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One day, someone might accidentally design a toaster that toasts evenly on both sides.

Catch Fesshole Live in Leicester, Luton and Leeds – tickets available now! We’re off to Sweden too, visiting Malmö, Göteborg and Stockholm, and bringing Anon Opin to Leicester. https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole

Please take 7 and a half minutes and watch this.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 331: Not everyone will love you. Live with it. All writers do. All you can do is your best, most honest work, and send it out into the world in the hope that it connects with someone. What they see in it after that is often more about them than it is about you...

Muppets Christmas Carol is the best Christmas movie bc it includes a song with the lyrics, "your future is a horror story written by your crimes" & nothing says Christmas cheer more than that. Also Michael Caine deserved all the awards for that performance. Perfection. No notes.

We should stop using euphemisms for death. My father wasn't "lost", I know exactly where he is. If my mother had "gone to a better place" I'd visit her in Cheshire.

Rewatched some Star Trek tonight. Still wild how a show about warp drives and weird nebulae ends up teaching the cleanest lessons about being human. Every episode says the same thing in its own way: ‘Be curious. Be brave. …Try not to fire phasers unless you really have to.”

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 209: Not all writing needs to “lead somewhere.” Joy is a valid end in itself. So is practice: everything you write makes you better writer.

Figuring out what to eat for dinner should not be this difficult

I hope someone draws this wonderful story about Tom Stoppard's Arcadia and the power of the arts to help us see things differently, to the attention of our Education Secretary. Do read it, it will lift your spirits.

Join us for Fesshole Live! Tickets are on sale now for Leicester, Luton and Leeds. We’re also heading to Sweden – Malmö, Göteborg and Stockholm – plus Anon Opin shows in Leicester. https://sites.google.com/view/fesshole

If, when being interviewed, politicians just spoke normally, not repeating the same scripted response over and over again, we'd hate them a little less. Not a lot, but a little bit.

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Nothing tastes weirder than a different toothpaste

We could spend years demanding a list be released, or we could just believe women…

The first episode of The Clangers was originally broadcast on this day in 1969.

NEW: Epstein survivors release the most powerful PSA I have ever seen. Make this go viral so every member of the House of Representatives sees it.

What a terrific review… I hope it will encourage friends, both trans and non-trans, to get hold of a copy my collection (you can borrow it from a poetry library too!)

Amazon just announced 14,000 layoffs. Its CEO made over $40M last year. UPS announced 48,000 layoffs. Its CEO made over $24M last year. Intel announced 20,000 layoffs. Its new CEO's pay package is valued at nearly $69M. This is what I mean when I say the system is rigged.

If we ever saw a future where body augmentation was a thing, instead of cybernetic eyes, arm blades, super strength or titanium bones I'd go for an extended bladder so I could sleep through the night without needing to get up to pee. Something actually useful.

on issues of trans inclusion, attacking relationships and sex education and on curtailing abortion law. This film on BBC news may just have had a poorly worded its script but given the current political / media environment we need to be very mindful of the messaging around reproductive health 4/4

BBC running a film this morning about the widening availability of the morning after pill (EHC). In the commentary the voiceover says ' the morning after pill needs to be taken within five days of an unwanted pregnancy'. They should say after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure. 1/4

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 5: A book doesn’t need a “serious message” to be worthwhile. Joy is a legitimate end in itself.

Trick or treat time

Read in public. Read in private. Read e-books, genre books, comics, fanfiction. Read literature. Read nonfiction. Read books you’ve already read. Listen to audiobooks. Read what you want. There’s no such thing as “doing reading the wrong way.”

SCOOBY-DOO TAUGHT US THAT IN THE END THE MONSTERS WERE ALWAYS PEOPLE.

A reminder - and just to let you know I will become tedious about this - that I have a new book out in November for #Lent … perfect for group and individuals study … based on the first #Wicked movie … do pre-order … amzn.to/4qplXsE

Worked in a corner shop about twenty years ago and was working Christmas Eve. The number of men that came in and got a microwave meal and a litre of strong alcohol was upsetting. Be nice to people.

34 people killed in 50 days. Their guilt or innocence unknown, for an alleged crime that doesn't carry a death sentence. That's a lot of death. adamisacson.com/boat-strikes/

This is an anti-apartheid pop song from the eighties but, sadly, change the video and it could be about any number of modern regimes.

This.

Me (to a little boy beside me in a cafe who is wearing a yellow coat): Nice coat. Little boy: Thank you. It means when night comes I can hide as a star.

I think ghosts are just people who died trying to fold a fitted sheet.

Announcing our new platypus, a creature who prefers complete solitude. To make him feel welcome, please leave him the hell alone.

The Louvre has been robbed the same week the new pope has talked about shutting down Opus Dei. Have the police interviewed Dan Brown yet? 🤔

Unsolicited writing advice: no. 8075: There is no such thing as serious writing. There are only writers who take their work seriously, and those who don’t. Tragedy is no more “serious” than comedy. Children’s writing is no less “serious” than writing for adults. Good writing is wherever you find it.

I want a series of books with titles including words that don't rhyme but should. The Discount Viscount The Banished Danish Naked and Baked By the Chef

Okay new idea for a library service: leave a hobby take a hobby. When people get bored with a hobby they can come and leave their supplies and books and half-finished things, and exchange them for someone else’s supplies and books and half-finished things. Hobby swap.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 1687: You don't have to share your writing unless you want to. You don't need to talk to anyone about your writing unless you want to. You don't need to seek publication unless you want to. You can get 99% of the benefits of writing without doing any of those things.

I'm one of 8 siblings, all now over 30. We've all taken different paths in life, and I can tell you now, as someone who has seen so many different paths, learn a trade. Electrician. Plumber. Roofer. Doesn't matter. Get an apprenticeship and learn practical skills. You'll be safe.

Unsolicited writing advice, no. 154: Feed your writing daily. Feed it with fiction, non-fiction, news, games, theatre, films, art. Feed it with conversation. Feed it with experience. Feed it with curiosity. Don't expect to get anything out unless you also keep putting in.