Benjamin Pring

@rockmarooned Thx for sharing that @rockmarooned I had forgotten that interview and back story.

Not at all a nightly talk-show viewer, but watching Colbert's finale, looking up the Elvis Costello deep cut he chose, and found him speaking beautifully at length about its meaning to him, over a decade ago npr.org/transcripts/16…

@RollingHedge Brilliant analysis. Absolutely first class. 💯 agree.

Layman version, as I know some of this stuff is dry and technical in nature: Parts One and Two said the country is in trouble. This Part Three is what to do about it, across three areas. Money first, because it is the easiest. The moves are reversible. Reduce exposure to UK government debt. Buy gold and uranium. Hold dollars. Own the basic infrastructure of the AI buildout, like power and chips, not the software firms. Pile money into your pension now while the tax break is generous, because a broke government will eventually grab it. Treat your house as a home, not a piggy bank. Family next, and this is the hardest because you cannot undo it. Five options. Leave the country. Move somewhere in Britain that still works. Sort the kids’ schooling before the system gets worse. Live in Britain but earn your money abroad. Or stay and build a good life here despite it all. Leaving makes sense for any family that can. The argument for staying is that the country needs the people who could leave to choose not to. Politics last, because it is the slowest. Labour and the Tories are spent. Reform is the only party that can actually win, though its policy thinking is incomplete on AI. The SDP has the best ideas but cannot win seats, and its work keeps getting quietly borrowed by others. Restore Britain is doing useful organising work in the background and has just published an energy paper that looks suspiciously like the SDP’s. The Greens are unserious crazed infants and not worth more than a mention. So back the ideas, push Reform to adopt them, and help close the gap between what voters feel and what is really causing it. The vision for Britain I have is called Anglofuturism. Build Britain again. Make Britain Rich Again. Five things matter: force AI gains into lower prices for consumers, build proper energy supply (gas and coal now, nuclear after), unwind the housing wealth that is crushing the young, point British savings at British businesses, and retrain workers displaced by AI. There is a darker possibility worth naming. If AI replaces humans in nearly everything, society could end up looking Roman, with a small elite owning the machines and the rest of the population kept quiet by handouts. In that world, who owns the infrastructure is the only question that matters. And immigration stops being about money and becomes about something more sinister: a ruling class importing dependent voters while encouraging productive people to leave, because in a world without work, votes matter, not workers. Four ways this could end. The good outcome where Britain renews itself. A muddle-along second tier. A bond market crisis that forces a rough populist settlement. Or the worst case, where the elite owns everything, welfare becomes patronage, the talented leave, and Britain becomes a hollow shell. That last one is what this whole project exists to stop. History is clear. Countries are not destroyed from outside before being hollowed out from within. The work of saving them has to be done on purpose, by the generation that inherits them. That is the choice. Brace yourselves. Then build.

@England @julesbreach Brilliant!!! Come on @England !!!

Come Together.

@USATODAY I loved the Colbert Report - brilliant satire of politics and the media. The Late Show had none of the same brilliance. Initially cringe as Colbert tried to adapt. Then it locked on to TDS and just became repetitive and boring. Interesting to see if he has another trick to play.

Opinion: The “Late Show” finally goes dark, years after Stephen Colbert drove away those who don't see the world the way he sees it.  I'm glad to see him go. usatoday.com/story/opinion/…

@CynicalPublius This is exactly what the West’s opponents are doing to us.

If you want to know what is actually happening in Iran, please read this incredibly thoughtful and well-researched article.

@EkoLovesYou I have a morning book, a loo book, and an evening book on the go most of the time.

at any given time i have ~20 books open around the house like browser tabs, freely flipping back and forth

@DiaperDiplomacy @YouTubeCreators Keep up the great work!

"we see you." Silver Play Button. 127K subscribers. Featured in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Shared by the White House Press Secretary, current White House Cabinet members, and members of Congress from both parties. Demonetized for "inauthentic content." Appeal video never reviewed. Two identical template responses. Same bullet points. Word for word. I record every facial expression myself on my iPhone for every single video. There is nothing mass produced about my channel. What exactly does a creator have to do to get a human review? @YouTube @TeamYouTube

