Rob Miller
@robm.wtf
• writer • https://roblog.co.uk
• strategist • https://orso.so
• umami lover • https://msgist.com/ & https://honestumami.com/
• documentary watcher • https://docked.blog/
• photographer • https://reldn.co.uk/
• Romanista • https://romer.world/
📍 London
• strategist • https://orso.so
• umami lover • https://msgist.com/ & https://honestumami.com/
• documentary watcher • https://docked.blog/
• photographer • https://reldn.co.uk/
• Romanista • https://romer.world/
📍 London
Pinned
Rob Miller
@robm.wtf
· Sep 24
Chain Your Heart to a Star: Fee Warner and the Marc Bolan Rock Shrine
YouTube video by Rob Miller
youtu.be
I made a short documentary! It's about Fee Warner, who for over 25 years has maintained the shrine at the site of Marc Bolan's death in south-west London. What makes someone dedicate so much time and effort to preserving the memory of a rockstar? youtu.be/mc7b27PQTd0
Why does snake oil and quack medicine succeed, despite not working? It turns out it succeeds *because* it doesn't work: roblog.co.uk/2021/10/snak...
Why snake oil succeeds
Few products in history have been as successful as the “snake oil” of the 1800s and early 1900s. But why did these products succeed, when they didn’t work? Answering that means digging into our capaci...
roblog.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 9:22 AM
Why does snake oil and quack medicine succeed, despite not working? It turns out it succeeds *because* it doesn't work: roblog.co.uk/2021/10/snak...
I haven't seen this point made enough, but it seems obviously true: if you make the route to settlement longer for immigrants, they're less likely to see themselves as permanent residents, and so less likely to do the work to integrate. Yet another moronic policy destined to backfire
A few things stood out: Fiscal gains the UK might make by charging fees for people to extend their visas or restricting access to benefits from those who don't contribute will essentially be wiped out by the country no longer attracting, and even losing, net-contributing Skilled Workers.
Part 2
Part 2
November 6, 2025 at 11:03 AM
I haven't seen this point made enough, but it seems obviously true: if you make the route to settlement longer for immigrants, they're less likely to see themselves as permanent residents, and so less likely to do the work to integrate. Yet another moronic policy destined to backfire
@simonwillison.net your François Chollet "to really understand something you have to 'invent' it" link was great, ty. It reminded me of Audrey Tang's distinction between "literacy" and "competence": roblog.co.uk/2021/08/comp...
Build competence, not literacy
There’s a big difference between literacy and competence, but we often conflate them by mistake – and create cultures and organisations that are fragile as a result.
roblog.co.uk
October 30, 2025 at 9:21 PM
@simonwillison.net your François Chollet "to really understand something you have to 'invent' it" link was great, ty. It reminded me of Audrey Tang's distinction between "literacy" and "competence": roblog.co.uk/2021/08/comp...
Reposted by Rob Miller
Morgan McSweeney frantically googling "how proscribe Green party terrorist"
Latest Polling by @YouGov
🟣 Reform 27%
🔵 Tory 17%
🔴 Labour 17%
💚 Green 16%
🟠 Lib Dem 15%
This is the LOWEST Labour
has ever polled with YouGov.
This is the HIGHEST @greenparty.org.uk has ever polled with YouGov.
4 parties within 2 points of each other for second place.
🟣 Reform 27%
🔵 Tory 17%
🔴 Labour 17%
💚 Green 16%
🟠 Lib Dem 15%
This is the LOWEST Labour
has ever polled with YouGov.
This is the HIGHEST @greenparty.org.uk has ever polled with YouGov.
4 parties within 2 points of each other for second place.
October 28, 2025 at 8:42 AM
Morgan McSweeney frantically googling "how proscribe Green party terrorist"
Reposted by Rob Miller
In other National Honey Day news, I quizzed Eddy Grant about this glam rock track he produced for reggae legends The Pioneers in '74 www.youtube.com/watch?v=J16e...
