🎶🎵To the tune of rock lobster🎵🎶 GOTH PUMPKIN!

Krissy sent me this picture of our front yard this morning. Ooof. Real early for snow, Ohio.

Ya know… The friends I’ve made on here (and those that carried over from the other place) are some really awesome folks. Y’all rock. 🩵🦆

They were giving away unused pumpkins at the library last weekend; this one was too far gone for eating so I painted it instead. 🐡 #watercolour #botanicalArt

Dominic Cummings, in an earlier incarnation, ran a secretly-funded 'think tank' dedicated to attacking the Beeb while Robbie Gibb glided effortlessly from GBNews to the BBC & started lecturing staff on impartiality. Imagine (cos you'll have to) how the 'left-wing' equivalent would be reported.

In 'How They Broke Britain', I do a pretty good job of detailing the depth & breadth of Tufton Street/Tory/Murdoch/Mail attempts to scupper the BBC, even as I castigate some presenters for going too easy on precisely the people who seek the Corporation's abolition. But I should have done more. 1/2

Now this one is easy—Murderathin

Cowards die many times before their deaths, The valiant never taste of death but once.

Once every 20 years or so, the director-general of the BBC is forced to resign for being insufficiently rightwing. Alastair Milne in 1987. Greg Dyke in 2004. Tim Davie in 2025. The great irony is that the BBC was in all cases profoundly biased towards established power. But just not biased enough …

Yes, absolutely there is an impartiality crisis at the BBC. But it's not the one the billionaire media insists it is. novaramedia.com/2025/06/16/b...

oh just muppetizing movie scenes: thread

Name a villain you sympathize with: Lucifer in Milton's Paradise Lost #booksky📚💙 #paradiselost

SecUnit portrait #murderbot fanart (Repost)

This is utterly bizarre! Tim Davie was a conservative councillor and chairman of a conservative association He allowed his right wing bias to taint the BBC News That he should be ousted in this way is bonkers

I appreciate the work of these authors to show that this problem not only is still here but has grown: www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-ne... But it is also quite frustrating 🧵>>

Our crowd was large! Texas Book Festival

Line for our event at the Texas Book Festival! @scalzi.com

Event at the Tx Book Festival with @marthawells.com and @scalzi.com

Never used it, never looked at it, never will. I turn off AI results in browsers and everything else whenever I can.

We’re here again today.

When I was 20, in 1982, I was sure I wouldn't make it to 50. Now I'm 63 and occasionally have the weird realisation that I'm living a life I once thought I wouldn't have.

As a young gay man I did not expect to get old. As a result of HIV and homophobia, many of my generation did not. Ageing is a privilege. Pics: Aged 20 in 1988 and 58 now.

Ooh! A use for this meme: “I wish we would stop fetishizing forgiveness and pay a little more attention to the healing power of incandescent rage…”

A Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death. Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written." Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating. 🧪🧬🧫

I am having my “I love a seasonal beverage and it’s the season of that seasonal beverage” joy! I love the Marks and Spencer Alcohol Free Mulled Wine… It just tastes soooo good! My sorrow when its goes out of season is deep-but my joy at its return genuine!

Jeff Goldblum as flowers

I made a “how do you do, fellow kids?” joke to someone in their mid 20s who, it turns out, was too young to have heard of that meme. So “how do you do, fellow kids?” is now an example of “how do you do, fellow kids?”

This is today!

A poem for Elon Musk #empathy #humanity @humanists.uk #love @amnestyuk.bsky.social @hopenothate.org.uk @nionwomen.bsky.social #poetry #poem

I am so proud that my child is so effortlessly* cool! *child: “excuse me, a lot of planning flies into this…”

I mean what an utter shit that man was—the 1953 paper is still cool life is like that sometimes—it contains these elements which can both be true even if you’d kind of rather they weren’t death of the scientist? Separate the art and the artist

This. History is filled with awful people that have achieved amazing things. It doesn't make their achievements any less amazing, or their awfulness any less horrendous.

Personally I would have led with the racism, sexism and eugenics… I will never stop loving the understatement of the line: “It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.”

A large part of writing for children is trying to work out what level of swearing is acceptable to publishers

Did women ruin the workplace?

i Stole this from @swilua.bsky.social:

An entire political movement that spectacularly and deliberately fail the Bechdel Test… en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bechdel...

I think we need to stop calling it empathy and go back to calling it decency. It isn't a favour you're doing someone else, it's you proving that you aren't a fucking ghoul

I went and changed settings—I would rather have the choice than not even know the choice is there! Weird that this was deployed without warning us?

Sings: 🎶🎵it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas..🎵🎶

Have Men Ruined the Workplace

It's friday! That means time for the weekly good news thread. What's YOUR good news from the week? What's made you smile? Mine is an incredibly fun time I had with @amdassu.bsky.social at her online launch last night. For this gorgeous book! (pics from the physical launch earlier on)

I am utterly appalled at the BBC news recently…the utterly disproportionate coverage given to right wing fuckwits and the bias of the reporting… It makes me feel ill For the record I am GenX and would describe my politics as anarchic woke

Another dress for @rosewind.bsky.social - Fireworks gown, by Chanel, 1938. This was worn by Countess Madeleine de Montgomery to Lady Mendl's 75th birthday party.

"Europeans recognize his vision about free public transit and universal childcare. We expect our governments to make these kinds of services accessible to all of us,” said Verbeek. “We pay higher taxes and get civilized societies in return."

I'll be at the Texas Book Festival in Austin this weekend doing a panel with @scalzi.com!

this is just such utterly vile and insidious misogyny… Vomits

Against a dark backdrop the colours of a mandarin duck show beautifully. #birds #photography

Look at this pretty spider! 🕷️🕸️🕷️