I make an attempt at solidifying the connection between two of my biggest loves, David Bowie and George Harrison. They both sang one familiar phrase: All Things Must Pass. What lay between the two? https://t.co/XHxi8KzgC7 #DavidBowie#GeorgeHarrison
Let me get this straight. Work all your life building a business. Sell that business to a rando - charged at 24%. Try to pass it on to your family - charged at 45%. Genuinely insane https://t.co/uNhYXHdn32
In October 2023, I was invited to the Battle of Ideas. The pro Palestine marches had only just begun.
At one point, on my way there on the first day, some of the marchers spotted the crucifix around my neck and surrounded me, shouting, “After Saturday comes Sunday.”
It was the first time I had ever heard the phrase and I had no idea what it meant.
I know now.
It meant, “When we’ve finished with the Jews, we’re coming for the Christians.”
The following morning, on my way back to the Battle of Ideas, I passed the statue of Boudicca, a woman whose young daughters were raped by an invading army, and who, so enraged by what had been done to them and to her people, raised an enormous Celtic army, marched on Roman London and burned it to the ground.
Her statue now stands on Westminster Bridge, looking towards Parliament, a permanent reminder of what happens when a mother, and a people, are pushed beyond endurance.
That Sunday morning, Boudicca had been covered in flags and graffiti.
I was absolutely furious.
I tried desperately to climb up and pull them down myself, but the statue was simply too high. I asked people passing to help me, and a few tried, but none of us could reach them.
So, in a bit of a panic, I called @LozzaFox and told him what had happened.
Without a second thought he said, “I’ll be there in ten minutes with a ladder.”
And he was.
He didn’t actually have a ladder, as it turned out, so we commandeered one from a nearby stall, and without hesitation he climbed up and started pulling down the flags that had been draped over Boudicca.
I remember feeling physically sick looking at it, because this wasn’t some random statue to me. This was Boudicca, a woman and a mother whose daughters had been violated, who refused to submit quietly, and who became one of the most powerful symbols of resistance in British history.
She is the woman and mother many of us would hope we could become if, God forbid, our own children were ever harmed.
As I now watch what is happening across France, as I see images of Joan of Arc being desecrated, and watch ordinary people fighting against those trying to erase, vandalise and destroy the history and culture around them, I keep thinking back to that morning in London.
I remember the physical revulsion and genuine emotional upset I felt seeing one of our national heroes treated like that.
And I understand exactly why people are angry.
Our statues remind us of who we are and who we need to be. Tearing them down, desicrating them, vandelising them is telling you what they would happily do to you.
Laurence Fox scales monument to tear down Palestine flag | Politics | News | https://t.co/ncKSwbHAGl https://t.co/zJ7BtgbkBI
Cell phone addiction is an absolute thermonuke to the brain and nobody 'takes it seriously' because it is not clear that there is any solution in a world where the revealed preference of everyone across the globe, regardless of income, race, age, any factor whatsoever, would rather be on their phone than do *anything* else. Deciding "I use this too much" and meaningfully altering one's behaviour doesn't seem to have much success for any of the very small minority of people with the sentience or self-reflection to realize how bad it is. Most people seem to think of it as an unproductive habit at most, rather than an addiction. Any attempt to speak seriously about this is met with derision, accusations of pretentiousness. There is no real solution to it. The future of human cognition fifty years down the line is horrifying if you stop and think about it for even a moment.
I’m old enough to remember that if an 11 year old went missing, it would be headline news. If they were found dead, it would be running news 24/7 on every television news slot and every UK newspaper for days or weeks. Now it’s just an afterthought. Barely mentioned, if at all.
Simon has been found dead, reportedly from "suicide." RIP to Simon and to all whistleblowers who have died too young.
The truth about Lutnick will never die
- 19yo with disorder that makes him prone to blood clots
- calls an ambulance with symptoms typical of a blood clot in the lungs
- blood test to rule out blood clot not performed
- discharged with antibiotics
- reattended A&E later same day coughing up blood (red flag for blood clot). Discharged again.
- saw GP a week later who sent to A&E as had obvious symptoms of blood clot
- discharged with no investigation for blood clots from A&E again as doctor “forgot” to refer to be admitted for tests
- attended later same day as symptoms worsening. WAS actually admitted but communication so poor and kept in waiting room on a chair after “admission” that he didn’t realise he’d been admitted and went home to sleep.
- died next day at home
His life would have been saved with a simple blood test at any of the FIVE separate encounters with medical professionals.
This is the kind of stat that when you mention it to non-political normies they think you’re insane because it’s hard to come to terms with a government doing this to its own people.
For record so frends can enjoy, here is the whole piece; it was Jascha Heifetz farewell at a late age, and he allowed himself to be more expressive with this than usual...
If he just unilaterally changes the voting system to keep the establishment centre in power indefinitely - we genuinely are in 'Voting won't change anything' & peaceful solutions are over for many.
So much of cinema's power comes from believing that theres another human mind on the other side of the screen conversing with you. Someone who made hundereds small, big, deliberate, specific choices in every single frame.
The tragedy of AI art isn't even that it looks bad, it's that it forces you to become a skeptic. The moment you start wondering if a gesture, a certain pacing, a duration of pause was intentional or just a program hallucinating, calculating probabilities,...the immersion dies, the magic disappears.
Put the ice down. Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay's legendary master blender, is about to teach you how to drink whisky like a sir.
Behind a bar lined with Whyte & Mackay bottles, the man with the magnificent mustache pours a dram, swirls it, and throws it out, "because you want to get rid of any odours that are perhaps on the lip of the glass." Then he pours again, swirls it around, and brings it up to "say hello." He even checks in on it: "How are you?... Quite well. Thank you very much."
Rule one: "Don't knock it back like a cowboy."
Rule two: add water, but test it with your finger first, "because many barmen unfortunately stick their jug under a hot tap by mistake." He says that's happened to his whisky six times, from America to France to Stockholm to England. The target is "35% alcohol," which he calls "the ideal strength for really bringing out the whisky in the palate." A sip, a long, thoughtful swish, "And then let it go down. Absolutely fantastic."
Skip the water? "This is what would happen." Down goes a sip, and his face crumples into pure agony.
Then comes the grand finale. Winding down at the bar after a presentation, he says, there's "nothing more wonderful than the sound of whisky being poured by the barman into a glass"... until he hears "not just one or two bits of ice, but many bits." He rattles a glass packed with ice right at the camera. "This is now Scotch on the rocks. This is taking my whisky, ruining it with all this ice."
He even has an origin story: in the olden days, the Scots went to the river beds and took cold rocks "chilled by the mountain snows" to put in their whisky. "And that's why we call it Scotch on the rocks." His advice if a barman ever hands you one: "Chuck it away. You don't need it." And with a big theatrical fling, he does.
Pure theater from a true whisky legend. So be honest: neat, a splash of water, or on the rocks? Tell me how you drink yours.
Watch:
Meanwhile the trial for the murder of Ann Widdecombe has been scheduled for June 2027. The courts can move quickly when they want to scare people. And slowly when they want the people to forget.
I would think @elonmusk might be interested in a data scraper getting banned from X by the state-funded Communists designating themselves "Hope Not Hate".
Charlie was scraping data from public websites, providing insights the Farmers (the oligarchy) don't want us Animals (the voters) to have.
https://t.co/5F2WxwoG9b