Tom Royal
@tomroyal.com
Stupidity tries. Code, cats, cycling, existential dread, parenting in South London. Making America Kittens Again, again (sigh). Mostly at tomroyal.com
When they ask what radicalised me, let them know it was the UK's secondary school admission "system". A veritable hurricane of shit, packed with inefficiencies, idiocies and biases, shittifying every life it tears through. Tear it down.
September 9, 2026 at 6:31 PM
When they ask what radicalised me, let them know it was the UK's secondary school admission "system". A veritable hurricane of shit, packed with inefficiencies, idiocies and biases, shittifying every life it tears through. Tear it down.
Today in weird life admin tasks: emailing the Swedish police because it looks like I wasn't checked out (or in?) of the EES system at Arland and now my record is messed up.
Feels like one of those things that'll either be easy to sort (am pretty sure I am not in Sweden) or a complete arseache..
Feels like one of those things that'll either be easy to sort (am pretty sure I am not in Sweden) or a complete arseache..
September 6, 2026 at 6:34 PM
Today in weird life admin tasks: emailing the Swedish police because it looks like I wasn't checked out (or in?) of the EES system at Arland and now my record is messed up.
Feels like one of those things that'll either be easy to sort (am pretty sure I am not in Sweden) or a complete arseache..
Feels like one of those things that'll either be easy to sort (am pretty sure I am not in Sweden) or a complete arseache..
Apparently the average cost of a by-election was, in 2010-16, about £240k. Must be higher now, I wonder by how much. And I want that arsehole Farage to pay for it.
July 7, 2026 at 8:49 PM
Apparently the average cost of a by-election was, in 2010-16, about £240k. Must be higher now, I wonder by how much. And I want that arsehole Farage to pay for it.
As an entirely unprompted recommendation out of nowhere: Citizen Sleeper is £5 on the Nintendo Store (also Steam etc etc) and I'm enjoying it very much (also the soundtrack).. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen...
Citizen Sleeper - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
July 6, 2026 at 9:04 AM
As an entirely unprompted recommendation out of nowhere: Citizen Sleeper is £5 on the Nintendo Store (also Steam etc etc) and I'm enjoying it very much (also the soundtrack).. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen...
One for the Lewisham folks. Spot the.. uh.. surprise feature?
June 13, 2026 at 9:33 PM
One for the Lewisham folks. Spot the.. uh.. surprise feature?
Nope nope nopedy nope (failed to get a ticket anyhow, sigh)
June 10, 2026 at 9:47 AM
Nope nope nopedy nope (failed to get a ticket anyhow, sigh)
Today in interesting/depressing: the Twitter account of Alcatel (low cost phones etc, made by TCL I think) has had its advertising account compromised and is happily promoting those "Martin Lewis says buy bitcoin" slop scams as paid ads...
June 2, 2026 at 5:39 PM
Today in interesting/depressing: the Twitter account of Alcatel (low cost phones etc, made by TCL I think) has had its advertising account compromised and is happily promoting those "Martin Lewis says buy bitcoin" slop scams as paid ads...
We all know that the reason my ward declared so hopelessly late is the time it took me to erase all those pencil marks.
bsky.app/profile/bito...
bsky.app/profile/bito...
And the final ward in the entire country to declare is Grove Park, electing a Labour candidate way ahead of everyone, then a Green and another Labour close together councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk/mgElectionAr...
Final tally for Lewisham: 40 Green councillors and 14 Labour
Final tally for Lewisham: 40 Green councillors and 14 Labour
councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk
May 9, 2026 at 7:40 PM
We all know that the reason my ward declared so hopelessly late is the time it took me to erase all those pencil marks.
bsky.app/profile/bito...
bsky.app/profile/bito...
Oh god, they're on the pencil thing again
May 7, 2026 at 11:36 AM
Oh god, they're on the pencil thing again
Someone is waging a gambling scam at scale using AI slop Facebook ads (extremely UK specific, it’s kinda interesting) and compromised App Store developer accounts. Whatever happened to app review? How the fuck does this stuff get passed?
April 8, 2026 at 9:27 PM
Someone is waging a gambling scam at scale using AI slop Facebook ads (extremely UK specific, it’s kinda interesting) and compromised App Store developer accounts. Whatever happened to app review? How the fuck does this stuff get passed?
Found my new croissant bag
March 20, 2026 at 10:26 AM
Found my new croissant bag
"Bromley road accident rate sees biggest fall in London". Well, if you compare 2005-9 to 2020-24. Not if you compare it to 2015-2019 (also an average of 99, so no change). And surely the numbers themselves are meaningless as opposed to, say, per population.
www.bromley.gov.uk/news/article...
www.bromley.gov.uk/news/article...
Bromley road accident rate sees biggest fall in London – London Borough of Bromley
Bromley road accident rate sees biggest fall in London
The number of people killed or seriously injured on Bromley’s roads reduced by 51% between 2005-9 and 2020-24, the largest reduction of any Londo...
www.bromley.gov.uk
March 15, 2026 at 9:20 AM
"Bromley road accident rate sees biggest fall in London". Well, if you compare 2005-9 to 2020-24. Not if you compare it to 2015-2019 (also an average of 99, so no change). And surely the numbers themselves are meaningless as opposed to, say, per population.
www.bromley.gov.uk/news/article...
www.bromley.gov.uk/news/article...
I think I may have stumbled across the Greatest Form Input:
March 11, 2026 at 10:25 AM
I think I may have stumbled across the Greatest Form Input:
Arcadia at the Old Vic is fantastic, well worth it if you can go. Everything I remembered (I’m alarmed by how many lines I remembered from 1999ish) and more.
February 26, 2026 at 10:33 PM
Arcadia at the Old Vic is fantastic, well worth it if you can go. Everything I remembered (I’m alarmed by how many lines I remembered from 1999ish) and more.
