Buried in a thread response but it's something I feel strongly. I see so many brilliant people struggling with and being overwhelmed by admin so they can't do what they are actually great at. No-one but the accountants win.

"If I have the chowder with the shellfish removed, can I get an extra slice of bread?" "Can I get the lasagne only instead of mince and pasta sheets could I get a slice of turkey and a cup of tea?"

A reminder that Streeting is making 18,000 NHS staff redundant without any clear business case or purpose

If I were a doctor with a massive house, I would definitely name it Bedside Manor

Son works as an outdoor instructor and most staff have to leave in November. He was repeatedly asked to apply for next year and told the job was his if he wanted it. Today he got a message to say he has no job next year. Too late to apply elsewhere. I feel a mix of furious and sad on his behalf.

Looking forward to when the mainstream media picks up and publicises this story.

Sorry, am I genuinely being asked to believe that the BBC is biased in favour of trans people? I cannot remember the last time a trans person was given a voice on the BBC. It's as if they don't exist. They are talked about on the BBC, not talked to. This entire debate is just fucking stupid.

'people who are multilingual are half as likely to show signs of accelerated biological ageing than are those who speak just one language.' Good thing that schools, universities and governments are so actively promoting modern languages then, isn't it? 1/2

One nice detail that can easily be lost in this graph - even right wingers trust the BBC more than the right wing tabloids

Challenging day again so I am having a cuppa and watching Hamza's Hidden Wild Isles. Yet another fantastic piece of broadcasting from the BBC. They do so much right it would be tragic to lose them.

Did you know that from 15th October to 10th November, and at other festive periods, traders without license - like supermarkets - can sell fireworks? 💥 Fireworks are dangerous explosives, they should not be marketed like toys in the same spot as the sweets and crisps.

Just to get this straight in my head, we've gone from "BBC badly edited a piece about Trump, but was accurate overall", to the "BBC isn't transphobic enough and is all woke", and we're still arguing, regardless of the myriad of issues with the BBC, whether there's a genuine right wing attack on it?

A single shared source of truth is essential for a functioning democracy. Without it you’re left with fragmentation, polarisation and a perpetual culture war where the discourse focuses on what divides us rather than what we have in common. My column from last week: www.ft.com/content/5060...

Quick thread on the BBC and the political and societal significance of recent developments: One of the main reasons the UK has historically been so much less polarised than the US, is that Britain has a shared source of information, consumed and trusted by most people regardless of their politics.

Thought for the day: On Bluesky, it's "nice" to "Like", but it's (more) effective to Repost. Be effective. (You can also be nice).

This is horrific: “n the past three months, a mosque was set alight in East Sussex; in Merseyside the windows of a mosque were shot with an air gun while children were inside; in Greater Manchester, a paving slab was thrown at a window; and in Glasgow, a window was smashed with a metal pole.”

“in the future ai will provide the world with so much money that no-one will need to work and everyone will have what they need but RIGHT NOW i personally should not have to pay any taxes to pay for food for starving children” - every ai ceo

Well, I hated that ending to #celebritytraitors and I am fuming that Alan got the sympathy of the faithful (brilliant) idiots with his crocodile tears. Joe, you were cheated.

Work colleague to me today. "You won't like this because it's AI. I got my friend this brilliant birthday present: I told them some things about her and gave a picture of her and it's written me a book to give her". She's right. I don't like it.

Vital piece of investigative reporting from Sky. They've uncovered the X algorithm which feeds users extremist right wing material from the moment they join the site. It is a far-right radicalisation engine, by design. news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

Man on the bus chomping his foil-wrapped breakfast loudly behind me, mouth open, smacking his lips with each bite. Me hanging on by a thread... #buslife #misophonia

On a rickety bus. It is at least 150 degrees and smells overpoweringly of chips with vinegar. I don't know if I am going to be sick, combust or both but the chances of me making it home are slim.

If you want to understand the emotional end intellectual malaise of British politics, this piece by @mjrobbins.com is a pretty good place to start. It effectively describes a country that has gone mad. open.substack.com/pub/martinro...

'“Chatroom contributions are given equal status with serious academic work,” [Richard] Evans, an expert on the Third Reich, told the Guardian, after being invited to test out Grokipedia. “AI just hoovers up everything.”'

This thread just gets better. I particularly like how Liz Truss can travel in time.

