Must Watch Theatre!

A new play about John Major’s rise to power, written by James Graham, will premiere at the National Theatre in London next year, as part of a season that puts political upheaval and global conflict at the heart of its programme.

Wow, really going for the popular events there! 

The National Theatre said the play would explore what leadership means at times of political change, with Graham returning to the recent political history that has become a recurring subject of his work.

What leadership? 

Also on the programme is The Great Indaba, written by Moira Buffini and directed by Rubasingham, which dramatises an extraordinary 1997 meeting in South Africa involving Nelson Mandela’s new national unity government and political rivals from Northern Ireland, as the Good Friday agreement negotiations approached a breakthrough.

Another new play, Samira, by Carmen Nasr, is set during the Arab Spring and will be directed by Emily Burns. The Adeyemis – A Family Saga, a new political family drama by the British Nigerian writer Oladipo Agboluaje, will have its world premiere in the Dorfman theatre, directed by Lucian Msamati and starring Uzo Aduba.

I’m going to the National Theatre in November, but not for any of this politically correct rubbish, to see a production of ‘The Jungle Book’ which promises to hew more closely to the liteature than the wretched Disney abomination.

Among the season’s other new work is Mr Loverman, Natasha Gordon’s stage adaptation of Bernardine Evaristo’s acclaimed novel about a married Caribbean man confronting his sexuality. Gary Beadle, Jo Martin and Danny Sapani are among the initial cast, with Paulette Randall directing.

Ugh, giving that one a miss too. 

There is also a new British musical, Glorious Madness, featuring songs by Joan Armatrading, with a book by Iman Qureshi and directed by Phyllida Lloyd.

A new British musical, featuring songs by an American… 🙄 

Oh Noes! How Horrible! We Must Expand The Definition Of 'Racism' Immediately!

Brace yourself, Reader, guess what's 'racist' now?

A runner in the Great North Run says she was racially abused by a section of spectators.

What did they do? Thow bananas? Make monkey noises?  

She said she noticed England flags while passing through a residential area before hearing people shout: "Protect our kids. Protect our England." 

It's a race run in England, love. Why shouldn't they wave the country's flags? But back to the 'racism', because there must have been more than that, surely? And since our PM was running in this thing, it'll have been recorded.

"And as I went past them next to the roundabout, they booed me," Kirk-Odunubi said.

...

That's it? That's all?  

She said it was her "worst experience" during a race and that "hate has no place in running". 

Hate to break it to you, love, but you aren't owed anyone's cheers. And if this really is your worst experience then there's clearly no real problem with race relations in the UK - quick, someone tell the 'Guardian'!

"This is racism in a space where it should not be," Kirk-Odunubi told BBC Sport.

Give me a break! But of course, the race organisers are taking it seriously, instead of laughing this thin-skinned prima donna out of their offices and telling her to grow up. 

A spokesperson said GNR was "shocked and saddened" by the incident. A statement read: 

"We do not condone behaviour of this nature and we truly believe the event is for everyone. 

"Over 200,000 people turned out in support. It's a real shame that a small subset have spoilt Emma's experience. 

"We are in touch with Emma to understand more about what happened and will be passing on all information to the local police.

They should charge you with 'wasting police time'. 

"We are working with local authorities and the emergency services to understand more about what has happened, and we will of course be taking learnings from this incident to try and mitigate this happening at future events."

What will you do, hire profressional cheerers to stand in the crowd, for the next time, to react when anyone black hoves in sight?

Just Make It Stop!

Ahh, we're back in the wacky world of science fiction and fantasy, as viewed through the warped lens of Reactormag's genital-obsessed columnists.

Growing up as a queer person in Indonesia meant continually starving for representation.

It’s a Muslim country, no one’s going to stick their heads over that parapet, not if they want to keep the on their shoulders! 

However, when I turn to Western media, more often than not I’m met with disappointment—I find that I cannot relate to the queer characters at all.

Really? It’s just a Western conceit that thinks the only important thing is the sexuality then? 

