Lovely @mariapopova.bsky.social piece on The Marginalian about George Saunders and kindness www.themarginalian.org/2014/04/28/g... A thoughtful start to the morning!

The AI Resist List is here airesistlist.org - so much hope and positivity for crafting positive, different futures in the room and on the list.

🧡🧡🧡

"They just want to turn it off." A fascinating story of the librarians who have started teaching classes showing people how to remove AI "features" from their phones and apps. www.bangordailynews.com/2026/07/02/m...

Signing off all messages with ‘stay cool and shady’ (as if we all wanted to be in a 70s gangster movie)

UK government not acknowledging that their creative sector is world class is bizarre. One thing we've really been exporting with massive success forever. It's ridiculous

'The programme was designed in part because girls who benefit from higher education are up to six times less likely to marry as children and are less likely to experience violence from a partner. Women who have advanced levels of learning also increase their earnings.'

I just can't imagine what the future will be.

More good news on the wonderful @poetrybyheart.bsky.social

“academic scholarship must never be detached from moral action.” Inspiring and humbling obituary of Professor Robert A. F. Thurman (1941 to 2026)

reading about someone describing their work as “encompassing a breadth of deliverables“

But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance.

Please watch this, everybody:

Good grief, I am so sick of the immigration debate. Some parts of the world are going to become unliveable; everyone is going to have to budge up. Also, pay care workers more. Pay them enormous amounts of money and build in training and impressive qualifications. Make it an elite profession.

We regret to announce that the Earnest Hectoring Opinions Quota for Thursday on Bluesky has already been met. Please restrict posts to Whimsy and Amusing Shitposting only for the rest of the day.

Fancy a Very Good Book for every year of the 20th century? Well, here you go! www.stuckinabook.com/a-century-of...

These “bond markets” sound very needy and I don’t think anyone should bother trying to reassure them.

Some great examples of community food projects here: an uplifting read – justfact.co.uk/projects/

So true. Great episode, great writer, great book.

Study in pink and blue

No idea whereabouts in the field the Tragopogon is, until it flowers - or indeed until it seeds! What a spectacular seedhead: #WildflowerHour

The Birdsfoot Trefoil is spectacular this year: #WildflowerHour

Today is full of magics. You don’t need to read about others experiences, you don’t need to capture your own to share. Today, just bathe in it all. Harvest your own omens, revel in whatever blessings the day offers. Refuse to be part of the mediated spectacle. Find your own primal wonder. #Solstice

* Writers you've somehow never read another book by even though you really liked the one you did read * Writers you don't read because you confused them with another writer * Writers you don't read because their author photo is so annoying * Writers you don't read because of petty personal animus

Brilliant:

Always enjoy the Beth Chatto Gardens weekly blog posts: www.bethchatto.co.uk/discover/our...

South Yorkshire has some of the unhealthiest rented homes in England, and they're also among the most expensive to heat. Everyone deserves a home that's warm, safe and dry, regardless of how much they earn. ✍️ Harry Birkett and Jack Auty #PowerfulSouthYorkshire #Doncaster #Sheffield

This is a must read thread if you’re concerned about what AI (or the perception of AI) is able to do to intellectual labour & academic work

A new legal case has been launched to challenge how the UK fast-tracks EU chemical safety decisions into law ⬇️ A clear commitment to align GB classifications with EU decisions as a default, including new hazard classes, alongside transparent reporting on divergence is urgently required. ⚠️

A generation of children confined to exclusively posting on LinkedIn, humbled to share that they have been recognised as thought leaders in vertically integrating your mom's supply chain.

Did u know? Bumblebees need to sleep, just like us & spend 10-15% of their time dozing.They sleep inside the colony, at its entrance, or in safe, warm place like grassy tumps,or inside flowers.Their fave flowers can be cone shaped,for warmth & protection, or multi-headed for food provision. 🌱🌿🇬🇧🌱🌍🪲🐝

As govt is going to ban social media for kids, then they should also: - invest in youth clubs and social spaces where young people are welcome - put some actual money into libraries - mandate that secondary schools supply offline learning resources - implement effective regulation

There's probably never been a better time to remind you that when David Hockney first took his Mum to California she remarked 'all this lovely weather and nobody puts their washing out'.

