Things I was frightened of as a child: The entire family dying in a house fire (thanks 999 with Michael Buerk) Nuclear Armageddon (don't let an eight-year-old read When the Wind Blows) Footballs Other people

Alan Beattie@alanbeattie.bsky.social · 12h ago

Things I was frightened of as a child: Quicksand The Bermuda triangle Spontaneous human combustion Having my feet cut off by a train (public information film) Drowning in a slurry pit (ditto) Being run over near an ice-cream van (ditto) The Cybermen Heights Still not great with heights tbh

“We’ve got a massive majority by mistake!” “Does anyone know any centre left crypto billionaires?”

The fact that I'm really getting into Enya suggests my transition to Middle-Aged Gay is now complete

My main question with some of the wallpapering is "how?" as much as "why?"

madeline odent@oldenoughtosay.com · 21h ago

anyway www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/9...

Arrived at my mum's and the council have delivered her a food waste bin. If you live in Yorkshire, you might get this on BBC 1 tomorrow: "Welcome to BBC Look North. A 79 year-old woman was murdered in Shipley this morning by a man screaming 'yes, you've now got three bins'"

I've spent the day at a very good workshop at Aston Uni organised by @markmccormack.bsky.social and others to try and get a UK network of sexualities researchers going. Looking forward to the network flourishing in future 😁

Also, now I've taken my headphones out, I'm reminded how amazingly good the acoustic dampening down the carriages is. There's people four seats away talking quite loudly and I can barely hear them

Professor Peter Matthews@urbaneprofessor.bsky.social · 3d ago

Avanti seem to have fitted hand dryers that actually work in the Pendolino loos! 😱

I love how people from the West Midlands pronounce Dudley 🥰

Avanti seem to have fitted hand dryers that actually work in the Pendolino loos! 😱

Yet again I ask myself: how do people afford Canada Goose coats?

Scrooge Mcduck

ALT: Scrooge Mcduck

static.klipy.com

Grrrrrr. That is all.

EdinburghMinute.com@edinburghminute.com · 3d ago

🚨 Councillors have just voted to pause plans to extend the city's tram lines to Granton. Instead, councillors agreed to focus on extending trams south to the Edinburgh BioQuarter / Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. More in the free daily newsletter: edinburghminute.com 💌 Read by 30,000 locals daily.

It feels perhaps noteworthy that the Gospel reading this Sunday is about how a Christian community is called to forgive

Sam Wilson@samwilson.bsky.social · 3w ago

Today on news I did not expect to read, the Archbishop of Brisbane has written to his clergy apologising on behalf of the dean for allowing the cathedral to be used for a British pornstar to reaffirm baptismal vows as part of a reality show about onlyfans. Right.

If I were a government with a medium-sized economy wanting to accelerate economic growth, I'd read this and then invest in social sciences and arts and humanities for the effective use of new technologies, rather than trying to out-compete the trillions of dollars of private investment in the US

Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 4d ago

'Humanities & social sciences research is central to ask questions about how and in whose interests technology is being developed, how it can be adopted, deployed & governed and how to create a world where AI can benefit the many, not the few' My blog for @ukri.org ukri.substack.com/p/why-ai-wil...

From the clips they're playing on PM, the Proclaimers new album sounds utterly pish generally

And the creative industries are one of our largest and most productive industrial sectors and a major exporter

Scott Bryan@scottygb.bsky.social · 4d ago

This era in british broadcasting: Sky buying ITV. Channel 5 being bought by Paramount. BBC making £500m of cuts. and now C4 making biggest workforce cuts in its history. www.theguardian.com/media/2026/s...

Channel 4 has just announced its biggest cuts to its workforce in its history, with 28% of employees to lose their jobs.

Interesting - the new flats being built by Linlithgow station seem to have a load of heat pumps as their heating source. District heating would probably have more sensible? And I feel sorry for the occupant of the ground floor that'll have four units on their outside wall(!)

For the 60th anniversary of Star Trek, I'm mainly thinking about Star Fleet's Relationships at Work Policy

Have we considered becoming four new provinces of Canada?

