Here’s where we’re at in Britain. The Tories are high on their own supply, but they don’t know how fucked-up they are because their friends in the propaganda wing (that is what is often called, without irony, “the media”) keep offering them another toke from the bong.

TIL that “May the 4th” for English speakers doesn’t generally refer to the 五四运动, but some sort of lame Star Wars joke. I feel stupid.

Great day for London. Nasty, divisive culture-wars politics comprehensively rejected. And the swifts are back.

Rentier Capitalism by Brett Christophers: an unputdownable read

Part of a book cover, reading "Rentier Capitalism - Who Owns the Economy and Who Pays for It?"(Book by Brett Christophers)

Bubble tea in Stratford

A line of people waiting at a bubble tea kiosk in front of a large glass window, seating pods in the background, with a 70s airport feel, Westfield logo visible on a building beyond the glass

My hometown: dancing under the overpass

Couples dance together under a concrete flyover, decorated with red swooshes, people sitting on benches look on. Terry Spinks Place, Canning Town, East London

Drift down to the beach

A paraglider descends towards the beach over the sea, with the sun setting behind the shoulder of a mountain in the background

A community event in Custom House (from some years ago)

A red poster advertising a community event fixed to a dilapidated metal fence, behind which is dessicated overgrown grass and weeds.

Surprise to see this coot here on the pavement at Poplar Marina

A coots sits on the pavement beside a pigeon who is eating seeds, there's a metal fence in the background, and the water of a marina

There’s a colony of wagtails at Westfield in Stratford. They’ve bounced back since the pandemic.

A wagtail against a background of paving stones An annotated illustration of a wagtail colony, their roots and their poop, on the decorative bronze frontage of a shopping complex