He simply smiled and said "we were always glam"
He simply smiled and said "we were always glam"
October 21, 2025 at 12:15 PM
In other National Honey Day news, I quizzed Eddy Grant about this glam rock track he produced for reggae legends The Pioneers in '74 www.youtube.com/watch?v=J16e...
He simply smiled and said "we were always glam"
He simply smiled and said "we were always glam"
Reposted by Rob Miller
My god, the sheer relief of reading a piece by someone who knows something about this football match and didn't just learn to spell Maccabi two days ago www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Standing with Maccabi’s football hooligans against local police – is that what patriotism looks like now? | Jonathan Liew
Tommy Robinson is said to be going to Villa Park as a Maccabi Tel Aviv fan. Do the politicians jumping on this bandwagon care what they are doing, asks Guardian columnist Jonathan Liew
www.theguardian.com
October 21, 2025 at 8:47 AM
My god, the sheer relief of reading a piece by someone who knows something about this football match and didn't just learn to spell Maccabi two days ago www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Rob Miller
I've taken the paywall off this piece I wrote about the wonderful art my mum and dad have been making in their 60s and 70s, which is also about the general (underacknowledged) concept of late-blooming creativity. I hope a few of you might find a moment to read it: www.tom-cox.com/the-magic-ro...
THE MAGIC ROOM
I'm reposting this piece I wrote a little while ago about my mum and dad's art, which some you might have seen, but many of you won't, since I also wanted to let you know about a few bits and bobs the...
www.tom-cox.com
October 20, 2025 at 7:27 PM
I've taken the paywall off this piece I wrote about the wonderful art my mum and dad have been making in their 60s and 70s, which is also about the general (underacknowledged) concept of late-blooming creativity. I hope a few of you might find a moment to read it: www.tom-cox.com/the-magic-ro...
Reposted by Rob Miller
I made a short documentary! It's about Fee Warner, who for over 25 years has maintained the shrine at the site of Marc Bolan's death in south-west London. What makes someone dedicate so much time and effort to preserving the memory of a rockstar? youtu.be/mc7b27PQTd0
Chain Your Heart to a Star: Fee Warner and the Marc Bolan Rock Shrine
YouTube video by Rob Miller
youtu.be
September 24, 2025 at 8:28 AM
I made a short documentary! It's about Fee Warner, who for over 25 years has maintained the shrine at the site of Marc Bolan's death in south-west London. What makes someone dedicate so much time and effort to preserving the memory of a rockstar? youtu.be/mc7b27PQTd0
Reposted by Rob Miller
![1
Nurse:
It’s become a real problem in this area
2
Nurse:
We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction
3
Show a building sign posted:
Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic
With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it
Nurse:
Ministers, Spads, Researchers…
4
Nurse:
Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely
[Nurse on phone taking a call]
Ok - we’ll be right over
5
Nurse:
We just have a gentle chat
[Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster
Minister:
I understand your concerns…
6
Nurse:
Are you OK love?
Minister:
Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters
7
Nurse:
That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian
[Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters]
Nurse 2:
Give us your phone, love
8
Nurse:
At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to
[We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.]
9
Minister:
YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR
[woman looks baffled]
10
woman:
I just want a bus service
Minister:
LOOK AT MY FLAG
[produces a St George's flag]
[ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreicahofq6s4xow7vowj7dx6odw6ejdwr4kwcmzta7qwi4hg2nvywji@jpeg)
Reposted by Rob Miller
Vast amount of music here and doesn't even scratch the surface. As I say at the top it's the *opposite* of definitive - but at a time when the term has been hjiacked for a very washed-out, lowest-common-denominator version I thought I was time to dig into the vast history and variety of crossovers.
Afro-House
Read Joe Muggs on Afro-House
theshfl.com
October 18, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Vast amount of music here and doesn't even scratch the surface. As I say at the top it's the *opposite* of definitive - but at a time when the term has been hjiacked for a very washed-out, lowest-common-denominator version I thought I was time to dig into the vast history and variety of crossovers.
Reposted by Rob Miller
I think this is the weirdest story I've ever reported. www.londoncentric.media/p/terry-ball...
