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Adam Gent

@adam57.bsky.social
252 followers 302 following 138 posts
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Reposted by Adam Gent
Cat Hobbs @cathobbs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
What an absolutely ridiculous conversation England is having about its extreme ideological experiment with privatisation It's really not that complicated 9 out of 10 water systems worldwide are in public ownership (1/6) www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Andy Burnham talks about ‘public control’ of the utilities but it’s a minefield. We can lead him through it | Will Hutton and Andy Haldane
Nationalisation is not the ultimate answer for companies like Thames Water – but they could be run for the public benefit, say journalist and economist Will Hutton and former chief economist of the Ba...
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Loved this book! A beautifully paced austerity to the writing and a compelling but satisfyingly oblique take on the genre
Front cover of Tillinghast by Claire Cavenagh showing the title and a woman in a black dress with her arm over her face upside down
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Reposted by Adam Gent
Bart⚓️ @bartgonnissen.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The Facial Expressions of Tethys by artist Julius von Bismarck. A suspended high-sea buoy that moves in real time. Sensors on a twin buoy out in the Atlantic Ocean send live satellite data to motors inside the museum. This makes the indoor buoy copy the exact, real-time movements of the ocean waves.
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TW @twesq.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
this is fantastic and I learned something new
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Go b-side! www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
‘We’re not going to back down’: tiny Dorset B&B stands up to Airbnb’s legal bid to ‘monopolise’ letters ‘bnb’
Three little letters - bnb-side’s name is a play on the local b-side arts festival, but Silicon Valley colossus sees threat to global brand
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
This is excellent . willd10.substack.com/p/make-educa...
willd10.substack.com
Leave them teachers alone
Make education boring again
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Reposted by Adam Gent
Massimo (mirror) @rainmaker1973-m.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
This would have been hard to believe if it hadn’t been recorded Original post
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
I loved this book!!
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
This is a tragedy happening in real time to so many people. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Disabled creatives like me are behind many of your favourite shows – so why has our work support been withdrawn? | Annalisa Dinnella
Cuts to the Access to Work scheme will mean no more contributions to shows like Sex Education, Call the Midwife or The Hack. It will be devastating to lose such talent, says TV writer Annalisa Dinnell...
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
This is a perfect film. www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
bbc.co.uk
Vermiglio
During the final months of WWII, a remote Alpine village hosts a Sicilian deserter, who has a profound effect on the quiet, everyday lives of the devout Graziadei family - especially the daughters.
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Can’t stop thinking about this novel atm for obvious reasons - it excellent
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Reposted by Adam Gent
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 06/08/2026
I'm sure that working in social media - dealing with people as mass statistical abstractions - is a cognitohazard, the sort of thing that could make anyone a little solipsistic, convinced that everyone else is a kind of stimulus-responding automaton lacking the interiority that you experience. 1/
A medieval siege engine, tended by gnome-sized purple figures. Around it are several human-like figures with robot heads, clad in medieval garb. Their legs are missing, tapering off into nothingness. The giant floating head of Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse avatar overlooks the scene. Each of the robot people is being closely observed by a distorted, grotesque version of Zuckerberg's avatar head.
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Nettlecake @nettlecake.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Brilliant letter from Stuart Thompson to Jeremy Clarkson about his comments that benefit claimants should write weekly thank you letters to tax payers detailing how they spend their benefits each week.
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SlenderSherbet @slendersherbet.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
I FUCKING KNEW IT.
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Britain has so many stories. The reason we fund the arts together is so we can tell them | James Graham
Dear England, Ink, Sherwood … I owe my career to publicly funded art. Never downplay it: it’s how we speak to each other, says author and playwright James Graham
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Spudley Boo-Right 👻 @spudleydo-right.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Whoa! While Europeans suffer in sweltering summer heatwaves thanks to their unimaginative and useless leadership. Here’s how China deals with the summer heat: mist cooling systems cool city streets, sending temperatures plummeting by 5-8 degrees. Once again China leads the way technologically.