to the creator who feels like giving up: don't, we see you

Search is full of ads and wrong answers. Every other email is an ad. Prime Video charges you and shows ads. Paramount? Ads. Peacock? YouTube? Hulu? Ads followed by more ads. Netflix full of ads. Meta and X, every other thing is an ad. Pinterest is nothing but ads. AI is in everything. AI finishes sentences incorrectly and won’t stop. AI reads your email and search history to target you with more ads. Every time you open an app or visit a site there’s an update making it worse. In a hurry? First, click here to agree to terms you don’t have time to read and must accept. You need an account to do that. Change your temporary password. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email and enter that code. Now use a passkey. Your password is too simple to remember. Change it. No, not like that. Now log on. Enter your 2FA code. Check your email for a code… Welcome back! We’ve updated our terms of service and privacy policy (you have none). Subscribe to the site. Subscribe to Netflix. Subscribe to toilet paper. Subscribe to these groceries. Pay a membership fee for the right to subscribe then tip your driver who delivers the subscriptions your membership lets you subscribe to. Time to work? We’ve got to update your laptop and will slow down everything you do until you agree to update. But first, click here to agree. Update installed — your laptop’s broken now. It doesn’t matter, since your boss just replaced you with AI. Go to your phone to complain on social media. Wait, your phone needs an update so we can add more AI. Click here. Oh sorry, your phone can’t handle this update. Now it’s useless. Go get the newest phone. Here’s a text from a friend, an email, a voice mail they left three days ago but you didn’t see until now because of sync problems with the cloud. It’s their GoFundMe. Their MLM. Their Patreon. Never mind, you didn’t respond to their text within 9 minutes and now you’re no longer friends. They blocked you. Make new friends. Download this app to find people in your area. In your neighborhood. On your street. Two doors down from you. Do you know this person yet, we think you’d get along. You need an account to use this app. That username is taken. Enter a password. Not that one, you used it on another site. You need to be connected to WiFi to download the app. Allow the app to connect to other devices on your network. Allow the app to access your contacts, know your precise location, store your credit card details. Oops, sorry, we got hacked now all that info is available on the web. There’s a class action suit. You can join. It’ll take a decade to get your $3.73 share of the ten billion settlement. We’ll send it via PayPal or deposit it to your bank, just tell us those details. Oh no, another hack. That info is circulating now, too. Here’s a spam call, a spam email, a spam text. Why are you angry? Why are you talking about getting rid of your phone? Why don’t you like AI, it lets us make all of this easier? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds? This is progress. You’ll be left behind. Do you want to be left behind? Do you???

@amasad This is the way.

Thrilled to support the education GOAT as he reinvents education (again).

@RoyalFamily Your finest moment Sir.

The King addresses a Joint Session of Congress, following in his mother’s footsteps after Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to do so in 1991.   📷 PA / House Creative Services

@HaroldFordJr My wife and I - Brits in the 🇺🇸 since 2000 - are big fans of yours @HaroldFordJr. We really value and appreciate these lovely words. God bless the 🇺🇸 and 🇬🇧 (and please run for President).

Great speech by King Charles to the joint meeting of Congress! It was compelling, eloquent, humorous, uplifting, genuine and reminded us all of the extraordinary relationship and values we share with the United Kingdom

@batcountry1980 @SalvadorDafti I was there!

@SalvadorDafti You seen the clip of Costello doing this with the orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall? Outstanding.

The Flying Burrito Brothers - Hot Burrito #1 A beautiful ballad with a clear southern soul influence, as Gram grasps for something, or someone, just out of reach; while also hiding heart-wrenching lyrics under a silly title. 1969.

@willgkelleher @CharlieFelix @TimesSport If they break the traditional opponents/rotation the whole thing will be done within the next twenty years. As someone who has seen their beloved @WaspsRugby die, this would be heartbreaking.

Oo Lions tour to France! Epic! Oh hang on, it's actually “fan engagement and monetisation” and how can we “grow commercial value even further”. On the Lions, who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. @TimesSport thetimes.com/sport/rugby-un…

@frankbrunoboxer Well said @frankbrunoboxer

Morning Happy St Georges Day despite all the negative issues going on in our country I still love this country. I have travelled the World and yes for a quick fix there are some amazing and far better places. But to live, rain snow & sun and more important the people you cannot beat good old England!

@waspsblog @joe_launch Great man! Yes, so painful (but yet v interesting) to hear all this detail of that dark period. #onceawasp

Well worth a watch. The part about the demise of Wasps is tough viewing. What a role model @joe_launch is. youtu.be/v-fKZv8426Y?si…

@TimesSport @willgkelleher Great man. #onceawasp

"I was probably on the way out a few times but managed to remodel a few things ... I showed resilience to play as many times as I did." Joe Launchbury speaks to @willgkelleher about Eddie Jones, retirement... and getting revenge on Joe Marler 🔽 #Echobox=1776714809" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">thetimes.com/sport/rugby-un…

@batcountry1980 Nice one Sir!

