Fair play to the wife of a Caribbean man and mother of mixed race children being informed by the BBC reporter that she’s in the minority in her community regarding immigration and responding with, “Yes, I’m surrounded by bigots.”
Phil White
@revdphilippa.bsky.social
Liturgy, church music, knitting, poetry, cool saints, hymn-writing, small children. Not in that order. Sometimes also sleep. She/her. God is love and mercy is greater than we can imagine.
Yes, and, 'further up and further in' still gives me chills.
Dr Jo Kershaw@mthrjo.bsky.social · 2w agoIt’s a pity that so many people find “The Last Battle” unpalatable (for reasons I understand!), because there is some extremely sharp stuff in there about how theology and religious language and imagery can be weaponised to abuse people and to achieve power that feels quite timely right now.⚓️✝️
I had to turn this off. It was truly horrible.
Patrick Andelic@pkandelic.bsky.social · 2w agoI went back to listen to it and it’s genuinely quite shocking.
Pagan??? Britain??? Civilised??? I know being an Anglo-Saxon historian is niche, but this is a new Dark Ages low.
Marc Morris@marcmorris.bsky.social · 3w agoToday's BBC radio drama about the Bayeux Tapestry sounds arrestingly original.
Dropped in at the Weston to see the Muses before they go back on the Clarendon building. Felt for Polyhymnia, who is too busy with her rhetoric to notice her wardrobe malfunction. (Alternatively: isn't it interesting that the muse of rhetoric is depicted with one bare boob?)
Dropped in at the Weston to see the Muses before they go back on the Clarendon building. Felt for Polyhymnia, who is too busy with her rhetoric to notice her wardrobe malfunction. (Alternatively: isn't it interesting that the muse of rhetoric is depicted with one bare boob?)
Dolly Parton yesterday and Tim Curry today, good Lord. It's like 2016 all over again.
THIS. Ever since Gordon Brown's 'bigoted woman' it has been a totally untouchable axiom that concerns about immigration are well founded and unchallengeable. If we had a media and/ or political climate where we were able to challenge these views we might be in a better place.
Nate O@nateo.bsky.social · last mo.I do not understand how there is such little pushback against a worldview that has radicalised white English men to riot in the streets and the state to commit institutional violence against all migrants, so little condemnation of an attitude fundamentally at odds with basic human decency
'wordy, old prose' 🤢 My attention span is as shot as anyone else's, but I would be utterly ashamed to have AI read my books for me. Beyond parody. (If your attention span, too, is shot, might I recommend: naomialderman.substack.com/p/lets-do-a-...)
let's do a 'couch to 5k' for reading
we're going to work ourselves back to good 'reading fitness' over the next eight weeks. come and join us.
naomialderman.substack.com
Matt Pearce@mattdpearce.com · last mo.I’m learning that the people who gamified paragraphs are having trouble reading books. www.axios.com/2026/08/11/r...
Is there anyone who would like to talk about That Hideous Strength or am I shouting into the void? (Always shouting into the void.)
Phil White@revdphilippa.bsky.social · 2mo ago(Continuing to think about That Hideous Strength and how it really is the worst of Lewis in its theology of marriage [what do you MEAN, Jane can't join the company of the good because her husband, with zero consultation or consideration for her, has gone to work for the actual devil?] and its...
So often when I read these stories about yet another case of the Home Office being xenophobic jobsworth pricks I think that the % of British people who actually think the people in question don’t deserve to stay in the UK is absolutely tiny. Why are we pandering to them?
the3million@the3million.bsky.social · 2mo agoMonique Hawkins, acting chief executive of the3million, said the impact of the Home Office’s retrospective review was devastating for many. "People applied to the EU settlement scheme in good faith...by building their lives in the UK and putting down roots." www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Have decided that dinner with friends is a religious observance on Mary, Martha and Lazarus day.
Used to get invasions of cockchafers in the library at @riponcuddesdon.bsky.social . So enormous! So noisy!
Tom Cox@dj-acid-reflux.bsky.social · 2mo agoMy four favourite facts about the cockchafer beetle: 1. It's called a cockchafer beetle. 2. It’s also sometimes known as a “billywitch”. 3. It’s unusually loud and clumsy by beetle standards and bangs into lots of things when it flies into your house by mistake. 4. It looks like this, close up.
