@silentsweeney.bsky.social
Pianist for dance and silent film. Citizen of Aotearoa
Anyone remember “we are the masters of the universe now” circa 2007?
I’ve been seeing this cover over and over and I just…
In the original you’re aware of the horror of falling, but the body positions of the workers are solid on the beam. Here, most of them should be falling off, yet they don’t, because they live in an unreal, consequence-free space.
In the original you’re aware of the horror of falling, but the body positions of the workers are solid on the beam. Here, most of them should be falling off, yet they don’t, because they live in an unreal, consequence-free space.
I guess it's fitting that it's a reimagined, worse version of someone else's artwork
December 14, 2025 at 11:05 AM
Anyone remember “we are the masters of the universe now” circa 2007?
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Another AI triumph
December 11, 2025 at 7:49 PM
Another AI triumph
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I wanted dinner recommendations so I scraped 13,000+ London restaurants and accidentally discovered Google Maps is running a shadow economy. Anyway here's a dashboard and a political economy thesis: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...
How Google Maps quietly allocates survival across London’s restaurants - and how I built a dashboard to see through it
I wanted a dinner recommendation and got a research agenda instead. Using 13000+ restaurants, I rebuild its ratings with machine learning and map how algorithmic visibility actually distributes power.
open.substack.com
December 9, 2025 at 7:53 AM
I wanted dinner recommendations so I scraped 13,000+ London restaurants and accidentally discovered Google Maps is running a shadow economy. Anyway here's a dashboard and a political economy thesis: open.substack.com/pub/laurenle...
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BLOODY AI,a thread:so, I saw a picture online of the Towers of Perugia by a Renaissance artist, Benedetto Bonfigli whose other work I know a little bit. Here is the image 1/n:
December 8, 2025 at 2:08 PM
BLOODY AI,a thread:so, I saw a picture online of the Towers of Perugia by a Renaissance artist, Benedetto Bonfigli whose other work I know a little bit. Here is the image 1/n:
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I mean I have other reasons for treating Labour with contempt, but the way they've treated trans people, immigrants, universities? Yeah, no tactical vote from me! No point voting for a party that's made my friends too scared to go to the toilet, and are proud of it.
December 8, 2025 at 9:06 AM
I mean I have other reasons for treating Labour with contempt, but the way they've treated trans people, immigrants, universities? Yeah, no tactical vote from me! No point voting for a party that's made my friends too scared to go to the toilet, and are proud of it.
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Just when I had repressed this 2024 quote it comes back, like Mike Myers, who would apparently be just as scary if I watched him in bright lights on a tiny screen.
December 6, 2025 at 11:44 PM
Just when I had repressed this 2024 quote it comes back, like Mike Myers, who would apparently be just as scary if I watched him in bright lights on a tiny screen.
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Genuinely what are people like Ed West doing with their lives? Go to Wigmore Hall, go to the movies, go to Koko, go to the Vortex Jazz Club, go see an orchestra, go see the Last Dinner Party...it ought to cure you out of having this weird, unnatural reaction to your fellow citizens.
No surprise that Ed West thinks you have to be white for London to be "your city", but still shocking that the *London* Standard prints this stuff.
[NB 1/2 of Londoners born in 2000 were not "white British"]
www.standard.co.uk/comment/gen-...
[NB 1/2 of Londoners born in 2000 were not "white British"]
www.standard.co.uk/comment/gen-...
December 6, 2025 at 6:20 PM
Genuinely what are people like Ed West doing with their lives? Go to Wigmore Hall, go to the movies, go to Koko, go to the Vortex Jazz Club, go see an orchestra, go see the Last Dinner Party...it ought to cure you out of having this weird, unnatural reaction to your fellow citizens.
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column maybe coming on this but I don't hugely care about what 61-year-old Farage got up to at school? and I think that Fleet Street finally gunning for him is symptomatic of a culture where the gotcha/scoop factor matters so much that hidden past actions are seen as worse than current, public ones
December 5, 2025 at 9:54 AM
column maybe coming on this but I don't hugely care about what 61-year-old Farage got up to at school? and I think that Fleet Street finally gunning for him is symptomatic of a culture where the gotcha/scoop factor matters so much that hidden past actions are seen as worse than current, public ones
Would def be up for watching this
Seven Brides for Se7en Brothers Karamazov - in this bizarre musical set in 1870s Russia, the serial killing children of a dissolute businessman seek marriage.