Let's just take a moment to reflect on the self-sacrifice and hope this person embodies - not the evil, hateful monsters thirsting for violence.

This article makes an excellent point. It's far too rare to hear the word masculinity without the word toxic tacked on ahead of it. Some masculinity is toxic, but it's so damaging to generalise and overuse of the phrase alienates young men, leaving them vulnerable to negative influences.

'Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots are worse at retrieving accurate information and reasoning when trained on large amounts of low-quality content, particularly if the content is popular on social media1, finds a preprint posted on arXiv on 15 October.' 1/2

Our previously mainly outdoor cat has been refusing to go out for a few weeks now and she is BORED. Yesterday evening we found her extracting red chillies from a bag on the floor, one by one, batting them around and then proudly trotting round with them in her mouth! Living dangerously?!

As I harriedly hurried through the mizzle toward the eternally revamping Leeds Station today I spotted... A youngish, beardless man clad in full Santa suit, dining alone outside Friends of Ham. I have questions!

On a (delayed, obviously) train to Huddersfield and reading November's print edition of @bylinetimes.bsky.social . It's very engaging but I am overloaded and twice now have used my fingers to try to scroll down the page!!

Oh I wish I’d looked after me works And not left me legs buried in dirt Look on them there And ye mighty, despair Oh I wish I’d looked after me works

I have just finished reading Refugee Tales (2016). The output of a project walking the North Downs Way with writers and poets and refugees and those who try to help. Slim volume, powerful to read. There must be so many similar stories we just don't hear. Worse now?

Elon Musk, Fellow of the Royal Society. Presumably, being "mindful that what is said or stated in a personal capacity could still impact the Society", as per its Code of Conduct.

A very interesting read given the current political rhetoric.

Timely article this as Jamaica deals with Hurricane Melissa, which is almost certainly worse than it would have been were it not for climate change

Using the extra hour today to do some more work on my 19 yr old's PIP application, which was due last Friday so may be pointless. Tricky, as they're currently in a bad way and circumstances are changing (reason I've not had time to do form!). Ugh.

I live in a 'nice' suburb of North Leeds. Today we drove past the monthly farmers' market and I spotted a Reform sign. Then I realised they had a whole stall and a worrying number of young men clustered around the stall. No, thank you.

As a belated birthday treat, my son and his girlfriend took me to #YorkshireWildlifePark for the day. Treat was going AND no moaning about me taking photos. Currently whittling but had to share some red panda shots, unedited. Apparently not easy to get a red panda to enter a crate, even with bribes!

In a weird way, you've got to take your hat off to Jeffrey Epstein for successfully running a sex trafficking ring without a single one of his rich friends finding out about it.

I've just discovered that the BBC has released a dramatisation of Leonard and Hungry Paul, one of my favourite books of recent years. Don't know if I can bring myself to watch it though: I don't want the book ruined for me!

Doomed. We're all doomed and we only have ourselves to blame.

Good thing it's such a benevolent and altruistic company, otherwise there might be concerns.

I have just spent 30 mins on hold to PIP "advice line" to try and get extension on PIP renewal form for 19 yr old. I had claim number but they can't do anything without NI number, which I haven't got. I suspect there's other info they will need too, but don't know what! Reader, I cried.

Apparently today is National Harvest Mouse day so here are some rather adorable photos I was able to take a couple of years ago, on the best photography day ever. Harvest mice are astonishingly cute, and fast, and some of the other creatures I photographed that day would have loved to eat them!

A big shout of thanks to @leedsautismaim.bsky.social for their excellent PIP guides: I'm finding the How Your Disability Affects You one particularly useful. It's so helpful to have some clarity on which challenges to highlight. leedsautismaim.org.uk/wp-content/u...

I've ranted it before but I will rant it again: That is NOT "many ways to communicate", it is a phone number. A phone number which, last time we called it, reduced myself and my adult child to shaking, teary messes - and didn't deal with what needed dealing with. Happy Saturday!

I can picture two scenarios and honestly I can't tell which is worse: 1. Twenty overlapping voices in a busy office, all trying to talk to our own computers. 2. Me in an otherwise silent house, having my only conversation of the day with a computer.

Can't argue with this perspective. EHRC, worried that fear of and unpleasantness towards trans people might be dying down, rush to try and make sure that doesn't happen. Sweary words.