Alex MacLaren
@alexmaclaren.bsky.social
Reading, cooking, counting my blessings. Resident of Folkestone, UK
Pinned
Alex MacLaren
@alexmaclaren.bsky.social
· Jan 24
Oxford English Dictionary
The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.
www.oed.com
If you care about the meaning of words, the Oxford English Dictionary offers free access to its online version via your local library, something that amazed me when I discovered it and has delighted and reassured me ever since. Libraries are the best. Go here: www.oed.com/information/...
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
JESUS CHRIST IN RICHMOND PARK: ORIGINAL UPLOAD
YouTube video by JAGGL113
youtu.be
November 13, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
When you're a Liverpool theatre and you need an absolute cert to subsidise your more experimental programme.
Hilary Mantel story imagining Margaret Thatcher’s assassination to be staged in Liverpool
Short story set in 1983, and published a year after the former prime minister’s death, considers ‘what happens when people feel they don’t have a voice’ says director John Young
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 9:06 AM
When you're a Liverpool theatre and you need an absolute cert to subsidise your more experimental programme.
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
TV conspiracies: we’ve hacked their computers but they’ve perfectly cleaned up the evidence!
Real conspiracies:
To: conspirator
From: famous person
Attachment: evidence.png
Real conspiracies:
To: conspirator
From: famous person
Attachment: evidence.png
November 12, 2025 at 8:19 PM
TV conspiracies: we’ve hacked their computers but they’ve perfectly cleaned up the evidence!
Real conspiracies:
To: conspirator
From: famous person
Attachment: evidence.png
Real conspiracies:
To: conspirator
From: famous person
Attachment: evidence.png
This is crucial - and not just a reflection, but a steer.
Just a note of caution Epstein was sick, perverted criminal who thrived on building social networks with the powerful. Part of that game is pretending that you’re a lot more influential than you actually are. This is also how you scare people into not going to the media or pressing charges.
Jeffrey Epstein claims he gave Russians insight into Trump
November 12, 2025 at 10:18 PM
This is crucial - and not just a reflection, but a steer.
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Just a note of caution Epstein was sick, perverted criminal who thrived on building social networks with the powerful. Part of that game is pretending that you’re a lot more influential than you actually are. This is also how you scare people into not going to the media or pressing charges.
Jeffrey Epstein claims he gave Russians insight into Trump
Jeffrey Epstein claims he gave Russians insight into Trump
Newly released emails show the late convicted sex offender’s extensive network of foreign contacts, whom he corresponded with about Trump’s policy decisions.
dlvr.it
November 12, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Just a note of caution Epstein was sick, perverted criminal who thrived on building social networks with the powerful. Part of that game is pretending that you’re a lot more influential than you actually are. This is also how you scare people into not going to the media or pressing charges.
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Vast sin-concealing chaos
November 12, 2025 at 3:41 PM
Vast sin-concealing chaos
Thank God no nation is alone with its bigots - this is a wonderful thread for Brits of every extraction, and for anyone worldwide with an imagination about their different-accented neighbours
Personal note: London has been home for a very, very long time, but as of today, I am also officially a Brit - that is to say, a British citizen. I feel relieved and I feel grateful - but not, perhaps, in the forelock-tugging way GB News/Starmer expect a new immigrant to be.
November 12, 2025 at 8:58 AM
Thank God no nation is alone with its bigots - this is a wonderful thread for Brits of every extraction, and for anyone worldwide with an imagination about their different-accented neighbours
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
uhhh this actually reminds me a lot of how LLMs function at a basic level too - predicting tokens based on proximity & context, etc 😬 ...so we're teaching kids to read like AI & saying AI level is good enough
November 11, 2025 at 6:25 PM
uhhh this actually reminds me a lot of how LLMs function at a basic level too - predicting tokens based on proximity & context, etc 😬 ...so we're teaching kids to read like AI & saying AI level is good enough
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Writing messages as a woman:
*Types*
*Adds smiley face to seem friendly*
*Deletes smiley face to seem professional*
*Types*
*Adds smiley face to seem friendly*
*Deletes smiley face to seem professional*
November 11, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Writing messages as a woman:
*Types*
*Adds smiley face to seem friendly*
*Deletes smiley face to seem professional*
*Types*
*Adds smiley face to seem friendly*
*Deletes smiley face to seem professional*
RIP Tatsuya Nakadai
November 11, 2025 at 7:42 AM
RIP Tatsuya Nakadai
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Tatsuya Nakadai, Japanese Star Known for ‘Ran’ and Other Classics, Dies at 92
www.nytimes.com
November 11, 2025 at 7:02 AM
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Good for Mark Damazer standing up for the BBC and the thousands of extremely conscientious people who work for it. We lose it at our peril.
November 10, 2025 at 8:28 AM
Good for Mark Damazer standing up for the BBC and the thousands of extremely conscientious people who work for it. We lose it at our peril.
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
inspired by this, I have done a free extract of this section of the book here. it is about understanding that *with all its problems* the BBC is as important for our intellectual health as the NHS is for our physical health:
naomialderman.substack.com/p/the-bbc-an...
naomialderman.substack.com/p/the-bbc-an...
November 10, 2025 at 7:52 AM
inspired by this, I have done a free extract of this section of the book here. it is about understanding that *with all its problems* the BBC is as important for our intellectual health as the NHS is for our physical health:
naomialderman.substack.com/p/the-bbc-an...
naomialderman.substack.com/p/the-bbc-an...
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Depressing that the BBC has so little inherent institutional strength, it is kicked about so easily.
This is not good sign for our polity.
This is not good sign for our polity.
November 9, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Depressing that the BBC has so little inherent institutional strength, it is kicked about so easily.
This is not good sign for our polity.
