alexmassie
@alexmassie
Columnist for The Times & The Sunday Times. Substack Newsletter: http://alexmassie.substack.com Co-host of the Ponsonby & Massie podcast: @ponsonbymassie
Usually when I see someone saying something awful is capitalism they are describing something that 1) is genuinely awful 2) is a consequence of material scarcity and 3) has gotten much much less bad under capitalism
On behalf of everyone with columns to write during the bleak, newsless, summer recess may I once again put on record our thanks to NHS Fife for all they continue to do.
You have to be extremely stupid to think the comparison of Upton with Bryson is suggesting Upton is "like a rapist". The comparison is "man in a woman's space". FFS.
Desperately need to know the origin of this nickname @CricketUganda
SIXTEEN FUCKING YEARS! *SIXTEEN*.
16 years ago I identified Sizewell as a site for new nuclear power. Today I am delighted that Sizewell C has finally been given the green light. We're delivering the biggest nuclear building programme in a generation 👇
Our trade has a real problem when we write stupid and misleading headlines like this. Treating readers as fools is a precursor to having fewer readers.
Woman killed husband by ‘stabbing and slicing’ over 50 times with samurai sword trib.al/HQYsU1o
On all sides in politics, there are superficially attractive but delusory notions that tax can be painlessly levied on other people. Here is a definitive refutation of the case for a wealth tax, whose advocates don’t seem to grasp even the arithmetic let alone the implications.
A UK wealth tax sounds simple: "tax the super‑rich, fund public services" But it's not. Our 16,000 word deep‑dive shows revenues are fragile, it puts growth, investment and jobs at risk, and there's no revenue before 2029. Here’s the evidence:
This is a ridiculous betting line for today's ascent of Mont Ventoux. And yet it's also completely sensible and realistic. That's the Pogacar Effect for you. #TourDeFrance2025
The Mess We're In: the government won't tell the truth but even if it did voters don't want to hear the truth. open.substack.com/pub/alexmassie…
Second Mention for 57 as "nearly 58" @secondmentions bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
Yes. Writing is not a second thing that happens after thinking. The act of writing is an act of thinking. Writing *is* thinking. Students, academics, and anyone else who outsources their writing to LLMs will find their screens full of words and their minds emptied of thought.
100%
There comes a time in every man's life when he thinks: Should I take to the hills of Corsica and become a brigand?
"Newsweek asked ChatGPT" -- absolutely peak journalism, here. 🤡
In every anecdote I've ever heard about the subject of an article contacting Murdoch to try to change the line of WSJ coverage (some for big stories like Theranos, but also lots more small ones that didn't become public info), they got knocked straight back like this.
In June 2022, Lee Hsien Yang and his wife Fern received an early police knock at their Singapore apartment. They flew to London and claimed asylum. Why had the son of Lee Kuan Yew fled his own country? They tell their full story here, for the first time thetimes.com/world/asia/art…