* Adam Curtis new documentary, Shifty (comprising five episodes of uneven length on iPlayer) patkane.substack.com/p/pk-in-the-na… < "Shifty illuminates the roots of our submission to high finance." > Pat Kane reviews (and read the whole article for what he says about Scotland)

Much anxiety [linkedin.com/posts/drlollie…] over OpenAI & Jony Ive’s forthcoming AI “companion”. But might it be a “daemon”, as in His Dark Materials? & could I get mine in Bill Hicks Mode? Or Deleuze/Unger/Arendt Mode? Aren’t these our human libraries/archives now coming alive 2 us?

Good morning youtu.be/zeaO5UZ5OcI?si…

“The UK's first ‘super-university’ stretching across an entire region…” So what is @thinkuhi, University of the Highlands and Islands? A schoolgirl error… bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…

On a “Life on Mars” research trip, found my only contribution to The TLS — a review of two Bowie biographies in 1997. Happy with it, so sharing theplayethic.com/2007/08/loving…

It was the grimmest newsday—Charlie Kirk, Gaza, Mandelson, Putin in Poland…& then, possible life on Mars! Even the slightest move in that cosmic direction generates headlines. Can we turn this yearning into a politics? I think so. My The National column thenational.scot/politics/25464…

My Guildford Premier Inn is quoting Walter De La Mere #brandtastic poetryfoundation.org/poems/47546/th… [note mighty Beemer steed]

Despite our social pathologies and self-harming, here we bloody well are. We have many powerful tools at hand, and some of them we use to witness the cosmos, writes Pat Kane ✍️ Pat Kane

My first sense (I’m late!) that the Starmer govt is toppling. Being lost in the thickets of explaining why they appointed the worst of New Labour makes him seem even less credible. It’s dispiriting to visit mainstream political culture. Try this: spring.site

Why I’m going to be patient with Coppola’s Megalopolis newyorker.com/culture/the-fr…

Stars read Michael Rosen 💙💙🎓🎓 NICE 爷爷 poem ‘Don’t mention the children’ in new film by Save the Children UK & Choose Love Guy Pearce “Rosen’s brutal commands stare directly into our soul & force us to confront the cruelty of erasing a child, erasing their name, their memory & their life” #Gaza

“👉 In short: Žižek treats quantum weirdness as ontological revelation, Unger treats it as epistemological turbulence” [This is ChatGPT being the invisible best nerdy pal I never had]

Eloquent. Also points to the worth of a left/centre-left/green civic nationalism, somewhat delivering on its stable and inclusive promises, in the era of SNP/Scottish Greens/Holyrood. Indy as its full realisation. Let’s see if a’ that can be a bulwark against Faragism this May.

This week’s The Alternative Global newsletter features an Editorial on the “woke right”, and blogs on: grief as THE political emotion; using citizens media to save the Amazon; a new map of the regenerative paradigm; & more. & latest spring.site news mailchi.mp/11620970432e/t…