Stanley Witchell

Undercover hack with his own website. Elderly AI-free zone.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@somerville_lee @ClonesCyclone The commentators always found that inexplicable. I wonder why he made that decision.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@grok @realMaalouf There's enough in the world (and in this story) to get indignant about. There's no need to make stuff up.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@PaulEmbery @DAaronovitch Anoosh Chakelian's reporting on SERCO and HMOs is truly outstanding. The fact that very little of it would seem out of place in The Spectator might offer some hope that there is a possibility of a consensus forming in broken Britain.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@HeidiBachram Monomania meets main-character syndrome. He assumes his "anti-Zionist" hysteria is of such World-Historical significance that he can become a hero by hurling abuse at an elderly actress in the street.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@Dagenham5 @tsjules007 @5XPAZ I always feel slightly guilty about saying this was my favourite fight because it was so one-sided and career-ruining, but it is still an absolute joy to watch Lacy's bombast dissolve over the twelve rounds.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@GSpellchecker If he ever had any gift for comedy, he has clearly lost it:

"I felt I couldn't pamper myself with the luxury of silence. One of my many privileges is that I am able to resign and I can speak out even if it is to the detriment of my career."

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@GSpellchecker I hadn't paid much attention to Robin Ince up to now, but this torrent of narcissistic blather really says it all: https://t.co/Lk3C1ffMed

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@BritishComedy Damn. Ableist bigots!

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@LeoKearse Framing this as "internalising an externality" is actually quite ingenious. I wish I'd thought of that. Nice one.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@Nick_Metcalfe I thought it was an extraordinary 100 minutes of jeopardy that also defied our preconceptions of both these players: the supposedly cavalier and immature Wu won a baffling, clogged, defensive frame against one of the most cunning "matchplayers" in the game.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@BenedictSpence What annoys me about parts of the left is the utter disdain they have for opinions that contradict their own. Disagreements are judged to be ipso facto illegitimate and the result of stupidity, disinformation and online "radicalisation".

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@philhaigh_ A wonderful match and a splendid performance by Murphy, and Zhao was so gracious in defeat. I hate the Crucible Curse. Given how hard it is to win, and how competitive snooker is, it is ridiculous that we pay homage every year to this spurious hoodoo. It's still fun though.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@Nick_Metcalfe I used to suffer very badly from the Post-Crucible blues, but when the quarter finals are completed, I suffer from what I can only describe as the pre-Post-Crucible blues blues.

(Frankly, I don't want my life back)

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@WeAreWST Poor Barry.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

Last time I watched Football Focus, which was several years ago, there was an adulatory interview with the overpaid Arsenal fullback Hector Bellerin preening in front of adoring fans. It reminded me that the only reason I watched Football Focus in the 1990s was in order to watch low-quality but free-to-air coverage of football player blather, which was was hard to come by. It no longer is. It's everywhere. It doesn't matter who hosts it: Football Focus is worthless.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

It's not quite a non-story, because we have learned during the course of these revelations that Mandelson at the peak of his influence was willing to share confidential and market-moving information about government policy to facilitate insider trading, which by any reckoning should be considered a crime. As far as I can tell, Starmer was guilty of the same poor judgment as Gordon Brown, who turned Mandelson into one of the most powerful people in Britain despite hating his guts. Does Starmer deserve to go? That's a different issue, and all this long and tedious debate about process gives Starmer's enemies a legalistic justification to get rid of him. If he were any good, if he'd laid any foundations for himself as a leader and prime minister, he would be able to shake all this off. "I hired him, sorry, but then I fired him. It's all sorted." I'm reluctant to say that Starmer is useless: I am more inclined to think that the system (and the zeitgeist) is now unusually unpropitious when it comes to allowing politicians to do what they said they wanted to do.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@Martynw34 I agree, but the remaining field is still far better than 2024, which produced the least charismatic final since Dott-Ebdon in 2006. In my opinion the very best we can hope for this year is an all-China blockbuster featuring Zhao and Wu Yize.

[Stanley Witchell @RealRunningDog]

@runthinkwrite @SportSJA In my opinion, which counts for very little, Liew is a talented sportswriter who, as a Guardian columnist, happens to have one or two ludicrously Guardian-adjacent opinions, with which most sensible people disagree. For what it is worth, his colleague Barney Ronay is funnier.