I have a similar feeling about white sauce - I've made it countless times but there's always a part of me worrying that this time it just won't thicken no matter how much I stir

I must have cooked more than a thousand risottos, yet every time the emergence of something that looks edible from what had previously resembled a pond is a blessed relief.

What is truly dreadful is that Somerset is a unitary authority so has responsibilities for children and vulnerable adults. It would be scandalous for such a person to receive safeguarding clearance.

To be fair, “Councillors and council elections don’t matter” are a load-bearing part of the “Kemi Badenoch is doing well and the Conservative party’s prospects under her are looking good” thesis.

Chris Terry-Enescu@cjterry.bsky.social · 8h ago

It's OK for criminal ex-neo Nazis to run your bins is a hell of a line.

Kemi Badenoch is doing well, and it is hard to- nay, impossible - to imagine that a different Conservative leader, making different choices, would not be in a better place right now.

Daniel@deargodwhaat.bsky.social · 9h ago

This is just such a mental incident? It's one thing for him to slip through the cracks, another for the party leader to actively support him??

Fairly sober testing report from the AI Security Institute: they gave internet access and removed some guardrails from latest AI models and found without them they were capable of potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations www.aisi.gov.uk/blog/inciden...

I find it weirdly punitive when I nick stuff from Boots all the time but suddenly I get arrested

David Coveney@davidcoveney.com · 22h ago

But one thing I know from bringing up kids and managing business is that if you expect a rule to be conformed to then it has to be enforced. Speeding is largely not enforced, then suddenly enforced very harshly, then not enforced. It's weirdly punitive to most people.

When writing my book on film noir (more than 20 years ago) I read a lot of debate over whether it was a genre, a style, a movement, or what. Then I read a great book which briefly summarised all this and said "Ultimately, though, the question of whether noir is a genre is not very interesting".

Typically good take from Pete. Literary devices or tropes (“this murder mystery exists to explore the world I’ve created”/“this fantastical concept is an allegory”) are interesting. Genres are just a marketing tool, and not a very interesting one.

Pete Fraser@petefrasermusic.bsky.social · yesterday

3: what is your favourite genre? I hate the concept of genre. I think it dulls the imagination and does nothing so much as close avenues of possibility.

3: what is your favourite genre? I hate the concept of genre. I think it dulls the imagination and does nothing so much as close avenues of possibility.

My partner after we meet someone interesting on holiday and I say “there’s a column in that” for the fourth time.

Kept trying to come up with examples of this and kept running into *another* subgenre, "this sci-fi wants to be in the fiction section" where it's central to the plot but is worn very lightly in style/marketing. Thinking Emily St John Mandel, etc.

Reading another great example of the form: the new Ian McEwan novel where, the future setting exists (thus far at least) solely as a clever way to control the flow of information to the reader about the present-day story.

Stephen Bush@stephenkb.bsky.social · 3d ago

Is there a name for what I think of as “assistive sci-fi or fantasy” - i.e. where there’s a fantastical element but it’s just there as a device to explore the theme. I don’t mean “this scifi is also deep”, like LeGuin, I mean i.e. “the scifi element is a device to move the real plot along”

This is ridiculous. Editing for length is fine (though I think anyone who does that should also give buyers a download code for hi-res versions of what's missing) but "we hadn't actually finished making the record so the vinyl is sloppy rough mixes missing important parts" is outrageous.

idca@idca.bsky.social · yesterday

can confirm i was mad about this ages ago, ahead of the curve once more www.theguardian.com/music/2026/a...

There are newborn children with greater survival instincts than moderate Conservative MPs.

Tom Roberts@tpgroberts.bsky.social · yesterday

Absolutely crackers, extremely self serving as a defence as there is absolutely no chance she'd extend this same benefit of the doubt elsewhere, which becomes obvious in the, factually incorrect, statement on early release she can't resist tagging on at the end.

