The trouble with having even one family member who is seriously in to a historical craft is that you will be reading a very immersive historic world and then you’ll go, “Oh, hang on, they would NOT have had spinning wheels.”

I didn’t mind, in my teens, being shown someone in their twenties and being told they were teenagers. But I *do* struggle when a TV show is like “early 30s” and the actor is a clear 15 years older than me, and I’m 40 next year.

“I will not make myself ridiculous,” he says, ridiculously.

“But how, how to explain this overriding concern for a boy he had not seen in a twelvemonth, whom his parents had never met?” The alternative lead in to this update was, “In which Teddy might be dying, and Dickie is too socially anxious to visit him.” forthenby.com/2026/04/22/2...

Everything is fine, all are home safely, but once again, thank god for the NHS.

Bertie knows he has annoyed me, and is sitting soulfully Wronged in the armchair across the room. (He’s been barking at the cats all day and deliberately interrupting me every time I start to focus on something. When I took him out for a pee, he vanished through a hole in the hedge to next door.)

A little flashback sequence today, in which a younger Dickie receives a missive, and responds in his usual calm and reasonable fashion. Chapter Eleven continues… forthenby.com/2026/04/22/2...

One of my favourite things at this time of year is to watch how plants grown under cover - which start a delicate, tender green, fill out with a fuller, deeper shade once you harden them off? Put a couple of plugs in the cold frame yesterday, and this morning they’re already starting to turn.

The judge who refused Dr Beth Upton anonymity should never know another moments peace in their personal or professional life because that's exactly what they have unleashed on that poor woman whose only crime was being trans and existing

Please send all best wishes and kind thoughts to Sprog1, who is starting their Highers tomorrow morning.

Stuck between books. In the next two days I’m going to acquire some things I need to read on a deadline, so it can’t take *long*, but I’ve had a lot of real slogs lately, and need something that’s like sinking in to warm bath water.

“So, if your dad is tall, why are you so short?” “I had hormonal stuff.” “Fred, you can’t refer to being trans as ‘having hormonal stuff’.” “Why not? My body started producing oestrogen when I’d rather it had started producing testosterone. *That’s* hormonal stuff!”

You know, I own a lot of shaving paraphernalia, much of it very sharp. I use a two bladed safety razor with zero fear, but the risk of injury is always present. The one bit I have *never* expected to make me bleed, however, is my moustache comb.

It's a very fine line between "distracted enough to survive the Horrors" and "too immersed in escapism to band together & defeat the horrors" And may we all walk that line with the poise and grace of a Looney Tunes character who has not yet noticed that they're walking over open air

Re-watching Hell’s Bells and I know it’s fandom popular to shit on Xander - and I certainly don’t condone his actions in this episode - but what really struck me is how *targeted* those visions were to destroy him. We see his family. Their pettiness, their cruelty. And we see him replicate it.

I’ve just seen a statistic that made me go “…. er, that can’t be right,” and checked it and saw some damned underhand numbers, and unfortunately it’s on a topic where shouting about it makes you look like an actual monster.

“For all the wreck of his life, and hopes, he was inclined to count his blessings…” Dickie, being as congruent as ever. Chapter 11 is now updating: forthenby.com/2026/04/15/1...

it's amazing how keir starmer can literally say 'well how should i know what is happening in the government? im just the prime minister.' and ppl will still defend him. i could understand if he had a cult of personality around him but he has no personality. he is thoroughly charmless and useless.

Tumblr: *caves to puritanical anti-sex nonsense* Tumblr: *Userbase vanishes, value plummets overnight.* BlueSky: *caves to authoritarian pressure to add dodgy age-verification software* BlueSky: *promptly stops working*

Ironically the BBC stumbled on a really important story: Desperate asylum seekers being forced to turn to fraudulent fee-charging “advisors” to navigate a system that is intentionally impossibly baroque and from which all sources of free advice have been removed. But no: they chose Fake Gay Panic.

Might have seen a pine marten this evening. But given the lighting/duration/angle/vehicle movement it could also have been a fox hiding its tail, a small badger, a large hare or… …or a domestic cat. Holding out for a pine marten thought.

Update:The bears are definitely shitting there, but he’s claiming they’re not woods.

Just a reminder that we're hosting our women and justice event at the Bylines Network tonight. It's a chance to hear live from some of those fighting for a meaningful response after being victimised by Jeffrey Epstein, Mohammed Al-Fayed and others. Official responses to date are not enough.

