Ben Shimmin

“Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?” “No, have you?”

How the little piggies will grunt when they hear how the old boar suffered.

I was doing my best to be indifferent to the goings-on at Twitter, but Tweetbot stopping working probably will be the final straw for me (I joined in 2006). And I can't be bothered with Mastodon, so I guess that's that. (Perhaps it's just an outage!)

“Knives Out 2” carries on the rich tradition of “Ocean’s Twelve” (etc), where a strong and interesting first film is Hollywoodified into a bloated, self-indulgent, self-aggrandising borefest. – at Ashwick, England

“Smile” is basically “Fallen” (1998, with Denzel) again, which is not really a bad thing, but it needed to be a tight 95 minutes, not nearly two hours. – at Ashwick, England

At least in central Bath, Five Guys appears to be doing free peanuts again. This is a Good Thing. – at Bath, England

I thought Monica Galetti would be a really tough act to follow on “MasterChef: The Professionals”, but it turns out Anna Haugh is great, especially when she’s talking about panna cotta and she says “wobble” (“wahble”). I’m a sucker for a soft Irish accent. – at Bath, England

What the hell theguardian.com/sport/2022/n… – at Bath, England

It’s that time of the year where I usually post something scathing about the John Lewis Christmas advert (normally without having watched it), but this year I have watched it and I just really liked it. So there. – at Bath, England

I wrote my first piece of Crystal (crystal-lang.org) yesterday. It was a very good experience. – at Bath, England

Such a relief to see Suella Braverman back as Home Secretary - like a good fungal toenail infection, politicians of her calibre never really go away. – at Ashwick, England

At least she managed to say “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati” yesterday. I bet she’ll remember that fondly. – at Bath, England

It will be sad to see Suella Braverman return to the backbenches - Priti Patel was always going to be a tough act to follow, but Suella managed to match and sometimes even surpass her predecessor’s monstrous lack of compassion or basic humanity. – at Bath, England

If this is a “mini” budget, I’d be fascinated to see what’s in a full budget… Happy Friday to all the contractors who went perm after the changes to the IR35 rules, which are now being un-changed! – at Bath, England

“the most important event the world will ever see” – at Ashwick, England

This has been a rotten week. First Jean-Luc Godard, now Federer’s retirement. I need a beer. – at Bath, England

“La photographie, c'est la vérité, et le cinéma, c'est vingt-quatre fois la vérité par seconde.” RIP, Jean-Luc. – at Bath, England

This country has gone to the dogs. poetry.com/poem/137253/phill… – at Bath, England

I really enjoyed “The Rings of Power”, though I can understand why it might not be to everyone’s taste (and the IMDb review deleting thing is obviously gross). If you’re on the fence, give it a go. – at Ashwick, England