Financial Times@financialtimes.com · 5d ago

UK selects Canada’s statistics chief to run data service ft.trib.al/7X1ND43

God, Imelda Staunton is bloody amazing at this sort of thing... Seeing her in Gypsy really is one of the highlights of my life.

BBC Radio 3 Now Playing Bot (Unofficial)@bbcradio3bot.bsky.social · 5d ago

BBC Radio 3 Composer of the Week: Stephen Sondheim Now Playing Stephen Sondheim, Fred Haig, Zizi Strallen, Alex Young, Adam Rhys-Charles, Peter Forbes, Emily Langham, Aimee Hodnett, Imelda Staunton, Follies 2018 National Theatre Ensemble & Nigel Lilley Follies (selection)

A random Monty Don thing - the first I knew of him was about 30 years ago when he appeared on This Morning with Richard and Judy talking about his experience of anorexia. It was incredibly brave, and very moving. I've had an enormous amount of respect for him ever since

So, this is linked to my question earlier. If you're over 50, and grew up in the GDR, from my (admittedly limited) reading you were taught that the events of 1933-45 were not your fault, but the fault of evil fascist capitalists in the west. And surely this must be making an impact today? 🤔

Deutschland Wählt / Österreich Wählt@de.whln.eu · 7d ago

SACHSEN-ANHALT: Wahlverhalten nach Alter — Hochrechnung Infratest dimap/ARD, 18:59 Uhr CDU | AfD | LINKE | SPD | GRÜNE 18-24: 5 | 42 | 17 | 8 | 13 25-34: 6 | 44 | 14 | 7 | 16 35-44: 9 | 53 | 7 | 7 | 12 45-59: 14 | 52 | 6 | 7 | 10 60-69: 21 | 47 | 8 | 8 | 6 70+: 31 | 31 | 12 | 12 | 5 #ltwst #ltwlsa

Is there anything written/researched on the AfD's popularity in the former GDR, and the latter's approach to denazification and attitude to its past?

Ah, The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Has Ended, at evensnog this evening 🥰

I don't usually compare government attention to job losses in higher education to job losses in other industries, but this time I will because this has me utterly raging. JLR are in a mess due to their own market strategy and the cyber attack they weren't prepared for www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Business secretary to meet Jaguar Land Rover boss as thousands of job cuts expected

The company is struggling with the impact of tariffs as well as the fallout from a major cyber attack last year.

bbc.co.uk

And, I wonder if Clacks will survive a la Rutland because it's an SNP heartland? The obvious easy mergers would be a couple of the Lothians, and Dundee into Angus, and Aberdeen and shire

Chris McCall@dennynews.bsky.social · 7d ago

Swinney also confirmed he wants to see the number of councils reduced. But again, there's little detail on what that means. Meanwhile, Scots will be asked to vote in May to elect councillors across 32 local authorities - some of which may no longer exist in a few years.

A question on my mind is can this reform be made under the Public Sector Reform Act (Scotland) 2012, or will they need to pass legislation? 🤔 The latter will be tricky...

Chris McCall@dennynews.bsky.social · 7d ago

John Swinney asked three times how many jobs will be cut as a result of his plan to axe health boards. "I can't put a specific figure on that today". So when will workers be told?

Cracking post about Count Binface this 👍🏻

Jonn Elledge@jonnelledge.bsky.social · last wk.

"I was expecting to learn things. I was expecting to have fun. What I was not expecting, though, was that there’d be a moment that felt akin to how I imagine religious people experience faith, in which I stood looking at the magnitude of creation and felt genuinely overcome by emotion."

"I was expecting to learn things. I was expecting to have fun. What I was not expecting, though, was that there’d be a moment that felt akin to how I imagine religious people experience faith, in which I stood looking at the magnitude of creation and felt genuinely overcome by emotion."

Here’s how you dig a big tunnel under the ground

A flashback to September 2021.

jonn.substack.com

As the Lib Dems say, winning here 👍🏻