Where other people have a moral compass, Trump has a calculator.

If I had a bitcoin for every time someone tried to explain bitcoins to me I’d have a whole lot of bitcoins, whatever the fuck they are.

It’s World Mental Health Day and if you’re fortunate enough to be in good mental health today please show your gratitude by refusing to stigmatise those who happen not to be.

We regret to inform you that the Nobel Peace Prize is antifa.

A shadowy network of hedgehogs and owls, operating at the highest levels of the British establishment.

Time travel is possible. America has just returned to the seventeenth century. Enjoy your public executions, and say hello to Goody Proctor.

The woke brigade are going to put pictures of hedgehogs on our banknotes! I remember when our currency was made of human teeth, each one engraved with the likeness of a hero such as Alfred the Great, Dick Whittington, Barbara Windsor or Jack the Ripper. This country is finished.

Happy birthday to Brian Blessed. Not many people know that Brian Blessed is a highly skilled horse whisperer, but he has to stand in the next field.

Time travel is possible. America has just returned to the seventeenth century. Enjoy your public executions, and keep an eye on Goody Proctor.

On World Octopus Day remember that an octopus feels pain. Its heart can be broken. All three of them. When an octopus is attacked, and squirts out ink, it writes a poem in the water, and escapes while its attacker is enraptured by the poem’s poignant cry of yearning for lost love.

Edgar Allan Poe died on this day in 1849. Doom. Plague. Despair. Madness. Creeping existential horror. He would have loved 2026.

The winning and shortlisted stories in the 2026 HWA Dorothy Dunnett Short Story Competition are announced! See which historical short fiction triumphed this year in Historia at historiamag.com/hwaddss-2026-winner-shortlist @thewritertype.bsky.social @mcinrob.bsky.social

I must confess that when I was younger I expected the future to have more robot butlers and jetpacks, and less fascism and plague, but life is full of surprises.

In England, "Back to School!" is a slogan to sell pencil cases. In France, it’s an order issued by riot police with teargas.

Attending the Tory conference? These are your LARP character options: Tax-dodging hedge fund beef enthusiast. Coked up assistant call centre manager on team building weekend. Last of the Summer Wine extra. Shipwrecked alien youth. Haunted Victorian ghoul. Homicidal granny. Goebbels Jr. Grim Reaper.

It seems remarkably easy to chase American bombers out of Britain. Maybe all you need is a clown car and a person holding a sign saying "BOO". Very encouraging.

It's World Teachers' Day. I wrote a really good joke about it, but I left it on the bus.

IS IT ABOUT A BICYCLE? Happy birthday Flann O’Brien, born this day 1911, my literary hero and a comic genius. "What you think is the point is not the point at all but only the beginning of the sharpness." ('The Third Policeman')

NEWSREADER IN 2006: "And finally, on a lighter note, an ostrich in Prague has learned to play backgammon." NEWSREADER IN 2026: "And finally, on a lighter note…" *peers at autocue* "Sorry, once again I’ve got nothing.” *taps papers on desk, drinks from hip flask*

Every time the tech industry assures us that AI poses no threat, and we should just trust them to control it, we're being told there are no monsters under the bed by a voice that's coming from under the bed.

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing Sun, Which seems extremely warm for October, And El Niño is going to unleash hell, Whoa, there’s nothing mellow about this, Holy shit, this is scary and we’re doomed.” - Keats, Ode to Autumn, updated

My new play is on in Brighton. I'm performing one of the two roles. Running time 70 mins, so if you're coming from London you can get back the same evening. Or stay over. (I can remember when "a dirty weekend at the seaside" didn't refer to sewage in the water.) www.ticketsource.com/act/2nd-chan...

2nd CHANCE FRINGE26! The Summer Palace by Paul Bassett Davies at The Lantern Theatre Brighton

Tickets are now available for 2nd CHANCE FRINGE26! The Summer Palace by Paul Bassett Davies at The Lantern Theatre Brighton, Brighton between Fri 6 Nov 2026 and Sun 8 Nov 2026. Click the link for furt...

ticketsource.com

Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day. But give a monkey a beer and some fireworks, and the weekend starts here.

Can’t believe that a plumber rushed into the cockpit of a nosediving aircraft and saved the day. A real plumber would have arrived late, dismantled vital equipment, and left without fixing it because they were booked to save two other nosediving aircraft in the area the same day.

Trump is being forced to issue threats about diesel supplies to help him deal with astronomical prices caused by a totally unpredictable war in the Middle East that was started by some irresponsible idiot, and oh boy they'll be in big trouble when he finds out who it was.

As Churchill famously said, we shall debate fascist semantics in the New York Times, we shall debate it on Channel 4 News, we shall debate it on the BBC (coming soon)... We shall never surrender! @astra.bsky.social youtube.com/shorts/cd0kC...

But IS IT fascism

YouTube video by Naomi Klein

youtube.com

Discussing what should happen to a woman whom a state has twice tried and failed to execute is not a moral debate. The moral debate has concluded when a state decides to commit judicial murder in the first place.

Coffee is the key that unlocks the vault wherein I store my lifelike human carapace, without which I could not walk undetected among the living.

It's International Coffee Day. A morning without coffee is like an amusing simile I'll think of when I've had enough coffee. #InternationalCoffeeDay

Andy Burnham: Ok, everyone can see that Brexit is a worse disaster than the Titanic, so we're gradually rejoining Europe. Diehard brexiteers: NO! WE LIKE ICEBERGS! COLD WATER IS GOOD FOR YOU! WE WANT TO LIVE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA WHERE WE'LL BE SAFE FROM IMMIGRANTS!