Explained the concept of the World Cup to my five year old this morning. No Exaggeration but 1966 has come up 15 times today and I’ve been asked over 20 times if England have a chance of winning. I feel he needs to pace his years of hurt a bit better than this.

Fair play to the Sky producer who just slapped ‘Believe in Beto’ across the bottom of the screen. Always be branding.

I should be clear this is when wine list making or criticism is done badly - many don’t do that

There it is literally their palate that has been numbed to to good stuff. Also the sommeliers actually choose what is available to people - at least movie critics don’t control that

This phenomenon is visible in all sorts of criticism. Wine critics and sommeliers are always recommending weird and funky stuff because they are so blase about the good stuff everyone actually likes.

Cheapest pizza (margherita) in Chelsea pizza express is £14.95

For me £14 seems like a reasonable price for a main even though I reckon that hasn’t been the price for over a decade

I’m curious what would be a par price in your head? My theory is everyone has a slightly different one depending on age/life stage 🤣

Reform Robin Wales from Labour a few months early.

Yeh but not sure that **improves** the demography point 🤣

I’m not saying podcasting is a relatively narrow demographic but two consecutive podcasts I’ve listened to have opened with the hosts saying they enjoyed the **same** Suede gig in Brighton this weekend and neither of them is a music podcast

Absolutley wonderful quote from an interview I was listening to this afternoon

‘The British are a great country for stereotyping things’

My Match it has ten corners. Ten corners has my match.

James Tarkowski and Michael Keane being the easily the most Manc thing playing when Man Utd are also on the pitch is really quite funny.

‘Studies show 70-90% of people trying to learn a new language give up. Fortunately Babbel is built to that it’s really easy to get started’

The clanging logical hole in this line in the Babbel podcast ads genuinely causes me pain.

I had a chemistry teacher from Sunderland and him trying to explain alkanes and alkenes in a Liverpool school was total chaos

‘No! One with an aaaeee and one with an aaaee!’

And that my friends is why Al Carns has an uphill battle for no10.

Not sure - think that’s mainly accounted for by projection

Counter point: Most politicians would respond that way. I’ve seen everyone from Gordon Brown to …. Vernon coaker? … do similar. Most of how we interpret politicians is our own projection onto them.

in the early 2010s- we produced lots of papers seeking to explain to leader’s office the levels to which you’d need to raise the minimum wage to actually affect child poverty to counter balance the loss of tax credits. The ‘tax credits are subsidising bad employers’ argument misses the point.

Hmmmmm. Given he said £35bn cuts to public services would ‘only be the start’ he was right too

Howard Flight dying is very sad but brings back extremely vivid memories of 2005. Chanting ‘Howard flight was right’ at Michael Howard.

(Not sure I know the answer to these questions btw)

1. How many such governments have there ever been? 2. Aren’t we just talking about ‘Labour governments that came to power at the absolute edge of fiscal sustainability’

Would a Labour defection to reform help or hinder their progress?

I don’t think I agree. many unknowns re Reform and Tory vote next time. But on the ‘more of the same’ issue even if voters did perceive there was some continuity …: defecting to different party that was recently seen as a pariah (it’s part of their appeal) is a pretty potent ‘clause 4 moment’.

The absolute banter outcome is the draft speech was a fake

If you were really committed

In retrospect it should have been clear civilisation was only a fragile veneer when people persisted in putting tea bags in the sink.

Unlike its members this group never gets old

go.bsky.app/B5X2Tsg