I would like to launch a formal complaint against Gen Z. I am increasingly noticing members of this generation writing things like “Sureeee no problem” or “OMG I would dieeee”. They are extending the wrong vowel sound and frankly I haaaaate it

Day after the solstice and oh boy the nights are really drawing in aren’t they

Turn it off. Stop using it. Turn it off. Stop. Stop. Stop. If every time I was wrong about something, a gallon of precious water was boiled into the sky, my neighbourhood got polluted and someone lost their job, people would stop asking me things.

Phantom Corsair @phantomcorsair.bsky.social · last yr.

When I searched to see if Mary Shelley and Jane Austen could have met in Bath, Google AI informed me that they were, in fact, sisters...

Can you imagine emailing someone and actually receiving this as their out of office? Lol

It's what Tony Benn would have wanted... #ai

This is what they tell me…

Thrilled that the Civil Service World podcast is back, after the briefest of (5-year) hiatuses! Ep1 of the revamped series features DSIT innovation guru Claire Donaldson. Have a listen & add us to your feed - there'll be lots more episodes over the next few weeks! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/c...

Changemakers: Fostering innovation in government

Podcast Episode · The Civil Service World Podcast · 12/05/2025 · 32m

podcasts.apple.com

[Youth Pastor voice] You know who else had a man cave?

The placement of these googly eyes on this poster has brought me so much joy

Something has happened to French restaurant names since I last came here… a 🧵

There is a Simpsons moment for everything ❤️

Tried to google the word count of On the Road.

I am so sick of things “hitting different”. I just saw an ad for a fruity shower gel on the back of a bus with the words “NATURE HITS DIFFERENT” emblazoned in massive letters. Fuck that!

This would be almost funny if it weren’t so serious www.bbc.com/news/article...

US goverment seeks to rehire recently fired nuclear workers - BBC News

It is having problems contacting people who were fired in Trump's blitz to shrink the federal workforce.

bbc.com

Empowering, humble, candid, sweary (!) & v witty opening keynote speech from Baroness Louise at CSW’s inaugural Collaboration Conference #CSWcollab25

Great interview by my colleague @tevyemarkson.bsky.social with the ex-perm sec of DfID Mark Lowcock. Lowcock does not pull his punches when talking about his former department's decline... www.civilserviceworld.com/in-depth/art...

Arrested development: Interview with former DFID perm sec Mark Lowcock

CSW speaks to Mark Lowcock, the longest-serving perm sec of the Department for International Development, about the rise and fall of the department...

civilserviceworld.com

Traitors: peacock shriek overdone. Discuss.

Still obsessed with this: after all the DOGE guff literally the first thing that Trump has said he will do is establish a new arm of the federal bureaucracy on Day One

⬇️ this is deeply alarming and upsetting. (Also, an account by the name of dominiccummings is replying to all the replies with emojis. If it is the man himself, it would appear that spreading misinformation and undermining our democracy is all just a game to him)

Hardeep Matharu@hardeepmatharu.bsky.social · 2y ago

Dominic Cummings is reportedly advising Elon Musk on his interventions in British politics. Chimes with what I have heard recently of Cummings' interest in harnessing big tech to launch a challenger movement in the UK.

Just in from mammoth interview session to two bits of news. One that a DV perp got locked up because of something I did and that a vulnerable constituent had a a massive wrongful debt written off after our intervention. This is why I came to politics, this is why I'll just keep cracking on.

We are just sending the final pages of the new issue of CSW to press and I think this - from a feature about machinery of government changes and defunct departments - might be my favourite bit

4yo daughter took pic of me on the loo with her sub-polaroid camera and waved the pic in my face saying “you can only have this if you stay in your bed all night!” Parroting my words back at me, yes, but she came up with the sextortion part all on her own. Impressive.

This is insane?

Culture Crave 🍿@culturecrave.co · 2y ago

Meta confirms they plan to add tons of AI-generated users to Facebook and Instagram They will have bios, profile pics and can share content (via Financial Times)

@alexolorenshaw.bsky.social will you lurk, or treat us to your thoughts?

To me this screams non-story. If, for example, each of the DWP’s c.90,000 officials — after years of austerity/pay restraint/inflation — has taken home a shopping voucher worth £68 as their bonus, good for them. Richly deserved I say.

There are more than 10m children in school in the UK…but, per Times, 3,000 might move to state sector because of VAT rise…so Whitehall is “braced” 😲😲😲 Says a lot about UK media bubble, the way this story is reported. You pay VAT on luxuries. Private schooling is that.

Despite popular demand, I am once again thrusting horrifying Victorian Christmas cards under your noses. First: Frog on Frog violence

The remake of You’ve Got Mail looks shit

Just falling asleep when you remember you didn’t move the effing elf on the shelf. I never wanted to be an elf on the shelf family, damnit!