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Sam Battle is a retro audio tech obsessive. Our writer gets a tour of his museum just as he unleashes his prized exhibit: a 1,000-oscillators-strong Megadrone!
‘I didn’t really plan to do Eurovision at all,” muses Sam Battle as he takes me round his museum, pushing a shock of ever-so-slightly mad scientist hair from his youthful face and coaxing drone sounds out of abstract metal boxes as we go. “I was chatting to Johnny, my friend who works here, and we were saying wouldn’t it be funny to do it. So, we sent an email to the BBC asking, ‘Is there any way we can get on it?’ and they said, ‘Well this guy might be interesting …’”
Known to his fans as Look Mum No Computer, Battle has built a cult following with his wild fusions of music and esoteric technology. The persona started life as a side project when he was lead singer with the indie could-have-beens Zibra in the mid 00s. When the band split up in 2016, Battle threw himself into the world of Look Mum No Computer, filling his YouTube with videos of him rejigging everyday technology into weird and wonderful new shapes, whether that be by turning Sega Megadrives into working synths, or Henry vacuum cleaners into flame-throwers. In this world, nothing was thrown away, and any amount of lead could be transmuted into the gold of a song.
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 14:42:14 GMT
While some are working out how to get rid of the prime minister, others are already plotting against his rival
It used to be football managers who measured their time at a club in months. Or even days at Spurs. Anything over two years qualifies you for a long service medal. Now it’s prime ministers. In fact it’s worse than that. Because it’s also people who might one day be prime minister.
While some Labour MPs are working out how to get rid of Keir Starmer, others are already plotting how to force Wes Streeting out of office should he jump the gun before Andy Burnham is ready to launch his challenge. Who knows where all this could end? Somewhere in the metasphere. It can’t be long before Liz Truss is no longer our shortest serving prime minister. Long live the lettuce.
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 16:32:10 GMT
There is a revolution reshaping how people want and get their information. News brands can and must react, but the time is now
This is an extract from the Sir David Nicholas memorial lecture that Deborah Turness delivered in London on Tuesday evening
No one can dispute that, today, the news industry is once again experiencing a revolution; a revolution that is reshaping news for a new generation of consumers. The disruption transcends all news brands. It impacts all journalists and all journalism, everywhere.
I am an optimist. I believe there are very good reasons to believe in a bright future for what I call the established news providers. So I am determined, having spoken to many people for this dispatch from the frontline, to set out a positive way forward.
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 18:29:01 GMT
A countdown of the greatest literature published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 13:00:47 GMT
Tim Miller’s teen daughter disappeared in 1984, tied to a series of deaths in the Texas ‘killing fields’. After decades, he received a tip that unlocked everything
Tim Miller is good at finding missing people – or rather, their bodies. Four years ago, a stranger called him and left a rambling message claiming that he had important information about an unsolved murder case.
Miller, who lives in Texas and runs a non-profit search-and-recovery organization called EquuSearch, did not treat the message as a high priority. The caller sounded as if he might have been drunk or on drugs. Although tips are vital to EquuSearch’s work, the tip line brings a certain number of hoaxes, cranks and innuendo. Some of the people who leave messages, Miller told me, “probably ought to get their medication checked”.
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 14:00:48 GMT
All the protocols that health experts like me look for have been followed. But outbreaks on cruise ships are notoriously hard to control
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh
Hantavirus: the disease you wish you’d never heard of, as visions of the Covid pandemic flash through your head. I’ve seen lots of breathless coverage and some bizarre takes on social media, so I imagine many people are confused as to what’s going on.
Let me start by saying that this isn’t the Covid pandemic – only Covid was Covid. Previous hantavirus outbreaks have been contained (although none were on a cruise ship). So, for now, the risk to the general public is low – colleagues and I are still carrying on as normal and watching to see whether new infections arise outside the original cruise ship group. Those new infections would be the key step-change determining whether we see further spread and higher-risk public health alerts – or whether we’re at the end of this outbreak.
Prof Devi Sridhar is chair of global public health at the University of Edinburgh, and the author of How Not to Die (Too Soon)
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 15:02:09 GMT
A number of Streeting’s allies resigned from their ministerial posts on Tuesday and called for Keir Starmer to quit
Here are some pictures from No 10 this morning.
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, is now being interviewed on the Today programme. Nick Robinson, the presenter, is asking him if he knows whether Keir Starmer has decided how to respond to the pressure on him to resign. Jones is avoiding the question, as he did on Sky News earlier. (See 7.43am.)
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 18:57:37 GMT
PM accused of dragging heels on forcing tech firms to block transmission of nude photos on children’s phones
Internet safety and children’s rights campaigners say they have been frustrated for months by Keir Starmer’s lack of leadership on blocking child abuse images on children’s phones, speaking out after Jess Phillips resigned from the government saying she was tired of seeing “opportunities for progress stalled and delayed”.
The influential Labour politician was one of four ministers who quit on Tuesday and joined more than 80 MPs to have called for the prime minister to go.
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 18:58:07 GMT
Several tendencies visible amid growing opposition to the prime minister from within parliamentary Labour party
For months, MPs expected the results of the May elections across Great Britain to be a tipping point in Keir Starmer’s premiership. But in the aftermath of the results, and as the number of Labour MPs publicly calling for Starmer to leave has gone past 80, it has become clear that his opponents are serving a variety of agendas. Here are some of the key tendencies visible in the growing opposition to Starmer.
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 16:51:18 GMT
Assurances being sought that Greater Manchester mayor could run for byelection, though MP Marie Rimmer says she will not stand aside
Allies of Andy Burnham have warned against a “coronation” for Wes Streeting as the next prime minister and called on Labour’s ruling body to allow the Greater Manchester mayor to stand for the leadership.
As Keir Starmer attempted to face down mounting calls for his resignation on Tuesday, sources close to Burnham demanded immediate assurances from Labour’s national executive committee (NEC) that he would not be blocked from contesting a parliamentary byelection.
Continue reading...Tue, 12 May 2026 14:57:51 GMT
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