Adam
@adamcobb.bsky.social
Digital marketing type, European politics bore, language enthusiast, one of those gays you hear about, Eurovision nerd, that guy in the window seat. Next trip: 🇪🇸
The year is 2049. Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has hit some unexpected snags and Siri still can’t reliably give you the weather. Google added direct to brain search results (with ads!) to Android in 2042.
APPLE HAS HIT DEVELOPMENT SNAGS WITH ITS NEXT-GENERATION SIRI, POTENTIALLY DELAYING THE RELEASE TO LATER IN 2026 AS NEW FEATURES ARE PUSHED TO FUTURE IOS VERSIONS.
February 11, 2026 at 7:54 PM
The year is 2049. Bloomberg is reporting that Apple has hit some unexpected snags and Siri still can’t reliably give you the weather. Google added direct to brain search results (with ads!) to Android in 2042.
Have they subcontracted this to the ONS?
February 11, 2026 at 2:17 PM
Have they subcontracted this to the ONS?
Reposted by Adam
This sounds like the Italian version of Lieut-Commander Thomas Woodrooffe * www.dw.com/en/italy-rai...
*Look him up kids, all the most contemporary references are here on the Blue Sky website.
*Look him up kids, all the most contemporary references are here on the Blue Sky website.
Italy: Rai sports staff to strike over Olympic opening farce
RaiSport's director gave himself the announcer's job for the Winter Olympics opening ceremony, and then proceeded to botch it. Staff have announced a strike in protest, to begin once the Games are fin...
www.dw.com
February 10, 2026 at 7:43 PM
This sounds like the Italian version of Lieut-Commander Thomas Woodrooffe * www.dw.com/en/italy-rai...
*Look him up kids, all the most contemporary references are here on the Blue Sky website.
*Look him up kids, all the most contemporary references are here on the Blue Sky website.
Reposted by Adam
I’m just saying, has anyone ever seen Keir Starmer and the Egyptian energy minister in the same room?
February 10, 2026 at 10:20 PM
I’m just saying, has anyone ever seen Keir Starmer and the Egyptian energy minister in the same room?
I’m just saying, has anyone ever seen Keir Starmer and the Egyptian energy minister in the same room?
February 10, 2026 at 10:20 PM
I’m just saying, has anyone ever seen Keir Starmer and the Egyptian energy minister in the same room?
The grim realisation that HMRC has screwed something up and I’m going to have to phone them.
February 10, 2026 at 12:02 PM
The grim realisation that HMRC has screwed something up and I’m going to have to phone them.
Has Wes just hit publish on 4 weeks worth of stuff at once?
Ignore the smears: I was never a close friend of Peter Mandelson. And I fully understand the lessons we must learn | Wes Streeting
Ignore the smears: I was never a close friend of Peter Mandelson. And I fully understand the lessons we must learn | Wes Streeting
I knew him but not well, and worry now that he thrived in our political culture. There was a failure of moral seriousness, says health secretary Wes Streeting
www.theguardian.com
February 9, 2026 at 8:42 PM
Has Wes just hit publish on 4 weeks worth of stuff at once?
I know they’re covert Russians but the Georgian ice dance to Pretty Fly (for a white guy) is just the best thing.
February 9, 2026 at 8:11 PM
I know they’re covert Russians but the Georgian ice dance to Pretty Fly (for a white guy) is just the best thing.
Classic of the ‘understands’ (read about it in another outlet) genre here.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to call for Starmer to stand down, Sky News understands
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar to call for Starmer to stand down, Sky News understands
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar is to call for Sir Keir Starmer to step down as prime minister, Sky News understands.
news.sky.com
February 9, 2026 at 2:13 PM
Classic of the ‘understands’ (read about it in another outlet) genre here.
My one abiding fear is that we come out of this with Lisa Nandy as PM.
February 9, 2026 at 2:12 PM
My one abiding fear is that we come out of this with Lisa Nandy as PM.
