sean thomas knox @thomasknox Twitter profile

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sean thomas knox

16 days

I now have a substack. Huzzah. The first article is here, it’s all about encountering strange new places and moments - spiritual or devilish, dark or light - the tingle of OMG when you enter… PLEASE do subscribe; I aim to write at least once a week

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

8 months

We did that. Us. The British. The Industrial Revolution. Probably the single greatest positive change in human existence. Admittedly since then all we’ve done is some OK TV drama, but still

Amjad Masad

@amasad

1 year

The question is *not* why we took off but instead what took so long to take off

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

Spain launches a digital nomad visa. Tax rate 15%. Only open to non EU nationals. It is a wild irony of Brexit that maybe its most tangible benefit yet is that Brits can now leave the UK and live in a lovely sunny part of the EU - and pay much less tax than EU citizens

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 years

😶 Birmingham used to look like Paris. I will never stop being angry about this. But more importantly, there is something we can DO about this. You can’t bring back dead people, but you CAN rebuild cities. Make Britain grand again. Rebuild!

Jon Neale

@JonNeale

2 years

1/13 Corporation Street was one of the defining achievements of Joseph Chamberlain's mayoralty, an attempt to give Birmingham the grand boulevard it deserved. Here it is in its prime.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

I wonder how much the loss of Top Gear’s international earnings, after Clarkson’s sacking (£50m a year) has influenced the BBC’s need to charge all pensioners. It has to be an issue. Perhaps the future death of the BBC will one day be traced back to a missing steak. Poignant.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

Years ago a Jewish friend tried to persuade me that much of the ardent sympathy for Palestine was, actually, disguised anti Semitism. I disagreed, citing Israel’s cruelty. Now I suspect he was right. Lots of these people don’t give a fuck about Palestine. They just hate Jews.

Aviva Klompas

@AvivaKlompas

11 months

Grieving families in London posted pictures of loved ones kidnapped by Hamas. These vile people are tearing them down.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 months

Ridiculous over-reaction. Who here hasn't occasionally taken a cab to Clifton Suspension Bridge with two suitcases containing human remains? Have the police got nothing better to do?

Sky News

@SkyNews

2 months

BREAKING: Police are hunting for a man who left two suitcases believed to contain human remains on Clifton Suspension Bridge. 📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

"Yes many children were murdered, and there were several beheadings, but not 40, saying 40 beheadings is irresponsible and racist"

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

I have just discovered that the Ambassador of the UAE, to the UK, spends his free time cycling around the UK. Literally. From Scotland to the Solent. Respect

Ambassador Mansoor Abulhoul

@MansoorAbulhoul

1 year

Exploring the beauty of the UK and connecting with its people through cycling is one of my greatest passions and one of the most sustainable ways of travel. Towards the end of my time in Portsmouth, I cycled through Hampshire, the Isle of Wight and the New Forest to discover

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

I wrote about Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge, and how we all somehow forgot about Pol Pot

How we forgot about Pol Pot

When I was a small boy, I had a favourite book: The Magic Faraway Tree, by Enid Blyton. Given that my own family life not was not untroubled, the story of how a bunch of regular kids travel, via this...

www.spectator.co.uk

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

9 months

You could happily spend decades in a room like this. Reading, and thinking, then playing the odd Bach fugue, then reading again

Adam James Pollock

@aIIegoricaI

9 months

Sir Roger Scruton’s study, a kind that is only achieved through a lifetime of work

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

Alexandria so far is fascinating, grimy, strange, poetic and dilapidated. With extraordinary Greco-Egyptian-Roman-Christian catacombs

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

A precious remnant of old London: a Huguenot weavers' house from 1750. Beautiful, fragily, marvellous. Listed? No. Going to be knocked down? Yes. One for @holland_tom

Developers Are Planning To Demolish This 18th Century East End Building

Seriously, what are they playing at?

londonist.com

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

9 months

In an unexpected development, Argentina seems to have elected, as President, a young Bernard Manning

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

10 months

The people telling us that the word “jihad” being screamed on a London street is “nuanced, complex, and can mean multiple things” are the same people trying to get the word “Anglo-Saxon” erased from academia because it is “racist” and “white supremacist”

