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Chris Rand

@chrisrand.com
724 followers 322 following 18K posts

Ipswich, England. "In a Venn Diagram of one" – The Guardian. • "Chris The Site Owner" at the Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project. #hmhb • Supporter of Ipswich Town FC. #itfc • Expect to see mainly stuff that amused me. chrisrand.com

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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 4h
Such a shock, that one. Showed what an incredibly strong campaign – against some dreadfully complacent incumbents – could do. Sue proved to be an engaged councillor too. Labour never had organisation that good again though, and the Lib Dems woke up, for the next few elections at least.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 9h
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 11h
One day the sales rep came in with a brochure for the first cellphone, from Racal. "What's this?", I asked. "It's the end of our jobs", he replied.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 11h
sites.google.com/site/616cell...
sites.google.com
UK Mobile Phone History - System 4 - RadioPhone
SYSTEM 4
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 11h
Had a student job fitting Marconi System 4 "Radiophones" in 1983. Precursor to cellphones. Four grand each, with a suitcase of electronics required. The cars coming into the workshop for them were astonishing. We also put one on the Liberal/SDP Alliance campaign bus – I think GEC were a party donor.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 28/09/2026
It could trap AI in an infinite loop of ‘hang on, that can’t be right.’ Which would be fun. Or we might find that the lyrics of HMHB did indeed contain the key to artificial general intelligence. Which would not.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 28/09/2026
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 28/09/2026
Playing with the ChatGPT voice interface, I accidentally left it on, with a St Etienne album playing. So it dutifully transcribed the lyrics for an hour, pausing every few minutes to try to "answer the question". There's pages of this.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 28/09/2026
youtu.be/r82AEvbDFVo?...
youtu.be
Monologue: Shut The F*ck Up, Dario! | Better Offline
YouTube video by Better Offline
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Bylines Network @bylinesnetwork.co.uk · 25/09/2026
M&S Custard Cream Spread: Britain has completed food One jar of M&S Custard Cream Spread has caused us to question civilisation, breakfast, mashed potato and the limits of human restraint @willyandbill.bsky.social
centralbylines.co.uk
M&S Custard Cream Spread: Britain has completed food
One jar of M&S Custard Cream Spread has caused us to question civilisation, breakfast, mashed potato and the limits of human restraint
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 27/09/2026
…and 28 years later in 2022. youtu.be/riW6YgGIol8?...
youtu.be
Saint Etienne - He's on the Phone (Glastonbury 2022)
YouTube video by BBC Music
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 27/09/2026
Glastonbury 1994… www.facebook.com/share/v/1LJo...
facebook.com
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 27/09/2026
Final UK gig of the final UK tour by St Etienne, after 36 years. What a class act. Balloons. Tunes. And so much love in the room.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 26/09/2026
Spend a few pence buying googly eyes to put on it. Mine just came by and I couldn't help but say hello.
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Tom Jenkins @tomoljenkins.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Here is the trailer for Alex Gibney’s ‘Musk’ launch on 9October that has been banned by YouTube, TikTok and Meta, citing “political” content. X won't even take Bleecker Street's calls. The distributor is appealing. www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFTf...
youtube.com
MUSK | Official Trailer HD
YouTube video by Elevation Pictures
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 25/09/2026
Nothing surprised me more than no.54.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 25/09/2026
One point off the win in the quiz tonight. We got the year of the Gunpowder Plot correct, then changed it at the last moment. NEVER OVERRULE YOUR FIRST GUESS.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 25/09/2026
Wait… no.54?
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 25/09/2026
According to the sleeve notes, it turns out to be Neil Warnock.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 25/09/2026
See? Al those datacentres are worth it.
Comic strip by ChatGPT illustrating (very vaguely) the Half Man Half Biscuit song "McCalliog and his hens".
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 25/09/2026
ChatGPT has asked me 20+ times today if I want to advertise. I didn’t the first time. I certainly don’t now. For a product with access to every marketing lesson ever written, this is spectacularly moronic.
