Andrew Lay
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apwlay.bsky.social
Andrew Lay
@apwlay.bsky.social
Teacher. Quiz show alumnus. Economics, politics, sport, food etc etc -all the usual
Just woken up.
Time to check the score from day three of the highly anticipated first Ashes Test!

Oh, oh yeah

#thecricket
November 23, 2025 at 7:39 AM
Sort of post that makes me regret that Dillow doesn't have more books and wider influence (probably down to same sort of dynamics he illustrates here) - I still have End of Politics on my reading list for my A-Level students but increasingly feels like someomthing from another age even if still true
November 15, 2025 at 11:31 AM
Reposted by Andrew Lay
A thread of inspirational quotes from two of my idols: Kemi Badenoch and Ange Postecoglou

(uh-oh, I may have gotten some mixed up... or have I??)

🧵
October 6, 2025 at 9:11 AM
Ha, looked to see what Stephen's reaction to this would be.
It was as expected
September 5, 2025 at 4:40 PM
Speaking of cold northern places, he really TACO'd Greenland, didn't he?
(Thankfully)
“If I got Moscow and Leningrad free”?! WTF does that mean?? What kind of “deal” is he thinking he is negotiating?

He’s going to try to give away Alaska, isn’t he
Leningrad was renamed St. Petersburg in 1991
August 13, 2025 at 1:27 PM
Reposted by Andrew Lay
What I have learned from Unzoomed:
1. God, North America is really like that.
2. The air in Africa is a faded brown colour
3. Christ North America
4. Dakar surprisingly looks like it's in the Middle East
5. I don't know where anywhere in China is
6. I am bad at Unzoomed
7. North America WTF.
August 9, 2025 at 9:52 AM
Let's not forget that the UK is in danger of being left behind in this area 🤪
Sorry to pollute the feed with technical financial terms, but this is all fxcking nuts
www.ft.com/content/8a16...
August 8, 2025 at 7:56 AM
Brilliant observational article from @jemima.bsky.social

on.ft.com/41ugaqV

Others have written on this, but the tackiness/classlessness is intriguing. There's money involved (Porsches, country houses) but also semi-conscious rejection of other class signifiers (champagne, opera, dressing well &c)
Sunday at the garden party for Curtis Yarvin and the new, new right
What you learn at a gathering of neoreactionaries, Very Online rightwingers and the formerly cancelled
on.ft.com
August 8, 2025 at 7:54 AM
Reposted by Andrew Lay
It’s kinda ridiculous that the BBC employs a disinformation specialist whilst simultaneously treating the most visible part of their output with all the care and caution of a bull in a china shop
The most viewed source of news in Britain, btw.
Oh you absolutely useless wankers
August 6, 2025 at 7:38 PM
Good to know.
Presume this means these super competitive farmers can do without and subsidies and preferential tax treatment, e.g. in inheritance. Big changes to conservative policy afoot
Got a lovely punnet of Lincolnshire lychees at the market this morning.
August 2, 2025 at 10:25 AM
I keep seeing trailers for The Assassin with Keeley Hawes, yet there is also something advertised on buses with the same name with a big picture of a woman... Who doesn't really look like Keeley Hawes?!

Eradication by airbrush
July 31, 2025 at 11:51 AM
Think of the productivity enhancements! Stagnation solved
A NEW STUDY CLAIMS AN ALIEN SPACECRAFT NEARLY 7 MILES WIDE — AND POSSIBLY HOSTILE — COULD BE HEADED TOWARD EARTH
July 30, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Is today's NYT Strands the game editors rebelling at the servile main paper, the whole paper finding its voice, or just random and deeply ironic?
July 30, 2025 at 8:55 AM
This of course is funny but also deeply profound. Maybe the domestic robots are coming, but it's striking how much effort and resource is being channelled towards replacing/enhancing creative actions that we enjoy and make us human and comparatively little towards replacing actual drudgery
but can AI put the bins out? no, no it can’t, and that’s why we’ll always be best
July 29, 2025 at 7:00 PM
Reposted by Andrew Lay
I am the largest language model anyone could ever need
I’m trained on hefty datasets that no one sane would ever read
I’ll answer any question with great eloquence and attitude
As long as you indulge me with a little factual latitude
stroppyeditor.wordpress.com/2025/07/29/t...
The largest language model anyone could ever need
(With apologies to Gilbert and Sullivan) I am the largest language model anyone could ever needI’m trained on hefty datasets that no one sane would ever readI’ll answer any question with great eloq…
stroppyeditor.wordpress.com
July 29, 2025 at 10:01 AM
Let's check in on the Marginal Revolution guys and see if they have anything to say

...

...

<crickets>
It’s important to note that George Mason is generally regarded as one of the more conservative public universities in the country. They’ve gotten tons of Koch money and their law school is named after Scalia. And still, this is how the Trump admin treats them.
Faculty who wrote to defend their president and object to a DOJ investigation of their university...are now being investigated by the DOJ.
The most banal defense of free speech and academic freedom will trigger the full wrath of the US government now.
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/28/u...
July 29, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Hahaha "assassinate the president's character"
Going to need a very accurate sniper to locate what minuscule character he has
the JD stands for Jeffrey Defender
July 25, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Grok not looking forward to the start of The Hundred either, then
Thought y’all needed to know that Grok has pencilled in civil war in Britain for a week on Tuesday
July 24, 2025 at 7:21 PM
As a Spurs fan and a Radio 3 listener this seems an unlikely and exciting confluence of interests
July 16, 2025 at 4:05 PM
Sure Mr Goodhart will be pleased to learn the true Anywheres are in fact miserable and people he thought were Anywheres actually quite like being Somewhere
can't believe that living rootlessly leaves you feeling rootless and moving to a country in a state of economic and political implosion is suboptimal
July 1, 2025 at 7:13 AM
Except it's nearly always a different audio quality and in some cases a completely different volume
It should be forbidden for podcast hosts to be narrating the ads on their own podcast. It makes it much harder to skip ahead to where it gets relevant again.
June 26, 2025 at 6:09 PM
How many days until the "Trump Resort Bandar Abbas" AI video?
Rubio on CBS: "This wasn't a regime change move."
Vance on ABC: "Well, first of all, we don't want to achieve regime change."
Vance on NBC: "our view has been very clear that we don't want a regime change."
Trump, not waiting even 24 hours to undercut and humiliate them:
June 22, 2025 at 9:41 PM
Of course I know what it means, but I find it amusing to see countries listed alongside power sources.
Shovel more chunks of France into the furnace!
Another day with an almost completely decarbonised grid.
June 20, 2025 at 12:51 PM
Reposted by Andrew Lay
Every guy with a tragic backstory (in a movie):
June 20, 2025 at 9:56 AM
Just popping out so will take the opportunity, given the cricket's on, to try out the Goodhart-Tebbit test, where the first ethnic minority person I find at a bus stop will be treated to a joke about who they're supporting at Headingley
Has *anyone* heard of the "integration bus stop test" before today?
Among the many oddities is this paragraph. If you try and “share a joke” with a stranger at a bus stop, then *you* are the person who has failed to even remotely integrate into London life. It’s the first rule anyone learns.
June 20, 2025 at 8:16 AM