Happy 50th Birthday, Arthur! I have pre-ordered your book as a somewhat prosaic birthday present to you (also as a late birthday present to myself)... Opted not to go for Kindle version, as the cover looks SO lovely...

That life doesn't get any less stressful / boring after 100 years?

Oh hi, Ally!! Nice to see you here! x

For extra irony, Sitwell was at John Brown Media (Viz publisher) for nearly 2 decades...

Ambulances and fire trucks rushing in every direction. Walked past Holborn stn and saw the ripped-apart double decker bus at Russell Square. Carried on via Covent Garden and into Soho with my heart in my mouth. Was I heading into the eye of the storm????

I arrived at Aldgate Station minutes after the bomb went off. The gates had been closed, but emergency vehicles had not yet arrived. I received a text from a friend saying, 'Don't take the Tube - something is happening.' Decided to walk through the City to work in Piccadilly.

Yeah - Family Hubs existed alongside SureStart centres, but Tories opened more of them after shutting down hundreds of SureStart centres. Perhaps as spin, or perhaps because they thought Family Hubs were more beneficial to the communities 🤷‍♀️

Yup - same with content. I used to write website content for a living. My work dried up when clients started using AI for their written content. Now, I'm being asked to re-write / edit or write fresh content because AI copy is so bad.

There were 3,620 SureStart centres before the Tory govt closed 1,416 of them and set up 400 Family Hubs instead. It can't be a bad thing that Labour is trying to increase the number of centres to their previous level - even if they are spinning them as 'new'.

Meanwhile, in Cornwall, temps will soar to 18ºC with 100% cloud cover.

This was great! Read it out to my 14-year-old on the train: he was amused and actually stopped his FIFAing to listen. So that's a win.

What is this phrase: 'more than two decades ago' all about? So it was in the early 2000s. Is there a point being made? That the women should have spoken up 20 years ago? That it doesn't matter so much, now that he's a drug-free married Christian with children? Maybe that's just my reading of it...

I envision a sitcom where a hapless, disorganised dad has been asked to sort out child's birthday party, and thinks: I know, I'll cut out any effort involved in thoughtful parenting and use AI. Cue: riotous birthday party disaster at a strip club, furious wife and shamefaced dad.

I can't imagine what it must be like for the intelligent people who voted for Trump to read this. Cognitive dissonance overload.

(and then the weather might be shit)

It's a hell of an undertaking! No matter what mode of transport – plane, train or automobile – it takes the same time to get to Cornwall from London as it does to get to NYC!

I'd be happy to host them or rent my house out to them in West Cornwall... DM me if you're interested.