Here to celebrate the summer’s first potato salad. The potatoes have had two days to soak in all the dill and tang. My taste buds are absolutely twanging with joy.

I myself am a 'sheets out the window, damn your opinion of me' kind of gal. If you, too, are looking for ways of stopping the sun coming into your house, here's a great list that includes a cost-to-effort rating. (Sheets: low cost, low effort. Damn your opinion of me)

Weighing lunch options. My brain’s sorting my kitchen into hot/not hot day foods. Hot day Ham Salt & vinegar crisps Mozzarella Artichokes Tomatoes Melon (all) Strawberries Not hot day Cheese & onions crisps Jam Toast Beans Bananas Chocolate Biscuits

This is remarkable.

Up at 5am thanks to heat and the sound of bin trucks. Have already opened/closed windows, done laundry, tidied, and made dinner (pasta salad). Getting up early would be brilliant if there weren’t other consequences (tired, bad mood, more time loathing the sun).

I've been in training for this one for years.

As we have experienced this week, extreme temperatures are no longer a future threat. They are a present danger. Today, I’m launching London’s first ever heat plan: a city-wide plan to adapt our capital, protect communities, and build a climate-resilient city.

Ive already died twice today. Once, during my night of loft ‘sleep’, smothered by the pollen and thick heat oozing in from all the opened windows. Twice, when I came down at 6am to open windows and found my teen curled up in their duvet. 🫠

A map of cool spaces in London, for anyone worried about temperatures at home. Even if you get out just for a few hours it will make a difference. Hope you find one near you. apps.london.gov.uk/cool-spaces/

It seems to have become commonplace to blame net zero for Britain’s high energy bills and/or weak job market… … and I guess I’ll have to explain again why there is very little evidence of this. Britain has plenty of economic problems; net zero is not high on that list (though climate change is) 🧵

My family had a joyous month watching Nicholas Cage movies to try to answer the ‘good or bad?’ question. (The answer, is, of course: yes.) Community is a matryoshka doll of delight.

A good mindfulness technique I like is to find regular points during the day for my brain to summon up the memory of something I said which might have accidentally upset the person I’m talking to. I then make an involuntary noise, scrunch up my face, and spend the rest of the day feeling terrible 🙏

The Scots found the Boston cop slide @everyone @edsbs.bsky.social @brianmfloyd.bsky.social @cjzero.bsky.social

Someone has sent me an overnight gift delivery, origin Japan. If it’s not a tuna, I’ll be disappointed.

Sure, the sideways spine and uterus that consumes things are drawbacks. But channelling your period through a neat little tap is a huge leap forward.

iTunes has pulled together the lyrics for the Star Wars soundtrack, should anyone want to sing along.

Melon Kuma, a terrifying hybrid of a melon and a bear, is a character from Yubari City in Hokkaido, and was inspired by wild brown bears destroying melon patches in the area. He visited the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building today.

It’s capacity for grumpiness was why I emigrated to the UK rather than California. Save your sunshine sweetened bullshit; I want mediocre weather so I always have something to complain about.

Quick cuppa, then off to clean up the bag of human vomit the fox cubs left on my lawn.

“I didn’t like this work of fiction because it didn’t resemble my childhood which was very happy and where no one had mental health problems and unicorns shat gold while delivering sausages to every child and I voted Brexit because I want this country back”

I gasped. www.lego.com/en-nl/produc...

Despite the deficit, “the introduction of dynamic pricing led to…revenue rising 8.4%” Look, all I know about business I learned from The Apprentice. Which taught me that companies that make customers feel like they’ve been fleeced best count on having a short lifespan.

Why is there a global allergy to forward-planning? Country after country refusing to anticipate and mitigate bad things. Is it somehow female-coded? Every one of them a surly teen rebeling against their mother's suggestion of a study schedule?

