Stephen Bush
@stephenkb.bsky.social
Associate editor and columnist @financialtimes.com. Post too often about culture, public policy, management, politics, nerd stuff, Arsenal the champions, wosoc. Wow! (center) Try my UK politics newsletter for free here: www.ft.com/tryinsidepolitics
This is the point I feel strongest about. We've (society) managed to pick the stupidest way of dealing with this stuff, in which excellent blackface jokes in both The Office and 30 Rock are now memory-holed because American TV execs are unable to distinguish between "joke" and "endorsement".
Three years ago we ran an interesting experiment on public attitudes to censoring content such as Fawlty Towers and Agatha Christie's most popular work. We found that, while context and detail was important, in all the cases we tested a plurality wanted a warning but not a change to be made.
Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 1h agoSet out my feelings about why I just don’t like this trend towards creating a better past by censoring your own archive:
As an academic and journalist, I think falsifying archival records in this way is also professional malpractice. A future historian viewing a film from the archive in 2050 should know if the object they are viewing was made in 1996 or 2026. You cannot falsely catalog the latter as the former.
Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 1h agoSet out my feelings about why I just don’t like this trend towards creating a better past by censoring your own archive:
I've always thought the approach they took to (of all things) the Loony Tunes cartoons made sense. To paraphrase: "Some of this contains attitudes and images that aren't okay and don't reflect who we are now but we're leaving them in rather than pretending they never happened."
Who took this pic, Brooklyn Beckham?
Culture Crave 🍿@culturecrave.co · 2d agoNew look at Batman in ‘The Batman 2’ 🦇
The people hated him because he spoke the truth.
Dr. Matt Loten@intheinaka.bsky.social · 3h agoStephen, I read this post and thought 'is he really middle-aged?' and if Google is to be believed you are precisely one (1) day older than me so I'd just like to say nothing more than I hope you have an absolutely terrible day
EXCL: Trafigura is planning to list an oil tanker business with a fleet of the largest size of tankers, taking advantage of record high rates thanks to the Middle East. www.ft.com/content/a1c9...
Trafigura to float supertanker arm in first IPO of a business
Commodities trader to take Volare Shipping public in Oslo as Gulf crisis drives tanker rates to record highs
ft.com
Really like Chloe Qisha's 'Question of the Day' - particularly enjoy how it uses the 'can't swear on this record' sound as *part* of the song.
Abstract Colour Harmony in Squares with Vermillion Accents https://www.wikiart.org/en/paul-klee/abstract-colour-harmony-in-squares-with-vermillion-accents-1924
Good piece - the description of "what once was the danger den, the Emirates" did make me stop and think - to what extent is the problem 'we can't break down defences enough since Joe left?' and to what extent is the 'second season Eidevall' problem actually just about leaving Meadow Park?
Jamie Spangher@jamiespangher.bsky.social · 5h agoOPINION: Same old Arsenal as Gunners blunder WSL beginning once more thehalfwayline.com/2026/09/21/s...
A deeply weird thing about entering middle age now is the continual struggle of 'is this just age-related nostalgia' versus 'empirically, a really bad thing happened to the United Kingdom when I turned eighteen'.
Katie Martin@katie0martin.ft.com · 5h agoA thing bugging me: When I went to uni, the UK's IMF bailout was a dim and distant thing that happened around the time we were born. Never came up in conversation. Kids starting uni now are the cohort born in 2008 who presumably see the GFC the same way. Ancient history, ok boomer etc
"Can we at least get that probability below 10%? One chance in ten seems like a lot. Could we get it into single figures? Five per cent, I can work with. That’s a 95 per cent chance of it not happening." Comms advice for the AI bosses competiting to wipe out humanity www.ft.com/content/780c...
Investors need to know you are ahead in the race to destroy humanity
A behind-the-scenes look at the work of Rutherford Hall, critical communications strategist
ft.com
echoes of the time I went clubbing as a teenager and the bouncer asked if I was 18 and I said "yes" (I wasn't) and then he asked "are you sure?" and I said "yes" and he let me in
Unofficial BBCNews (UK) Bot@bbcnews-uk-rss.bsky.social · 7h agoLaura Kuenssberg: I asked Earl Spencer who we should believe, him or the King?
Reading this story and playing back in my head all the times I've referred to Warrington as 'a city' in Warrington. 😳
Den of Scholes@denofscholes.bsky.social · 6h agoBBC News - Warrington is 'almost a city' says Andy Burnham - but is it? - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Interesting up to the point where the white boomer aged male complained about cycle lanes. Another Facebook radical.
The Jabba scene is a perfect example. It reiterates, even with duplicate dialogue, and adds nothing other than "here is a character previously mentioned." The scene was rightly cut, not merely b/c they didn't have the tech in '77, but b/c it's redundant and kills the pace.
The problem with the special editions isn’t how they change the characters, which is a much of a muchness, is it that all the changes either look bad or interrupt the pacing of the movie.
The Star Wars Underworld@theswu.bsky.social · 2d agoWhat is your UNPOPULAR OPINION in regards to Star Wars 1977 aka A New Hope #StarWars #StarWars77 #ANewHope
#OpenHouseLondon peaked for us today, thanks to @wiilassie.bsky.social managing to snap up a pair of BT Tower tickets last month. You can watch this timelapse on a loop to experience it for yourself, albeit at 30 times the speed we did
Local story takes quite a swerve just before the page turn.
Yep, he’s going all in on “Charles wanted the children to walk behind the casket with no consideration of their mental health” while hocking a book which with no consideration for their mental health
It is in keeping with the entire saga of Diana's death in that there is zero consideration from anyone about the emotional wellbeing of her bereaved children.
Don’t really think there’s a public interest in the story to give it this much publicity on the BBC. He’s literally just publicising his book!
In addition, I just think the Earl Spencer story is…quite cruel. Ultimately we’re talking about two people’s dad talking about their dead mum.
Jasdev Sekhon@jasdevsekhon.bsky.social · 23h agoI've only this Summer resumed paying the Licence Fee, so that I could watch the World Cup. What is this, BBC News? Is the Earl Spencer story really in the public interest to this extent? Are there no other stories of significant interest worth mentioning? Imminent escalation in the Persian Gulf, etc
Quite funny how the lib dems briefed an anecdote as an illustration of *the type of areas* they were targeting and now its taken as literal. It was never literal!
Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · yesterdayWhat is genuinely fascinating about this is in general the answers are not true. The “Gails = Lib Dems” thing is not true! A thing called “matcha” is available wherever there’s a Greggs!
Lmao, AfD fumbling their one shot at forming a state government in Saxony-Anhalt in the most predictable way possible
Finding "I made Camden my home 20 years ago" very funny, even as I don't really care, given he very famously lives in Hackney? Even the boat wasn't up here.
Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · yesterdayLatest leaflet hopefully answers your question and illustrates my “what do you mean?” in that the messaging is thus far incredibly localist and not that political.