Police Academy Seven Brides For Se7en Brothers
December 4, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Would def be up for watching this
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Not to sound like a stuck record, but '400 jobs to be lost in city as car plant/steel works/aerospace facility closes' would be treated somewhat differently, I suspect.
Every sympathy for University of Essex (and pressures facing them) but this is very bad news for Southend.
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Essex university to cut 400 jobs as overseas student numbers plummet
giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/... Essex university to cut 400 jobs as overseas student numbers plummet
Essex university to cut 400 jobs as overseas student numbers plummet
Roles to be lost are part of wave of redundancy programmes across UK’s higher education sector
giftarticle.ft.com
December 3, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Not to sound like a stuck record, but '400 jobs to be lost in city as car plant/steel works/aerospace facility closes' would be treated somewhat differently, I suspect.
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personal bugbear: I can get behind this only on the proviso that everyone is required to explicitly mention "percentage of what" each time they use one. Drives me loopy the amount of times random percentages are thrown around without context.
December 1, 2025 at 3:54 PM
personal bugbear: I can get behind this only on the proviso that everyone is required to explicitly mention "percentage of what" each time they use one. Drives me loopy the amount of times random percentages are thrown around without context.
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Christmas at the BBC
![Title panel:
CHRISTMAS… AT THE BBC.
The Traitors Christmas Special:
Who in the BBC Boardroom is trying to bring down the gaff from within?
[Image: The Traitors scene with Claudia Winkleman looking like “ooh-er” while the BBC board sit at a table looking suspiciously at each other]
Apologising To The People Who Want To Destroy Us At Christmas:
A festive extravaganza of self-flagellation before our enemies
[Image: A cozy fireside scene with Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch standing, while at their feet lots of BBC employees are kneeling before them and begging for forgiveness].
Donald's Big Distraction:
Heartwarming Julia Donaldson animation in which a dragon sues the BBC to draw his friends' attention onto something else
[Image: Julia Donaldson’s ‘Zog’ with a Donald Trump wig, holding up a lawyer’s letter to show his dragon friends while trying to block their view of a pile of box files and computer drives some with ‘Epstein’ written on them].
The King's Speech:
We let Nigel Farage tell you the BBC is left wing as if that's some kind of fact
[Image: Nigel Farage as the King delivering his Christmas speech to camera].
A Ghost Story for Christmas:
A venerable British institution is haunted by Boris Johnson's appointees
[Image: A BBC studio with a window, outside in the dark snowy night a spectral apparition in the form of Robbie Gibb taps at the window and wails “I want to destroooy you”]
Christmas Labour Inertia-Time:
Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy present four hours of total silence from under their desks
[Image: Show them both under their desks holding up glasses of sherry]
Rightward Drift Christmas Special:
A bonanza of trust-corrosion with confected immigration panic and Reform coverage
[Image: A computer and a smartphone in a cute snowy scene, both displaying the BBC News website with multiple headlines and LIVE feeds and and BREAKING NEWS stories headlined: “IMMIGRANTS? IMMIGRANTS? IMMIGRANTS? IMMIGRANTS!”]
[Ends]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:4m3we4apbjayclzcnhwe3pfp/bafkreietljvkssrlfwyblu4khsm37dj3753r23rizf7p56rhmo52folnme@jpeg)
November 30, 2025 at 10:17 AM
Christmas at the BBC
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who have what the what.
November 28, 2025 at 4:19 PM
who have what the what.
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This is very true and it affects authors too, because you know that every sentence you write could be taken apart aggressively and in bad faith.
Our information space is dominated by a system that demands and rewards continous and immediate emotional gratification, so you can't even begin to have a discussion about complex issues. It's a bright cancer that spreads and multiplies with every interaction.
It's part of the electionification of everything, which is why we as a country are failing to have a proper conversation about our actual problems. It's bad for the left *and* the right.
November 28, 2025 at 7:13 AM
This is very true and it affects authors too, because you know that every sentence you write could be taken apart aggressively and in bad faith.
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I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
November 25, 2025 at 9:26 AM
I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture.
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1
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God it's so cool that so much of British and European nationalist politics has broadly been shaped by warehouse clickfarms rented by guys in South Asia running "how to make money from racist old people" workshops, and that this has had more influence on media and politics than any grassroots group
November 24, 2025 at 11:55 AM
God it's so cool that so much of British and European nationalist politics has broadly been shaped by warehouse clickfarms rented by guys in South Asia running "how to make money from racist old people" workshops, and that this has had more influence on media and politics than any grassroots group
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As many of you know, I do a lot of volunteer work with asylum seekers and refugees. One thing that’s going on is that Labour’s hostility towards migrants and the counterbattery from Tories and Reform is causing horrific fear and anxiety among vulnerable people who deserve our protection.