ChatGPT message asking me to advertise with them.
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Disappointed Optimist @disappoptimism.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I don’t believe for a second that Xi didn’t make this Thucydides trap reference fully knowing that Trump wouldn’t begin to understand it. Xi is mocking America & its clown president on camera. America is so cooked
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 24/09/2026
A point also made when Rory Stewart recently interviewed Yuval Noah Harari about the existential threats of artificial intelligence.
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Old British Telly @oldbritishtelly.co.uk · 24/09/2026
[1965] A Hard Day’s Night - Comedy version of The Beatles song in which Peter Sellers recites the lyrics in the style of Laurence Olivier in the film Richard III. It became a UK Top 20 hit in 1965.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 24/09/2026
What do you mean? They're pouring out of the cinema chanting: "El pueblo unido jamás será vencido" after being inspired by Petula Clark!
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 24/09/2026
In our film review chat, my son concluded that "The Uprising" was "fairly terrible, all things considered". He particularly couldn't get over "The priest with a ridiculous Gen Z broccoli haircut". To which @fenlandgent.bsky.social quickly sounded the "new Half Man Half Biscuit song title" klaxon...
"A priest with a ridiculous Gen Z broccoli haircut"
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 24/09/2026
The Alf Upper says no! Getting up and down every 5 movies for people to squeeze by? Sod that.
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Dan Snow @thehistoryguy.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
England is a made up thing. It has no basis in the ineluctable laws of nature. Its extent is defined by Edward II getting his arse handed to him. Athelstan conquering York. The Welsh of Cumbria were incorporated, the Welsh of Gwynedd were not. It is a political idea, an aspiration - not taxonomy.
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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Is it time to post that paragraph from The Road To Wigan Pier? The one about how the desperate, pleasureless poor will always refuse to just spend their pennies on cabbage no matter how much you try and insist. This isn’t a thing you can make people do. It’s not how humans work.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 24/09/2026
That record of Ella Langley's is in the US chart. However, in the UK record was also broken this year, when Sam Fender and Olivia Dean's "Rein Me In" became the longest-running number one single of all time. And I couldn't hum that one to you either. www.officialcharts.com/songs/sam-fe...
officialcharts.com
REIN ME IN
Rein Me In is a powerful indie collaboration between Sam Fender and Olivia Dean, blending cinematic UK indie rock with modern soul influences. The track pairs Fender’s signature anthemic guitar sound ...
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 24/09/2026
⬆️ He did it all for me and you.
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Stardust 🌏🎬 @stardustbluepr.com · 22/09/2026
Warning: "Don't Download the White House App: It's a Privacy Nightmare The new White House App shipped with dormant location tracking and phones home to a marketing company on every launch among other problems. Don't install it."
onlinesafety.substack.com
Don't Download the White House App: It's a Privacy Nightmare
The new White House App shipped with dormant location tracking and phones home to a marketing company on every launch among other problems. Don't install it.
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TW @twesq.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
this is fantastic and I learned something new
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 22/09/2026
Wow, that's amazing, even if not the perfect situation. I think there are usually fewer than 50 couples a year who make it that far in this country. Love that you can still get a card.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 22/09/2026
It would have been my late parents’ 70th wedding anniversary today. Celebrating as they would, I'm going to have a Chinese takeaway with my brother. I've read that only 1 in 1000 marriages in the UK make it to 70 years, which makes it all the more remarkable that Her Maj and Phil the Greek made it.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 21/09/2026
I know it's a day old and you've probably seen it, but this really has lifted the nation's mood. I'm not alone in having been watching it on repeat all day, and I just can't stop.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 21/09/2026
This series seems to have passed me by completely.
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Stephen Collins @stephencollins.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

