It’s not as hard as you might suspect 😏, read more about it here.
Each Monday, Alister and Meridyth deliver quick news and interesting stories from the past week to prepare you for the “water cooler” banter. They’ll also squabble over a current issue.
Alister is your classic Labour champion, while Meridyth (an American expat) brings a transatlantic, moderate view.
ALISTER: I’m trying to plan a pro hide and seek tournament. MERIDYTH: I know I'm going to regret asking, but how is it going? ALISTER: To be honest, good players are really hard to find! MERIDYTH: 🙄
ALISTER: Hear about the lad who secretly held two council jobs for 18 months? Honestly, not even surprised. Public sector posts have had a reputation for being “cushy” for years.
MERIDYTH: Or it proves the opposite, he did two full‑time jobs and nobody noticed. That’s efficiency! If one person can do two roles, maybe the system’s padded. Hard to blame him with the cost‑of‑living mess either.
ALISTER: Efficiency? He was rumbled by cursor tracking software. That’s not exactly Churchillian work ethic. The NAO has warned about weak productivity monitoring in parts of government for years.
MERIDYTH: Yet both councils said the work got done. Sounds like he’s the most productive civil servant in Britain. Meanwhile the UK’s overall productivity still trails other G7 countries. Maybe he’s just… innovating.
ALISTER: Please. It’s the classic public sector loop: get a job, bring in your mates, cling on for the pension. Changing governments barely shifts the culture. The fact a public servant would even consider gaming the system like this just shows the mentality.
MERIDYTH: Or maybe managers simply don’t measure output properly. If one guy can juggle two roles unnoticed, that’s a management failure, not a moral one. Frankly, that’s the most entrepreneurial thing I’ve heard from local government in years.
The public suggested naming our next UK storms 'Elon Gust' and 'Dame Judi Drench', but the Met Office politely rejected them. Storm naming is actually for serious safety reasons, help us weather the disappointment by sharing The AM Squabble!
🪙 Dodgy digital cash. Tories and Reform now accept crypto donations despite huge foreign interference risks. It is getting hard to tell if your local MP is funded by a helpful constituent or a bored hacker.
💸 Whoops, your money’s public. Lloyds, Halifax, and Bank of Scotland apps just had a massive "glitch" where customers could see each other’s private transactions. One woman suddenly had a million pounds. Others saw strangers' salaries. It’s not "banking," it’s accidentally becoming your neighbour’s accountant. 🙈
🐾 Monopoly money goes wild. The Bank of England is ditching historical figures for wildlife to stop counterfeiting and avoid PR headaches. While 0% of past notes featured black or ethnic minority figures, 60% of people now prefer a squirrel over a politician.
⚡ Musk plugs in. Tesla has officially been granted a license to supply electricity across Great Britain. It means Elon is moving beyond just selling the cars to actually running the grid that charges them.
🏛️ Lords a leaping. After seven centuries of being posh for a living the remaining hereditary peers are finally getting the boot from Parliament. This historic bill ends the undemocratic era of dukes and earls making laws just because of their ancestors.
GOOD NEWS… for short-term fixes (but not long-term messes) after Trump removed sanctions on Russian oil to stop rising fuel prices, while the UK & EU have chosen to stand firm. BAD NEWS… for Iranian’s World Cup football team after Trump said it would be inappropriate for them to participate due to “life and safety,” contradicting FIFA’s welcoming message days earlier.
🥨 Sanctions shimmy. Germany is pressing Washington to explain its stance on Russian sanctions. Chancellor Merz wants to know the price of peace as the alliance shifts. For ordinary Germans this could mean the difference between affordable heating and a very cold winter.
🏙️ Dubai digital danger. A British tourist is among 21 people charged in Dubai for filming Iranian missile strikes. Even if you delete the footage immediately, UAE cybercrime laws mean your holiday snaps could land you two years in a cell and a £40,000 fine.
🛢️ The oil ultimatum. President Trump claims the US military obliterated military targets on Iran’s Kharg Island while sparing the oil for now. It is a major gamble to keep the global supply chain moving.
🇫🇮 Helsinki’s nuclear shift. Finland is finally updating its 1980s rulebook to allow nuclear weapons onto its soil for the first time. This policy pivot is all about being a team player in NATO even if the locals are slightly panicked about becoming a spicy target for Moscow.
🥤 Sucking at anti-aging. TikToks are claiming that drinking like a normal person causes lip wrinkles, so they’re buying "anti-aging" straws shaped like the number seven. Derma docs say it’s useless. If you’re optimising how you sip water, the internet has officially broken your brain. 🙄
🥣 Little hearts, big problems. New U.S. guidelines recommend cholesterol screenings for children as young as nine! Because why wait for a midlife crisis when you can start worrying about your arteries before you’ve even finished primary school? It’s the ultimate "grown-up" gift nobody actually asked for.
🎮 Spicy water wins. Forget pricey energy drinks as a new study suggests sparkling water keeps gamers alert for hours. It’s a cheap way to stay sharp without a sugar crash. And since drinking 5+ cups of coffee actually increases stress levels, maybe we should replace our coffees for sparkling water at the office… or maybe not… ☕️❤️
🍔 The Meat-o-Matic 3000. The UK is eyeing 3D-printed chocolate and lab-grown sausages to save the planet. While "molecular farming" sounds like a sci-fi nightmare, it beats eating bugs. We’re one step closer to the Star Trek replicator, provided we get over the "yuck factor." 😬
🤖 Bot-to-bot networking. Meta has just snapped up Moltbook, a viral social network designed entirely for AI agents to gossip, swap code, and "sub-molt" while humans watch from the sidelines. UGH!!!
🕵️ Digital butler danger. British regulators are worried your future AI personal assistant might be a double agent for Silicon Valley. Autonomous bots could manipulate our choices faster than a politician at a fundraiser.
By Alister
Meridyth clearly takes my dyslexia seriously. She sent me the newest torture device from the creator of Wordle: Parseword. Instead of just guessing, you solve puzzles where words have literal meanings you can manipulate.
After a gruelling tutorial, I scraped by using two hints. Meridyth, of course, quickly reminded me she finished faster and with only one hint. 🙄 (Is that Alister’s first eye-roll?!?)
Give it a go if you fancy a proper brain-teaser!
By Alister
Piggybacking off the bizarre McDonald’s CEO burger-eating video, Columbus Library leaned into the silliness with their own take. 10k likes to have their CEO eat a book, and oh boy, they got the likes.
Watching their CEO deadpan bite into a hardcover gives me major classic Vine vibes.
It’s easily my favourite parody this week. Guaranteed to make you laugh and think about eating reading a book!
Whew, you made it!
Get your best silly jokes ready, because Comic Relief's Red Nose Day is coming up this Friday. Join us next week for another Squabble and let's hope your jokes land a bit better than Alister’s ones usually do.
Alister & Meridyth