Recently, my friends shared a post about the Amsterdam Rainbow Dress. I get the intended sentiment. It’s a call for inclusivity and equal rights for everyone in every country in the world. Still, I can’t help but wonder, with a definite sense of bitterness: Is that all these countries are to the people behind this project? Why does it feel like the dress is saying “we are more civilized than you are”? The dress gestures at solidarity, but flattens out nuance and historical reality in a way that feels in keeping with a particularly Western, European brand of paternalism that conveniently turns very real people actively fighting for their own rights into caricatures and passive victims.

Welcome to enlightenment! That’s exactly how it works-you’re a tick in the box to the very people who commissioned this post. 

Why do I, a queer person of color, have my existence reduced to the narrative that “your country is homophobic” and yet in the media, white characters get to be queer and live rich lives without being trapped and confined within the limits of an outsider’s view of their existence?

 Because your country IS homophobic, of course. And that's hardly the worst thing about it, is it?

The graphic novel follows Indu, a trans boy from the moon who struggles with culture shock when he and his adoptive mother move to New Earth. The language barrier makes it difficult for him to connect with his stepfamily and make friends at school, but Indu discovers that New Earth’s queer community are happy to welcome him.

We aren’t just a “developing country.” We aren’t going to be reduced to the neo-colonized tourist traps that have taken over Bali. We are so much more; we are of a rich history and culture that’s under constant threat of being forgotten if we don’t preserve it through our own stories.

You haven’t been able to preserve anything else of your culture in the face of Muslim expansion and conquest, have you? 

Cogratulations, Apple!

You've finally come up with a new iphone device I have no intention of buying, I'll stick to my Pro Max model as long as possible instead, ot as long as you continue to make 'em.

Apple has just leapt into the world of foldable devices with the exciting launch of the new iPhone Duo.

They announced the new Pro Max for 2026 which now comes in burgundy, but as I always plonk mine in a case is less of a draw than a new colour used to be when I was younger. And I haven’t completely killed the battery on my current phone yet, so I’ve no need to upgrade.

In a major break from Apple's long-established smartphone designs, the iPhone Duo features a rounded 5.4-inch outer display and a 7.6-inch inner screen. However, on social media, some of the tech company's fans have not been impressed. Social media users have torn into the expensive phone's design, calling the iPhone Duo 'ugly' and 'awkward'.

I prefer 'short-lived gimmick'. 

Users will be able to use the iPhone Duo in any orientation or position, leaving it half open to prop up and watch movies hands-free or holding it partially folded like a book.

I have an iPad and several Kindles, I don't need a phone that transforms itself into a third-rate copy of either!

Working Together For A Safer London?

That's the motto of the Metropolitan Police. How exactly do they go about it? Well...

A Sudanese lorry migrant who stabbed a stranger to death while on police bail over a rampage just 48 hours earlier was jailed for 27 years. Rasheed Rahman, 21, murdered grandfather Mark Carroll, 55, on April 10, 2024 in a park in Camden, north London. Just two days earlier Rahman went berserk on a canal tow-path, punching and kicking members of the public but was bailed by the police.

 🤦‍♀️

In February two months before those two attacks, he broke Iulian Cavaliuc's arm with a wooden club and knifed him in the back on a double decker bus in east London. Mr Cavaliuc reported the attack to police later that day but Rahman remained at large while police officers tried to obtain CCTV footage and find him.

Did they try very hard? 

Despite Rahman's violence, staff at the supported accommodation unit where he lived in Chadwell Heath, east London, handed him a blade a day before the murder. It was this 5in knife he plunged into Mr Carroll in a frenzied outburst.

Not quite as bad as it sounds, he told them he wanted it to cook with. 

Judge John Dodd, KC, at Wood Green Crown Court jailed Rahman for life with a minimum of 27 years, and told him he would be deported.

Why not deport him now, to serve his sentence in Sudan? 

Rahman made a successful asylum application in March 2023 and was granted temporary leave to remain in the UK.

And of course, he was supplied with a lawyer free of charge to plead for clemency. 

John Femi-Ola KC, defending, said Rahman was born in Sudan and saw his sister murdered when the Islamic militant group Boko Haram invaded his village.

