Matt Haig

UK! Dirty Business is must-watch HORRIFIC but brilliant TV. Absolutely riveting about what happens when you let private water companies regulate themselves. Spoiler: they put a load of shit in the water and shareholders end up sated and people end up dead. And if you believe the interests of rampant capitalism shouldn’t be allowed to have a free rein over our water, our air, or our lives - you should probably vote @thegreenparty and never for that sleazy stockbroker’s party.

It’s sad. Sad that two stone cold brilliant films - Sinners and I Swear - have been overshadowed by this. Sad that anti-racist advocates have been involuntarily pitted against advocates for the disabled in this way. The BBC handled it appallingly. They edited out the ‘Free Palestine’ stuff. They could have edited this. Why didn’t they? The excuse they were sitting in a broadcast van and couldn’t hear is laughable. In 2025 BBC Question Time platformed Reform candidates 4X as often as Greens so the excuse rings even more hollow. Has the BBC gone full MAGA? Are they wanting the left to attack each other? No one has the right to police how people respond to racism. No white person - me included - truly knows what inherited multigenerational racial trauma feels like, especially at a time when racism is becoming more open again. Yes, of course, it is important to educate people about Tourette Syndrome and to explain that John Davidson was not in control of what he was saying. Not that he was ‘acting on his own subconscious thoughts’ any more than when - in the film - he shouts about rape and being a pedophile. A section of people with TS have Coprolalia, shouting inappropriate language - incl slurs - at inopportune moments. Yes, if racism didn’t exist he wouldn’t have those words in his head but we ALL know those words and know their offensive power. So that’s on society. Obviously it is understandable people who know about TS felt the need to respond to people furthering stigma. John took himself out of the situation yet the BBC should have found another way to safeguard all involved. TS is a neurodivergence. I have autism and ADHD which isn’t the same except it makes me think of misunderstanding a lot. ADHD changes behaviour. 20 percent of the prison population have it. Impulsivity is different but still true that context isn’t the antidote to pain. I was a cinpulsive shoplifter and that was due to ADHD but that won’t have helped the shops. Someone who upsets someone involuntarily - an apology may follow. Yet this is an age where apologies are seen as guilt. Difficult. Apologies are sometimes for accidents too. But this is on the BBC. Empathy wins.

Finding ways to support other bookshops and work with homeless charities. Anyway I just want to put what is in my head into the world.

Serious question. I mean, specifically, British people. Like, I can honestly remember hearing Prince Andrew being our ‘Trade Envoy’ going around the world making deals on our behalf and thinking okay then. I can remember the news telling us it made sense because the royal family ARE SO LOVED AROUND THE WORLD. Just as the news had once told us that Andrew was a war hero because he had been in a helicopter and took some photos of some wildlife on the Falklands. In the 80s, that was Andrew’s thing. Wildlife. That is what we were told. Every Royal was given a cause. Like some charity avengers. So, like, in It’s a Royal Knockout in 1987 Andrew’s team were raising money for the World Wildlife Fund. So we couldn’t hate him. Because he liked pandas. And so decades later while he gives a man he knows is a pedophile inside trading info within minutes of getting it no one is really batting an eye that good old Randy Andy War Hero is doing important things he isn’t qualified to do and putting our country’s business interests at risk because he may be being blackmailed in a subtle or not subtle way by a monstrous pedophile who has some kind of pedo sonar that has detected all the other powerful pedophiles in the world and blackmailed them like the creepiest Batman villain ever. And now we are going to be gaslit again as more royals are put in front of us to talk through their cuddly causes and we are just expected to carry on like we aren’t just all enabling pedophiles and confirming to ourselves that there is a natural order and we will revere even the most mediocre people in the world if they are posh enough and we are told they are above us. There goes the OBE. Good.

Seen a lot of posts recently about it being a superpower or a kind of joke but I find it predominantly hard. As someone diagnosed with autism and adhd I have to say it is the adhd side that screws up my day most. It is the side that pushed me to chase thrills like shoplifting and alcohol and cocaine. It is the side that for ever does things because they are interesting rather than important. It is even the side of me that had to stop taking medication for actual adhd because I got too addicted to the tablets. It is the side that can’t answer important emails about film rights but can have a long Instagram chat about an old movie. Yes it is the side of me that gets me fit and chases runner’s highs and who can hyperfocus on novels. It is the side of me that gives me infinite anger at people who have benefitted from society’s nonsensical neurotypical unequal rules who then plan trips to an island to party with fellow pedophiles - I think because of a heightened justice sensitivity (or maybe that is the autism) and yet strange empathy for people like Shia Labeouf when he gets arrested for partying too hard in New Orleans. But I would love a mind that could just sit or settle or be bored for five seconds without a discomfort so strong and unavoidable my whole body begins to move restlessly or stands up to make a double espresso or grabs the phone to make this post.