don’t be embarrassed about making art are you kidding me ????? there’s people proud to say they “made art” by using ai and you’re embarrassed to make art with your human brain ???? come on now

Three students at a school in Luton have become self-published novelists while juggling schoolwork and exams. Their books explore fantasy, psychological mystery and coming-of-age fiction. https://hyphenonline.com/2026/07/07/luton-schoolgirls-self-publish-novels-books-author/

One of my fave things in York Minster: a medieval wren stalking a spider. It reminds me that history isn't only kings and battles. Someone, centuries ago, found joy in the same things we still notice today. It's a reminder of how much we have in common over our differences.

"The most sustained coverage came from GB News. Over the past year it has mentioned City of Sanctuary in at least 40 broadcasts."

'A school leaver in Barnstaple weighing up what to study this autumn can reach eight subject areas within 25 miles of home – three years ago it was 15. Their counterpart in London faces no such arithmetic, and that gap is the problem.' (Wonkhe Monday Briefing, accompanying Jim Dickinson's blog) 1/2

This lunch includes all five of the main Dutch food groups: cheese, cucumber, geometry, boredom and sorrow, with most of the vitamin content provided by the soul-destroying view of endless flatness spilling off the far-flung horizon.

This is the real reason people get the Danes and the Dutch confused, but the key thing to remember is we say 'hyggelig' not 'gezellig'.

weeping actual tears at the time I tried to type some ideas for columns in my email drafts while walking, what the fuck was I on about

hi hello modern slavery expert here 👋👋 requiring asylum and refugee seekers to pay back support is precisely how traffickers keep victims in debt bondage. this exposes people to even greater re-trafficking risks. is the uk government trying to stop trafficking or learn from criminals?

Clement Attlee making a timeless observation in 1934: "No one believes that when Sir Oswald Mosley talks about preserving the right to free speech he is really genuine in the matter. He preserves free speech just as long as it suits him."

Ad Rock: you can disagree with the current All: POPE MCA: but if you push his buttons then you’re a All: DOPE Mike D: ordain yourself a bishop and you’re All: SCHISMATIC Ad Rock: excommunication is All: AUTOMATIC

great year for medievalists; first you’ve got a tyrant starting shit with the Pope and now we have a full blown schism

she’s a 10 but Excel thinks she’s October

A travesty, and also I would point out that it would be better for everyone - better for the refugee, better for integration, cheaper for the state - if we just let refugees work.

You’re Dead To Me is back for series 12! And you can now watch entire episodes on BBC iPlayer (or on YouTube in 1 month) Our first episode is about Homer’s Odyssey & Iliad, with Dr Emily Hauser and Kiell Smith-Bynoe Listen now on BBC SOUNDS for audio only podcast

This is incredibly concerning no doubt and yet we must put it in perspective if we are to counter the trend This is after four decades of hyping and mainstreaming 1/

We regret to inform you that our Do Not Build The Torment Nexus conference has been cancelled due to someone building the Torment Nexus

But please, tell us again how arbitrary and joyless Net Zero is

Nothing with ice cream or chocolate in or on it is an ice lolly. This is as bad as the rebranding of perry as "pear cider" or rich wankers calling a holiday where they cross no borders a "staycation". This is my hill and I am setting up a branch office of Dignitas on it.

But another part of the problem has always been Labour's failure to understand its 2024 coalition, or basic electoral dynamics. It has lost voters to Reform, but these are a fairly unique fragment of their 2024 voters, v unlike those staying loyal or the greater number defecting to the Greens + LDs.

been furious with Starmer for long enough that this is genuinely coming as a surprise to me, but I'm feeling a bit.......sad this morning? not really about him per se but about the waste of time, I guess, and the end of yet another political failure when Britain really couldn't afford another one

1777: Swallows are hawking after food for their young 'til near nine o' the clock. They take true pains to support their family.