The snail farmer of London, his mafia friends, and a £20m vendetta against the taxman
Terry Ball runs elaborate mollusc-based tax avoidance schemes that are costing London councils millions of pounds. Yet when London Centric tracks him down, an even stranger story emerges.
www.londoncentric.media
October 18, 2025 at 6:00 AM
I think this is the weirdest story I've ever reported. www.londoncentric.media/p/terry-ball...
Reposted by Rob Miller
We have just joined BlueSky! Since our foundation in 1880, we have reproduced an unrivalled selection of historic maps, plans and views of London. We also publish books and monographs containing original research. See more of what we have to offer at: londontopsoc.org
October 12, 2025 at 11:48 AM
We have just joined BlueSky! Since our foundation in 1880, we have reproduced an unrivalled selection of historic maps, plans and views of London. We also publish books and monographs containing original research. See more of what we have to offer at: londontopsoc.org
Wikipedia's "Signs of AI Writing" guide is extremely thorough and good: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
Wikipedia:Signs of AI writing - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
October 9, 2025 at 1:37 PM
Wikipedia's "Signs of AI Writing" guide is extremely thorough and good: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikiped...
Reposted by Rob Miller
Reposted by Rob Miller
Any excuse to share this again. Heres the mini-doc I made about how an impromptu Ike Yard jam session at the music building in NYC inspired their bassist Ken's girlfriend Madonna to write her debut single
October 5, 2025 at 6:08 PM
Any excuse to share this again. Heres the mini-doc I made about how an impromptu Ike Yard jam session at the music building in NYC inspired their bassist Ken's girlfriend Madonna to write her debut single
Reposted by Rob Miller
it’s a shame we did a joke in noncensored a couple of weeks ago where someone said “i’m not racist, i’m just prejudiced, discriminatory, or antagonistic against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group” because it would have worked this week as well
September 30, 2025 at 10:19 PM
it’s a shame we did a joke in noncensored a couple of weeks ago where someone said “i’m not racist, i’m just prejudiced, discriminatory, or antagonistic against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group” because it would have worked this week as well
Reposted by Rob Miller
This thread is so good.
In the US, the UK, and Australia the centre-left parties find their actual multiracial wine mom laptop class college educated voters cringe, while yearning for the votes of unionised blue collar factory workers who make up 3% of the electorate and mostly hate them.
In the US, the UK, and Australia the centre-left parties find their actual multiracial wine mom laptop class college educated voters cringe, while yearning for the votes of unionised blue collar factory workers who make up 3% of the electorate and mostly hate them.
All to avoid the shame of acknowledging the horrible, psychologically troubling truth. Labour has for a long time been a party of the PMC, by the PMC, for the PMC. It’s just, here’s the thing about the PMC. They are the electoral majority. And they are how Labour won, will win, and can only win. n/n
September 30, 2025 at 8:06 AM
This thread is so good.
In the US, the UK, and Australia the centre-left parties find their actual multiracial wine mom laptop class college educated voters cringe, while yearning for the votes of unionised blue collar factory workers who make up 3% of the electorate and mostly hate them.
In the US, the UK, and Australia the centre-left parties find their actual multiracial wine mom laptop class college educated voters cringe, while yearning for the votes of unionised blue collar factory workers who make up 3% of the electorate and mostly hate them.
A great example of the pitfalls of implementing AI: people who would never mess with/prank/manipulate a human being will, entirely reasonably, happily do so with an AI. From when Anthropic tried to get Claude to run a vending machine:
September 26, 2025 at 8:47 AM
A great example of the pitfalls of implementing AI: people who would never mess with/prank/manipulate a human being will, entirely reasonably, happily do so with an AI. From when Anthropic tried to get Claude to run a vending machine:
I realised recently that, while I'd seen the amazing freeze-frame end credits a million times, I'd never actually seen even one whole episode Police Squad. I will now correct that
September 24, 2025 at 4:08 PM
I realised recently that, while I'd seen the amazing freeze-frame end credits a million times, I'd never actually seen even one whole episode Police Squad. I will now correct that
Reposted by Rob Miller
And, once again, if you still haven't bought my Sleng Teng version of Somethin' Else (or anything else on my the Rongorongo Bandcamp page) then I could sure as hell use the the money! rongorongorongo.bandcamp.com/album/someth...
