Text from Financial Times... The average house price in Westminster was down by an annual rate of 12.7 per cent in February, marking consecutive declines since October 2025, according to data from the Office for National Statistics and the Land Registry. There was a similar trend in Kensington and Chelsea, one of London’s wealthiest neighbourhoods, which registered an annual fall of 11.2 per cent in February. The slump means average prices for Westminster have sunk to £872,000 and £1,225,000 for Kensington and Chelsea, similar to their 2013 levels. Prices in the City of London also registered a double-digit fall of 11.2 per cent.

There goes the neighborhood!

Average house prices in Kensington & Chelsea fall to just £1,225,000.

At this rate, we'll all be able to afford a comfortable pied-à-terre in Kensington and/or Chelsea in as little 20 years

giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

For a second I thought you were railing against the rehabilitation of the director of that dead-eyed adaptation of The Dead, but on reflection that seemed unlikely...

Here's my list of interesting/odd 70s sci-fi movies, some of which I think count as at least a bit obscure:

Eolomea
The Terminal Man
No Blade of Grass
Im Staub der Sterne
The Medusa Touch
Toomorrow
The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler
ZPG (aka Dead Planet)
The Day of the Dolphin
Space Is The Place

Watching a YouTube vid on 70's sci-fi "everyone has forgot". The films are Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Andromeda Strain, Silent Running, Slaughterhouse Five, Dark Star, A Boy and His Dog, The Man Who Fell To Earth, Demon Seed, Capricorn One & Quintet

None of these are truly obscure, are they?

The useful thing about all these "good" radicals is, of course, that they're all now conveniently dead enough that they can't upset "Western liberals" by calling them out on their bullshit in they way they did when they were alive.

#MeTooButNotTHATMeToo

Though "The Fall of Elevenses" sounds like a truly horrific post-apocalypse novel.

@adamroberts.bsky.social should write it

"Just a few words to tell them to stay calm. Not calm in the legs, calm in the head. Run around with your legs, stay calm in your head."

Truly, Frank Lampard is the Plato of British footballing philosophy.

Twitch... fidget... twitch... it's "for fuck's sake" ... blink ... fidget ... twitch ... for fuck's sake.

Finished my reading of the BSFA novel shortlist, fashionably late, with Project Hanuman, which was...okay. Liked the first third a lot, the middle third a bit and the final third (baggy and frustratingly unresolved as the inevitable trilogy/series setup—the scourge of modern sf—demands) not at all.

Drop your crime-fighting Catholics

Hi Jesus. so glad you could join us. We're big fans of your work but we have some notes. We think you should be more careful when talking about theology. The blessed are the meek, merciful & peacemakers stuff doesn't work for us. And your attitude to rich men and merchants? It alienates our funders.

...culminating in a frenzy of AI cack and now a (ludicrous) doubling of the price.

I've had enough. I'm cancelling my subscription and moving note-taking to the (inferior and still AI encumbered) OneNote for now, until I can find something better.

But it's a damned shame.

If ever you needed a perfect case study in enshittification, Evernote would have to be high on your list. I've been using it for the best part of 15 years. It started as an excellent, focused, one-purpose tool and has gradually been ruined by endless unnecessary, complex, cluttered, upgrades...

"The hype in late 2021 was really something. Wall Street threw itself into the project with the enthusiasm of a man who'd just been handed a laser gun and a goat..."

A fantastically delivered line.

Tree signals it will stay on as tree regardless of what happens in coming storm...

"Goo to Space" is my new novel about Musk's Mars' mission

Take off, goo to space, go round the moon, land perfectly... Can't get bars on mobile.

This is the 21st Century alright.

Those falling, falling Integrity images were a bit freaky... Lovely parachutes ...

I can't tell you how hard it is to pry students away from "designing" stuff on PowerPoint and what terrible habits and expectations they have because they have been completely brainwormed by its awful, awful aesthetics.

Death to PowerPoint.

And don't get me started on Word...

Not used Microsoft Publisher in many years, but as someone who does some professional design I would say that killing their DTP package with the sentence "Many common Publisher scenarios are available in other Microsoft 365 apps, including Microsoft Word and PowerPoint" feels like a personal insult

Amazing.

Hard to grasp how an industry so blisteringly inefficient can have become so huge.

Which reminds me (rhetorically): does anyone else remember when the "efficient market hypothesis" was capitalism's big thing? Rational actors? Omniscient pricing? Unbeatable outcomes?

Good times.

Interior, Iraqi bunker, much laughter.
General: "TWO MILLION DOLLARS [does Dr Evil thing with finger] anything else?"
A hand goes up.
G: "Ali?"
Intern Ali: "Demand his new ballroom!"
Laughter stops.
G: "Listen, kid, we're a murderous, theocratic regime but that doesn't mean we don't have standards."

If this is what losing a war to Trump's America, I think Europe might have missed a trick in not kicking off over Greenland... I'm surprised they haven't thrown in a demand for Mar a Lago

The art of the deal, indeed.

Writers: if starting a story "in media res" don't then repeatedly interrupt the action with info-dumping and pointless asides.

Also if, facing death, your character's final thoughts of his wife are her quoting the Fermi paradox maybe have a quiet sit down and think.

Here endeth the lesson

So I've been reading this year's BSFA shortlisted novels. Have enjoyed three (two - Nina Allen and EJ Swift - are excellent) but bailed on the fourth after one chapter (nearly went after one page - "...sweat oozing from his furrowed brow... heart beating against his eardrums..."- yikes!)...

Writers: if starting a story "in media res" don't then repeatedly interrupt the action with info-dumping and pointless asides.

Also if, facing death, your character's final thoughts of his wife are her quoting the Fermi paradox maybe have a quiet sit down and think.

Here endeth the lesson

So I've been reading this year's BSFA shortlisted novels. Have enjoyed three (two - Nina Allen and EJ Swift - are excellent) but bailed on the fourth after one chapter (nearly went after one page - "...sweat oozing from his furrowed brow... heart beating against his eardrums..."- yikes!)...

New garden bird visitor: blackcap

Small brown birds ftw

Pure Slow Horses