Reposted by Josh CowlsMichael Spicer @michaelspicer.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Most TV is just this now. 17071171948
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 13/09/2026Genuinely curious how VAR becomes less explicable each and every season. 020
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Looking forward to finding out whether exams are getting easier or kids aren’t applying themselves enough, it must be one or the other! 000
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 08/08/2026Starting to think sincerely, visibly, viscerally liking football might prove to be an asset for a UK prime minister. 000
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 02/08/2026Not to be hipster about it but having loved Sam Fender’s album the first time around, which included liking Rein Me In, I didn’t foresee it going on to break the UK singles record! (On the other hand, Olivia Dean has a Midas touch) 100
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 23/07/2026Taxing vape shops (and warehouses?) to relieve rates on pubs… aka percussively leveraging soft-left state intervention on tangible median voter/“common sense” wins seems to have political potential. (Burnham just needs to find another ~900 similar amuse-bouches to flood the grid from now to 2029…) 100
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 20/07/2026Majority female UK Cabinet (which I think would be a first?) seems well on track 100
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 20/07/2026Although these descriptions are intended as synonyms for one another, amusing to note that the ur-Starmerites seem to have received the most aggressive oustings 000
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 19/07/2026Galaxy brained to wait for fifteen minutes and ten men, rather than 40 and eleven, before applying the clincher 000
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 19/07/2026It’s almost as if unprecedented fiddling with suspension rules mid-tournament has sown wider mistrust at the sharp end 000
Reposted by Josh CowlsJosh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 14/07/2024“Why don’t the Spanish sing their anthem” takes incoming in 3, 2, 1… 021
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/07/2026Kudos to @felixsimon.bsky.social for capturing the anguish of an England fan 030
Reposted by Josh CowlsJack Bernhardt @jackbern.bsky.social · 07/07/2026oh no, oh no, sorry everyone, I love this 1133373
Reposted by Josh CowlsSpinningHugo @spinninghugo.bsky.social · 19/06/2026CountBinface is like the slave in the chariot behind the victorious Roman general whispering "memento mori." A (genuinely) important constitutional role. 1244
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 16/06/20262.8 goals per World Cup game so far. Wonder whether the path to qualification from third place in the groups has made a first game loss not necessarily fatal, which in turn has helped to open the first games up 020
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/06/2026For those of a certain age (mine), the realisation that we’re as far from “Football’s Coming Home” now as the release of that song was from 1966 is enough to send a shiver down a millennial spine 000
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 13/05/2026Have long thought the tropes of British politics are so rote that a bit of fourth wall-breaking would be well received. e.g. you’re a minister walking up Downing St to reporters’ cries of “will you resign minister?”: cup your ears and pretend you can’t quite hear them. Just to mix it up a bit 010
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 05/05/2026The benefit to flavour of food served at room temperature relative to refrigerated is underestimated. 000
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/04/2026Magyar joins Atatürk and Kenyatta in the select group to lead countries which partly bear their name 010
Reposted by Josh CowlsTim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 28/03/2026Highly recommended (free to read but might take around 15 mins).ft.comThe benchA true story of two strangers, a home-made bomb and an extraordinary act of courage 44420
Reposted by Josh CowlsJordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 26/03/2026Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever. 125140254032
Reposted by Josh CowlsFared Al Mahlool | فريد المحلول @faredalmahlool.bsky.social · 28/02/2026BREAKING: Simultaneous explosions reported in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Source: Reuters 313047
Reposted by Josh CowlsMark Chadbourn @chadbourn.bsky.social · 28/02/2026Iran has fired ballistic missiles into: Israel Bahrain UAE Qatar 29344146
Reposted by Josh CowlsPaul Fairie @paulisci.bsky.social · 01/01/2026A List of Predictions Made in 1926 About 2026 🧵 121604886
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 06/12/2025Ben Duckett and Zak Crawley have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever (get to 100 without loss) 001
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 04/12/2025If there is a greater joy than waking up to find Zak Crawley still at the crease I don’t know of it 000
Reposted by Josh CowlsRiver Action @riveractionuk.bsky.social · 15/11/2025🚨 SHOCKING 🚨 A HUGE illegal waste dump has appeared between the A34 and River Cherwell, linked to organised crime. Every rainfall risks toxins washing into the river. We’re calling on the Environment Agency & Cherwell Council to act NOW. Our rivers cannot wait. 👇👇 1318792
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 09/11/2025open.substack.com/pub/londonce... eye-opening weekend read about a (very large and concrete) path not takenopen.substack.comWould your home have been under a motorway?"The most astonishing and destructive thing never to happen to London," says the man who has spent twenty years researching the first true map of the unbuilt Ringways. 020
Reposted by Josh Cowlsjim fishvvick @fimjishwick.bsky.social · 26/10/2025do you think the nyt puzzles people saw the only connect wall about them 4369
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 07/10/2025Interesting how colloquial use of non-standard number words tends to alter their perceived size over time. “Myriad” formally means 10,000 but can now mean anything from “quite a few” to “innumerable” “Orders of magnitude more” often refers to quite a bit less than 100x or 1,000x 010
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 23/09/2025Out of morbid curiosity I watched the very 1st episode of the Wallace/Torode era of Masterchef in 2005. Besides dodgy music, the nastiness of that era of TV is striking, judges acting like wannabe Simon Cowell/Anne Robinson. Ironic how the show was reinvented as cuddly comfort TV (at least onscreen) 100
Reposted by Josh CowlsRobert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 27/08/2025This has been a rough decade to be a supporter of parliamentary democracy, liberalism, membership of the EU and Manchester United. 3558474
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 17/08/2025Was not expecting Love Is Blind UK to provide such an effective antidote to creeping Island-of-Strangerism, but here we are?? 010
Reposted by Josh CowlsJosh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/05/2025“Island of strangers” seems destined—if not outright designed—to live in the history books alongside a similar rhetorical construction by a rather different politician in a different era. I can’t think of another PM in my lifetime who would have uttered it; May perhaps got closest. 101
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 12/05/2025“Island of strangers” seems destined—if not outright designed—to live in the history books alongside a similar rhetorical construction by a rather different politician in a different era. I can’t think of another PM in my lifetime who would have uttered it; May perhaps got closest. 101
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 08/05/2025Etymological root I realised today: “preposterous” literally means “before/after” as in topsy-turvy, inherently contradictory. Confirmed via the excellent etymonline.com www.etymonline.com/word/prepost...etymonline.comOnline Etymology DictionaryThe online etymology dictionary (etymonline) is the internet's go-to source for quick and reliable accounts of the origin and history of English words, phrases, and idioms. 010
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 03/05/2025If I was designing a majoritarian electoral system from the ground up it would look a lot like Australia’s 000
Reposted by Josh CowlsEvan Davis @evanhd.bsky.social · 22/04/2025Sad news about the Happy Heat Pump Podcast. Sorry to say, that after about 20 episodes, we’re drawing it to a close at the request of the BBC which worries it may be seen as steering into areas of public controversy. 1/2 youtu.be/RJPKgngqoX0?...t.cohttps://youtu.be/RJPKgngqoX0?si=92B9xN4zy6BiWXqK 225573180
Reposted by Josh CowlsSimon Nixon @nixonsimon.bsky.social · 10/04/2025“Britain is shackled to a corpse.” Gosh this is good 0457
Josh Cowls @joshcowls.bsky.social · 04/04/2025Don’t know about yours, but my Following feed has reached a happy equilibrium: enough posts per minute for a good skim of what’s important (with outlinks!) as well as decent amounts of marginalia without being overwhelming. (Of course it’s a purposive not representative sample, but that’s the idea.) 100