Wednesday 26 August, 2026

Poppy farming A reminder of what the garden was like before the Great Drought. Quote of the Day ”Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog it’s too dark to read.” Groucho Marx Musical alternative to the morning’s radio news J.S. Bach | Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring | Leo Kottke Link I once heard him play this at the Cambridge Folk Festival. Magical moment. Long Read of the Day Would even an AI disaster on the scale of Hiroshima be enough to make humankind protect itself? Timothy Garton Ash fears not. Here’s his sombre reasoning As a matter of fact, everyone from the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, to Pope Leo XIV has been weighing in on the opportunities and dangers of AI, and how to regulate it. Xi insists AI should be “always under human control” (and preferably that of the Chinese Communist party). Appealing explicitly to the “global south”, Beijing has inaugurated a World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation. Meanwhile, the head of the world’s oldest…