This is blackout poetry to me

It's devastating to me how much public money is being wasted in the British legal system purely on maintaining maximally destructive stances on human rights in service to the political ideology of the regime.

If The Bible had been written in the North of England Noah’s Ark wouldn’t have made the edit. It’s already rained for more than 40 days and 40 nights this year and we’re only on day 43

People who’ve met me recently don’t know that for a long time my specialist subject was the history of the bra. After I completed my MA at London College of Fashion, I kept up the research for 10 years but decided to draw that era to a close last year. However, I’ll do one final talk…

2008: Epstein is convicted of procuring a minor for prostitution 2018: Despite that conviction, [files indicate] he was invited by Rowling’s team - along with a guest of his choosing - to the Broadway opening of Harry Potter and the private after-party Protecting women and children, is it?

Okay, let’s try this writing thing again. lipsticklori.substack.com/p/twenty-six...

NHS England is rolling out software to run our health records from Palantir – a US spy-tech firm that has supported mass deportation in the US and enabled genocide in Gaza. One of Palantir’s founders is also openly against the NHS. notopalantir.goodlawproject.org/email-to-tar...

Just watched the new Knives Out and I think it's really important you know that the scene in the Seminary's Gym is filmed in the same place Rick Astley filmed the music video for Never Gonna Give You Up. I saw the window tracery and immediately made my friends pause the film so I could tell them.

Sad news, but what a wonderful body of work he leaves is with. www.vogue.com/article/mart...

There really is no such thing as "the perfect green" linktr.ee/boldpolitics

If we can only have art from people who "aren't in it for the money" that means we can only have art from privileged middle-class dilettantes. Making art being a viable career is responsible for nearly all worthwhile art, and if it's not a viable career any more we will get drastically less of it.

Zack Polanski with the truth.

I like it when anyone criticises London, and Sadiq posts something saying, “we are all multilingual and bisexual”

Reposting a day late. Mostly because the rejection sensitive dysphoria played me hard yesterday and I wanted to see how people felt about the piece first. Thank you to so many of the wonderful comments and emails so far! ☺️

Cats say a £22bn investment in Dreamies and new Catnip technologies will boost Britain's economy in the next few years

In London, hate will never win.

Here are some things that Charlie Kirk said in his life. The man is dead, and so it only seems fair to share his legacy by cataloguing the values he spread while alive.

Fancied learning something new today so I opened up LinkedIn Learning. The clearly AI generated “career goal” thing is useless. Assistant Researcher is not my current role. It’s taking “Personal Assistant, Research and Innovation Service” from my profile and failing to understand 🙄

Really exciting new archaeology report showing that two people who died in 7th century Kent had West African grandfathers. It’s suggested they’d travelled here as traders and settled thanks to the Byzantine Empire’s trade network that linked North Africa to Britain

i've joined @wearequeeraf.com as their lead investigative journalist. it feels exciting and timely to be coming on board now given how vital it is at this moment for us to have independent and rigorous queer media. read my stories in the QueerAF newsletter – it's free! wearequeeraf.com/subscribe

Happy Pride Month 2025 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ Be gay do crow stuff #pridemonth #pridecrows

I’ve received an email about this survey now, so will be ensuring that I also ask for this.

I don't 'refuse to use' AI, I just don't use AI; in the same way that I don't shoplift, or plagiarise other people's books - it requires no effort of will, it's just not something I would think of doing

Ladies: if you were on Twitter but have your account dormant, please delete all your selfies and any other photos where you’re visible (and thus able to be edited on Grok). If you’re about to delete your account make sure you delete photos of yourself too.

So the EHRC wants to turn the clocks back to 1969, and now I'm blogging like it's 2012: cnlester.wordpress.com/2025/04/26/t... I had too many thoughts on the transphobic direction of travel to fit it into one message. I hope it helps.

Labour's new policy - of humiliating trans people by requiring them constantly to self-identify - we believe puts the UK (again) in breach of its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights and will seek a declaration of incompatability. goodlaw.social/0r6l

You all need to treat Harry Potter IP like we’re treating the Tesla brand.