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

3 years

The Financial Times back then. The Financial Times now

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

This is the eco-version of The Crooked House pub demolition. However, with that you could see the clear benefit to the venal bastards that did it. Here, there is zero benefit to anyone. It is pointless sociopathy, and requiring chainsaws at night, in a remote place. Bizarre

Prof Jamie Woodward

@Jamie_Woodward_

11 months

Sycamore Gap in June 2021. Now gone forever. A sick act of vandalism. This is so depressing.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

This reminds me of a friend who had an eccentric phase while living in Wales. Just after 9/11 he told me he’d worked out where the final, downed plane was really going. It wasn’t aiming for the White House, it was heading across the sea to take out Aberystwyth’s funicular railway

Metro

@MetroUK

11 months

⬆️ Update: Woman slams selfish paragliders who made her think Hamas were invading Doncaster The terror group was filmed using powered hang gliders to launch its horrifying attack on the Supernova music festival in Israel on October 7.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

Like it or loathe it, according to Canada, we have Left

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

True story: friend of mine proudly got his Irish/EU passport. Thereby hoping to avoid the awful Brexity queues into the EU. First flight into Malaga last month. Met a horrible 1hr+ passport EU queue. Wife and daughter with UK passports sailed through in minutes. 🤷‍♂️🍷🤷‍♂️

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

Coffee in the cafe where Cavafy coffee’d Alexandria Mon Amour!

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

My Dad once got a bad review of his memoir in Private Eye. And when I say “bad” I mean the headline of the review was “Thomas the Wank Engine” - and it got worse from there. Did he send off a tearful, angry letter to Private Eye? No he did not. Come on Jolyon, shape up

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

9 months

Agree or not, one has to admire the sheer chutzpah of Larry Elliot on the Guardian. Telling its readers the UK economy is actually doing OK, Brexit is not a disaster, in some ways the EU is worse off = no Rejoin Comments, unsurprisingly, are turned off

I've got news for those who say Brexit is a disaster: it isn't. That’s why rejoining is just a pipe...

Many still hanker for how things were: but looking across the Channel, it’s completely illogical to do that, says Guardian columnist Larry Elliott

www.theguardian.com

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

Man who lives on “Venice Beach, Los Angeles” has a violent breakdown over a Portuguese custard tart in Berlin, when he suddenly realises that the British have stopped him being a European citizen who chose to live in America.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

8 months

I wrote an Elegy for Western Civilisation - and a big moan about litter - as seen through the prism of Sicily

Sicily and the slow collapse of civilisation

Sicily, off the tip of Italy, was once at the peak of human culture. Now it is a slow spiral of litter-ridden decline.

www.spectator.co.uk

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 months

I never bang on about my journalism. I am going to bang on about this one. Because people need to know. An AI machine gave me a professional-level edit of a book IN TWENTY SECONDS. This is the end of publishing, and all the other cognitive industries

The person who edited this will soon be redundant

Yes, I know you've heard a lot about AI, but this feels different – now it's able to advise on complex things like novel writing.

www.spectator.co.uk

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

And remember this. They cut down all the beautiful, ancient plane trees in Euston Square “for HS2”. Which now won’t go to Euston. So we’ve had all the bleak destruction for literally zero benefit. Abominable

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

France, this is really not a good look.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

3 months

@fossilfreebooks You stupid trustafarian wankers

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

It is astonishing to witness apparently sane, intelligent, “moral” individuals happily asking to Revoke Article 50 - so as to cancel and ignore the biggest vote in British history. They would, thereby, destroy our democracy. And much else. Incredible.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

7 months

I can cope with my country toppling into decline. Maybe absolute decline. Nations rise and fall. Where is Nineveh and Tyre, etc. But do we really have to do it in orgasms of cringeworthy Wokeness that make everyone want to curl up and die? Rome at least got an honest sacking

BBC News (UK)

@BBCNews

7 months

London Overground: New names for its six lines revealed

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

"Crooked House" is an example of social media being positive. In the past, you'd have learned about this weeks later, the outrage would be weak & wistful, you'd move on. On TwitterX it is visceral & in real-time, and the alleged culprits get intense pressure from the start. Good

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

10 months

Something strange is happening to Braverman’s TwitterX account. A week ago she got good views. 100,000s. Now she regularly gets millions. Way more than almost any politician. Hmmmm

sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

10 months

Braverman’s resignation letter has had a scarcely believable sixteen MILLION views. How can that be? Secret fan club in India? Is Elon a fan and promoting her? 😶

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

Quite insane. England is divided, politically, between Labour-inclined regions and Lib Dem-inclined regions, by a line that follows… Watling Street. The Roman road laid in 47 AD.

