes University Boat Club.

It’s also up (with redactions) on Reddit at the moment.

It does look bad - not least the interference with the investigation.

But the club is clearly very divided.

Apple Maps really doesn’t like Canary Wharf does it?

Quite.

The lack of coverage of the BL cyberattack and its consequences has been dispiriting.

There are multiple angles to it but apparently none of that has been found by editors to be especially newsworthy.

Whoa Rebecca Lawrence has resigned as Chief Executive of @britishlibrary.bsky.social. Sorry that this might mean more turmoil at an institution that is a critical part of UK research infrastructure
www.bl.uk/about/press/...

Sad that Yolk on High Holborn didn’t last long.

The food was good and the staff super friendly.

Huh.

I am listening to Gary Numan ‘The Pleasure Principle’ for the first time, and I hadn’t ever realised that the main riff from Basement Jaxxs’ ‘Where’s Your Head At?’ is a sample.

This makes me wonder. Are paywalled media sites in scope of the UK Web Archive? Does Legal Deposit mean that publishers have to give full access to the British Library and its partners in that Archive?

Can’t easily check because #enrg.uk/#en" class="hover:underline text-blue-600 dark:text-sky-400 no-card-link" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-link="bsky">https://www.webarchive.org.uk/#en is still down after the cyberattack.

It is amusing to me that some people were speculating that The Times had been taken in by a deepfake as part of some shadowy political interference campaign.

Nope. They just emailed and then interviewed the wrong Bill DeBlasio.

Also: other allied projects of the Wikimedia Foundation are great too.

Most people aren't really aware of Wikidata which is an increasingly useful resource with even greater potential.

I implore everyone to donate to Wikipedia.

Just think how often you use it.
It's packed with reliable information.
It's run by passionate volunteers.
There are no ads on it.
It's free.

I am clearly far too invested in US politics and journalism, but as soon as Bari Weiss’s arrival at CBS was announced, I strongly suspected that John Dickerson would depart early.

He’s a fine journalist and a thoroughly decent man.

It's interesting that, while Copilot integration with Outlook is now active in 365, it's rubbish at the one thing I'd want help with, which is staying on top of emails that require me to do something.

Who knew!