61% of all political donations in the last quarter came from just 14 people Reform took in £9.3m from a handful of super rich donors British democracy is being bought. We urgently need action to take the money out of our politics

My garden has become a playground for fox cubs. They enjoy chasing, leaping on each other, knocking over plant pots, digging holes, and generally being adorable. The teacher in me wants to sit on the bench beside the one cub who’s always a little unsure about joining in. #FoxOfTheDay

Found an old banana.

Here’s me wanging on about the Guardian wanging on about air con. Not only does this article continue w the finger wagging, the description of air con choices is confusing to the point of inaccuracy. We heat our homes in winter to make them habitable. Why should summer have a diff ethos?

Pereira Maintains/Sostiene Pereira (in Italian) has been a revelation. The story of a man finding his voice during the fascist 1930s, written during the Berlusconi 1990s, read during the now. A perfect balance of good writing and good plotting as well as a good reminder of who we can be.

Being forced to kiss my dead grandmother (who was regularly referred to as ‘horrible’ while alive) remains one of the worst things I’ve ever done.

Ok, it’s going to be cooler at the weekend, so we need to be ready with something else to complain about. Preparation is key.

Tis the season of the Graun’s ‘you don’t need air con’ pieces. This one: ‘Do I need air conditioning? Honestly, no.’ Yesterday: ‘air con uses 2.7kwh - the same as an oven!’ We don’t shame people for heating homes. Cooling a bedroom down from 30+ isn’t a frippery - it’s a health issue.

Preaching to the choir by re-posting, but still re-posting.

I want to mention something nice that happened to me today, in part to document, for my own sake, that good things still happen in this horrible world. It involves the London Underground, an escalator, a small boy and some rubber ducks.

They’ve dragged the same straw man out of the closet. It’s like society has taken a bump on the head and amnesia’d everything we learning from the 80s (how’s that Michael Jackson film doing btw?).

Two writing friends were talking about the brilliant writing scene in Yorkshire at the mo. They could be busy every night of the week, they said, going to summat or other. A decade of investment paying off. And here comes Reform, primed to turn everything shite.

💯. For all the talk of a "shrinking state" that "doesn't do anything", the UK state since 2008 has repeatedly done massive, unprecedented & hugely expensive things: bail-outs, Brexit, furlough/ pandemic support & energy subsidies. But we almost never talk about the continuing costs of those things.

Someone lazy would have done this in AI. This is so much better and funnier. Jesus, Shergar looking round the tree has ended me.

Afternoon agitation, pt 1: Why do women's trousers button up at the front? We don't need a willy hole. Side button/zips are so much more flattering.

The worst thing about food discourse day, as someone 50% British/50% American, is I waste a whole day arguing with myself.

Middlemarch isn’t even the best drummer in the Beatles.

I don’t always feel like I have the time to read the Marginalian, but it always rewards me when I do. Current post-Marginalian vow: read more Bertrand Russell.

If you totted up the sums for every financial scandal in British politics (£2k per parliamentary question for cash-for-questions, £200k for Johnson’s No 10 renovation, the cost of that very nice campervan) even with second tier stuff like Rayner and Polanski, would you get close to £5mn *in total*?

Meeting a millennial mate for lunch. 1st place she found sold only cakes. Found a new place where she’d like to meet at 2.30. Which…isnt lunch time. My questions: 1) do millennials not get lunch? 2) is gen x beholden to old lunch ways? 3) does she have a secret social account to rage bait elders?

On what would have been Eric’s 100th birthday, here’s my take on the iconic Morecambe and Wise theme song. 🎵 #BringMeSunshine

Guys, we mustn’t push for a better government for 70+ million people because JP Morgan wants to keep its building discount.

Burnham, disembarking Avanti West Coast

The UK version of the 'what the Media reports' would read: Small boats (15%) Accidentally visiting London (41%) XL Bulldogs (7%) Removing England flags (24%) Cancer (13%)

The most damning resignation letter yet, I think:

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