Oh God…

Three cool scientists introduce their work "Our new theory has been submitted to a peer-reviewed journal, but we feel its depths and intricacies are best appreciated on the limited-edition vinyl release."

My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com

Lots of phones for reception to handle, must be 1,000s of drop offs a day and collections. Confiscation is good, but I just haven't heard any actual benefits to allowing kids to bring them at all. Was the same 20 years ago and phones are much more distracting now than then.

Oh, sounds like there isn't an actual issue. Its an issue created by the existence of phones. Stopping schools being "trigger happy" calling children is a goal not a negative side effect, surely?

Such a wonderful story. You can buy a Live Departures Board for £300, but British Rail can't afford one for Barton-on-Humber Lincolnshire, so there's now one in The White Swan opposite

Perhaps you can explain because the carer situation is one I find quite compelling. But I don't really know how often a child needs to immediately leave school or remotely complete a task for an adult they're caring for. How often would delaying contact to the end of class cause harm?

There are, of course, more phones than ever, and no child in an emergency would find it harder to find an adult with a phone today than a payphone 20 years ago. Preventing children taking phones to school does not put them in danger. bsky.app/profile/otto...

voice of the nation and yet so unpopular!

Can't remember who I quote tweeted here but they either blocked me or removed the post. But they were not offering a remotely convincing argument about why kids need smartphones in school because its impossible to do so.

What if your child is kidnapped on the way to school without their phone and (assuming the kidnapper would have let them keep their phone in the counterfactual) was not able to phone for help?

Too late. Schools have had their chance and they've fucked it. Parents a major problem too of course, and schools are too deferential to parents lying about how their child needs a phone.

Sounds like nationally coordinated policy on phone use could help here!

Nah, they can just go to the school office and use the phone there. Oooh I've got a special exemption versus no you don't.

Banning phones in schools sounds great and everyone saying their reasons its bad sound mental to me.

Very happy dipping my toe back in the union world - I drilled down into what today’s strike action was actually about

Oh so it's a *crime* to be lovely and warm in your own holdall?

Headline: "The power of verbs (and why you should never use an adverb)", but I've crossed out the adverb "never"

Well OK, if you insist

“It’s clear that AI companies’ initial promise to America — that first it would take their job, and eventually it might kill them — has not inspired a groundswell of public support.”

John Lennon levels

All Kings are valid

That series is just non-stop bangers. A short thread:

All political news to normal people looks like this. Curtains for Stoosha? Olly Robbins caught flipping a grunt.

Many people are saying it's curtains for Stoosha.

The Mandelson fiasco reveals the true nature of Starmerism This is a prime minister who does not understand the difficult trade-offs involved in governing

Keir Starmer famously said there was "no such thing" as Starmerism. He was half-right: there is no such ideology. There is however an approach to managing and running the country that is core to so many of the government's difficulties that we probably should call 'Starmerism'. In tomorrow's paper:

When I was in Madrid, outside the palace they have a statue to artaufo I, who I think was the first post Roman Visigothic king in what would become (but let's be honest was not) Spain. So it can be done. You can just pick any old guy and start counting.

Orange fluffy cat inside my car.

I have to go to work and this is not my cat.

Labour's bench has some problems.

"...that's right, old friend...one last job."

Another one I love:

What odds do you give a Mandy return? It's not zero is it? 10%?