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Wide shot of the BRITISH MUSEUM. There are suggestions of fascism around the streets - tanks, barricades, an Orwellian 'Big Brother'-style poster on a wall. A voice of a TOUR GUIDE emanates from the museum:

TOUR GUIDE:
So the Tapestry tells acrucial chapter of our nation's history...

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[Cut to interior of museum. A long Bayeaux-style TAPESTRY is on display, and the Tour Guide is speaking to a tour group]

TOUR GUIDE [smiling]:
How modern fascist Britain was created. 

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TOUR GUIDE:
The Tapestry begins here with the 2008 Crash, then austerity, then the AI Crash...

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TOUR GUIDE:
...and by the end of the room it's just full-on fash. 

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CHILD IN TOUR GROUP [gesturing to the tapestry]:
What's this middle bit?

TOUR GUIDE:
This is the 2026 Battle of Legitimate Concerns 

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TOUR GUIDE:
[show a reporter standing next to the Dover protests]
Here's the media saying the government have got to do something about the legitimate concerns...

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CHILD:
...About the failure of capitalism?

TOUR GUIDE:
No about brown people on boats

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CHILD:
[pointing at boats crossing the sea on the tapestry]
Are these boats the mega-dinghies?

TOUR GUIDE:
Not all of them

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[we see one of the boats  is a giant yacht]
TOUR GUIDE:
That one's a superyacht,
carrying money from the American fascists to the British ones.

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TOUR GUIDE:
You see really it's as much a story of convergence as it is of conflict.

[An alarm sounds in the museum]
DING DING DING DING 

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TOUR GUIDE:
Ok, tour over everyone 

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TOUR GUIDE:
It's time for the Two Minute Hate!

[They all leave the museum]

[ends]
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 20/09/2026
Ed Sheeran apologising before his gig last night (Instagram). ➡️ www.instagram.com/reel/DdfY7JY...
Ed Sheeran issuing a tearful apology to fans at his Philadelphia concert Saturday night
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 20/09/2026
[2/2] So if it's an acceptable compromise, you'll need to ensure that the main image on the page is landscape. I'd do this (a) by cropping it down; (b) adding black bars either side, or (c) using AI to invent something to fill in the missing space, as shown.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 20/09/2026
OK, I know a bit about this stuff. Obviously you need to give Bluesky a landscape image. As you're using Google Sites, there's no way to directly set the 'Open Graph image' that services such as Bluesky, Facebook or LinkedIn use for link previews. Google Sites just picks the best image it can. [1/2]
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 20/09/2026
youtu.be/qnaZwFrEi24?... This is really good if you want a thoughtful discussion of the threat from A.I. – and what we can do, now. YNH says the market is pricing in that A.I. will become godlike in its capability but then the gods will become willing slaves. This simply does not make sense.
youtu.be
The Greatest Threat Humans Just Can't Stomach | with Yuval Noah Harari
YouTube video by The Rest Is Politics
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Ambassador Ken Fairfax (ret) @portlandken.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The accounting is in: In Oregon there are 111 data centers. The TOTAL number of people employed at data centers is just 2,630, or 0.1% of the labor force. Those 100 data centers consumer 23% of all electricity used in Oregon. Meanwhile, electricity rates skyrocket as more centers are built.
opb.org
Oregon data centers by the numbers: 111 facilities consume nearly one-quarter of state’s power, according to new report
A first-of-its-kind report details the footprint of the controversial facilities.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 19/09/2026
Premier League image of the weekend.
Spurs fans leaving the ground on 80 minutes.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 19/09/2026
I hope it’s not farewell, I have tickets to see them at Cambridge next weekend.
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Chris Rand @chrisrand.com · 18/09/2026
I hadn’t seen that. I guess the move may be back on?
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Mike Goodman @themlg.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Launched it on 9/11 no less. Just a bang up job all around.
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Joel Morris @gralefrit.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
Brilliant. And in that same lovely back-footed Scandi-English key as Norsemen, which is blissful.
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__________ @jenbren.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Fucking love this. And if it happened now, Bill Drummond would be murdered by security
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Cambridge Diary @cambridgediary.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
16th September 2022 The Waterman’s Arms, a derelict 19th-century pub, stands by the Little Ouse river, accessible only by water. Built in 1861 to serve passing bargemen and riverside locals, it closed its doors in 1956 and has since been slowly sinking into the soft Fenland soil.
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