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 27/06/2026
More than a decade ago, a group of young, internet-connected Belarusian dissidents launched a series of increasingly high-stakes, increasingly surreal confrontations with the corrupt, authoritarian government of Alexander Lukashenka, a man who is often called "the last Soviet dictator." 1/
Four female chorousters in sumptuous Renaissance robes. Each one's mouth has been stopped up by a Facebook 'thumbs up' icon. Behind them looms Mark Zuckerberg's grinning Metaverse avatar. The book they are reading from has flooded their faces with light. In the background is a sky full of ominous blue/red clouds.
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
open.substack.com/pub/joelmorr...
open.substack.com
A.A. Milne on The Writer's Lot
An article by the creator of Winnie-The-Pooh, about working for free.
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Reposted by Adam Gent
Leo Murray @crisortunity.bsky.social · 25/06/2026
Not all Unite members work for airports, oil companies or car manufacturers, and may be more interested in a survivable future for their kids than protecting the corporate interests of major polluters. If that’s you, someone has started a petition for you to sign here: www.change.org/p/stop-unite...
change.org
Sign the Petition
Stop Unite Union lobbying for fossil fuel extraction in the North Sea
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
This www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m... is the best thing I’ve read for ages. Very funny. Many very highlightable observations, beautifully written. Lots about art (the state of), meaning, friendship. Highly recommended
theguardian.com
Black Bag by Luke Kennard review – a campus comedy for our end times
Drawing on a real-life 1960s experiment, this story of an out-of-work actor paid to cover himself in a black leather bag fizzes with wit and invention
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Reposted by Adam Gent
It's Pipes, Mum! Pipes is here! @scriblit.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
Cabin Pressure is honestly one of the best British sitcoms of the 21st Century so far - if you haven't heard any of it yet, treat yerself
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Joanne Harris @joannechocolat.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
UK publishing generated £7.4 billion in revenue last year. Compare that to: Premier League football: £6.6 billion Home entertainment: £5.6 billion UK film industry: 2.8 billion Now tell me again why authors don't deserve fair contracts and better pay.
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Peter Geoghegan @petergeoghegan.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
We only went and won it!! 🎉🎉🎉 A newsletter has just won the biggest prize in British journalism Absolutely delighted. Huge thanks to Khadija and to all Democracy for Sale’s supporters 😊
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Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla.bsky.social · 31/05/2026
Today I ‘interviewed’ Facebook whistleblower on stage at Hay…& she couldn’t say a word. Facebook took legal action to prevent her speaking. What pathetic, pointless vindictiveness. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Meta legal action forces Facebook whistleblower to sit in silence at Hay festival
Sarah Wynn-Williams did not speak during event after lawyers warned of possible sanctions from tech firm
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 29/05/2026
Just saw Romeo and Juliet at Wiltshire Creative and it’s great and you should go www.wiltshirecreative.co.uk/events/romeo...
wiltshirecreative.co.uk
Romeo and Juliet | Wiltshire Creative
Can young passion break the cycle of division and hate? Shakespeare’s classic tale of rebellion explodes onto the streets of Salisbury. Drama, music and
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
This is very, very lovely, thank you @stephaniejalland.bsky.social for passing it on
bbc.co.uk
BBC Sounds - O Now by Niall Williams - Available Episodes
Listen to the latest episodes of O Now by Niall Williams on BBC Sounds.
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Reposted by Adam Gent
Owen Jones @owenjones.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
A retweet by Zack Polanski is now the main story across every single media outlet. Two days ago, it was revealed that Nigel Farage failed to disclose a £5 million gift from a crypto-billionaire. It gets nowhere near the media attention, for straightforward political reasons.