Somethin' Else, by Wrongtom meets Desta Zion
3 track album
rongorongorongo.bandcamp.com
September 24, 2025 at 12:20 PM
And, once again, if you still haven't bought my Sleng Teng version of Somethin' Else (or anything else on my the Rongorongo Bandcamp page) then I could sure as hell use the the money! rongorongorongo.bandcamp.com/album/someth...
I made a short documentary! It's about Fee Warner, who for over 25 years has maintained the shrine at the site of Marc Bolan's death in south-west London. What makes someone dedicate so much time and effort to preserving the memory of a rockstar? youtu.be/mc7b27PQTd0
Chain Your Heart to a Star: Fee Warner and the Marc Bolan Rock Shrine
YouTube video by Rob Miller
youtu.be
September 24, 2025 at 8:28 AM
I made a short documentary! It's about Fee Warner, who for over 25 years has maintained the shrine at the site of Marc Bolan's death in south-west London. What makes someone dedicate so much time and effort to preserving the memory of a rockstar? youtu.be/mc7b27PQTd0
I'm not au fait with D&D lingo and so I read this thinking it was, like, a suggestion for prison reform. "Why megadungeons are the humane and cost-effective solution to prison overcrowding"
"Why megadungeons?" My pitch is that they are a campaign format that concentrates ideas, maximizes novelty, uses familiarity to advantage, and can be run in 2-4 hour sessions. Plus, between Silk Song and Delicious in Dungeon- everyone knows what they are! icastlight.blogspot.com/2025/09/why-...
WHY MEGADUNGEONS? A Campaign Structure for Modern Lives
Why Megadungeons? Over on the Prismatic Wasteland Discord, a member asked essentially, "Why megadungeons?" This is a good perennial questi...
icastlight.blogspot.com
September 24, 2025 at 7:42 AM
I'm not au fait with D&D lingo and so I read this thinking it was, like, a suggestion for prison reform. "Why megadungeons are the humane and cost-effective solution to prison overcrowding"
Reposted by Rob Miller
It’s the politicisation of the midlife crisis and I’m only half joking. Loneliness, divorce, redundancy/not getting the deference they feel is due at work, loss of power + seeing that decline reflected in your town. What’s more startling in a way is the over-50 female reform shift
September 14, 2025 at 7:31 AM
It’s the politicisation of the midlife crisis and I’m only half joking. Loneliness, divorce, redundancy/not getting the deference they feel is due at work, loss of power + seeing that decline reflected in your town. What’s more startling in a way is the over-50 female reform shift
One of the best things I've read on music criticism in absolutely ages, and the perfect final word (hopefully) in the whole "poptimism vs rockism" debate
Publishing this early, so that I will stop messing with it: On that Kelefa Sanneh "no more mean criticism" article, the long death of poptimism, and why I can manage to hate both Robert Christgau and Taylor Swift: jude-doyle.ghost.io/po/
Poptimism Ate Itself
Oh Christgau! Up yours!
jude-doyle.ghost.io
September 14, 2025 at 3:33 PM
One of the best things I've read on music criticism in absolutely ages, and the perfect final word (hopefully) in the whole "poptimism vs rockism" debate
This is great. "Ditch 'we will' in favour of 'we know' and 'we don't know'" is a great mantra and I like the idea that strategies should be living, evolving things. (Down with decks!)
had some stuff to get off my chest about strategies ~ gilest.org/notes/strate...
gilest.org: The strategy is enquiry
gilest.org
September 12, 2025 at 7:51 AM
This is great. "Ditch 'we will' in favour of 'we know' and 'we don't know'" is a great mantra and I like the idea that strategies should be living, evolving things. (Down with decks!)