Chris Rand

Loved this. “The other day there was a large group of friends walking very slowly on the footpath in front of me, chatting. I found this deeply annoying. You know what I didn’t do, though? Invade the bloody Donbas.” dmitryopines.substack.com/p/poking-the...

Someone who might set an example by regulating US social media at last? We can but hope.

Pestilence: there can only be four horsemen of the apocalypse Famine: so, one of us needs to go War: well, I know who I’d choose Gary: you thinking Death too?

Ancient

New boss at work is off to see Half Man Half Biscuit this weekend. I think we’re going to get on swimmingly.

Half Man Half Biscuit at the Oxford O2 Academy. As always, a ridiculously thrilling show and one that again confirmed that the two hours I spend at a HMHB gig are undoubtedly the two hours where I feel the most ALIVE.

This is extraordinary. "AI labs and data brokers are paying companies for their employees’ Slack messages (including private DMs), emails, documents, and code. ... Employees almost certainly don’t know it’s happening." onlinesafety.substack.com/p/dont-forge...

"So let this be the final test for self-regulation." bylinetimes.com/2026/10/20/t...

halfmanhalfbiscuit.uk/lyrics/ The joy of the HMHB lyric project

Lady Penelope Investigates Dudley Moore. TV21 (16th October 2065)

“Everybody’s dead, Dave.” “Edward the Confessor’s dead?” “Everybody’s dead, Dave.” “What about Harald Hardrada?” “He’s dead, Dave. Everybody’s dead, Dave.” “Not King Harold?” “Yes, Dave. King Harold’s dead, Dave. Everybody is dead, Dave.”

There are so many things we haven’t even considered yet that could be destroyed by enemies of the state, AI, or enemies of the state with AI. I’m sure the next decade will be characterised by taking things back offline and putting them under manual control.

Movie posters that could only be put up in British railway stations, one of a series of probably one.

My online girlfriend was so shocked by the Ukraine drone strike on the Russian data centre that she's been too upset to message me all day.

🧵

The world joins together in a moment of quiet reflection, as the sun finally sets on the stupid International Break.

i always wanted to be a professor of tree nuts, and work in macademia

This is one of the most terrifying interviews I’ve ever seen. The slow reveal of the mental landscape at work here. If you don’t end up thinking we should stop these people with as much force as we can muster, I’d be very surprised. youtu.be/lnLDjXy2kRA?...

Interview with Kieran McKenna - on leaving Ipswich, when & why he decided to put a stellar career on pause, and his vision for what comes next: www.theguardian.com/football/202...

Artist: Ya What https://b3ta.com/board/11431761 From the 'Unlikely Siblings' challenge https://b3ta.com/challenge/unlikelysiblings/popular/ #UnlikelySiblings

A couple of dozen of my latest articles about online marketing, rounded up in my monthly LinkedIn newsletter... www.linkedin.com/pulse/icymi-...

Denis Healey: Labour. Yorkshire MP. Defence Secretary (1964–70). Chancellor (1974–79). John Healey: Labour. Yorkshire MP. Defence Secretary (2024–26). Chancellor (2026– ). Same surname. Same party. Same part of the country. Same great offices of state, in the same order. And they're not related.

The Singing Postman relaxing outside Coddenham Post Office in Suffolk for his first Parlophone album in 1966 – Recorded Delivery

"Fifty years ago, in his most famous work, the prolific intellectual Carlo Cipolla argued that stupid people, as a group, are 'much more powerful than the mafia, or the military industrial complex.'" https://newrepublic.com/article/215721/trump-basic-laws-human-stupidity-carlo-cipolla

They’ve heard it. pca.st/episode/7f35...

Here’s a little quiz. Are these characters from Matt Berry’s Toast of London or Wakefield Trinity players? Tyson Smoothy Isaiah Vagana Jazz Tevaga Mason Lino Clem Fandango

‘Crushed By The Wheels Of Industry’

M&S Custard Cream Spread: Britain has completed food One jar of M&S Custard Cream Spread has caused us to question civilisation, breakfast, mashed potato and the limits of human restraint @willyandbill.bsky.social

Here is the trailer for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ launch on 9October that has been banned by YouTube, TikTok and Meta, citing “political” content. X won't even take Bleecker Street's calls. The distributor is appealing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFTf...

One point off the win in the quiz tonight. We got the year of the Gunpowder Plot correct, then changed it at the last moment. NEVER OVERRULE YOUR FIRST GUESS.

Wait… no.54?

See? Al those datacentres are worth it.

ChatGPT has asked me 20+ times today if I want to advertise. I didn’t the first time. I certainly don’t now. For a product with access to every marketing lesson ever written, this is spectacularly moronic.