This is, imo, absolutely the consequence of politicians, media figures and others being actively unwilling to condemn this behaviour

Charles EP Murphy@cepmurphy.bsky.social · yesterday

news.sky.com/story/nhs-st... stereotypically this has been seen as Old People, but not only would the old people of now have often been born post-Windrush, lot of this will be younger people who've always lived in a diverse Britain. The guy with a pregnant wife likely millennial at oldest

Yet again, in the name of the reality check I feel everybody needs regarding the Red Planet, read this:

Phil Hare's Ghost@mrlepus.bsky.social · yesterday

*sɪɢʜs* spacedaily.com/t-mars-is-us...

Petal — Ariana Grande turns ‘unfiltered rage’ into seductive pop ft.trib.al/rcUu1ls

Petal — Ariana Grande turns ‘unfiltered rage’ into seductive pop

As the singer prepares to retreat from the spotlight, her eighth album critiques fame with honeyed vocals and swooning R&B

ft.trib.al

Just finished You Dreamed of Empires, which I admired but did not particularly like. This is very much a me problem, but I realise (similarly to Fatherland which I started but abandoned) I do not find alternate histories satisfying.

right, here's the current full list, JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WORRYING

Jonn Elledge@jonnelledge.bsky.social · 2w ago

🚨🚨🚨TOUR DATES ANNOUNCED🚨🚨🚨

Are we *sure* that “induction hobs are safer” isn’t a consequence of “those of us who grow used to cooking with induction become reckless cooking with everything else?”

Just finished Curtis Sittenfield’s “Sisterland”. I enjoyed the journey but I don’t think this one quite worked for me: I found one of the sisters too insufferable (this may be because I read it in a day so the fights were not necessary reminders) and felt like a prequel to a more interesting novel.

My own feeling is Binface will easily get his deposit back, and that is the embarrassment enough for Farage - 20% doesn't feel implausible but I'm also assuming turnout catering to historic lows and turnout being either core of core voters and oppositionalists

1) I doubt this will happen because constituency polling tends to oversample precisely the kind of “I always vote left, and in lieu of another way to signal my distaste for Farage, Binface it is” type. 2) If it does happen it will really show that the Tories ought to be able to win this!

Election Maps UK@electionmaps.uk · 2d ago

Clacton By-Election Voting Intention: ➡️ RFM: 73% (+27) 🗑️ CBF: 20% (New) 🟥 REC: 2% (New) ⚫ Others: 5% (-49) Via @survation.bsky.social, 16-24 Jul. Changes w/ GE2024.

I love board games but I essentially agree with this - no social situation is ever improved by *adding* a game. D&D can be improved by a delicious meal afterwards, some good wine will enliven a night of Monopoly Deal or Poker or Codenames. But it only properly works as the base, not an add-on.

Marie Le Conte@youngvulgarian.marieleconte.com · 2d ago

happy to continue my journey down Unpopular On Bluesky Avenue and say that, though I do love playing video games by myself, which I believe is a different proposition altogether, I basically agree with all of this www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Arsenal third kit is in the correct colour for Arsenal away kits: yellow!!

Arsenal launch third kit for 2026/27

Find out more about our third kit for the 2026/27 campaign

arsenal.com

It’s the Facebookisation of the Internet - late adopters literally do not understand the concept that they aren’t just being broadcast to by ‘users’, and that they have some degree of autonomy in the world of their social media feed. It’s fascinating and disturbing.

Quoting András, not the offending post because I don’t want to pile on…one thing that has made me a “the phones are in fact bad for you” are the sheer number of people who take zero responsibility for what they see when they scroll and put zero thought into what they are replying to.

András Forgács W@andraswf.bsky.social · 2d ago

I'm sorry that YOU CAN'T BE ARSED TO LOOK AT WHO OR WHAT YOU ARE REPLYING TO

Why do so many progressives want this? I just don't get it.

Al@btown85.bsky.social · 2d ago

The pressure on kids too! In Berlin they get divided after the 6th class (12). My eldest already under so much pressure (despite us trying to remove it) to do well in exams etc to ensure she’s at the gymnasium. Parents going nuts in regards to it. They’re 9!

And is an entire (dominant?) sub-genre of alternate history (Cahokia Jazz, Yiddish Policeman's Union, 1000 books where the Nazis won...).