Today’s midweek Clarion newsletter is full of good Oxfordshire news! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Action on flags 🌞 Renewables cheaper than fossil fuels 🚄 Direct trains to Bristol 🥃 Whisky from Abingdon 🏺 Oxonienses fossas oppugnant 🐴 A donkey Read online or subscribe (100% free): oxfordclarion.uk/the-clarion-...

Obsessed with the Daily Mail running Zack's campaign for him

The police have said that, if caught, thieves can expect to go a wafer a long time.

Signed.

hello 911? I’m being menaced by some sort of ghost or monster. no I’m pretty sure it’s not a metaphor for grief or trauma, my life is going pretty well except. you know. the monster

in 2016 a group of strangers in Kazakhstan saved a dog from drowning by forming a human chain to reach him. they just unveiled a statue commemorating the event and I'm genuinely about to start sobbing

Not the point, but I was interested enough to look up which use of '101' came first, Orwell's room or the introductory course, and it's the latter by at least 10 years (assuming that the earliest usage the OED could find is not the actual first use).

You would all be going mental about this if it was a Muslim school. It’s a Christian school and I suspect the Daily Mail isn’t going to scream about how they’re destroying British Values.

No. Trans people won’t start peeing on the floor. They’ll either get arrested or leave the state. It’s not a distraction. They really do hate us and want us gone and it’s the main event. The reaction will be assault or arrest. There. Now you know.

Idaho just passed a bathroom ban where a second offense is a felony. Under the state’s three strikes law, a trans person could face up life in prison for using the bathroom the fourth time. They’d then be put in a men’s prison and pulled off their hormones. For washing their hands.

I don't think trans people should be imprisoned for 5 years because they have to pee

10/10, no notes!

I've just remembered when I put the theme from Death in Paradise over the title sequence from The Wire.

Might be the greatest opening paragraph of anything ever.

Cis man takes estrogen - just a man taking estrogen. Cis woman takes testosterone - just a woman taking testosterone. Trans woman takes estrogen - CROSS SEX HORMONES ARE DAMAGING! Trans man takes testosterone - CROSS SEX HORMONES ARE DAMAGING!

Puberty blockers killed no-one and the UK rushed through emergency legislation because of the 'danger'. Yet, somehow, neither the AI nor the misogyny here constitutes an 'emergency'

If, in this year of 2026 you still find yourself asking the question "what should I read instead of HP?" like the kidlit landscape hasn't moved by leaps and bounds in the past 20+ years then follow @mariannedoherty.bsky.social who hosts a thread every Fri where we enthuse about everything kidlit.

This is not just a mic drop, it’s an M&S mic drop.

Dept of Homeroom Security over here.

Oxford’s outdoor education centre, Hill End, celebrates its 100th birthday this year. We find out about its 1920s origins, how it works today, and the programme of festivities planned for its anniversary year. oxfordclarion.uk/a-century-of...

I know people are sceptical about journalism right now but this is the kind of story that takes weeks to get to the bottom of. I hope people see the value in what we do

the last time *just gas* got this out of control, i had to do napkin math to see at what price i had to drop out of college because i couldn’t afford the commute. if it had gotten a dime higher, that was it. no degree for emily. these people have never met a normal person.

Speaking from experience, hybrid work allows flexibility to actually RAISE a kid. Being able to just wfh when your kid is sick, has a Dr appt, or there is a school function, is enormous both for parenting quality of life and productivity.

It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth, The ewok one, then a major dip; A baffling plot involving Amidala

@jaywillis.net writeup of the Afroman saga is easily the most delightful I've read. The case shows "what can happen when cops, who as a general rule rarely face consequences for their actions, manage to cross a person with plenty of time, a sizable social media following, and a smooth baritone."

dying laughing at the strava data for the guy running laps on the french carrier

An "AI" or CGI or whatever recreation of a dead performer is a massive, massive insult to them irrespective of what one thinks of the technology, simply because it is a statement that all that matters about the person in question is their likeness, not their actual artistic ability.

Britain is sliding into a really, really dark place We seem to look at the US with a ‘could never happen here’ attitude, meantime long accepted tenets of life in a liberal democracy are thrown out in real time Needs concerted pushback now

There's a broken cuneiform tablet from the Old Babylonian period, nearly 4,000 years ago, which preserves a tiny portion of a dialogue between two friends. It feels a bit like the conversations I've been having for the past week, so I wanted to share it.

A well-timed (written before Nick Timothy's tweet) set of remarks about freedom, religious freedom and minority groups.

see? here's the thing. A lot of people are like, the earth is fucked, it's beyond salvation, it's hit the tipping point, but time and time again we see that if we just fucking fixed the problem, it rebounds so incredibly fast. Imagine what could be done if people actually cared

The writing is on the wall. The UK is going to attempt to ban hormones for trans adults. This is just one of the steps they're taking to limit access slowly. www.thepinknews.com/2026/03/17/n...

*laughs in 'the night we had the big BAFTA award celebration for HH I had to ask my Job 2 boss to do an early shift at the shop, take my bafta dress, get changed & do my make up in the staff toilets and then run to get the train'*

Regret to inform that the Yanks are at it again.

Us: We're a little bit worried about the cost of living & housing just generally and this whole 'global repercussions of a seemingly very unwell president starting a war with Iran on a whim' thing Our politicians, sobbing: YOU JUST WANT TO REPLACE AR WINSTON WITH A SPARROW YOU EVIL WOKE BASTARDS

friend, this is Marcus Junius Brutus CAESAR has declared himself DICTATOR FOR LIFE and MUST BE STOPPED can you rush a donation of ten denarii today to show that you STAND WITH THE REPUBLIC?

I used to love walking around the walls of York at this time of year for this very reason.

That is AMAZING. www.the-low-countries.com/article/a-br...

Could be worse. In order to avoid controversy, all Euro notes feature bridges. In order further to avoid controversy, they're all fictional. Or they were until the folk of the Dutch town of Spijkenisse took it upon themselves to build them. Now all Euro notes feature bridges from just one Dutch town

World rugby: Okay. So you can win this entire tournament Ireland: Okay, great! World rugby: as long as England win their game. Ireland:... World Rugby: So obviously you would want England to- Ireland: -Shush I'm thinking.

And you are plainly more interested in the law than he is in the day to day reality of trans lives otherwise he would ask, 'was it fair that we refused to hear from any trans people whilst we welcomed into the Court those who sought trans exclusion?'

For decades these laws have guided development away from the places wildlife depends on. And for good reason. Nature is not, and never has been, a blocker to growth. It is flood protection. It is food security. It is health and wellbeing. It is economic stability. It is national security.

There's a very obvious "this is due to events beyond our control, and is exactly why we're investing heavily in renewable energy" line here. Miliband should be fronting the petrol price response, not Reeves.

I have a friend, who specialised in how genetics is taught, whose grant was axed by one of these men. His life is in tatters, and his work matters.

A year 10 (15 year old) student told me he’d made all of the “Mr Shaha’s Marvellous Machines”. I assumed he was taking the piss. Turns out he wasn’t - his mother told me during parents evening yesterday that he had bought the book and their house was full of his makes. Made my week.