My 9yo and I are enjoying the whole Sherlock Holmes canon via audiobook right now. There are some words he doesn't know and some concepts that need unpacking, which is *literally the point of reading*. (I am however gatekeeping drug use and suicide.)
Lincoln Michel@thelincoln.bsky.social · 2mo agoThe big literary discourse on twitter right now is whether The Hobbit—a children’s book that won children’s lit awards and was literally written for the author’s children—is appropriate reading for children or in fact such a difficult book most adults can’t “get their head around” it.
“You try leading a choral evensong without an LGBTQ person being involved, and see how far you get.” (Graham Kirk-Spriggs) #GeneralSynod
Thinking of @inigopurcell.bsky.social taking part in this migration.
Mateusz Fafinski@calthalas.bsky.social · 3mo ago*David Attenborough‘s voice* As the sun rises on this early July morning hundreds of medievalists begin their annual migration to Leeds. Scientists have not fully understood this ritual but it seems to be crucial for the survival of the whole species. Intensive days of medievaling will follow.
A question for ecclesiastical historians and/ or seventeenth century literature people: did George Herbert or any of his contemporaries write or use vesting prayers?
Have reached the Thomas the Tank Engine stage with child #2. Increasingly disturbed by the way that the engines are able to think and speak but otherwise have no control over their bodies without the mediation of their Driver and Fireman. Terrifying.
I saw someone say that 'public discourse wants Scandinavian levels of public service at USA levels of taxation' and... yes. But how can we change that when everyone is too risk-averse to do anything buy buy into the narrative?
Twlldun@twlldun.bsky.social · 3mo agoThe pledge not to raise general taxation is basically this government’s original sin and a synecdoche of everything that’s wrong with it - timid, and forced into a series of unpalatable, harmful and unpleasant manoeuvres that please literally nobody because of its timidity.
This is horrific. People will die. *Children* will die. Children will despair. Children will believe (and with reason) that their lives are less valuable than the opinions of older generations.
Cal Horton (they/them)@fiercemum.bsky.social · 3mo agoUpdate: Young people & families today received shocking & transphobic letters from NHS. These letters tell people that endocrine care (blockers / HRT) is being fully withdrawn in 7 weeks time (July 31st). Forced medical detransition. This country is a danger to trans children & young people.
Received my first ever email addressed to 'Dear Mother and Father' (a clergy email, not an email from my children!) This is also the week I'm in the Church Times caption competition. I call House on Anglican bingo.
Have a slot to present at the big giant conference in my academic field in July and I have mostly been really hoping, throughout the year, to get enough work to pay for it. This has not happened. If you do have the disposable funds to help I would be very grateful.
Dr Inigo Purcell@inigopurcell.bsky.social · 4mo agoI have many thoughts about the 'youth unemployment is too high' conversation. But the narrative that employing young people is entirely incompatible with paying young people a living wage and allowing them basic human and employment rights enrages me.
This will not, I think, be new to anyone on Bsky. But it is clear and depressing.
Jennifer@jennifilm.nz · 4mo agoI'm asking every cis person who follows me to read this article and take it in. It's a sobering account of how quickly things turned in the UK - with detail that often doesn't make the news - and, yes, what it means for you www.liberalcurrents.com/the-end-of-t...
Having a 9 year old means that in the last two weeks alone I have explained: OCD; neurodiversity; ADHD; autism; trans rights; sex; gay sex; mental illness. I haven't done a stellar job of any of these but it would have been much worse without Bluesky (and Twitter RIP) and all of you, so thank you.
Begging folks with open ended academic jobs not to forget there’s a whole underclass of permanently casualised academics who’ve been facing redundancy as standard for years. 12+ in my case. I get it’s awful facing redundancy ofc! Just…this isn’t unprecedented for us. It’s the norm.
Sticking my head in the sand over All This, and very much enjoying the Colin Buchanan collection An Evangelical among the Anglican Liturgists. (You know he's an evangelical because Catholics would say 'amongst.')
