wait Tinie Tempah now presents property shows?

Kate Bevan@katebevan.com · 1h ago

#ExtraordinaryExtensions on Channel4 is even more brilliant than Grand Designs for those of us who enjoy schadenfreude as the massive hubris involved in some of these builds easily outstrips anything Our Kev has seen. And Tinie Tempah is a great presenter.

"The electrical installation course requires knowledge of algebra and trigonometry, plus mastery of a wiring regs handbook that is twice as long as Pride and Prejudice" Important read on vocational ed from 14. You need a really solid foundation in English, maths & science for many jobs in trades.

The problem with "parity of esteem"

Vocational education at age 14 is not the answer

substack.nomoremarking.com

I think Zack’s problems stem from being an idiot who thinks *we* are idiots and Kemi’s problems stem from being an idiot who thinks *she* is clever. This is an important distinction.

Hello I'm an idiot

I regularly think back to @okwonga.bsky.social's posts which (to paraphrase) highlighted one of Germany's biggest political challenges being an older middle-class which is well off, comfortable as a result, and in turn bored; so they ended up essentially radicalising themselves at dinner parties.

Heather Burns@heatherburnstech.bsky.social · 14h ago

A writer goes in search of her most vicious online troll and finds a middle-class 74-year-old woman who has made more than 120,000 trolling comments on the Daily Mail alone, but sure, it's teenagers who need their online experiences surveilled and censored. Archive link. archive.ph/pPrha

That's what I'm looking for in a cheese

God forbid the Welsh have hobbies

'Disability history largely remains a missing part of the UK's story. Understanding it helps explain why contemporary debates often feel so fraught' New article by me in The Conversation theconversation.com/todays-argum...

Today’s arguments about disability benefits have been raging for 500 years

From Tudor welfare claims to modern PIP assessments, disabled people have long faced suspicion and bureaucracy.

theconversation.com

Reminder that the Tories believe any non-British person who commits more than a minor parking or traffic offence should be automatically deported. They “believe in second chances”, apparently, but only for literal Nazis.

Kemi Badenoch defends selection of man jailed for harassing Jewish MP in council election – as it happened

Conservative leader tells press she stands by decision to select Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a candidate for local election in Somerset

theguardian.com

Leaders of flag-raising group Raise the Colours Oxfordshire placed trackers on highway workers’ cars to find out their home addresses, the High Court has heard. RTC then attempted to intimidate the highway staff into no longer removing flags by repeating their addresses to them.

This is what happens when anti-racism norms erode, and elites bear a lot of the responsibility for norm erosion, as they have disproportionate power to set and enforce norms

Charles EP Murphy@cepmurphy.bsky.social · 2d ago

news.sky.com/story/nhs-st... stereotypically this has been seen as Old People, but not only would the old people of now have often been born post-Windrush, lot of this will be younger people who've always lived in a diverse Britain. The guy with a pregnant wife likely millennial at oldest

Kemi did say she wants candidates with conviction. I just didn’t realise she meant for burglary, assault, inciting racial hatred, malicious communications, and racially-aggravated harassment.

Mark Chadbourn@chadbourn.bsky.social · yesterday

Kemi Badenoch certainly seems to be advancing with her agenda to turn the Conservatives into Reform.

A party that was actually anti-racist would be kicking this person out, not allowing them to run for the Governing Committee. There are many decent Greens who will be disgusted by this and I wish them all power fighting back against it. We know from experiance how hard that is.

Liddle's ex-colleagues find it easy to defend his mainstream journalism as a lark But a conscious effort to ignore what his Millwall-Monkey stuff revealed."Even the Jews were allowed to smoke at Auschwitz" was reported. His "niggermeat, not wogmeat" comments + most virulent sexist threads were not

A club that seems like it’s all privately educated Oxford debating society chums with the souls of 4Chan Pepe the Frog posters.

it's a big club and you ain't in it

Lee Hurley@hleehurley.com · 2d ago

The Times, one of the leading voices when it comes to 'protecting women and girls' calling a man who assaulted his young pregnant girlfriend, said he would rape the kids if he was a teacher and called for child sex abuse porn to be legal, 'brilliant'

The Times, one of the leading voices when it comes to 'protecting women and girls' calling a man who assaulted his young pregnant girlfriend, said he would rape the kids if he was a teacher and called for child sex abuse porn to be legal, 'brilliant'

"There's a real thing going on in the composition of the staff...does that not have to be looked at as well?" Nick Robinson, on Today, discussing this news.sky.com/story/nhs-st...

Patients refusing to be treated by non-white staff as NHS reports shocking rise in racism

Paul Awah, a Bedfordshire-based diagnostic radiographer originally from Nigeria, said: "It's definitely got worse – people are more expressive."

news.sky.com

there are definitely downsides to the nuclear block but the reason I keep coming back to it as necessary and good is that it completely ruined the whole MAGA engagement model to the point that they prefer to mock us from the nazi bar rather than come here to troll us directly

John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

Bluesky oldheads will remember that brief period of time when the conservative trolls tried to storm the place and were flummoxed by the idea they would have to organically grow an audience and that someone who didn't want to talk to them could nuke every interaction they ever had from orbit

Certain posters are not beating the allegations that a certain type of British journalist is incapable of extending empathy to anyone other than the 50 or so colleagues they run into at dinner parties, a grace they extend to those 50 people but think minorities & the disadvantaged are unworthy of

I think this confuses the private person, who can be mourned by friends, family and colleagues, and the public figure, whose legacy can be assessed based on his work. These are two different things and they have to coexist

Leo Enright@ollopa11.bsky.social · 2d ago

I am saddened by the tone of commentary in this place about my former BBC colleague. The level of vitriol seems more suited to the other place. I worked with Rod at the Today programme. He took no prisoners, but he was witty and personally capable of genuine warmth. My sympathy to his family.

No-ones going to accuse me of being the world’s number 1 Grant Shapps fan, but I think I’d probably select Grant Shapps as a candidate a few times before I got round to this bloke.

The Guardian@theguardian.com · 2d ago

Former neo-Nazi activist selected as Tory candidate for Somerset council election

Clacton By-Election Voting Intention: ➡️ RFM: 73% (+27) 🗑️ CBF: 20% (New) 🟥 REC: 2% (New) ⚫ Others: 5% (-49) Via @survation.bsky.social, 16-24 Jul. Changes w/ GE2024.

Back when I had Twitter I used to offer free headshots for low-income authors, not sure I have much reach here but the offer is still there. London or Birmingham (although I’m in Glasgow and Edinburgh at the end of Aug and can fit in a session. Will have lights so can be indoors).

I'm not sure folks have realized just how crazy the second half of 2026 and 2027 will be for global temperatures – on the back of a record-smashing El Niño event. Here is my latest estimate of where both years will end up compared to global temperatures since 1850.

section of "undisputed championship (boxing)"

Brutal.

isn't that Ronaldo?

Rosie Fletcher@rosieatlarge.bsky.social · 4d ago

I did the Russian Revolution at GCSE and one of my main takeaways was that it was Whites vs. Reds but also the agrarian Greens who were just fighting whoever and its why I think football should have a 23rd player on the pitch who is just in it for themself.

It's one of those things which undermines a lot of the far right narratives about grooming gangs, because ultimately until very recently no one was taking *any* child sex offences seriously.

Banjon@beardybanjo.bsky.social · 5d ago

Yes. Until as late as 2000 the Chief inspector of schools in England was a guy who met his wife when he was her school teacher, and he gave a public speech- as chief inspector of schools joking(?) that teachers dating pupils 16-18 years old "could help their education"