David Ryan
@davidxryan
Journalist | author | DVD extra. Words in The Spectator, Unherd and Spiked Online. Invented George Orwell film studies. http://culturewarp.substack.com
Spent two hours cloning my voice this week, just to avoid stumbling over words in YouTube videos. This inspired a 1,000-word Sobsnack post, link below 👇
Shit like this is why it's hard for me to care about the British Museum "stealing" relics.
The destruction of antiquities, arts, and culture in Syria is heartbreaking, in an attempt to erase Syria's 10,000-year-old cultural identity. No art, no music, no civilization, no future.
Looking forward to my old age, with a collapsed British economy, state pension slipping further and further out of reach, Hamas supporters in parliament and this. thecritic.co.uk/south-africa-a…
I grew up in a communist country. Whenever I hear the government say something like “for your own safety” or somebody else’s, I get a feeling I’ve heard it before…
To listen to this is to understand why Britain is so screwed. People like Ms Bienfait govern Britain. They dominate every governing and public institution, from HM Treasury to the police to Ofcom. These are their values and beliefs. And the system has been designed to ensure that…
Lots of people have been trying to change my mind recently. Here is a story that paints a picture of why I still believe it's right to stand in solidarity with migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Also am proud to be in a party and borough united against the far right ✊🏻💚
Today's example of turning into my dad: singing My Fair Lady's I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face to myself.
In 1975, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn told this story about Angela Davis, who, during a tour of the Soviet Union, said that Soviet dissidents "deserve what they get" and should "remain in prison." Solzhenitsyn called this cold-blooded cruelty "the heart of communism."
Hey @EmmanuelMacron The two-state solution is dead, and here is why: Back in 1994, when Yitzhak Rabin was ready to hand the Palestinians a state on a silver platter, who was the loudest voice against it? Benjamin Netanyahu. And what did the world call him? A radical, an enemy…
He won't be getting off with any lady robots tonight.
A humanoid robot at a DJI exhibition malfunctions while attempting a Charleston dance, July 2025.
My position on AI is that I don't really understand. But to be dismissive seems not prudent to me. We tend to get over-excited about frontier tech early on, then pivot to mockery when early expectations flop, but then crucially to underrate longer term developments/implications
from Cummings' latest: this attitude is pervasive – several months ago, the most senior AI reporter at a major international news org asked me "but are companies actually going to find useful applications for all this stuff?"
The government: “Give us your photo ID and credit card details if you want to access adult websites. They will kept confidential.” Also the government: “We accidentally sent the names of 20,000 enemies of the Taliban to the Taliban.”
The question no politician is ever asked is: "How Muslim would you like this country to be?"
🚨NEW: Majority of Brits say Islam is not compatible with British values Incompatible - 53% Compatible - 25% Don’t know - 22% [@YouGov]
My dad grew up poor in the 1930s and was an arch-socialist. I'm a child of the welfare state myself. But there comes a point where you just think, this has morphed into one enormous piss-take. The left's Achilles' heel is its pathological weakness for sob stories.
Whatever was so awful about Section 28, I can't imagine it was worse than Stephen Ireland or this 👇
A 'non-binary' BBC presenter has launched a project in which she distributes badges, saying 'Safe With Me', in schools, for children to wear in public places. They will signify to any 'trans people' nearby that the child will escort them to a toilet swlondoner.co.uk/news/23072025-…
>English literature graduate >Needs translator Many of our universities are just visa mills for the third-world.
Graduate visa. English literature. University of Bedfordshire. bbc.co.uk/news/articles/…
Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm; but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves. T.S.E.
Asylum claim? That'll do nicely, sir. And would you like to stay in a swanky hotel in an exclusive part of London too?
Watched a brilliant horror film last night - The Substance, in which TV star Demi Moore spawns a younger, perter version of herself. It kind of had a feminist POV (most of the straight men in it were drooling idiots), but I do think you'll enjoy it more if you fancy women.