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George Monbiot @georgemonbiot.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
Political donations make a mockery of democracy, and the government's solutions are hopeless. Here's a really simple means of fixing it. This week's column. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Political donations are poison to our democracy – but there’s an easy antidote to that | George Monbiot
As revelations about Reform UK’s donors emerge, it’s clear that increasingly complex forms of patronage can’t be regulated effectively. We need a clean sweep, says columnist George Monbiot
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Liz Webster 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧🇪🇺 @lizwebster.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
🇺🇸 v 🇪🇺 food Listen to what this American says about what a US trade deal really means for our food and health. While talking about “reset” with Europe… Starmer’s government is opening the door to US 🇺🇸 standards. That’s how they’re trying to make Brexit work.
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Reposted by Adam Gent
Cat Manning @catacalypto.bsky.social · 23/04/2026
Auden’s Musée des Beaux Artes
WH Auden’s Musée des Beaux Artes

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
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Hettie O’Brien @hettieobrien.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
THE ASSET CLASS, my first book, will be published by @wnbooks.bsky.social on 9 April 2026. It’s a narrative investigation of private equity, a secretive and relentlessly destructive wing of finance that penetrates almost every aspect of our lives - and it’s available to pre-order now!
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Absolutely excellent exploration of political liberalism!
open.spotify.com
Downstream: Is Liberalism Finally Waking Up to the Crises it has Caused? w/ Adrian Wooldridge
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By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 04/04/2026
Crises precipitate change. That's no reason to induce a crisis, but you'd be a fool to let a crisis go to waste. Donald Trump is the greatest crisis of our young century, and the EU looks set to squander the opportunity, to its own terrible detriment. 1/
The EU flag. The field has been turned from blue to orange. In the center of the circle of stars is Trump's open, hooting gob. Behind the orange field we see the faded traces of a printed circuit board.
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Rachel Coldicutt @rachelcoldicutt.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
New paper that I co-authored last year is (finally!) out in the world, on the value of creative and cultural R&D and innovation. The paper addresses the fact that limited SciTech-focussed definitions of RD&I minimise the UK's capacity to invent and innovate theaudienceagency.org/en/valuing-c...
theaudienceagency.org
Valuing Creative and Cultural R&D and Innovation | The Audience Agency
This paper, produced by The Audience Agency and Careful Industries working alongside Arts Council England, aims to build the case for the importance of RD&I in the creative and cultural sector.
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Haven’t read the article but just want to celebrate the desperate genius of the headline
theguardian.com
Larva lamped: Colin the Caterpillar loses to eight lookalikes in cake taste test
Which? testers complain M&S sponge is ‘too dry’ as Waitrose’s Cecil tops the tree with ‘best buy’ gong
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Maybe @jemgilbert.bsky.social might do another interview with the author.
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Stephen Bush @stephenkb.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
This is incredibly cool.
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
Loved Between Two Fires by @buehlmeister.bsky.social very much indeed! Have been inspired to start Paradise Lost which I’ve always meant to read.
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Adam Gent @adam57.bsky.social · 25/03/2026
Enjoyed this so much!
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Diane Coyle @dianecoyle1859.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
This is a fantastic article
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Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra @bournemouthso.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
Teachers! Are you intrigued by our ‘Explore the Orchestra’ schools’ concerts – which are specially designed for Key Stage 2 pupils – but unable to travel to Bristol, Exeter, Poole or Portsmouth to enjoy them in person?
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Will Norman @willnorman.co.uk · 13/03/2026
There's growing evidence of safety risks of bigger cars. Heavier with higher bonnets & worse vision, bigger SUVs are: ⚠️14% more likely to kill you than if you're hit by a smaller car ⚠️increasing to 77% for children ⚠️and 200% more likely to kill a kid under 9 #VisionZeroLDN
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ProfAFinlayson @profafinlayson.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
This play is born out of some work I & colleagues did teaching rhetoric to…anyone. It’s about politics/political speech. Each night different non-actors will join in & deliver their own speech as part of the action. Still looking for volunteers in Cornwall! www.dasharts.org.uk/our-public-h...
