From the computer of Peter Clark

As a Tottenham fan who lives almost a mile up Hornsey Road from Seven Sisters Road, I mostly stayed home. You could hear the noise and the media helicopters.

But I did pop out and, before it all happened, purposely went to the shops nearer the route. I saw the crowd then, and again just after 3pm, when they started streaming past on the way home in a more concentrated way.

It was really striking. Never seen a crowd like it - mutli everything, multi-generation, multi-religious, every shade, the whole breadth of an inner London borough, plus what seemed to be very many from the wealthier outer suburbs and counties - like clusters of clearly middle-class Indian and east Asian families. Everyone decked out in new authentic kit (big splurge by dad on the whole family).

The locals people - Islington has the highest rented sector in England including highest social renting - often made do with a replica shirt for the child or two, plus a scarf for mum. Saw Sunni women with their full face covers and a scarf (tied in the correct way!), one wearing an Arsenal hat. Plenty with hats on top of their hijabs. I very much doubt if any of them had ever been to a football match never mind the prices Arsenal want, but they were out there today.

I doubt there is a corner of the world that wasn’t out there to day in large numbers.

Maybe my reference points are limited; Glastonbury at one end, the Gaza ceasefire marches at the other, with maybe the Queen's laying in State and funeral in the middle. Today blew all of that away.

I teach HS Science in the south. I can only speak for my district, buta few teacher work days in the wave of enthusiasm I'm seeing for AI tools is overwhelming. We're getting district approved ads for AI tools by email, Admin and ICs are pushing it on us, and at least half of the teaching staff seems all in at this point. I was just in a meeting with my team and one of the older teachers brought out a powerpoint for our first lesson and almost everyone agreed to use it after a quick scan- but it was missing important tested material, repetitive, and just totally airy and meaningless. Just slide after slide of the same handful of sentences rephrased with random loosely related stock photos. When I asked him if it was AI generated, he said 'of course', like it was a strange question. Then, I told the team I might go in a different direction because I wanted to avoid using AI in the classroom and the team lead made a face and told me that all of the lessons she brings for our meetings have been AI generated for the last year.