I could, and often do, talk about Elvis Costello’s skills as a songwriter for hours. He’s my favourite lyricist. It’s the edge, the venom dripping from each phrase, coupled with the dexterous wordplay and rapier wit. But one of my favourite Costello moments isn’t a lyric at all. It’s a pause. A half second pause, easily missed. But once you hear it, once you understand what it’s doing, that empty space says more than most writers could manage in a verse. In ‘The Element Within Her’, “la” is everywhere. It comes and goes like a riff, sung over and over so many times that you stop hearing it as a word at all. It becomes melodic filler, something to prop the song up. It’s a meaningless refrain, or so it seems. There’s one moment, just one, where a single “La” is followed by the faintest pause. It’s minuscule, but it’s enough. That one syllable detaches itself from the rest and attaches itself to the lyric. Now, it’s no longer refrain. It has become speech. You can hear it if you listen closely. The lyrics confirm it: But back in the bedroom With her electric heater He says, “Are you cold?” She says, “No, but you are, la” La la la la, la la la la Now this “La” belongs to her, the woman in the room, stuck with this icy-cold character, her electric heater doing what it can. In that single syllable, the song reveals its world. This isn’t just a bedroom, but a bedroom in Liverpool. Not just a voice, but a Scouse voice. This use of “La” gives the moment a lived-in specificity that wasn’t there before. “La” is a Liverpool term of address, something like “mate” or “pal,” but softer, shaped by the rhythms of Scouse speech. They use it a lot. There’s even a band named after it. Costello’s connection to the city runs deep through his family. Yet he is a Londoner. His time living in Liverpool was brief, from about age 16 to 19. Then he returns to London. So that tiny pause, that fraction of a second that splits countless “la”s marks this moment as a specific memory. A set time and place in his life. What’s remarkable is how little he does to underline it. It’s almost for his own amusement. It’s there to be found, but he does less than zero to point it out. If you don’t know “la,” you’ll miss it entirely. Even if you do, you might only half-notice it, something that flickers past without quite settling. The liner notes make it clearer, but the song itself flies past it. And once you do hear it, once you recognise how deliberate that single “La” is, it opens up another possibility. That it came first. That all the other “la”s repeated to the point of meaninglessness, aren’t just there to carry the melody, but to bury this one. To disguise it. To let it pass unnoticed unless you’re paying attention. That’s a songwriter playing games with his own material. And that’s what I love about this moment. Here’s a lyricist celebrated for his words, for packing lines with imagery, with bite, with complexity. But here, he goes beyond words entirely. He’s using breath. With a flickering pause, he’s turning something so simple into character and context. Not through what’s said, but through the slightest space around it. That’s the level we’re dealing with. I don’t know anyone else who could take something as throwaway as “La”, fill a song with it countless times, and yet by pausing for half a second, make one of them unlock hidden secrets. Man, he’s good.

@MoarPart @ITV Yes, Heisenberg’s Theory of Documentaries 🤣 But just such an amazing record of the passing of time, lives, and the world around us.

70 Up is back… one last time. From 1964 to now, the groundbreaking television journey that has followed the lives of 14 people completes its final chapter 📖

@LizWebsterSBF Churchill said there should be a United States of Europe but that Britain shouldn’t be in it. Convenient that Mr Heseltine omitted the punchline.

⭐ Michael Heseltine, the highlights: ✅ My only regret is that I wasn’t PM. But I certainly wouldn’t want to be in such a neutered position as the PM is today. ✅ Nigel Farage is one of the most menacing developments in modern politics. To have him anywhere near the centre of power would be appalling. He is Donald Trump’s vicar in Britain. You’ve only got to look at what Trump is doing on the world stage to realise just how ill thought out Farage’s policies are. ✅ The government is stark raving mad. Their tax regimes are destroying great swathes of wealth-creating activity and forcing a large number of entrepreneurs and investors out of the country. That’s the most appalling misjudgment. ✅ Keir Starmer is on a world stage over which he has very little influence and control. First, because it’s largely dominated by Trump and the Israelis. Second, because we have left the European Union, so we’re away from our allies there. Starmer is constantly demanded in one part of the world or the other. If he didn’t go, he would be much criticised. If he does go, he’s criticised for being out of the country. It must be an exhausting experience. ✅ In the Sixties we had Enoch Powell with his speeches about immigration. Now we’ve got Farage. I’ve lived through it all before. It is the easiest thing in the world to stir up tension against people who are different. He is oblivious to the fact that our social services and our health service are dependent upon doctors and nurses who come from overseas.