Meeting new person at my home today. Cat-sitter for future engagement but all new people are stressy. My home is chaos. She's due in 15 mins. The cat's just done massive, stinky plop and the washing machine has activated summer drain stench!; Don't think she'll stay long!

Just started reading #TheYearOfTheRat by @harryshukman.bsky.social who went undercover in far right groups for a year. Intro written when Reform had just got 5 MPs and Harry's concerned this may push the Tories further right. The reality was far worse - not just the Tories shifted :-(

The Major Oak is dead and my husband's just watched next-door-but-one's cat shooting down the garden with a magpie in its mouth, pursued by another, frantic magpie. Feeling a bit doomed.

Question that I don't know the answer to: If you get a promotion to a vacant post, is it normal to be expected to do the new role immediately, alongside your old one? Without any written confirmation of the terms and conditions of the new role, or confirmation that you have it?

An excellent piece: a clear explanation of a shocking mess. Some pretty malicious people have pushed us here, but it’s the cowardice and incompetence of politicians and the EHRC that have really stuffed it up. This is unworkable, undignified, and unnecessary. We should just cancel the whole thing.

This is a really good point. Who will the isolated young people talk to now, assuming not all head for the parks and fields and a halcyon, frolicsome childhood? Letting GenAI fill that gap would be horrific.

We are booked on Eurostar to Paris next Friday. I am not good in hot and our accommodation for the 3 nights is 11th floor and has no aircon. This is the forecast for the days leading up and it makes me want to weep. That's enough climate change now.

Stonking article by @iandunt.bsky.social. Nailed, just as he and @dorianlynskey.bsky.social do in their JK Rowling podcast. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o... Thank you, thank you, thank you from this cisgender woman. iandunt.substack.com/p/the-ehrc-t...

Colleague shared AI meeting notes without checking. They said something along the lines of "I don't do internal so could we go external?". Was asked to do them properly. Just looked at transcript (Teams) of a meeting yesterday and it's largely gibberish and quite risque sounding. Is AI OK?!

Can't believe this is going ahead. Can't believe local police and businesses bear the cost but also "the union’s president, Arwa Elrayess, a Palestinian woman, has been resolute in pushing for the event to go ahead, on the grounds of free speech...". What???

Finished! I am really rather pleased with my first machine-sewing project in years. I have learned that a Learn to Sew pattern is very different to an Easy pattern! And I love the way my progress Pride meeple makes it unique. Go me!

Big shout out to The Little Bookshop in Chapel Allerton, Leeds, for making me smile on the bus to work. In a year when visible support for LGBTQ+ people seems quite hard to find, visible allyship is all the more valuable. And they're lovely in there too 🌈🩵🤍🩷

In breast clinic waiting room wondering why they have to keep hospitals so ridiculously hot. It's possible my hormonal self may pass out as I didn't think bikini would be appropriate.

Matt covers the bonkersness of it all superbly. And hilariously.

Absolutely gutted that I've stupidly booked our 'summer' holiday in Scotland for the week of @bradfordlitfest.bsky.social . There are so many speakers I'd like to see: Hannah Spencer MP, people speaking about populism and the rise of the right - plus some more light stuff. Must remember for next yr.

Regulating children is not the same thing as regulating social media platforms. Seems very important to distinguish between the two. However, social media platforms tend to be run by powerful billionaires, so easier to go after the kids instead.

This makes me feel both sad and angry. To refuse heavy machinery to excavate bodies might be justifiable, maybe, but to refuse DNA testing equipment? And to drive your own heavy machinery over the dead and reduce the chance of them ever being identified? Inhumane. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

I've never seen this #moth move (think it's a moth, but not sure due to flat wings!) but for the past few days it's been appearing in different bits of the house. It looked particularly pretty on the bathroom mirror.

I'd managed to miss this till now and life was arguably better for that. What the f*CK is going on with the USA (and can they leave the UK out of it please)?

Bad case of Saturdayitis today. Husband's got to go into work tomorrow to try and finish teaching allocation and I'd hoped we'd do something nice today but instead he's shattered (fair) and is making a disgusting smell laser etching on pleather (not fair). Will we make it to our 30th anniversary?!

2 weeks and we're off on Eurostar (1st time) for 3 nights in Paris (1st time)! Sick of people telling me how awful Paris is when I say what we are doing. Probably going to visit Versailles but don't know what else will be not-too-peopley but still interesting... Help!

Watched Taskmaster final. Cross with the Taskmaster for his scoring, because I really didn't want the winner to win and they wouldn't have.

Oh, oh, oh! I just looked up the definition of a trillion and apparently there's a short scale (a million million) and a long scale (a million times larger than the short scale trillion). I bet Musk's only a short scale trillionaire, on paper. Hardly worth bothering about.

When I move into a house I am just like anybody else: I like to immediately get settled in and orientate myself by drawing a map of the immediate area, themed entirely around the habits of squirrels.