Very sad to hear this. Botanic Gardens inhabit a sort of liminal space between science, art, education, ecology and just being a nice place to hang out. Everybody wants/needs them but nobody wants to fund em www.scotsman.com/arts-and-cul...

... by strange coincidence, the British Library @blmedieval.bsky.social has today released new multispectral imaging for this manuscript! www.bl.uk/stories/blog...

My scorching hot take on Makerfield that nobody asked for. Every single person that wanted to vote Reform turned out and did so, all 15,696 of them. Same with Restore to the tune of 3,111. There were no "shy" Reform or Restore voters. That's it. That's all of them. Nothing like a majority.-

parklife

Very important now for all of us who work with young people to make it very clear to them that they can still come to us about things they see online that scare or concern them, even if it's something they are banned from accessing, and we won't be angry with them.

i assume banning kids from social media will be accompanied by a huge investment in teen-friendly communtiy spaces (like youth clubs) and social activities? No? Huh.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us

@robertshrimsley.bsky.social: ‘It would also be right to be outraged at the case of Chas Corrigan, a British construction worker who murdered a Saudi student in Cambridge, stabbing him in the neck. But you probably haven’t heard about it since it doesn’t fit the zeitgeist’ www.ft.com/content/3fa9...

Can we not “if you tolerate this, then your children will be next” when it is our country and they are our children. (I support Northern Ireland’s right to self-determination but right now, it’s not a foreign country).

The reluctance among media outlets to specify that these pogroms are the work of far-right loyalist thugs is particularly weird, given that they sign their work! The LVF spray tags on the houses of the people they burn out, whether Catholics, migrants or refugees. They've done this for decades!

I once DNF'd a book when a person leaned a ladder against the trunk of an elder bush to pick elder berries.

Everyone on X and elsewhere who called for a violent response should be charged with incitement. Everyone involved in the pogrom should be locked up with exemplary sentences. Govt should make it clear that will be the response in future anywhere else. Enough.

It’s so wild that we are dependent on the grieving families of recently dead and maimed people for leadership right now Jesus Christ

As a recovering (and frequently relapsing!) WWI guy, the replies to this post are a delight.

Really, really, really object to any news corporations labelling people setting fire to cars, houses and attacking police as 'protesters'

Great news! 🙌https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g411k1x1zo

Same-sex marriage is an instructive analogy here, but not for the reasons Streeting thinks. “Trans women can still use toilets - just not women’s toilets” is just like “gay people can still get married - just not to other men”.

I don't really talk about this, because I'm actually quite private about my personal life, but many many years ago Tony Head took me under his wing and showed me the kind of person I could be. It's not an exaggeration to say that I'm the person I am today because of the kindness he showed me.

everyone's gonna think of Buffy but I think it's Herc Shipwright in Cabin Pressure that best shows why he was great

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN released on this day in '82 and here's the 1981 Variety ad protesting the death of Spock paid for by the Concerned Supporters of Star Trek.

RE: new #Bluey episodes, a reminder that the reason Bandit (the dad) is an archaeologist is because dogs love digging up bones! However, Bluey’s creator Joe Brumm is also brother of renowned Stone Age expert, Professor Adam Brumm, who specialises in the earliest known cave art found in Indonesia…

Equally, bigots want you to be sad and afraid. Transphobia is a psychological war before anything else. Don't let them win the battle inside your own head. Your life is a gift. Being trans is joy. There's wonder everywhere if you're willing to see it. Make the effort to see it. Don't let them in.

Just saying.

I was such a Hairpin/Toast girlie following the demise of LJ, but also pour one out for Grantland, one of most underrated cultural websites I only came across because of hockey fandom.

I feel like I've yelled about TWoP on here half a dozen times in the past few weeks but "late morning coffee break at your desk when your boss isn't looking so you can read last night's show recaps" was such a staple of my twenties

Thank goodness Starmer is finally supporting all those Range Rover drivers by keeping their costs low www.theguardian.com/politics/202... If we cared about poorer people we'd give them money to meet their needs, not subsidise one very specific, very harmful, activity