This is it - and so much of the 'now' is caused by how he achieved that win. It's like me boasting that I've solved all the issues for your airline because I've sold all the seats for £1 each, the planes are full now! Ignoring the fact that you have no cash to run the flights.
For all the the comments of 'outrage' from McSweeney's supporters about we should all be grateful he seemingly singlehandedly dragged the Labour Party from its 2019 depths and won the 2024 election, very few of them are saying that things are working now or have done since they won the election.
February 8, 2026 at 6:50 PM
This is it - and so much of the 'now' is caused by how he achieved that win. It's like me boasting that I've solved all the issues for your airline because I've sold all the seats for £1 each, the planes are full now! Ignoring the fact that you have no cash to run the flights.
Full credit to Fiona Hill, formerly of Theresa May's team, for at least having the grace to get off the bloody stage after screwing up spectacularly. Somehow feel McSweeney isn't going to take her lead.
February 8, 2026 at 2:27 PM
Full credit to Fiona Hill, formerly of Theresa May's team, for at least having the grace to get off the bloody stage after screwing up spectacularly. Somehow feel McSweeney isn't going to take her lead.
The drone cameras they’re now using on skiing and sliding events really gives you a sense of the speed these people go at that I’ve never quite had before
February 8, 2026 at 11:34 AM
The drone cameras they’re now using on skiing and sliding events really gives you a sense of the speed these people go at that I’ve never quite had before
Reposted by Adam
Which is why algorithmic social media slides so easily into chatbot post-social media - creators who behave more like machines than people can be disintermediated alexparsons.co.uk/blog/posts/2...
February 8, 2026 at 8:40 AM
Which is why algorithmic social media slides so easily into chatbot post-social media - creators who behave more like machines than people can be disintermediated alexparsons.co.uk/blog/posts/2...
I don’t think it’s quite the expiation here but interesting (and terrifying) to read this in the light of @cwarzel.bsky.social’s podcast yesterday which basically concluded that there is a type of person who now thinks only in terms of view counts and the algorithm www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ju...
February 8, 2026 at 8:09 AM
I don’t think it’s quite the expiation here but interesting (and terrifying) to read this in the light of @cwarzel.bsky.social’s podcast yesterday which basically concluded that there is a type of person who now thinks only in terms of view counts and the algorithm www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0ju...
Reposted by Adam
This was my personal favourite
February 7, 2026 at 1:28 PM
This was my personal favourite
Left one of your nerdy YouTube videos on pause and quite like that the top of my phone now just has Brian Walden staring at me
February 7, 2026 at 1:25 PM
Left one of your nerdy YouTube videos on pause and quite like that the top of my phone now just has Brian Walden staring at me
In a semi-related note, I wonder if this is partly why being stupidly jacked has become popular among the elites. A bit like suntans in the 20s/30s it’s gone from suggesting you have a hard/manual job to suggesting you have tonnes of leisure time.
and it makes me think about the (non-econ) literature about how physical strength becoming economically devalued have been devastating to working class men's prospects and status.
February 7, 2026 at 8:52 AM
In a semi-related note, I wonder if this is partly why being stupidly jacked has become popular among the elites. A bit like suntans in the 20s/30s it’s gone from suggesting you have a hard/manual job to suggesting you have tonnes of leisure time.
I think the real lesson from this week is never upset Jim Pickard and the FT Politics team. I am adding them all to my Christmas card list just in case.
New on FT website:
Downing Street has refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer knew Palantir was a client of Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm when they both visited the company in Washington last February — ahead of it winning a £240mn UK government contract.
www.ft.com/content/5bba...
Downing Street has refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer knew Palantir was a client of Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm when they both visited the company in Washington last February — ahead of it winning a £240mn UK government contract.
www.ft.com/content/5bba...