Just heard the news headlines on 6Music and the story about today’s supreme court ruling was accompanied by a clip from trans-exclusionary group LGB Alliance. When will the BBC realise that providing “balance” shouldn’t mean platforming hate? (Also, trans people’s right to exist is not a “debate”!)

Let me help you out! Our roads are too narrow for your behemoths, a third of houses don’t have off street parking, you don’t make compact cars anymore as you chased bigger profits, 18mpg with £6 per gallon in the UK not £2.50, and also Europeans are notoriously picky about brands. Free market babe.

Fieldwork is not always safe, inclusive or equitable for LGBTQ+ people – but they are not alone. Researchers in the Faculty of Environment have created a toolkit to support fieldworkers to make sure they plan with and for LGBTQ+ colleagues. environment.leeds.ac.uk/news/article...

Ah, BBC balance. The obligation, if you have the audacity to get someone on saying something factually correct, to have someone else on with wild, errant and harmful nonsense.

Steve Lamacq is in Texas, so I'm wondering how many other #BBC6music presenters and heavily rotated artists wouldn't be particularly safe in/ trying to get to Texas right now and thinking we need a cultural boycott, really.

A morning out at Lethaby Gallery, @unioftheartslondon.bsky.social for Transcestry: 10 Years of the Museum of Transology 🏳️‍⚧️ Our Q&A with founder E-J Scott will be coming to Museums Journal soon. A little ambient video of our wander around the exhibition 👇

without downloading new pics, describe your gender

I’m late to the party with this particular trend, but I wanted to do something a bit different with it. lipsticklori.substack.com/p/coffee-wit...

While some people like to vocally claim that the rights of cis lesbians, gay men, and bisexual people are “threatened” by trans rights, it’s worth reminding folks that the vast majority of us support trans and non-binary people in our communities. Our lives, like our rights, are secured together.

In a meeting today, a colleague asked what the difference is between the 3-star and 4-star quality descriptors in REF. Another colleague brilliantly explained 4-star as “like getting a 10 from Craig Revel Horwood on Strictly”

Dorothy B. Porter changed libraries 💜 The Dewey Decimal System used to only have two classifications for Black people: 325 (colonization) & 326 (slavery). Each book by a Black person was put into one of these classifications. A book of poetry? Classified as colonization. Enter Dorothy B. Porter 🧵

On this day 16 years ago the occupants of the lift that Stephen Fry got stuck in (and was live-tweeting updates from) were rescued. An entirely different era of social media. So wholesome

Climate change is a huge problem and everyone should do what they can but I strongly believe blaming individuals instead of corporations is a corporate tactic to obscure the key causes, create personal guilt, and discourage people from organizing for real progress.

Ushering in the work mode with a slew of dissertation marking and so I need to wrap my peepers around something soothing. Pastel shades of Charles James should do it, all the turquoise and lavender here in one of his 1952 ‘Tree’ gowns @metcostume.bsky.social #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

Being a queer historian in 2025...

chasing your own joy and authenticity also requires you to be agonizingly vulnerable. You have to unpack that societal shame binding you to the acceptable norms. it requires you to risk being seen as weird or cringy by the status quo- and makes you ask why you value that acceptance so fervently.

So… this is fifty. How did that happen?

Once any space becomes less than 40% male, (straight) men tend to cede it entirely while shouting about how it “went woke”. Fascinating read:

(Almost) every January since 2018, I have looked out for little things that bring me joy in order to brighten up the dreariest month of the year; one thing for every year of my life so far, starting on my birthday and going through to the end of the month.

Lots of people I consider to be big bookish people bemoaning their lack of reading and sharing their total books read this year with many under 20 and some even under 10. There’s no shame in those numbers but it’s comforting to see it affect so many of us who were avid readers pre-Covid.

One of the worst things about aging is hearing an adult talk about things from their childhood, and it’s something you remember post-university. Someone on BBC6Music said that he remembers hearing Hey Ya! at his primary school disco. That song was released in September 2003. I was 28 years old.

Well, that’s the first time in a while that the #DoctorWho Christmas special has well and truly brought #JoyToTheWorld and also made us all cry. Such a great story Moffat!