Only 27 days to have your say over the future of the BBC! Don’t leave it to other people - take part!. You love it? You think it could be better? There’s something special you don’t want to lose? Tell the government! Closes Tuesday 10th March. www.gov.uk/government/n...

I don't like to talk about stories before they are fully reported, but I am writing on ICE in a Minnesota town that isn't Minneapolis. However bad you think it is, it is worse. It is a campaign of pure terror whose only strategic goal is more terror. There is no strategy other than to break people.

The UK version of “Project 2025” by the Reform party includes a British ICE, a concentration camp for 24,000 people, mass surveillance and withdrawing from refugee, anti-torture and anti-trafficking conventions. It’s on their website. That’s how comfortable fascists are in the UK today.

One of the hardest things to do is bring campaign-level communications to the work of governance, and snowstorms are notoriously one of the biggest litmus tests that less-engaged voters use to judge mayoral administrations. This is an excellent way to communicate.

The people who spent years defending and even lionizing Kyle Rittenhouse and Ashli Babbitt now want us to believe that an unarmed mother in her car and a disarmed nurse were domestic terrorists who deserved to be murdered by law enforcement.

Worth remembering when looking at the horrific scenes in the US right now that both Reform and the Tories have pledged to bring in ICE-style organisations to the UK if they win power

In the 2010s, the Icelandic tv station Channel 2 accidentally added subtitles from a gritty crime drama to an episode of Teletubbies. I have translated some of the highlights

Why are the Scottish Gov (£9.25 million) and Edinburgh Council (£1.7 million) paying more than £10M to have the Tour de France come to Edinburgh. Given the enormous financial shortfalls they both have is this really a priority? Is the man on the 44 bus going to benefit? I think not. #Edinburgh

The Announcers.

Wolf moon at 8.45am on Sunday morning over Pilrig Park in Leith/Edinburgh. Can't remember when I last saw a moon so big and bright after sunrise!

@classicfm.com Thank you for #PetClassics - My cat Lucy is almost asleep! Please keep the calming music coming! Katherine in Edinburgh.

Pet Classics is back with a special extended edition, to help calm pets during the New Year’s Eve fireworks. 🐾 Join us together with Go.Compare for a soothing musical sanctuary in the company of Katie Breathwick and Karthi Gnanasegaram on Classic FM. Listen on 31 December, 6pm to 1am.

NEW: Five years of social media history is only a fraction of what the US Government will shortly demand of overseas visitors. The full requirements will end tourism in the United States. Below is the full, mind-blowing list. 🚨THEY. WANT. YOUR. DNA.🚨 1/

Not ESPC but too glorious not to share

This is the full list of info the US is proposing to require from applicants for an ESTA (electronic travel authorisation) to secure visa-free travel to America. This would apply to every UK holidaymaker, conference attendee or businessperson. public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2025-22461.pdf

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE HYPHENS

The trees in St Andrew’s Sq and PSG are some of the most valuable in Edinburgh. The Spurtle, me and many others have been pushing @edinburghcouncil.bsky.social to follow their own policies and properly protect them for over a decade. Now they need to decompact the soil & repair some of the damage

It's back to being effectively closed again, where the fence bulges out around their equipment... bsky.app/profile/wing...

We need your help. @waterstones.bsky.social, without any direct communication with us, will be opening their 6th Edinburgh branch less than 100 metres from our front door at the Foot of the Walk in Leith. Please read on for more information www.heraldscotland.com/news/2562908... (1/2)

Seals singing in a sea cave #Orkney 🦭🎧

Happy Doctor Who day!

The Bethany Christian Trust Rapid Re-accommodation Welcome Centre at Els House in Gorgie is available to anyone facing street homelessness this winter. It offers food, sleeping facilities and a high level of support to people who do not have any accommodation.

GOOD NEWS! According to my councillor, the path should reopening tomorrow and officers will explore more sensible options

Edinburgh Council once again demonstrating what they really think about walking, cycling, running in this city. This is the equivalent to closing the bypass for two months and directing drivers over the top of the Pentlands.

The Covid Inquiry finds that if Boris Johnson had called the first lockdown even one week earlier then it could have saved at least 20,000 lives. Here's a quick reminder of what Johnson was actually doing during those weeks

The full film & piece is here. Do the voters of Clacton think it’s okay for politicians to accept bribes from Russian spies? www.thenerve.news/p/john-sween...

Trump’s ICE is waiting outside hospital ERs in Charlotte to abduct people in their most desperate hours of need. The cruelty is the point.

“It broke my heart, that was my savings towards a new car,” one woman who paid Milne tens of thousands of pounds told us. “He has just wiped me out.” Who is Andrew Milne - the solicitor sending "very aggressive" letters to Sheffield homeowners? www.sheffieldtribune.co.uk/a-london-law...

What a photograph. “Nearly two dozen arrested as faith leaders protested outside a federal immigration facility near Chicago…” Arrested large amounts of peaceful clergy face first on pavement is a pretty good sign you’re not the good guys in the story. www.reuters.com/legal/govern...

You simply don't get a sense of the hidden architecture lurking beneath Edinburgh's South Bridge from street level until you look at the cross-sectional view. retrospectjournal.com/2024/11/10/a...

@classicfm.com Lucy in Edinburgh is settled in for Pet Classics! #petclassics

Elon Musk’s legacy

Word of the Day is ‘catchfart’ (17th century): an obsequious individual who sucks up to the boss and always follows the political wind.

This is WILD www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_be...

@classicfm.com Lucy in Edinburgh is enjoying #petclassics Thanks for all the lovely music, it really does help to keep her calm!

From 'Politics and the English Language' by George Orwell

“Tram-trains can run on-street and traditional rail lines, different from previous ‘South Sub’ proposals. “Tram-train services would run west from Portobello along the South Sub & connect to the current tram at Murrayfield; then continue to Princes Street & Leith or Edinburgh Park & the airport.”

@spurtle.bsky.social I've just seen the position of the big wheel in East Princes Street Gardens. It's right next to two mature trees - how on earth has this been approved as surely it must be damaging them. Sorry for the poor quality photo, it was taken from a moving tram.

Asylum seekers, housed in hotels in Manchester, are reaching out in their own words to address the concerns of the local community. Please take a minute to read their letter, & share it with the people in your life who need to hear the truth about the people they are protesting.

Time to repost this…

"Federal agents fired a pepper round that struck the pastor of the College Heights United Church of Christ. The impact caked his face in orange powder... “I’m in a lot of pain,” the pastor texted from the emergency room, “He clearly was aiming for the face.” www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/arti...

Bertrand Russell to Oswald Mosley. Perfection.

Pet Classics is back for the 2025 fireworks season! 🐾 Dan Walker and Charlotte Hawkins will keep the nation’s pets calm through the whizzes and bangs of Bonfire Night, with two shows of relaxing music. 📻 Pet Classics | 5pm–9pm on Wednesday 5 and Saturday 8 November. clssicfm.co/4753wRi

The right-wing campaign group that helped topple Roe v Wade in the US is now working to roll back abortion laws in the UK, with the help of Nigel Farage. Its first step? Trying to create a debate around "free speech" www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

“With your patient and rigorous work, you can act as a barrier against those who, through the ancient art of lying, seek to create divisions in order to rule by dividing,” he said. “You can be a bulwark of civility against the quicksand of approximation and post-truth...” apnews.com/article/pope...

"...including while she was praying with her eyes closed and hands lifted, wearing a clerical collar and stole." religionnews.com/2025/10/07/i...