This is not good sign for our polity.
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
If BBC News's rivals who are today damning it for bias were held to similar standards, most of them would be shut down on the spot.
November 10, 2025 at 8:12 AM
If BBC News's rivals who are today damning it for bias were held to similar standards, most of them would be shut down on the spot.
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Alexei Sayle's Stuff (9th November 1989). The latest teenage craze is a rather unexpected one.
And Pete Murray has a complaint from 1960.
And Pete Murray has a complaint from 1960.
November 9, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Alexei Sayle's Stuff (9th November 1989). The latest teenage craze is a rather unexpected one.
And Pete Murray has a complaint from 1960.
And Pete Murray has a complaint from 1960.
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
![Cartoon by Stephen Collins for The Guardian. Script as follows:
[scene is Winston Churchill in a bbc studio, giving his 'finest hour' speech]
1
CHURCHILL:
The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us.
2
CHURCHILL:
Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this Island or lose the war.
3
CHURCHILL:
If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free
and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sun-
BBC PRESENTER:
Thank you prime minister
4
BBC PRESENTER:
Mr hitler, your response?
5
HITLER [in the studio]:
Vell zis is hysterical woke nonsense as usual from mr Churchill
6
HITLER:
What we are proposing -
CHURCHILL:
Hang on
7
HITLER:
Let me finish - what we are proposing eez a simple power-sharing arrangement -
8
CHURCHILL:
What's he doing here
BBC PRESENTER:
It's important we hear both sides of the debate
9
CHURCHILL:
This isn't a debate
You don't debate fascists
10
HITLER:
Oh here we go with ze Godwins law!
11
HITLER:
Why must you people always compare ze things you don't like to 'fascists, Nazis, Hitler'...
CHURCHILL:
Because you are a fascist Nazi Hit-
12
HITLER [standing up, saluting]:
RAUSS!
BBC PRESENTER:
*Please* Mr Churchill let him speak
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreibw4ldc3fhslbvxgy2oqrof2oys5kpgh7zu6a5f3usmx3lf4547qm@jpeg)
Found myself hunting for the source of that line about a liberal being “a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel”; Robert Frost apparently (saying that JFK was *not* that kind of liberal, also an earlier version from W. Hocking). #BBC
November 9, 2025 at 11:19 PM
Found myself hunting for the source of that line about a liberal being “a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel”; Robert Frost apparently (saying that JFK was *not* that kind of liberal, also an earlier version from W. Hocking). #BBC
If you’re a US citizen puking up over the cowardice of your institutions, you can at least take a tiny bit of comfort tonight - you have company.
November 9, 2025 at 9:52 PM
If you’re a US citizen puking up over the cowardice of your institutions, you can at least take a tiny bit of comfort tonight - you have company.
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
We are so far through the looking glass that the man who tried to overthrow an election becomes president, the people who attacked the Capitol are turned into martyrs, & it's the BBC that gets punished - cheered on by the worst news outlets in the UK & the two most dishonest politicians of our age.
It’s not at all clear to me how the BBC can do any kind of serious journalism if its top two bosses can be forced to quit over such an obviously confected scandal. There is no substantive error here. How can the BBC report on Trump, or Farage, or anyone else, in these circumstances?
November 9, 2025 at 9:08 PM
We are so far through the looking glass that the man who tried to overthrow an election becomes president, the people who attacked the Capitol are turned into martyrs, & it's the BBC that gets punished - cheered on by the worst news outlets in the UK & the two most dishonest politicians of our age.
Stinking, disgusting pollution being pressure-hosed away, so sharing…. If you get satisfaction from dirty things becoming shiny and new you may like this!
A national newspaper journalist went on a British TV channel to claim police stats showed asylum-seekers committed 44% of sex crimes in Dorset.
This shocking claim was treated as fact by the channel which promoted the clip on social media where it was amplified by AI.
Except... it's bollocks.
This shocking claim was treated as fact by the channel which promoted the clip on social media where it was amplified by AI.
Except... it's bollocks.
November 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM
Stinking, disgusting pollution being pressure-hosed away, so sharing…. If you get satisfaction from dirty things becoming shiny and new you may like this!
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️
November 9, 2025 at 9:23 AM
1/ The US Government has quietly removed a memorial to Black soldiers who died in World War II from the Netherlands American Cemetery in Margraten, South Limburg. The move follows a complaint from the right-wing Heritage Foundation to the American Battle Monuments Commission. ⬇️
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Updating my LEGO White House
October 23, 2025 at 2:51 AM
Updating my LEGO White House
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
New York millionaires: threatening to flee the city since 2009
November 7, 2025 at 9:36 PM
New York millionaires: threatening to flee the city since 2009
Reposted by Alex MacLaren
Incredibly classy move from a WIRED reporter who’s just been fired (for what seems like protected union activity) – completely commendable way to look out for your colleagues and their work.
Feels like the kind of person any newsroom would be lucky to have, tbh.
Feels like the kind of person any newsroom would be lucky to have, tbh.
As my general two cents: don't cancel your WIRED subscriptions.
Best culture, best newsroom of anywhere I've worked. I love the living shit out of these folks, and they don't deserve to be negatively impacted by a decision that was made by the parent company, not them. And it's only $2 a month.
Best culture, best newsroom of anywhere I've worked. I love the living shit out of these folks, and they don't deserve to be negatively impacted by a decision that was made by the parent company, not them. And it's only $2 a month.
November 6, 2025 at 7:22 PM
Incredibly classy move from a WIRED reporter who’s just been fired (for what seems like protected union activity) – completely commendable way to look out for your colleagues and their work.
Feels like the kind of person any newsroom would be lucky to have, tbh.
Feels like the kind of person any newsroom would be lucky to have, tbh.