Despite last night's, er, 'technical issues' (and the accompanying deluge of messages in barrister WhatsApp groups), I am nonetheless thrilled to have been ranked by the Legal 500 for the first time, with four entries for commercial, company, insolvency and trusts/probate.

The page says "all-new", but the page itself must be from 2017 because of the heavy use of The Shape from that year's style guide — they could do with a refresh, I think!

👻 Jack Djinn Wail 🧞@jacktindale.bsky.social · 6d ago

Absolutely adore how random the new LibDem membership cards are. There's a Jo Swinson but no Jeremy Thorpe one, cowards. I'd obviously have to get the Dadabhai Naoroji (he lived down the road from us in Penge, his house has a blue plaque on it). www.libdems.org.uk/new-membersh...

MP Chain 🏛️ I recognised 4️⃣2️⃣ MPs in a row. How long is your chain? toys.jamesomalley.co.uk/mpchain/

MP Chain — How many MPs can you recognise?

Pick the named MP from two portraits. One wrong answer ends your chain.

toys.jamesomalley.co.uk

James O'Malley@jamesomalley.co.uk · last wk.

I'm very sorry everyone, I made *another* new game. MP Chain 🏛️ I recognised 1️⃣5️⃣ MPs in a row. How long is your chain? toys.jamesomalley.co.uk/mpchain/

Constituency level data here very interesting. But, if these central projections are the right 'starting point', there is imo no way that the Lib Dems don't end up on 75-80 seats in reality given tactical voting (Brecon a great example).

YouGov@yougov.co.uk · last wk.

YouGov's September 2026 MRP projects that Labour would be the largest party in a hung parliament, were an election held tomorrow Labour: 241 (-170 from 2024) Conservatives: 130 (+9) Reform UK: 123 (+118) Lib Dems: 71 (-1) SNP: 40 (+31) Plaid Cymru: 15 (+11) Greens: 9 (+5) Others: 3 (-3)

Hysterically sobbing and crying in disbelief that they went for “Merry Percymas” rather than “Merry Pigmas”

Not content with merely presenting his primetime talkshow and RuPaul's Drag Race UK, it looks like he has decided to pivot towards running for Senate in South Carolina

Nicky Spence has been absolutely terrific. What a revelation!

Always love imagining what led a person to take up one of the more unusual instruments. "Shall I learn the violin, the piano, the trumpet? No. I'm going to learn the contrabassoon."

One of my favourite things is seeing utterly incomprehensible Tube ads. What is a ZOHO CRM? What does it mean to “grab value”, and why are “flexible” and “simple” bad? Why two adjectives and one noun? Someone in marketing did this and, to my great joy, thought, “Yes. I have nailed this.”

Very strange experience — just had a video promoted in my feed showing the arrest of someone I knew quite well through the same university society. Followed it through, and he's just been convicted of attempted rape and imprisoned for six years. Bloody hell.

Sad that I don't live in Holborn and St Pancras anymore — would make up for the pointless vote I cast while living at Gray's Inn during the 2019 general election!

An obscure academic communicates very slowly with two unexpected visitors.

Richard J@preachypreach.bsky.social · last mo.

Make your favorite film sound as boring as possible without giving away the title. Middle-aged man has an unexpected trip to the Mid West on government business

POV: Your delicately placed googly is about to get smacked for 6 by @williamten.ch

Back at the most beautiful place on the planet

Home ownership: accomplished

Absolute loathe when in cooking videos the person nods and gesticulates with their fork at what they’ve been eating

Just genuinely gasped with delight at this.

John Self@john-self.bsky.social · last yr.

Worth, I hope, sharing the best ever Tipping Point answer again. (If you haven't seen it before, pause it at 35 seconds and try to guess who he's going to suggest. You will be wrong.)

I can't believe how many people are genuinely against the emergency notification being sent — I think it's a completely appropriate thing to have done given the fires across the UK!

Just paid my final set of fees/charges before completing on my flat next week, and I am now officially a member of the Stamp Duty Haters Club. What a pointless tax!

I have become a human pinhole camera. The Sun has chosen me.

Finding the articles about "how to view the eclipse safely" infuriating — watching a tiny speck of light be occluded by shadow through a colander or in the back of a cereal box is *not the same* as watching the eclipse!

Finished reading John of John by Douglas Stuart last night. I can see why this is the favourite to win the Booker Prize this year — a really craggy, complex, gorgeous novel full to the brim with interesting and imperfect characters. The last third of the novel was particularly beautiful.

Learning Welsh at the moment in an effort to impress my partner's mum in Anglesey and getting so FRUSTRATED at how slow and grammar-less the Duolingo course is. Good for basic concepts but I am absolutely yearning for quicker vocab acquisition and some more explicit teaching of grammar

Sorry to be immensely boring, but the Angela Hartnett/Waitrose fennel sausage ragù is absolutely unreal

Heard Sam Matterface say the World Cup Final was on ITV, momentarily despaired, then saw that it is shown on the BBC too, phew

Arthur Fery, what a match.

What confuses me is why John Terry is not only at every match but also repeatedly gets the camera lingering on him

Why do we allow them so much space?! Whenever England are developing, they cannot move for blue shirts, but then Croatia have no pressure at all when they are building to an attack!

Absolutely loving the darts music being used as England's goal music