bellend update

'If you see something say something' in a helping way #AbolishIce #NoOneIsIllegal #WeKeepUsSafe

Megan Piontkowski Illustration@meganpiont.bsky.social · last yr.

"How to Report ICE" regional zines available for free printable download: Northern California Southern California Colorado DC Metro Area (DMV) Durham Massachusetts NYC Philly Pittsburgh More to come! Please share! drive.google.com/drive/folder...

since my co-host on @thewhale1851.bsky.social is relentlessly, bludgeoningly, perhaps even tastelessly Welsh, I've been trying to remember whether Moby-Dick engages with Welshness at any point. Surely it must do - does anyone know?

The Whale Pod@thewhale1851.bsky.social · 4d ago

Could you imagine being a Welsh speaker with a Moby-Dick podcast? Fishguard was where they filmed the New Bedford scenes, and the town is celebrating the film's 70th anniversary this weekend with a screening.

Grow up.

Moby Dick@mobydickatsea.bsky.social · 4d ago

grease the bottom

If you've a few pounds to spare, consider donating some to a lovely queer and trans bookshop in Glasgow who've been having their windows smashed and sadly need to install roll shutters to be safe. They're close to the target, so help push it over? www.gofundme.com/f/categoryis...

Donate to Help Category Is Books Get Shutters!, organized by Category Is Books

For the past eight years, Category Is Books has been able to comfortably oper… Category Is Books needs your support for Help Category Is Books Get Shutters!

gofundme.com

grease the bottom

Exclusive audio of @leighsus.bsky.social, who reads the news on the wireless, being too civilised to say the word "hentai"

The Whale Pod@thewhale1851.bsky.social · 6d ago

🐳 EPISODE 30 🐳 An important message for American listeners! But also a great discussion about what whales eat and the sociology and reproduction of knowledge.

Imagine showing the sea your naked body and a pod of 40 distressed whales surfaces later that day.

Got back from Kenya last weekend and while I was unpacking my suitcase my horrible giant son (a cat) decided he liked it so much he would live in it. so I had to just leave it there open on the sofa for six days. On the sixth day he filled it wth vomit and decided he didn't care for it any more

Lads I think Charles Moore just lent his weight to the Rhodes Must Fall movement! Incredible news!! I think he also maybe wants to fuck a statue but let's just set that to one side for now and enjoy the win shall we

I don't know who's been putting these pictures of Peter Sutcliffe up all over Newcastle but I must say it's in pretty poor taste

I don’t feel, as an ethnic minority Briton, there should be more obligation on us to embrace antiracist and pro-migration politics than anyone else. But I do also find myself wondering when I read stuff like this, “You do realise most people who believe this also consider you one too many as well?”

Peter Whitewood@pwhitewood.bsky.social · last wk.

For Matthew Syed, we’ve been looking for German extremism in the wrong place. Not the AfD, the real extremist was…Angela Merkel.

ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held

Remember when the Guardian fired Dawn Foster for calling this guy out

SMD@anothersmd.bsky.social · 2w ago

yesss hahaha yessss

damn, son!

Tom Whyman@tomwhyman.bsky.social · 2w ago

Just realised I have a book out today www.bloomsbury.com/uk/humanism-...

me: hey so I was thinking of maybe watching a documenta- streaming platform: about MURDER? me: no I mean I was maybe thinking like a history show, or like sp: MURDER? YOU WANNA WATCH WOMEN BEING KILLED? BY SERIAL KILLERS? me: no honestly something on the Ottomans maybe or sp: DEATH! DEATH!

fwiw here's what I've been doing today, which isn't actually anywhere near as hopeless as it might sound www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

BBC charity worker Kate Mitchell's family 'no closer' to Kenya death truth

Kate Mitchell, originally from Whitley Bay, was found dead in November 2021 at a Nairobi hotel.

bbc.co.uk

lol, "horniman"

The Whale Pod@thewhale1851.bsky.social · 2w ago

Have you ever wanted to stick a bike pump up a walrus? The Horniman Museum holds the specimen you need. Hunted in the 1870s and overstuffed by a bemused Victorian taxidermist, it was displayed at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London in 1886 where Queen Victoria fell in love with it.

all the lads are here

The Whale Pod@thewhale1851.bsky.social · 2w ago

"The alleged 'whale' and a 'narwhale'" from Goldsmith's Animated Nature (1774) (although this particular image is taken from the abridged version published in 1826 if you want to say "urm, actually" about it)

A stranded right whale, drawn by Captain Colnett (1793).

Frederick Cuvier's happy sperm whale (including whale schlonger) from his 1836 Natural History of Whales.

I'm easily pleased and I think this here is a very good joke, actually

The Whale Pod@thewhale1851.bsky.social · 3w ago

🐳 EPISODE 28 🐳 This week we start a two part dive into Herman Melville's art history writing. Also this sort of stupidity. Listen for free on Patreon or wherever you get your podcasts. 🐋 patreon.com/thewhalepod

This is on Sunday, if anyone has any spare sterling.

Richard Smyth@rsmythfreelance.bsky.social · 3w ago

A week today I'll be running the Great North Run for Maggie's cancer centres, because at the start of this shitty year my wife lost her lovely mum to cancer. I can't do anything about that, but I can do this. ajbellgreatnorthrun2026.enthuse.com/pf/richard-s...

did my five year old draw some sort of cat 9-11

This is great, but I really can't emphasise enough that Astley's links to Homeland weren't "uncovered", nor particularly "past" - he joined in 2025 after being chair of his local Reform branch, was very public about it, and returned to Reform just in time to run for the council. Everybody knew!

Searchlight magazine@searchlightmag.bsky.social · 3w ago

A Reform councillor who tried to erase evidence of his far-right past has been expelled after his links to the fascist Homeland Party were uncovered. Read more here: searchlightmagazine.com/2026/09/refo...

“The pogrom had bad intelligence” is really a bad stance for a Labour MP to take

Nice to see the guy's been expelled, but Reform's claim that they didn't know he's been in Homeland can't possibly be true: he was an organiser in Reform, left for Homeland and returned to run for the council all within the space of last year www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...

Delighted, absolutely delighted, to report that Reform have expelled this lad now. Let's see if he hangs around long enough for them to try their usual tactic of quietly readmitting him in a few months' time

Jonn Elledge@jonnelledge.bsky.social · 3w ago

"Newcastle voters are tired with the mainstream media's constant 'gotcha' journalism. Taking old social media quotes out of context has become a boring cliché." Well that's one way to deal with everyone noticing your councillor is an absolute fuckhead.

One of Newcastle's new Reform c/llors has been spouting great replacement theory in the chamber, and the Chronicle simply retails Reform's spokesperson saying it's a free speech issue. No mention of his being in a neo-fascist party, or tweeting stuff like this www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-e...

Farage’s legacy is that he made “being a cunt” not just a legitimate political position, but the default one. Every party is now judged on seriousness based on how cruel and violent they’re willing to be.

Tom Usher@tomusher.bsky.social · 4w ago

Whatever happens to Farage (not holding my breath for anything concrete), we're all living in his political reality now: hard Brexit, immigration the only topic of concern, every party now chasing hard right voters. If he has 'served his purpose' - it was to make the UK harder right than ever