Thank you bluesky people, today I’ve read some great things, signed some hopeful things, now off to do some work. Message for the day, to build a resilient life: support community food projects! Community meals, veg boxes/veg growing, cooking classes: granvillecommunitykitchen.org.uk/community/

AI isn't only destroying culture and emitting bazillion tonnes of carbon, it also has the potential to destroy our landscapes. Thanks @benjaminmyers76.bsky.social for sending this petition against a huge data centre in the Lammermuirs. Please do sign if of interest: c.org/P9KmWfwdCJ1

Reading about writers reading: this is what we're here for. Amanda Craig on the wonderful Writer's Bookshelf - from love of 1960s Puffin Books to thoughts on the Booker prize!

Settle a work debate. What is the 'proper' British pronunciation of tortoise. Tortoys (like) or Tortuss (retweet). Now go!

every time I say this, someone didn't know: you can get the NYRB, the New Yorker, the LRB, Paris Review, The Spectator (weirdly not New Statesman), The Week, both French & Italian Vogue & New Scientist among many many other magazines FREE via the Libby app from your local library?

I’m also thrilled that many people have said it’s changed the way they see urban environments, looking at pavements & walls in a totally new light. From crevice-loving ferns to rapidly-spreading garden escapes, urban floras are constantly in flux, which is why they’re so exciting. 2/4…

us, lightly touching a document: I just need to move you so I can make sure you're properly supported on this table the document, the pages enormous: you SHOVE document? you throw the vellum like a paper aeroplane? oh! oh! jail for archivist! jail for archivist for One Thousand Years!!!!

Have you been taking part in #NoMowMay or opting for a #NoMowSummer? The challenge this week is to show us your #LawnFlowers! No lawn? See what’s blooming in another local grassed area instead. Share your pics for #WildflowerHour this Sunday 8-9pm. Happy flower hunting! 🌸🌾🌼

Nicholas Royle has called A Personal Anthology "a brilliant thing" and “sustainable, infinite, inspiring”, which is fantastic. BUT it will only be infinite if I can keep finding willing contributors. SO if you're a fan of short stories, and would like to take part, then get in touch. DMs open!

One forgets how funny Anita Brookner’s writing is in its own unique way. Truths are unexpectedly brought to light and bandied about; Edith tells Mr Neville he is sadistic, and he says “if your capacity for bad behaviour were being properly used, you would not be moping around in that cardigan”.

Margaret Drabble’s THE GARRICK YEAR is a fantastic book. A sharply observed novella which explores how women's lives in the 1960s were frequently dictated by the demands of marriage and motherhood. The humour is wonderfully barbed! #BookSky 💙📚 jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2024/04/16/t...

At today’s Repair Cafe we are offering a sharpening service for garden hand tools. Keeping tools clean and sharp helps enormously with their functionality and long life, so we’re really happy to be able to offer this service. Do yours need some care and attention?

Stop reading and go to sleep! This is very good: #nowreading (following The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Agnes Grey, both by Anne Brontë) finally reading Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the art of Life, by Samantha Ellis

Here's the serious bit for anyone who'd rather skip the 4000 words of jokes

Make your voice heard on pesticides…tell the Government you don’t want glyphosate in your gardens, parks, playgrounds and public spaces. ✋ Add your name to their #GrowersAgainstGlyphosate petition gardenorganic.org.uk/glyphosate-campaign.

Go out! Look up! Enjoy the Moon! Watch how it changes from night to night (I've had a great view of the first quarter Moon from the garden the last couple of nights). Do not worry about 'special' events like a mini blue strawberry latte hedgehog Moon. Just go and look whenever you like! 🔭

I really like the fact that I can come onto #bluesky and see people knitting from their own patterns, creating and growing stuff, sharing great photos of landscapes, artefacts, wildlife and plants, and just generally feeling joy with their fellow human beings. Only a curmudgeon would deny us that.