Prominent politician unable to answer question, “Is the Pope Catholic?” Commentators expect his next speech to concern itself with the defecatory practices of bears.

not sure when to stop editing? you don't. you never stop. deal with it

The hardest part of presenting as a guy is that you can’t casually say, “God, that was a really beautiful guy” casually to coworkers and acquaintances. But we had a whole family of astonishingly beautiful men in today. I could not, and did not, keep it together.

Respectfully, what the fuck? But in a good way.

One of the hardest things I find about being a Pagan is the lack of seriousness it is given? Like… I’m a lot of things that people don’t believe in - bisexual, non binary, polyamorous, chronically ill - I’ve got all the ‘phase’ ‘just trying to be special’ IDs. But the paganism especially rankles.

Just sneaking in under the bar on #GardensHour and saying my biggest problem at the minute is that I always manage to go away the week the garden springs to life…

@jeanielaub.bsky.social @alysdragon.bsky.social thanks both for liking my grandiose post about my new poem meaning the art form has been completed. Here it is! grevilleandthetombstones.blogspot.com/2026/04/afte...

Not even remotely surprised, and fuck Labour. But also, can we just take a moment to acknowledge how absolutely fucking outrageous it is that 0.44% of the Scottish populace are being singled out in the manifesto of a major party like this? Like what the actual fuck are we doing, guys?

Utterly delighted to have this poem of mine on the Featured Creators section of @fullhouselitmag.bsky.social It’s about old friendships and the things that tear us apart. www.fullhouseliterary.com/poetry/bapti...

...And there's no one better to give advice on that than our own busiest woman in the world. So yes, your next EXPERT on the firing line is none other than our fearless leader and all-round SFFH goddess, Shona Kinsella! How does she do it? What can you learn from her? Now is your moment, BFS! 🧵⬇️

Recent experiments have confirmed that: 1) I am still allergic to black pepper, 2) It’s a genuine allergy, not a sensory issue, or me being fussy, or “a wuss about spicy food,” But! 3) It’s less severe than it was a decade ago.

11th April. Always an eventful day. 2017 - Sprog2 poisons themselves and the Common catches fire. 2021 - enter Bertie! 2023 - Easter snow in the highlands! 2025 - Stuck on Arran due to high winds.

Putting a moratorium on first person narration in YA novels, I think.

I feel this is of interesting relevance to some of my followers.

Exciting news: my poetry chapbook Thorns: A Book of Poems will drop on May 1 on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, featuring exclusive cover art by surreal artist Welderwings! Sign up for my email newsletter (link below) for further updates and sneak previews! 🥀✨

In which old friendships are rekindled, and Peaches learns an interesting thing about the Code Napoléon… Chapter Ten continues: forthenby.com/2026/04/08/2... (Apologies for the lateness, your humble scribe is on holiday with very poor reception.)

Chop Suey, System of a Down. Heard it in my dad’s car on the way home from dropping a friend back home and I *needed* it. Think it was on the John Peel show, and I missed the bit where he announced it? Spent *weeks* trying to get the track list for the show and bought two other singles on spec.

If you see a stolen KitKat, no you didn't

Me: *googles how to grow a certain plant* Me: I just used a weird country name for that, rather than the accepted vernacular, didn’t I?

“She’s impossible. She’s a nightmare!” Teddy gets a taste of his own medicine in Chapter Ten: forthenby.com/2026/04/01/2...

If you intend to vote Scottish Green this May, please be aware of potential voter confusion on the peach coloured regional list ballot paper. Take care to mark your X next to the actual Scottish Greens and not another party which has 'GREEN' dominating their ballot insignia.

Because I went on the gad this afternoon (it was a business-related gad, but it was still a gad) I’ve been spreadsheeting until to 9pm. My brain hurts.

Chapter Ten begins, in which we discover that it helps not at all if the mess you’re in is entirely of your own making, and in which Teddy hears from an old friend… forthenby.com/2026/04/01/2...

I feel like April Fools Day is a bit redundant given than social media peddles misinformation all year…

Spectator headline or orders to the MI5 agents surveilling her home?

Trying to convey to my eldest that if they want to get in to seriously outré makeup choices they have my full and enthusiastic endorsement, but that your trial venue for this should perhaps *not* be for your first ever solo at the school’s Easter concert…

As it's Trans Day of Visibility, a reminder that those of us who are Non-Binary still have ZERO legal recognition of our gender in the United Kingdom. Every official document I have - passport, drivers licence, mortgage, bank accounts etc. - is built upon a massive lie I don't WANT to tell.