Starmer faces questions over visit to Palantir office alongside Mandelson
Former ambassador was also shareholder in lobbying group that counted US tech firm as a client
www.ft.com
February 7, 2026 at 8:30 AM
I think the real lesson from this week is never upset Jim Pickard and the FT Politics team. I am adding them all to my Christmas card list just in case.
This is basically why I find Starmer so puzzling. I’m not trying to suggest that his premiership hasn’t been an utter failure but, over the long arc, the ‘man of public service ’ bit is true. What on earth happened?
Labour MPs & party insiders tell me they’ve never seen Keir Starmer so angry as over Mandelson’s lies about Epstein links.
But those who know him well say that anger has now turned inwards. That Starmer is, above all else, a man of public service, and will be grappling with his conscious this w/e.
But those who know him well say that anger has now turned inwards. That Starmer is, above all else, a man of public service, and will be grappling with his conscious this w/e.
February 6, 2026 at 1:49 PM
This is basically why I find Starmer so puzzling. I’m not trying to suggest that his premiership hasn’t been an utter failure but, over the long arc, the ‘man of public service ’ bit is true. What on earth happened?
Reposted by Adam
If you listen to Blair now, he sounds like someone doing an impersonation of Blair - he's Flanderised himself - but even if you listen to 1996 Blair, he sounds much more mannered and artificial than he did to us in 1996, which is because we've changed, not because the 30 year old recording has.
February 6, 2026 at 11:04 AM
If you listen to Blair now, he sounds like someone doing an impersonation of Blair - he's Flanderised himself - but even if you listen to 1996 Blair, he sounds much more mannered and artificial than he did to us in 1996, which is because we've changed, not because the 30 year old recording has.
A bog standard Starmer speech is probably the closest to a ‘normal’ person giving a speech we get and look how those go down. Mamdani is as polished and packaged as Blair was, it’s just that he and his team is one of the few to have noticed that it’s 2026 not 1996.
(seen a bunch of people sharing this/talking in general about how "normal" Mamdani is but imo this doesn't show a normal person, but an *exceptionally* skilled communicator - a normal person wouldn't react like that to having a speech interrupted by a child! give him his due!)
Child at the podium: “A woo woo woo.”
Mamdani: That’s how I felt when we came up with this plan. Together, we will expand the idea of what is possible in our city—and what sounds and noises we can make at a press conference.
Mamdani: That’s how I felt when we came up with this plan. Together, we will expand the idea of what is possible in our city—and what sounds and noises we can make at a press conference.
February 6, 2026 at 10:31 AM
A bog standard Starmer speech is probably the closest to a ‘normal’ person giving a speech we get and look how those go down. Mamdani is as polished and packaged as Blair was, it’s just that he and his team is one of the few to have noticed that it’s 2026 not 1996.
This new Sky News thing where they show vertical video reports on a screen in the studio is insane
February 5, 2026 at 11:03 PM
This new Sky News thing where they show vertical video reports on a screen in the studio is insane
I never met him and if I did, it’s only because I used to hang out with Robert Maxwell is quite the excuse.
Mandelson's firm, General Counsel, covered-up Mandelson's relationship with Epstein.
Here's Global Counsel's CEO and co-founder, preparing to tell the press that Mandelson barely knew Jeffrey Epstein.
Who did he check that line with?
Jeffrey Epstein.
Here's Global Counsel's CEO and co-founder, preparing to tell the press that Mandelson barely knew Jeffrey Epstein.
Who did he check that line with?
Jeffrey Epstein.
February 5, 2026 at 1:43 PM
I never met him and if I did, it’s only because I used to hang out with Robert Maxwell is quite the excuse.
Reposted by Adam
It's the Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds for 2026 - no official mechanism to get someone to stop podcasting, so appointing them to paid crown role will have to do
February 5, 2026 at 12:13 PM
It's the Steward and Bailiff of the Chiltern Hundreds for 2026 - no official mechanism to get someone to stop podcasting, so appointing them to paid crown role will have to do