Hugh Carter

@Hugh_Carter_

2 years

@rake_schri @MattSingh_ Here's just England with my closet approximation of Watling St - backing up your eyes quite convincingly...

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 years

Time to take another loooooooong break from Twitter. The world is too much with me, and I have books to write and mouths to feed. I’ll be back to do occasional, vulgar self-publicity, otherwise see you in six months: the winter solstice. If the world hasn’t entirely burned down.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

On the left, Euston Road as it was. On the right, Euston Road as it is now. Soon, all of London will look excitingly like Swindon, and the trainspotters will finally be happy

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

This is what Euston looks like now. This is what the government is about to walk away from - like a drunk who puked in a hotel wardrobe and now flees the place at 5am

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

Russian TV always cheers me up. My general ongoing opinion of Britain is that we’re a shambolic, sometimes lovable old country basically held together with sellotape and string. Russian TV tells me No, the British are secretly running the entire world.

Francis Scarr

@francis_scarr

11 months

This is absolutely wild from commentator Ruslan Kurbanov, even by Russian state TV’s usual standards He says the Hamas attacks on Israel could have been overseen by British intelligence with the ultimate aim of driving the US out of the Middle East

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

3 months

@fossilfreebooks Everyone hates you. Well done

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

5 hours ago I left my wallet at Camden Road station. Everything in it. Realised it was gone, as I arrived in Richmond, & ruefully totted up all the hassle & expense. 5 hours later, I return to Camden Road - someone handed it in, entirely intact. Thankyou @TfL & that lovely person

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 months

I wrote about my melancholy impressions of Paris, on my recent visit. I hope this wonderful city recovers soon

Paris, city of blight

You know that feeling when you haven’t seen someone for several years and when you do, you really notice the changes? Generally it is a melancholy moment: you spot the extra wrinkles, the added...

www.spectator.co.uk

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

Were we this inarticulate age 18-23? I don't believe so. We were stupid and naive but we could string a sentence together. AND we did more booze and drugs. We were more articulate, than this, when we were on heroin

Jess Gill

@jessgill03

1 year

Leftists admit mass immigration is equivalent to colonisation. They see it as payback for Britain’s history…

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 years

One thing truly mystifies me about China’s attitude to Covid. This is a nation prepared to staple millions of people into apartments. It will happily surveil its 1.4bn population & brutally repress entire provinces. Yet it won’t make vaccinations compulsory?!

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

An extraordinary opening line in a @guardian article. “It remains a shocking fact that 92% of land in England is privately owned”. Yes, how dare the English have gardens & farms & green spaces they own, and look after. If only the state could own every single flower & tree

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 months

@Chris_arnade Not true, in my experience. I almost never hear of Europeans yearning to live in America. Too much violence, too divided, too depressing. Europeans - if they want to emigrate - want to go to Australia. Sunny rich and safe

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

Morocco has high speed trains. Poland has high speed trains. Egypt has high speed trains. Thailand is building high speed trains. UZBEKISTAN has high speed trains Britain has a shed south of Neasden that cost £4 trillion

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

9 months

It is time to return the Elgin Marbles to their true owners - the trillions of tiny organisms in ancient oceans who laid down their tiny little bodies to create the limestone that then metamorphosed into the marble that the thoughtless Greeks carved into arrogant humanoid shapes

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 months

Gareth Southgate I never doubted you *deletes 16,729 tweets*

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

No electricity and total silence. It’s like having a holiday in the Book of Genesis. At Adrere Amellal, Siwa Oasis, Egypt

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

10 months

Absolute bullshit. Sunak may be a mediocre PM but he did an excellent job interviewing a famously shy, awkward albeit super intelligent man. And it wasn’t meant to be a scathing political interview, it was meant to elicit Musk’s fascinating, informed views of AI. Which it did

Sky News

@SkyNews

10 months

'An interview that lacked hard questions, they talked about AI friendships and The Terminator films... it was one of the most extraordinary events that I've ever covered.' @SamCoatesSky attended the PM's interview of Elon Musk. Hear his thoughts 👇

