Charles Arthur

Remember, the others think he's the clever one.

He’s not playing chess literally. He’s not playing chess figuratively. He’s not playing chess on any level of abstraction whatsoever. I doubt he can play chess.

Ah, the optimism of 1997.

Compromise: keep Churchill on the notes but it's the dog version from the advert

Pretty crazy how important the blockade of a trade route is right now

A tax barrister sued me personally for £8m for libel after we linked him to a tax avoidance scheme.

Today the High Court struck out the claim, granted summary judgment, and ruled it was a SLAPP. The judgment is highly critical.

It's the fourth link.

You're asking for them to write grammatically? That's on a different subscription tier.

In today's @theoverspill: the A4 flyover at Brentford is more than 60 years old, and problems with it emerged almost immediately - and have only got worse since.

In today's @theoverspill: the maths behind mammograms is complicated - and the human stories they hide even more so.

In today's @theoverspill: the UK burnt as much coal in 2025 as in the years when Shakespeare's Hamlet was first performed, despite the population being nearly 20 times larger.

The proposed £185 charge for one-off SRY screening of elite female athletes (so they can compete confident all their category are female) is one UK Athletics should pay. It says it hasn’t enough funds.

It’s _nothing_ to do with the government, unless you’re calling for more funding for UKA.

yeah, I think that’s like complaining about the internet or word processing. I’ve seen journalists who thought they could hold back both.

but it’s more like celebrate Cook isn’t it? It’s a really good computer built down to a price.

we aim to terrify! Glad you’re enjoying the (weekday) posts.

In today's @theoverspill: fuel prices have jumped in response to reduced tanker traffic through the Straits of Hormuz as the Iran conflict intensifies.

In today's @theoverspill: the Straits of Hormuz are important not just for shipping, but also as a crossing point for internet cables. And now they're at risk.

In today's @theoverspill: chess computers have radically changed the complexion of the game. Could AI authors do the same for science? And is that good or bad?

so what we need is to communicate by PDF so the machines can’t understand it..?

that’s acceptable. But as you say, the problem is how it does with stuff we don’t know about. Wonder how it is for wiring Ethernet sockets?

However, don't forget this is a zero-tax lifestyle..

ChatGPT really messed it up for me. Haven't tried Gemini. Might depend on the precision of the prompt?

In today's @theoverspill: people living in California can play a game where they make a call from as many payphones as possible. Like Pokémon, but with phones.

Stops the robots inserting suicide commands into sermons 🙏👍🏻

This is quite a sensible imprecation!

In today's @theoverspill: the new Pope has instructed clergymen not to use chatbots to help write sermons because AI "will never be able to share faith". Are we sure?

Overheard: Sorry I cannot attend the Friday happy hour as I have a prior commitment to be unhappy at that time.

Is that on an iPad? I haven't installed it on my iPad. 18 works fine here, thanks.

I won't believe it until I see a picture of him with Paddington

Iranian drones hit the famous Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai, UAE. The hotel is burning.

Unbelievable.