this is one of the many senses in which academia really is a job like many others. 90% of the work is just replying to emails

My copy of Count Zero has a 1992 Dixons receipt for a portable cassette player, that I used as a bookmark when I first read it. Dixons no longer exists, and both the book and stereo (which I also still have) no longer seem as futuristic as they did when I bought them.

We can put it on the list with "hey, actually it's starting to look like the entire neoliberal model of education, healthcare and public infrastructure has been a total bloody disaster for decades". But realistically I don't foresee that level of introspection from any of this lot.

There's a recurring minor character in some of Tom Holt's books, who has an increasingly complex and unlikely conspiracy theory involving the Milk Marketing Board. It feels very slightly less outlandish now.

My dad was executor for one of his aunts, and the whole thing was a nightmare. Claims from her favourite nephew, rumours of a lost/destroyed alternative will, complicated negotiations. It took about 15 years to sort out, by which time the solicitors had siphoned most of the money away In fees.

November 1963. The Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara introduce a tribe of cavemen to the benefits of collective action and seizing the means of production in order to overthrow a tyrannical leader.

There was a thing my grandma used to say sometimes, that began "So I went to the garden to cut a cabbage leaf to make an apple pie with" and ended "till the gunpowder ran out at the soles of their boots". Years later I learned it's an 18th century nonsense story called "The Great Panjandrum".

The actual Nobel Peace Prize has a pretty variable history, but I don't see anyone with even an ounce of integrity or self-respect ever accepting the FIFA prize. It's irrevocably tainted right from the start. It also looks dreadfully gaudy, just like everything else associated with Trump.

Years ago, having seen Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, and Alain Delon in Le Samouraï, I briefly considered getting a fedora. Then the worst sort of incel nerds started wearing them so I dropped the idea. I don't think it'd have suited me anyway.

They're the absolute worst. A tiny minority of nasty, small-minded, bigoted bullies. Every single one of my trans and non-binary friends has more compassion, intelligence and life in their little finger than all of these obsessive ghouls put together.

I teach maths at university and I had an email from a student yesterday saying "I didn't understand this proof so I asked ChatGPT to summarise it for me, is this correct?" and I'm trying to find a tactful way of saying "dear god, don't do that, this is what I have degrees and office hours for."

So many 2-hour podcasts that should just have been a chat in the pub.

there once was a king dressed in yellow
a very remarkable fellow
they made him a play
and people did say
that all those who saw it went dryixfyixfidgfjxffxjtrdturtesuuesrurestirsditrurstrstutrsustrusrtuetsuteseutsbjivkhhcfhkcgfgfjxfgicgfjxfzrwaesriychx

"Marley was dead, to begin with. But this Christmas, we're bringing him back. Join Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and three very special ghosts as they go on a magical journey to rescue an old friend. A Christmas Carol 2: God Bless Us Every One!"

Whatever names they eventually decide on (at least one per faction, I suspect) I'm now going to be thinking of them as "the Yorpers".