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

For me, Gary Lineker is a kind of secular saint. Indeed there is a Biblical Parallel. In the First Letter of St John to the Tax Avoiders, the Apostle actually says: “Blessed is he, who strives not to give £4.9 million to the NHS, who nonetheless loudly CARES about refugees” 🙏

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

9 months

I’m always amazed that more isn’t made of this. Especially when 1. Many people say he was actually 14 when this began, and 2. She was his teacher. Unimaginable in any other western country

New York Post

@nypost

9 months

Brigitte Macron says her ‘head was in a mess’ when she dated future French president when he was 15 and she was 40

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 years

Look. I did it. I stayed off Twitter for SIX MONTHS. From midsummer to midwinter. IT CAN BE DONE. Happy Christmas xx

sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 years

Time to take another loooooooong break from Twitter. The world is too much with me, and I have books to write and mouths to feed. I’ll be back to do occasional, vulgar self-publicity, otherwise see you in six months: the winter solstice. If the world hasn’t entirely burned down.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

I mean, if a government can just “revoke” a huge, historic, winning referendum vote, why can’t it just “revoke” a smaller general election result, on the same logic? Why can’t it just “revoke” universal suffrage? How can people like @davidallengreen not see the terrible danger?

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

20 days

Whatever you think of @DouglasKMurray , this is a remarkable book. Brilliantly prescient in places, and boldly contentious in others. And properly investigative, forensic, detailed. Needs to be addressed, even if you despise the thesis and/or the author

Douglas Murray

@DouglasKMurray

20 days

Thank you to everyone who has helped push ‘The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam’ [2017] back into the bestseller lists.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

This is brilliant. “How can I, Ash Regan, steer Scotland to independence without the consent of the UK government? Well, for a start, I have studied clarinet to grade FIVE, and I have passed my cycling proficiency test. Twice”

Paul Hutcheon

@paulhutcheon

1 year

Ash Regan seems to be saying she can deliver independence because she has a couple of degrees.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

6 months

It is very hard to look completely natural, genial, funny, and engaging on TV, which is what Dave Myers did AND he and Si King told you great stories and made great food in some really great locations, as they did it RIP

Pete

@thelowse

6 months

RIP Dave Myers. You’ll be missed ❤️ #thehairybikers

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

10 months

My Lord. Olivier reciting Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. That voice, those words, the past

Edmund

@Kulambq

10 months

Sir Laurence Olivier reciting Shakespeare's Sonnet 116. It's quite amazing to observe how each word he recites comes as naturally as the leaves to a tree. 'Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom.'

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 years

I wrote about the strangely powerful weirdness that is the live-streamed video feed: of the Queen’s Lying in State

What the live-streamed lying-in-state says to us

In 2002 I attended the lying-in-state of the Queen Mother. I did it as part of the grand old British tradition of faintly annoying all your left-wing friends. I also thought it might be an interest...

www.spectator.co.uk

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

10 months

I have reached Ortygia, Syracuse…. And… it is like a dream. I have seldom been to a place so instantly magical and different. Like a De Chirico painting meets some vespers by Arvo Part. There are almost no cars

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

If I’m reading the sensitivity readers correctly, it’s no longer possible to refer to race except with platitudes. It’s also impermissible to have a racist character. This diminishes art AND our understanding of humanity - and of human prejudice. It’s stupid even in its own terms

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

3 years

Did me a little @spectator article on the odd similarities between hardcore Trumpites and hardcore Remainers

What the Capitol riots and the plot to stop Brexit have in common

It’s not often that browsing the genteel aisles of Waterstones reminds you of madmen storming the Capitol in buffalo-horn helmets, but that’s the buzz I got as I briskly scanned the History shelves....

www.spectator.co.uk

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

I know it’s “just a pub” but this story has enraged me like few others in recent weeks. And now this video? It’s like watching a murder, helplessly, in slow motion. 😤😤

Paul Dadge

@Dadgey

1 year

Within hours of @StaffsPolice and @StaffsFire leaving The Crooked House at Himley, footage has emerged of a digger moving onto site and quickly demolishing the building. Credit: Anonymous- Facebook Spotted Russells Hall