November 23, 2025 at 5:21 PM
As many of you know, I do a lot of volunteer work with asylum seekers and refugees. One thing that’s going on is that Labour’s hostility towards migrants and the counterbattery from Tories and Reform is causing horrific fear and anxiety among vulnerable people who deserve our protection.
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A rare 35mm Weimar treat unearthed by Tony Fletcher @BFI archive, starring Andrée Lafayette, Bernhard Goetzke and the multi-talented former Barcelona player Félix de Pomés!
Also new Fort Lee Blu-ray!
ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com/2025/11/dont...
Also new Fort Lee Blu-ray!
ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com/2025/11/dont...
Don't be judgy… The Hangman (1928) with Colin Sell, Kennington Bioscope
This was a Weimar surprise unearthed on 35mm from the BFI’s archives by the diligence of Tony Fletcher and given its first outing in man...
ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com
November 23, 2025 at 5:29 PM
A rare 35mm Weimar treat unearthed by Tony Fletcher @BFI archive, starring Andrée Lafayette, Bernhard Goetzke and the multi-talented former Barcelona player Félix de Pomés!
Also new Fort Lee Blu-ray!
ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com/2025/11/dont...
Also new Fort Lee Blu-ray!
ithankyouarthur.blogspot.com/2025/11/dont...
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TBH my ideal Covid Inquiry would have just to have been getting public health officials and Ministers from South Korea, Australia, and Japan and gone "we fucked up and you didn't, why was that?" and got it over and done with in three months.
November 21, 2025 at 9:31 AM
TBH my ideal Covid Inquiry would have just to have been getting public health officials and Ministers from South Korea, Australia, and Japan and gone "we fucked up and you didn't, why was that?" and got it over and done with in three months.
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SUNDAY 🚨🚨Silent Laughter Day » The Cinema Museum, London
Amazing programme of silent films at the Kennington Bioscope culminating in a re-premier of The Small Bachelor (1927) thought lost for *a century* with live NEIL BRAND! #silentfilm #extraordinary
www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2025/kenning...
Amazing programme of silent films at the Kennington Bioscope culminating in a re-premier of The Small Bachelor (1927) thought lost for *a century* with live NEIL BRAND! #silentfilm #extraordinary
www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2025/kenning...
Kennington Bioscope presents Silent Laughter Day » The Cinema Museum, London
Kennington Bioscope presents a jam-packed day of special presentations, some rediscoveries and restorations and a few old favourites too.
www.cinemamuseum.org.uk
November 22, 2025 at 1:48 PM
SUNDAY 🚨🚨Silent Laughter Day » The Cinema Museum, London
Amazing programme of silent films at the Kennington Bioscope culminating in a re-premier of The Small Bachelor (1927) thought lost for *a century* with live NEIL BRAND! #silentfilm #extraordinary
www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2025/kenning...
Amazing programme of silent films at the Kennington Bioscope culminating in a re-premier of The Small Bachelor (1927) thought lost for *a century* with live NEIL BRAND! #silentfilm #extraordinary
www.cinemamuseum.org.uk/2025/kenning...
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Quite the correction by the Telegraph. The publication in question is @freemovement.bsky.social
November 21, 2025 at 5:27 PM
Quite the correction by the Telegraph. The publication in question is @freemovement.bsky.social
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Mahmood/government should say explain *objective* of increasing time to settlement for 15 years for care workers who arrived 2022-24
Is it
A) to get them to leave? Why?
B) to save money? Then why not just restrict benefits?
C) to "encourage integration"? How? Will do opposite.
Is it
A) to get them to leave? Why?
B) to save money? Then why not just restrict benefits?
C) to "encourage integration"? How? Will do opposite.
15 years for people in medium skilled jobs and care workers too. I believe this goes down to 10 years if they earn over £50,270. Someone in a high skilled job earning over that qualifies in 5 years.
November 21, 2025 at 10:04 AM
Mahmood/government should say explain *objective* of increasing time to settlement for 15 years for care workers who arrived 2022-24
Is it
A) to get them to leave? Why?
B) to save money? Then why not just restrict benefits?
C) to "encourage integration"? How? Will do opposite.
Is it
A) to get them to leave? Why?
B) to save money? Then why not just restrict benefits?
C) to "encourage integration"? How? Will do opposite.