@johnfinnemore.bsky.social 's latest newsletter has a lovely tribute to Anthony 'Herc' Head, who really does sound like the most lovely man. The 34-second clip of his voice-off against Roger Allam is wonderful. Now I want to listen to Cabin Pressure AGAIN. johnfinnemore.substack.com/p/victor-hug...

Thank you to the wonderful Rosie Jones for proudly showing off our letter at the Rainbow Honours last night. From all those with a platform, to the MPs we met this week and the other groups all pushing back on the true causes of harm against women, we are encouraged to know we are in good company

And 40 percent of Britons are very stupid or deluded?

The bottom left point of the line starts at nearly $10 billion, far more money than any human being has ever needed. This accumulation of wealth and its concomitant power in one person’s hands is unconscionable. Civilised societies should not allow it.

Well that's one of the most depressing things I've seen in a long while. Oxfam says he has more wealth than the poorest 46% of people on the planet. He deserves none of it.

'“If you’re relying on the universities, I think potentially you’ve got a problem,” Lowe said, pointing out that many universities are “now suffering very large deficits”.' Genuinely interested to know if he knows what % of the full economic cost UKRI (and charities) pay for research they fund. 2/2

I used to love marmite (with marmalade, don't judge!). When I stopped eating gluten many years ago I missed marmite a lot. Yesterday, by chance, I discovered that Aldi 'marmite' is gluten free and got to eat my first (GF) bread and marmite in years. Today... migraine 😭. Hopefully stress-induced?!

Oh, if only he would. What is the power Musk has over the government?

The thing about online safety policy is that it basically breaks people's brains. I truly believe that at least some of the intense projection of adult anxiety onto young people reflects the relationship those adults have with their own devices and social media accounts

Love this (in a miserable kind of way)!

At work this week a colleague said she'd had to 'conjole' someone into doing something, as if it were a real word. Half an hour later another colleague also used the same word - correct context for cajole, but NOT A WORD. The End Times truly are upon us.

This has nothing to do with stopping crime. It is to do with a global far-right movement, coordinated on X, organised by some of the most powerful men in the world from Silicon Valley to the White House inews.co.uk/opinion/fara...

Torching the homes of innocent people because they’re not white is a truly chilling display of racist violence by organised fascists who have been legitimised and encouraged by mainstream political figures. Call it what it is. [2/2]

4 weeks after noticing A Lump I sent an econsult thingy to GP. 26 mins later I got a call asking me to go in for 1/2 hr later. Kind young GP registrar examined and referred me on & now I have a hosp appointment next Tuesday. That's pretty impressive for a free service ❤️

Part of me gets that on occasions like this the government does need to be posting on TwitterX but day-to-day business doesn't belong solely on there, because that reads as an endorsement of the toxic swamp it seems to have become.

I caught up after work yesterday on the 'chat' between Women and Equalities Committee and EHRC reps. Some excellent questions were posed but not answered satisfactorily. Pleased to see that some of the WEC members have now signed the Early Day Motion, but feels ludicrous that's all they can do.

My husband was meant to be away cycling with friends this week but it was cancelled at the last minute. He worked half a day of his holiday yesterday, from home, and today has gone into work (at 6.30am) to hide and try to get caught up on work. He may go tomorrow too 😭 #UKHE

Genuine question: what would the reception for (and reach of) things shared about this on X. Is it actually a proponent of free speech or just the 'right' sort of free speech?

Great to see 'Tommy' stirring up shit once again. And making no pretence that he's not a Russian stooge: he says "Russia is not the enemy of Britain. That narrative has long since died a natural death.". Eh??? www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Twice in recent days I have been walking along local streets (about a mile apart, Leeds) and have come across sections of pavement littered with the corpses of many, many #bees. This isn't something I have come across before and it worries and saddens me.

Also, went into Leeds City Centre. Previous Pride months have been a riot of rainbows. This year, the only sign of Pride I saw was John Lewis. That makes me sad - but well done John Lewis for continuing to support.

Spotted at our local Wex camera shop. What does it even mean? Also, amazing how the brain reads what it thinks it should say. My husband just couldn't see it at all!

Glad to see this from the FT, but many have been raising this for a long time and it's been disregarded as a sort of digital nimbyism or patronised as pearl-clutching panic. Labour needs a decent tech strategy and Blair and Mandelson's influence on policy needs to end with the change in leadership

Went to pick up my luggage from our hotel. The porter asked if I could describe the bags, just as I noticed Bernard McLaverty sitting nearby so I did my best to convey the bags' inner lives in a way that showed both their resilience and humanity.

Absolutely wiped out today so I spent much of it designing my #pride 2026 t-shirt and I am rather pleased with it. Ashamed of using AI model, but pleased with tee! Available to buy from Teemill and we get a teeny bit of the money. fidget-turtles.teemill.com/product/wome...