also, the public salience of trans girls playing sports is incredibly low. the public salience of say, data centers, is incredibly high. strange that a “popularist” cannot see this. almost as if “popularism” is a way to smuggle ones preferences in to politics as somehow objective.

There’s a lot I miss about the more innocent internet of the 1990s (or the 1900s, if you’re Gen Z), but one key message which I wish would come back is ‘don’t feed the trolls’. Ragebait fuels the internet and I don’t know when we forgot to ignore it and not fall for it.

The treatment of Jason Arday was massively out of proportion to his faults. People who have committed terrible crimes have received less scrutiny, yet I don't believe anything he did or said even crossed the threshold of criminality. How many of us would have survived what he was put through? 🧵

This should be a day of shame for my profession. Unfortunately, most of the media is not renowned for self-reflection. It may be relentless in exposing other people's faults (but in most cases only the faults of those who might threaten the status quo). It is much less prepared to confront its own.

I know you all hate the emergency alert about disposable barbeques. But yesterday I watched a man at our hotel breakfast set fire to a toaster by trying to toast a croissant - despite multiple signs telling him not to. Today he tried again. So, you know, calibrate for the average person.

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.

Do you want to hazard a guess at what this “jaw-dropping” list of freebies included? What luxuries asylum seekers might be being given “for free” in Thetford? Xboxes? Plasma TVs? iPhones? Ferraris? Let's take a look👀 🧵 1/22

As someone wading through this right now with our parents’ house, a small but heartfelt plea to consider hugely decluttering your home if/when you have the ability to do that and ideally long before your offspring have to do it instead (when they are weighed down by extra things like grief).

Bylines Network@bylinesnetwork.co.uk · 3w ago

There comes a point when visiting your parents and seeing a house full of decades of possessions prompts a slightly alarming thought: Who is eventually going to have to sort all this out? If you already know the answer is “me”, this may strike a chord. @eastangliabylines.co.uk

public libraries ftw

To every trans Londoner: this city is yours too. Today we celebrate London Trans+ Pride and reaffirm a simple truth: you should be free to live as yourself, without fear or prejudice. You are loved. You are wanted. You belong here.

Fascinating thread on professional irate pensioner Elaine Yates and her remarkable media career. Not British journalism's finest hour

Legal C@legalclaret.bsky.social · last mo.

This disingenuous commentary doesn’t help anyone. Frauds start unravelling pretty quickly. That you apparently cannot afford to put your oven or treat yourself is quickly undermined by the question “so why are you spending £50 per week on petrol?” Then, it turns out, she has an agent and /1

The creator of Roger Rabbit (who is 85 years old by the way) is a good sort Crossposted with @openvibe.social

Some in the pub just shouted "COME ON, FOOTBALL" and I really appreciate the effort that was made there ❤️

Happy anniversary of that time the post office asked me to provide evidence that my package was not delivered.

In accordance with ancient tradition, our next Prime Minister is announced to the nation while standing between a furry and a man with a bin on his head.

Tiptoeing back to BlueSky to see if cricket chat is a thing here or not (masochistically, given what happened in the first two tests and what we all fear/expect will happen in the current one). Anyone? Anyone?

Hello Bluesky, just dropping into your feed to tell you that we recently adopted two kittens and they’re the best thing to happen to us in years. Have some photos of Willow and Barley (sisters) to brighten up your timeline. You’re welcome.

It’s one year ago today that I lost my brilliant, brave, beautiful Mum. I first wrote this thread about grief and supporting a grieving person a year after we lost our dad. Reposting in memory of them both. Hope it helps someone today. ❤️

Kat Knight@katkni.bsky.social · 2y ago

It's 2nd November today. All Souls’ Day, or Day of the Dead, or Día de Los Muertos, where some people in various cultures choose to honour the memory of their loved ones. It’s also, oddly appropriately, the anniversary of Dad dying. (1/)

once again I must tap my own sign

Well this couldn’t have come at a better time www.bbc.com/news/article...

Scientists at Loughborough University create 'world's smallest violin'

The violin is smaller than a human hair and has "laid the groundwork" for future research.

bbc.com

Just floated out of seeing ABBA Voyage on a cloud of pure euphoria and now getting to catch up all about the Trump-Musk implosion, could my night GET any better?

“Contrary to what you would expect, I do not want a simple house. I want a complex house, because the house will define my world.” -lovely piece about designing homes for disability in this weekend's @ftweekend.com:

The aesthetics of accessibility: design for disability that’s dynamic not dreary

Architecture is at a fertile inflection point. But while housebuilding goals, sustainability and retrofitting are dominating the agenda, why does accessibility too often remain an afterthought?

ft.com

Magnificent, yet passed over, targeted, fined – family carers are the hidden face of the care crisis | John Harris

Magnificent, yet passed over, targeted, fined – family carers are the hidden face of the care crisis | John Harris

Britain’s army of unpaid support has been excluded from the political conversation. I didn’t expect to find recognition and hope in a book by a party leader, writes Guardian columnist John Harris

theguardian.com

Not my dog, but the Spanish footballer Sergi Roberto’s dog Baloo who doesn’t even have to be doing anything silly to look silly.

horror Ewacui@ewacat.bsky.social · last yr.

🎉it's my birthday🎉 and for my birthday I would like people to quote this post with a photo of your pet(s) being really silly, make all our days better

So I don't have the energy to redo the entire thread about the papal conclave but I will redo the part about the Latin nerdery: the announcement of a new pope is always in Latin, and uses a very traditional form.

Really struggling to think of a worse idea than this one (and this is after waking up the news that Trump wants to reopen Alcatraz). I am grieving and I have zero desire to talk to an AI-generated version of the person I am missing.

The Observer@theobserveruk.bsky.social · last yr.

You and me, we gonna live forever… as avatars, at least. New ‘grief tech’ apps allow grieving families to communicate with dead relatives via an AI afterlife. ✍️ @paticlarke.bsky.social Read more:

🧵NOT BY ME, this is a post from someone who wants to remain anonymous but works extensively with trans people pre-transition. They were asked by someone “why do you think that’s so much [coverage of trans people] in the news at the moment?” This was their response:

Aunt Lydia in the Handmaid's Tale says: “There is more than one kind of freedom, freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from.” Where freedom from ends up is Gilead. I want freedom to. Always and forever freedom to.

Naomi Alderman@naomialderman.bsky.social · last yr.

as ever. when people say "hard-won female spaces" all I can ever hear is "mechitzah", the curtain I grew up standing behind in synagoge while the men got on with doing the service & we women got to listen in silence, in our "hard-won female space". "separate is never equal" is a very good principle