Given the recent news about Heroku (deep, weary sigh) I've been looking at alternative PAAS options for PHP8+Postgres.
Some notes on porting to @upsun.com (formerly platform.sh) here:
tomroyal.com/2026/02/25/n...
Some notes on porting to @upsun.com (formerly platform.sh) here:
tomroyal.com/2026/02/25/n...
Notes on deploying a PHP/Postgres app from Heroku to Upsun – tomroyal.com
tomroyal.com
February 25, 2026 at 11:41 AM
Given the recent news about Heroku (deep, weary sigh) I've been looking at alternative PAAS options for PHP8+Postgres.
Some notes on porting to @upsun.com (formerly platform.sh) here:
tomroyal.com/2026/02/25/n...
Some notes on porting to @upsun.com (formerly platform.sh) here:
tomroyal.com/2026/02/25/n...
The UK Japan Foundation's annual film programme is out, and this is my annual complaint that access could be widened so very much if they could offer online streaming in addition to the few UK cities where screenings are held:
www.jpf-film.org.uk
www.jpf-film.org.uk
Home - Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme
Japanese film news in the UK, the Japan Foundation Touring Film Programme, and information on all Japanese releases, screenings and film festivals.
www.jpf-film.org.uk
January 30, 2026 at 12:51 PM
The UK Japan Foundation's annual film programme is out, and this is my annual complaint that access could be widened so very much if they could offer online streaming in addition to the few UK cities where screenings are held:
www.jpf-film.org.uk
www.jpf-film.org.uk
"Recruit top candidates by showing them that you're so fucking lazy you outsourced the interviewing process to an AI chatbot" fuck meeeee.
(Remind me of a job "interview" I once did - and failed - via touch-tone telephone. Press 9 for self loathing.)
(Remind me of a job "interview" I once did - and failed - via touch-tone telephone. Press 9 for self loathing.)
January 29, 2026 at 3:30 PM
"Recruit top candidates by showing them that you're so fucking lazy you outsourced the interviewing process to an AI chatbot" fuck meeeee.
(Remind me of a job "interview" I once did - and failed - via touch-tone telephone. Press 9 for self loathing.)
(Remind me of a job "interview" I once did - and failed - via touch-tone telephone. Press 9 for self loathing.)
In a world of shit, a nice thing: there’s a new Snail Mail record and she’s playing London in June.
January 25, 2026 at 2:59 PM
In a world of shit, a nice thing: there’s a new Snail Mail record and she’s playing London in June.
(Related to that last story - I only this week came across the arseholes YouTubing themselves in Tower Hamlets, complaining about the "Tamil" graffiti, failing to read "E1" correctly on a street sign, then pondering where the English cuisine is on, uh, Brick Lane:
bsky.app/profile/anni...
bsky.app/profile/anni...
I'm back on QAA this week, talking about the YouTubers who travel to London to tell their audience that western civilization is collapsing, and that England's supposedly lawless, multi-ethnic capital city is at the heart of it. The episode is called London Has Fallen.
January 24, 2026 at 9:38 AM
(Related to that last story - I only this week came across the arseholes YouTubing themselves in Tower Hamlets, complaining about the "Tamil" graffiti, failing to read "E1" correctly on a street sign, then pondering where the English cuisine is on, uh, Brick Lane:
bsky.app/profile/anni...
bsky.app/profile/anni...
This week's London Centric is a brilliant bit of work - the "asylum seeker" housing in Knightsbridge that's actually a let in Ealing.
bsky.app/profile/jim....
bsky.app/profile/jim....
This is one of the strangest and most screwed-up stories I’ve worked on. www.londoncentric.media/p/tiktok-lon...
Who's secretly filming fake TikToks inside Londoners' homes?
We tracked down the viral video account invading people's houses to spread false claims about immigrants.
www.londoncentric.media
January 24, 2026 at 9:33 AM
This week's London Centric is a brilliant bit of work - the "asylum seeker" housing in Knightsbridge that's actually a let in Ealing.
bsky.app/profile/jim....
bsky.app/profile/jim....
Pleased to say that I received a reply, and as of this week JD MP will no longer be posting over on the hellsite.
A welcome good decision, and one that I hope other MPs, councils and Government departments might follow.
bsky.app/profile/did:...
A welcome good decision, and one that I hope other MPs, councils and Government departments might follow.
bsky.app/profile/did:...
Wrote to my MP @janetdaby.bsky.social asking her to reconsider her continued usage of X, and I hope that - whether or not she posts updates here instead - she will give it some thought.
We dropped all X accounts at work in 2024 - haven't regretted it for half a second. It's a cesspit of bigotry.
We dropped all X accounts at work in 2024 - haven't regretted it for half a second. It's a cesspit of bigotry.
January 15, 2026 at 4:58 PM
Pleased to say that I received a reply, and as of this week JD MP will no longer be posting over on the hellsite.
A welcome good decision, and one that I hope other MPs, councils and Government departments might follow.
bsky.app/profile/did:...
A welcome good decision, and one that I hope other MPs, councils and Government departments might follow.
bsky.app/profile/did:...
Oh, and has anyone collated all the MPs who are getting paid to post on X, per the register of members’ interests?
members.parliament.uk/member/5158/...
members.parliament.uk/member/5158/...
Register of Interests for Rupert Lowe - MPs and Lords - UK Parliament
Rupert Lowe is the Independent MP for Great Yarmouth, and has been an MP continually since 4 July 2024.
members.parliament.uk
January 10, 2026 at 5:36 PM
Oh, and has anyone collated all the MPs who are getting paid to post on X, per the register of members’ interests?
members.parliament.uk/member/5158/...
members.parliament.uk/member/5158/...