Sam Leith

The one - ONE - small problem with Rishi Sunak's national service plan is that I'm from Derry and if someone had told us to join the British Army aged eighteen, the entire city would have beaten them to death with hammers I can tell you that much.

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Sam Leith

Who the fuck calls the police to HELP a dog That’s like calling me to protect a burrito

Teddy, a fluffy, 13-pound deaf and blind Shih Tzu mix, stumbled around a stranger’s yard. He was lost. Then a police officer pulled up. Within minutes, he fired two shots. Teddy, a beloved 5-year-old pet, was left lifeless. Now residents are left furious with their city, which found no wrongdoing.

An officer was called to help a blind, deaf dog. He shot him instead.www.washingtonpost.com Teddy, a 13-pound dog, had escaped his outdoor kennel in Sturgeon, Mo., when police came to help find his owner. The city found no wrongdoing by the officer.

I wrote about Drippy Rishi

Sunak’s speech was embarrassingly badwww.spectator.co.uk Let’s be fair. It wasn’t Rishi Sunak’s fault it was raining. But it was, a bit, his fault that as someone who has ‘never been prouder to be British’, and so is presumably familiar with the way weather...

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Sam Leith

"we’re not going to accuse these British outlets of doing bad journalism, because no journalism has occurred here" on.ft.com/3QNNrIa

Bad Swiftonomics (Britain’s version)on.ft.com [FREE TO READ] Actually, it’s about ethics in Taylor Swift economics journalism

F in chat for Tim

I heard some professor put googly eyes on a pencil and waved it at his class saying "HI! I'm Tim the pencil! I love helping children with their homework but my favorite is drawing pictures!" Then, without warning, he snapped the pencil in half. 1/2

Thinking about The Once and Future King, and Idylls of the King, and unbidden there came to my head Amy Winehouse singing “Malory” to the tune of “Valerie”.

Whoop, book post!

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Sam Leith

Literally everyone: Why did you accept Elphicke’s defection?! Labour Whips:

I see the new iPad campaign is going well

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Sam Leith

Buying a new car in 2024 is a goddamn privacy nightmare, part 3591 of an endless series: sherwood.news/tech/how-to-...

How to opt out of the privacy nightmare that comes with new Hondassherwood.news I was the first person to ask my Honda dealer how to turn off data sharing. It didn't go well....

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Sam Leith

It's interesting seeing the comics press going "Why isn't there more talk of Miracleman: The Silver Age"? Meanwhile, we get the kind of review that those of us who made comics in the dawn times dreamed of as a kind of grail. www.nytimes.com/2024/05/07/b... Gift Link

Neil Gaiman Has a Hero Out of Step in a Book Out of Timewww.nytimes.com In an era of endlessly safe comic universes, “Miracleman: The Silver Age” goes another way with the return of a godlike hero from a world more like ours.

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Sam Leith

Author advertising their book with a look at the index. So potential readers can know what's in there.

Ethical poser. Should you be open to the idea of a Russian translation of one of your books? My home-made answer is, yes, if you donate more of the income from it to Ukraine than Russia will get in tax. Does that make sense? Or is that stupid?

Just put up this bathroom cabinet, and thinking of rebranding myself as a manliness influencer. Reading books is for cucks.

Love Naomi’s analysis of craft here. She knows whereof etc

OK. I was supposed to be going away on a trip, but I have woken up with a bad cough (not Covid) and so I am staying in bed today. So let's do this. What is a "filler" episode? Kurtzman I think here is using it to mean "an episode that's not that good, but got made because you had to air something"

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Sam Leith

The Time interview with Donald Trump makes inescapably clear that not just Trump, but the Republican Party, and Republican voters, are the most dangerous enemies that America has ever faced, foreign or domestic. time.com/6972021/dona...

Ray Bradbury first draft

I’m visiting the Lawrence Public Library and found what is possibly the strongest opener for any book ever

My wife thinks it’s weird and ocd and not normal even for a writer for me to hang on to lots and lots of books. Is it just me, or is she right? (I keep many I’m unlikely to reread or refer to, either just in case or bc they’re a memory of a review/interview etc.)

Cracked a rib or two a couple of weeks ago. Very poor experience. 1/10. Do not recommend.

Righteous Saturday night reading.

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Sam Leith

Someone spicy was given the WH Twitter account.

JFC, end the human experiment

This is a very good piece on the rise of choking during sex, from people who don’t raise alarms like this often. I first learned about this trend from Emily Rothman’s work on porn literacy, which grew from her work on IPV. She’s not mentioned in this, but there’s other great resources included.

Opinion | The Troubling Trend in Teenage Sexwww.nytimes.com “Choking” has moved from porn to pop culture to the dorm room. And the consequences for young women could be very serious.

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Sam Leith

Said it before, but I think the fact that we could have a *war in Mexico* if Trump is reelected should probably feature more prominently in campaign coverage and Biden's case against him.

internal cleansing and external expansion www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Trump Asks Advisers for ‘Battle Plans’ to ‘Attack Mexico’ if Reelectedwww.rollingstone.com Trump and the Republican Party are pushing plans for military action against drug cartels in Mexico—with or without the Mexican government's consent.

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Sam Leith

"If you're under 25 your brain isn't fully developed, so you can't be trusted to make informed decisions" I'm seeing this a LOT lately, especially today thanks to the Cass review. And it's utter guff, based on hearsay, misunderstandings of neuroscience, or wilful ignorance. Why? I'll tell you /1

This sort of internet inanity reminds me of the innocent early noughties and now I’m crying

This roommate eating beans