Shame. That they didn’t get him as well. 

Mr Femi-Ola said he fled to Chad and then Libya and then came to the UK in the back of a lorry. He was found to be living undocumented in Essex in 2021 and was granted temporary leave to remain.

Of course he was… 

There's Too Many Of Them Here, And They Don't Belong!

But does that mean we should allow members of the public to take the law into their own hands. No, of course not, but it will happen anyway, if the government fails to act. 

I am of course not talking about illegal immigrants - they are well protected - but about invasive parakeets. Apparently, the London catapult yobs find them an easy target, and at least this spares our native wildlife.

A wildlife charity said 43 ring-necked parakeets were found in Priory Gardens in Orpington, south-east London, in just three weeks.

Dead, from likely catapult wielding youths. Well, saves them using native species for targets, I guess...  

The charity is now calling for tighter controls on the sale of catapults to under-18s and for wildlife crime to be given greater priority by police.

Of course they are. 

Gareth Bacon, the Conservative MP for Orpington, has previously called for catapult sales to be licensed.

Od course he has. 

In One Bold Stroke, Two-Tier Policing And The Labour Government's Ineptitude...

This guy at today’s Portsmouth anti migrant demo followed advice on here and dressed up in a Burqa🤣
He was then let off by the police!
Hilarious, if blatant 2 Tier policing though.🤨 pic.twitter.com/BxWBP4h2lU

— Dave (@DaveKent101) September 12, 2026

H/T: Dave at Twitter

Update: 

Shortly after cuing this post up, someone with two brain cells to run together realised how it would look and he was arrested. It'll be interesting to see if he's charged, I can't see the nototiously work-shy CPS wanting to take a punt at it.

Oh, Can You Imagine The Tantrum...

...if #Charles were to take Matt's advice? 

Sunday Funnies...

 Of course, we haven't had the real ending to No 11, and I don't think we'll ever get it at this rate....

Hysterics And Technophobes!

There is now a growing realisation that Britain's second-hand bookshops are being pillaged - not by voracious collectors of prized first editions but by Silicon Valley tech firms for a far more insidious purpose.

What are they doing? Buying things. And treating those things as if they owned them, the bastards! 

Today, the Daily Mail explains how millions of second-hand books are being bought in bulk and sent to warehouses across America, where the pages are sliced from the spine before being fed into industrial scanners, harvested for their text, and later destroyed. This process, known as 'destructive scanning', is the latest method of gathering the vast reams of data being used by Big Tech to train its AI chatbots.

I wonder what Longrider's take on this is... 

'It's a moral dilemma,' says Lucy. 'They're my books, my babies. I feel like we've been eaten by the AI monster. It's difficult. 

Then why are you offering them for sale? 

'I want the sale, but not to somebody who will b****r up everybody's books.'

Well, you gave up the right to demand what should happen to them when you sold them! 

Aside from the obvious concerns over copyright - of which more later - there are fears tech firms could be destroying rare books - even the last remaining editions of some historical tomes. As Lucy herself admitted, some of the books purchased from her store are 'collectable and valuable'. 

It would be perfectly ok if a person bought them, read them once (or not at all) and then put them on a shelf never to be taken down again, I suppose? 

'Bulk-buying books just to rip them apart to scan is shocking, but it's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the brazen theft of copyright materials by the tech giants,' says Dan Conway, CEO of the Publishers Association.

The books are paid for - thrice, once by the original purchaser, and a second time as second-hand books, so it’s hard to see how authors are being hard done by here. 

Most book-lovers would find the practice of destroying huge numbers of physical volumes stomach-churning. Scenes of grinning young Nazis burning towering pyres of 'un-German' books in university cities across the Third Reich in 1933 are seared in the public memory: a 'cultural genocide' that continues to horrify us.

The books aren’t being destroyed entirely, though! Their content still exists, just in digital format. 

Of course, the AI companies would argue they are doing something different: rather than destroying books to censor the material they contain, as the Nazis did, they are destroying them in order to disseminate their contents more widely.

They would be right to argue that, because they demonstrably are.