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 years

I forgot the intense beauty of the @aristiresort across the Zagori mountains. But then I opened the window of my hotel room this morning, after a stormy evening yesterday. Ah yes. Kalimera, Epirus

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

The coppers are actually DIGGING UP THE GARDEN of Nicola Sturgeon's house, following the arrest and taking-into-custody of her husband. Meanwhile, in entirely unrelated news, "Fred West" is trending on Twitter UK

Connor Gillies

@ConnorGillies

1 year

NEW: Detectives seen with a spade & garden equipment in the rear garden of Peter Murrell and Nicola Sturgeon’s Glasgow home. Officers spotted with blue tarpaulin sheets, a stills camera and laptop as they examine the area around the garage. Rolling coverage @SkyNews

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@thomasknox

1 year

Wokeness cannot coexist with great art. It’s as simple as that. We are bequeathing European culture to a generation of brain-bleached retards

tiffany jenkins

@tiffanyjenkins

1 year

Glib, patronizing… belittling. The problem with these ‘interventions’ is not just that they are historically naive, but that they fundamentally misunderstand the way we use museums.’ Superb review of the new hang @Tate Britain

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

As it is crucial to know the sexual orientation of people who build railways, I for one am relieved to know that fully 8% of HS2’s “Phase 2 Directors” identify as LGBTQ+. However it is left alarmingly unclear as to how many are into edgeplay, bondage and wristwatch fetishes

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 years

Wrote me a piece on Wokeness, Witches and Why Cancel Culture might go the way of Matthew Hopkins, Witchfinder General

Cancel culture rarely survives a plague

Ideological mania can become too costly to maintain

unherd.com

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 months

@Chris_arnade One of the most exotic things I have ever encountered is Scots Gaelic a capella psalm-singing, in fiercely Presbyterian churches in the Outer Hebrides Spinetingling and ancient and SO exotic. And in my own country, the UK

Gaelic Psalm singing

www.youtube.com

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 years

Just landed. On the Gatwick Express speeding to London.. and there are all these digital billboards with pictures of Her Maj & suddenly I am enclosed in sadness. Coming back to a Queenless country for the first time in my life. I don’t like it. A great forest has been felled.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

It is a tad hilarious that the only Northern team left in the World Cup is.... England. The only Northern team in the semi finals. Wales, Scotland, France, Ireland: all out. Steve Borthwick is allowed a modest, sardonic chuckle

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 years

@joethestal @Dalle2Pics @GoHerky I thought exactly the same! It’s evolved. It’s learned how to write - and how to write clever puns?!

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

12 days

State run, state approved social media. Imagine. Not sure even the Chinese would be so brazen

alan rusbridger

@arusbridger

13 days

Musk has made it perfectly clear what sort of space he wants to create here. This is how we could do better.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 years

Spain's achievement in completely eliminating covid-19 via the pioneering method of **checks notes** not gathering any data, is not getting enough credit

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

8 months

I was in West Virginia this year. I was in France, too (and a poor part of France). The idea West Virginia has a higher quality of life than impoverished France is fantastically stupid

Tom Harwood

@tomhfh

9 months

Europe is just so poor. Compared to even the poorer parts of America, it’s just on another level of poverty.

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@thomasknox

5 years

What’s worse about Twitter is the way it destroys people - lives or careers, in a day or two - whether they deserve it or not - AND WE ALL WATCH. It’s like a slo-mo ISIS video. Like a gory death in the Roman arena. It demeans the observer as it disembowels the victim.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

3 years

Yes, epic sunsets. Yes, haunted forts. Yes, the ends of the earth & Henry the Navigator. But the highlight of my assignment to the Costa Vicentina and wild windy Sagres, so far, is a little fishing cafe above a fish auction house & THESE sardines @Pousadas @visitportugal

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

An entire square of empty shops. I love France and admire the French. Take no pleasure in their urban distress. But if anyone claims distressed towns are a British thing, let alone a Brexit thing, they are entirely wrong

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

2 days after Chernobyl (the finale, not the disaster) am still slightly stunned by its genius. I’m trying to think of something - anything - it got wrong. The casting? Wow. The writing? Superb. The music? Haunting. The plotting? Imperious. The buttons on the uniforms? Maybe?

