Shout out to comrade @stuhennigan.bsky.social whose debut novel KESHED is published today. You need this book in your life. Oh yes you do.

𝖕𝖚𝖘𝖘𝖎𝖊 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖓𝖊𝖙𝖙𝖊

For my take on where we are headed, based upon looking back at a changing climate across the 4.6 billion-year geological record, you might like to take a look at my forthcoming book Out May 21st

Very soon I will be ✨available for work✨ If you’re interested in who I am and what it is I do/have done then here’s a little introduction thread about myself and my work.

The Times interview with Peter Mandelson is a masterclass in lack of self-awareness, but this quote about what it is precisely that makes very rich people so appealing to him is especially revealing.

Move aside Mondo Duplantis

I finished The North Road by @robcowen.bsky.social today - it was absolutely astonishing and very moving. Also excellently read by Rob too. Hard recommend!

Got me a new coworker. While we’re in the gutter he looks to the stars.

Got me a new coworker

Help us make hope normal again. Join the Green Party now.

"The climate doesn’t recognise pragmatism. If we want to effect meaningful change, we act as the climate science demands. Anything less is a waste of time" 123 days to go @chrisgpackham.bsky.social @matthewtodd.bsky.social @rogerhallam.com @juststopoil.bsky.social @scientistsforxr.earth

We’re looking for someone to join the @hopenothate.org.uk research team for 3 months to work on our anti-Reform team. Have a look! hopenothate.org.uk/about-us/car...

7️⃣ On the seventh day of Christmas Folk on Foot gave to me: Kerry Andrew a-swimming in the Brockwell Lido Listen to the episode: t.co/OSQavzUo80

My resolution for the New Year is to attack and dethrone God.

All the books I finished in 2025: (asterisks = re-reads) 1. Austerlitz - WG Sebald* 2. Mongrel - Hanako Footman (audio) 3. Out of the Darkness - Frank Trentmann 4. All the Beauty in the World - Patrick Bringley 5. The Emigrants - WG Sebald*

Thinking about anyone who is struggling at this time of year, including those who are grieving, remembering time past. These days, stretched out like they are, can feel particularly jarring (I remember it well) which chimes with this piece I wrote for Xmas 2021. Posting now for anyone who needs it:

oomf who is a librarian had to take down the David Walliams poster at work today and said it felt like pulling down the big Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad in 2003

Really pleased to be helping bring @keithkahnharris.bsky.social’s extremely cool and very heavy book - my second commission from my time at HarperNorth over the summer - to the world! 🤟

Shame on everyone who made this happen. Also, Woodcraft Folk forever.

Hard to read this and not feel a flare of righteous fury at the absolute cruelty that underpins the anti-trans movement. Just diabolical to force a tiny number of girls and young women out because you've let your twitter algorithm convince you they're dangerous. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

This is lovely: www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/d...

From Stoppard’s Arcadia:

Really sorry to hear this. Studying and watching Arcadia with Rufus Sewell at the National in the early nineties was the first time I saw a non-Shakespeare play live and it was formative. I much recommend Hermione Lee's fairly recent biog of him, too.

Depressingly well-made point.

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I wrote about the anti-vax conference that was taking place at my hotel during the Texas Book Festival. lithub.com/amid-the-mah...

Trans rights are human rights and if you think otherwise you can fuck off, cos i don't wanna know ya. 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈💜💜💜💜

Me at the LRB blog on the atrocious refugee policy of Mahmood and Starmer

The Home Secretary says "we have become the destination of choice in Europe, clearly visible to every people smuggler and would-be illegal migrant across the world" That is a factually untrue claim: the Home Office shows that the UK is fifth, getting 1/10 claims, while Germany gets 1/5 claims

Labour are making the far right happy. Just not anyone else. We need an alternative. join.greenparty.org.uk

The remarkable story we discussed this morning. (No paywall but do consider subscribing.) www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-e...

Three points I keep repeating 1. Left and liberal voters actually really exist 2. The right and "centre" are trying to rule without liberals - they are way out over their skis 3. Reports of right wing total information control are greatly exaggerated

So the Telegraph’s “BBC bias dossier” - supposedly written by ex-BBC adviser Michael Prescott - is being used to claim there’s a rogue LGBT+ unit “censoring” gender-critical voices inside the BBC. Let’s look at what’s actually in it. Spoiler: it’s nothing but recycled transphobic talking points! 🧵

Amazing work this!

The planet is dying. I know the fight against fascism feels so acute, but there will be nothing left to fight for if we don't bring these longer term challenges. Please - will you support our climate litigation?

I have Issues with the concept of writers block, such that I wrote a post on it. kjcharleswriter.com/2019/11/13/w... There are a ton of things you can do if you're struggling to write, and none of them require using the theft-based environment-ruining plagiarism machine.

We all need publishers like Salt. Please share and support if you can.

‘When Asa Briggs left school, there were only fifty thousand university students in the whole of Britain. Today, to a substantial degree because of Briggs’s campaigns and ideas, there are more than three million in higher education.’ Neal Ascherson on the historian: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Congratulations @profilebooks.bsky.social !

I'm planning to set up a food delivery business, but don't want to pay the people who make the food. If they won't give me free food, they'll kill my business.

Those tedious and mysteriously funded transphobes want to limit access to the Ponds so I’ve had a pleasant 10 mins filling this out on why seeing a variety of women is magic and judging by what people look like or can do is very slippery territory hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.isn

Very pleased to have acquired this for HarperNorth in my time there - it’s an incredibly important and powerful book, of course, but also one written with verve and great imaginative energy by Bill. Coming atcha in May next year:

Frame this. Hang it in every primary school classroom in the UK. Organise a daily pledge of allegiance. #KidLit #KidLitUK

Vigdis Hjorth has been my best new fiction reading this year. I’ve read her Will and Testament, If Only and now this. She does the fraught and ever-lasting emotional turmoil of families better than anyone. Thank you @versobooks.bsky.social

This is great

The truth: we need migration. The problem: too many politicians are terrified to say it. Why? They're led by a) toxicity of the charlatans & b) wealthy media organisations who demand these useful distractions rather than us talking about inequality. Reject it. Draw the line.

Suspecting as I do that, were I born ten or fifteen years later, I might’ve been taken in by at some manosphere nonsense I read quite a lot about it. This is up there with the best, not least in its giving no quarter to ‘understanding’ manosphere influencers’ prejudices and hatreds:

This was really astonishingly good, a contender for the best novel I’ve read this year @colwillbrown.bsky.social @jonathancape.bsky.social