Josh Allan

@TheCriticMag @AdamPollock Also worth noting that her son, Danny Kruger, is one of the biggest opponents of assisted dying.

“One would think that, after such a disastrous foray into the realm of sociopolitical opinion commentary, Leith might aim to be more rigorous and precise with her fact-checking, and wouldn’t make such silly errors again. Alas, dear reader, she is at it again.” ✍️ |@AdamPollock thecritic.co.uk/the-imprudence…

Book clubs are for phoneys, by Kathleen Stock (@Docstockk) I’ve been looking into the literacy crisis, and I think I now understand it. These days young people are either making videos about how much they love books, or masturbating over werewolves. Either way, few of them are reading very much, and practically no one is reading in depth. Read more below ⬇️ buff.ly/8oHFHir

Nicki Minaj and Azealia Banks back Kemi Badenoch for PM Read more 🔗 trib.al/sG2opSe

If it were possible to articulate this sentiment in five words rather than five hundred (it probably isn't), then the humanities wouldn't be in the mess they're in today. And conversely, that mess is partly why people only respond to soundbites, and no one reads any more.

In the 1970s, David Premack wondered if a chimpanzee could be taught to ask a question. He taught Sarah 130 plastic word-tokens. She answered his questions easily. After years of work, she had never asked one of her own. Sixty years later, no signing ape has. A four-year-old human asks about 25 questions an hour. Paul Harris at Harvard counted them: kids ask their parents around 40,000 questions between ages two and five. Premack even worked out a method for teaching an ape to ask. Hide a snack the chimp expects. Wait for her to sign "where is it." He never bothered running it on Sarah. She spent her sessions answering his questions, never asking her own. A normal kid, he pointed out, asks "what that? who making noise? when Daddy come home?" on a loop. Washoe the chimpanzee, the first one taught American Sign Language, knew 250 signs. She could request food. She could sign her name. She once saw a swan and called it "water bird," a sharp invention for an animal she had no sign for. She never asked what the swan was, or where it came from, or anything else. Koko the gorilla knew about 1,000 signs. Kanzi the bonobo understands more than 3,000 spoken English words. Nim Chimpsky, Herbert Terrace's chimp at Columbia (named to mock the linguist Noam Chomsky), strung 125 signs into more than 20,000 combinations. His longest stretch was "give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." He never asked a thing. Joseph Jordania, a researcher in Melbourne, thinks this is the line between us and them. To ask a question, you first have to know that the person across from you knows something you don't. Apes do not seem to get to that step, even after a lifetime of being talked at by humans. Human kids cross that line around their fourth birthday. Apes never do.

@LeoKearse The wonderful thing about relative poverty is that it is, by definition, ineradicable.

Capitalism was so successful at eradicating poverty that leftists had to invent a new type of poverty - "relative poverty" - to still have something to moan about. Not as rich as someone else? That means you're in "relative poverty"!

@lectorintende @WalkerMarcus @ZackPolanski Yes, I know.

@JoshAllanTweets @WalkerMarcus @ZackPolanski Disraeli. Clue's in the name.

Could we just… just… maybe take a little look at history before writing an article? Maybe just one tiny little google search?

@02pizazz @WalkerMarcus @ZackPolanski If anyone can do it, Zack can.

@JoshAllanTweets @WalkerMarcus @ZackPolanski If he can invent the Time Machine he deserves the job

Despite evidence of localised cult practices in northwestern England, historians doubt the existence of a historical Andy Burnham, instead viewing him as a mythical saviour figure appealed to only in times of great trial and desperation

@mrianleslie Who wasn't inspired to kill after watching Branagh's performance in the 2012 Olympics ceremony?

‘Interest in Brunel’ as a red flag still makes me laugh, it deserved the BAFTA just for that tbh

Explain to me how mass immigration is a 'left wing' concept. I can't fathom how people swallowed this idea wholesale. - Endless supply of cheap labour helps capitalists, not workers - Strip mining of talent from developing countries is a form of neocolonialism - Endless pressure on the housing market inflates assets and prevents the poorest from having reasonably priced homes - A refusal to train enough people here removes vocation paths that the working class used to follow - The most negative social and cultural second order consequences are happening to working class, deindustrialised or neglected areas So it's left wing how? I can see how anti-immigrant sentiment can be seen as ethnonationalism and therefore right wing. But I can't see how support for mass immigration is left wing. And to be clear: it's not just a part of left wing thought. It's now so central to left wing thought, apparently, that any divergence from this immediately makes you 'far right'.

English is full of “lexical gaps”: words that are implied to exist but don’t, because we borrowed a bunch of words from Latin but not other, related words↓

@SebMilbank The food is really quite good. And they now have a nice bottled ale.

Have retreated from the horrors of Oxford Street to the consolation of Foyles

"All names start with a capital letter," I tell my child, because it is too early to explain bell hooks.

@hellohimate He's gone light on the lip filler.

i love him but i wish he didn’t feel the need to have buccal fat removal

Attenborough turns 100. Lovelock died on his 103rd birthday. What is it about environmentalists that gives them such longevity?

The first title you see says a lot about your personality.

Tweets from 1126:

@insufficentfund And only about five books in French.

I am positively shocked at how much the Paris Shakespeare & Company sucks. Gigantic sprawls of YA and a little pity corner dedicated to "Classics" which are mostly those gaudy Penguin Clothbound editions.