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

10 months

But remember, shouting “jihad! Jihad! Jihad!” outside the Israeli Embassy is NOT a cause for police action - unlike these tweets - because “jihad!!!” is a nuanced word with multiple meanings, and the police are sensitive to such things

Maya Forstater

@MForstater

10 months

This is shocking and terrifying. A woman called in for questioning for some general gender critical tweets. This gets nowhere close to malicious comms. She didn't even send them to anyone for a start! And OMG the duty solicitor 🤦‍♀️

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 months

The only people on earth not allowed an ethnicity, an origin, a homeland, an identity - in essence, a story of themselves - are the white peoples of north west Europe

UnHerd

@unherd

4 months

Cambridge University Press has renamed an academic journal to remove mention of Anglo-Saxons, a decision which @dcsandbrook has attributed to 'total drips'. UnHerd reports 👇

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

Splendid searchable map from @HistoricEngland showing all the listed buildings in the country. I never knew that my balconies and railings are Grade II.

Search the List: Map Search | Historic England

Explore over 400,000 listed buildings and historic places on the National Heritage List for England.

historicengland.org.uk

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

11 months

The news of the tree makes me sick at heart. I’m hearing of people bursting into tears when they see the photos. It strikes at something deep in us. The only consolation is poetry - beauty from destruction Binsey Poplars By Gerard Manley Hopkins

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

I like Chris Packham. I like that he's an activist. He's also a brilliant presenter. The problem is not him, the problem is that the BBC - in losing Clarkson - lost maybe the last voice from a different perspective. Now many Britons don't see themselves on the BBC. Dangerous.

Tom Gallagher NEW book Europe's Leadership Famine

@cultfree54

5 years

BBC failure to keep a space for popular talent like Jeremy Clarkson while green activist Chris Packham and bland Claire Balding are everywhere, may be a death foretold for the corporation.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

How come Lviv, the 2nd city of a nation with a GDP per capita of just $5000, which is also AT WAR - looks cleaner and nobler than almost any similar sized British city? OK the sunshine and architecture help, but still. Eg: There’s no litter

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

1 year

In Warsaw: the Old Town Square. It is impressive. Yet every single building is a fake. Rebuilt after 1945. Nonetheless it got UNESCO listed in 2011. How come Poundbury is bad and evil and “pastiche” - yet this is noble and worthy and UNESCO-able?

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 years

In 8000BC the builders of Gobekli Tepe, the “oldest temple in the world” (in Kurdish Turkey) suddenly decided to entomb their great structure, in tons of dust. The first iconoclasm. No one is sure why they did it, but many speculate it was because of climate change..

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

6 months

A few hours ago, ChatGPT responded to some boring question about code or whatever, with this "This is the great au fond, the élan in the search, the impellent in the seque. It is the confrère, the psychic, the daily, the always, it is indeed, the countenance of a future,

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

2 years

Across the sea to Samos. And a little apartment in the hometown of Pythagoras

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

3 months

Moldova is really really really really surprising. I fear I have to use the worst cliche in travel writing. It’s a HIDDEN GEM. Also it’s seriously cheap

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

3 years

And now, the last lunch, the last view of Lucerne, the last of Switzerland. Proschtli. It’s been a hoot. @MySwitzerland_e @ilovelucerne at the beautiful restaurant/hotel @Des_Balances

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

4 months

Western Civilisation is magnificent. I am so done with those who would blithely tear it down

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

3 months

Indescribably sad and moving memorial in Kyiv. Women quietly weeping either side of me. The flags go on and on and on, and each one is a fallen Ukrainian soldier Slava Ukraini

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

7 months

I’m not joking. This science writer thinks fish and birds are small mammals

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

5 years

@formerleft Boris is gonna win this, for good or bad. The only thing that could have stopped him is rumour and wardrobe-skeletons. Amazingly, he has shrugged them off. He is a lucky general. Maybe that is what we need more than anything. Luck.

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sean thomas knox

@thomasknox

8 months

The degradation of urban Britain is so bad it might make me emigrate. I don’t understand how councils and planners so consistently get it so wrong. Are they stupid, corrupt, what? What is it?

createstreets

@createstreets

8 months

Those responsible for governing Bedford over the last 70 years have done it great harm, scarring its heart with fast roads & one-way gyratories (as here), demeaning it with ugly & faceless insertions & draining life out of the centre into a sprawling & lumpen #Boxland but …

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