dasharts.org.uk
Our Public House — DASH ARTS
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Philipp Riederle @phipz.com · 13/03/2026
What do Big Tech companies do to raise their revenues? Enshittification, the thesis of @doctorow.pluralistic.net portrayed wonderfully by the Norwegian Consumer Council. www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4Up...
youtube.com
A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator
YouTube video by Forbrukerrådet - Norwegian Consumer Council
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Jessica Toale MP @jessicatoale.bsky.social · 13/03/2026
✨Visit the Russell-Cotes Gallery & Museum for free this weekend ✨
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The Salisbury Museum @salisburymuseum.bsky.social · 20/02/2026
🎉 Salisbury Museum has renewed its Full UK Museum Accreditation from Arts Council England! This national quality standard recognises our commitment to professional collections care, transparent governance, quality visitor experiences, and community engagement.
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The Author, Séamas O'Reilly @seamas.bsky.social · 03/03/2026
The debt burden of UK students is one of those things where, the more you look into the details, the more insane and predatory it is. So I tried my best to explain the numbers involved without making my, or your, head explode.
The Conservatives are, after all, well placed to know a lot about this morass, since they introduced it. In 2012, the coalition government launched the Plan 2 system of student loans and raised university fees across Britain to £9,000 per annum. To put Plan 2 in simple terms, loan repayments were laid out via a seemingly innocuous series of calculations. The first to consider is the threshold at which repayments begin. If you left education with, say, £27,000 worth of debt, you would only start paying it back once you met a predetermined salary. On its face, this might not seem like a particularly onerous demand. “Low-earning” graduates would avoid being saddled with repayments before they were financially able to begin making them, while their “high earning” peers could start chipping away at their debt, and provide an income stream for the state.As any of my fellow literature or history graduates will tell you, however, the devil is in the details. For one thing, the threshold at which someone becomes a high earner was never particularly high and, following years of inflation, is now preposterously low. Rachel Reeves’ announcement that the government are freezing the threshold at April 2026 levels (£29,385) for a further three years only makes this worse. The real living wage for London is currently calculated at £28,860, which means that any London-based graduate making just £40 more per month than the minimum needed to live there will automatically begin paying their debt. In real terms, this means practically any graduate in any form of full-time work will be paying as much as 9 per cent of their income to the state, and for a very, very long time. Worse still, the amount owed by those graduates below the threshold does not remain static – it accrues interest, year on year, whether you’re working for low wages, volunteering, taking a career break or on maternity leave, ensuring that if you do pass the threshold some time later, you will be returning to find your original £27,000 much enlarged.If the state’s attitude to what constitutes “high earnings” makes you think it’s oblivious to the concept of inflation, let me put your mind at ease. When it comes to the calculation of student loan interest, they are very conscious of inflation indeed. Each year, the interest charged on student loans is calculated by two components. The first is the Retail Price Index (RPI), which generally records a higher number than the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Governments prefer the latter, lower figure for many of their other calculations, just not when it comes to adding extra debt to every graduate in the country. To this is added a second component, a percentage tied to each graduate’s earnings, meaning that as your salary increases so too does the interest you’re paying on the loan you took out. If you think this seems like a predatory and punitive way to bilk students for as much money, and over as long a period of time, as possible, then you’re just about up to speed on this scandal, which amounts to a regressive stealth tax on every graduate in the UK. One which, it’s calculated, you would need to be earning £66,000 per year to pay off in anything like a timely fashion.
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Jack Lenox @jacklenox.com · 28/02/2026
With the Gorton and Denton win, our opponents have been working overtime to misrepresent Green Party drugs policy. Heroin in corner shops? Crack for kids? Let's clear this up. 🧵
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Peter Stefanovic @peterstefanovic.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
BREAKING: A wonderful speech from Green Party's Hannah Spencer after winning the Gorton and Denton by-election. Congratulations!
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