I spent a very enjoyable evening with the Opera Locos at Sadlers Wells Theatre this evening. It’s a fun evening of opera and comedy with a couple of recognisable hits thrown in. If - like me - you are ignorant of opera I think it gives you a good taster. Tickets are available for the next 2 nights.

They won't start with banning birth control. First they'll lie about it. Then dictate who can prescribe it, use it, fund it, in what forms, and for how long. Suddenly, your doctor won't call you back. I know this is what they'll do because it's what they're doing to transgender healthcare right now.

When I said birth control was in danger people said I was catastrophizing. But here we are, wait until they come for the right to own property. It's a fantasy where only wealthy white men have rights. No one else

This is very telling. Some horses retired but the old ones went to the knacker’s yard. Looking forward to a Logan’s Run future.

Ditto this. Also seems insane to me that 2 of her cookbooks didn’t get series given how popular she is with the public. Are you telling me people aren’t interested in more diverse food or comfort eating? Come on, now.

This whole thread is insane.

Still love this @womenwritersnet.bsky.social

There's a whole thing going down on the right wing X-sphere where vloggers go and stand outside mosques... try to provoke worshippers... and then claim they have been "assaulted" - despite the people on the footage appearing to be entirely reasonable and just asking them to go home.

Look. People get divorced for all manner of reasons, and it's nobody else's business. However. When a politician is using the slogan: Family. Community. Country. It's perfectly reasonable to point out that they are recently divorced and live in the SE of England miles from Gorton and Denton.

I’ve been enjoying Dinosaur on #bbc3 and only just realised that the guy who runs the coffee truck is Mr Finch from #bridgerton and I really love it.

Quite the Eye Told You So in Private Eye, flagging its reporting of Mandelson’s dealings with Epstein from 2009 (!)

Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital halts mass eviction after London Centric uncovered what was going on. Hundreds of Londoners now receiving bizarre door-to-door visits blaming misinformation and being asked to record videos saying they don't want to be evicted. www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

Yet again Michael is posting this photo of women from North Shields, who were arrested at different times for petty crimes, and telling people on social media that they were the Forty Elephants. They are not 😂 Clue's on the boards - it says North Shields, because they were taken in North Shields.

Played badminton this evening and was pretty much consistently awful. 13-year-old me would have heckled current me. But then 13-year-old me was an arsehole. Still, chatted to some nice people and learned a new social badminton club will soon open a few miles away, which will play on weekends.

Well. Whatever happens this week, I am having a better one than Peter Mandelson.

“Tell it again, Gramps! The one about being caught in the shark frenzy off the Great Barrier Reef!”

Annoyed by fact Matthew McConnaughey is out there telling actors to embrace AI & copyright their voice when he is literally an investor in an AI voice company.

reading this article I was overwhelmed with a profound sense of everything is scams now. Scams and gambling. Scambling.

Great night for British authors at #Bafta - wins from Maggie O’Farrell & Dean Atta, and Max Porter’s nomination. To say the film industry benefits from authors is a HUGE understatement. Thought: because book publishing doesn’t shout loud about their talent, nobody else feels obliged to either.

PSA, as I'm helping a friend out with a thing - a publishing contract must have a termination clause, and if it doesn't, don't sign it. Also read your reversion clauses carefully and make sure that they don't create impossible conditions. If it never activates, don't sign.

Did my Sunday cleaning while listening to The History Bureau: Putin And The Appartement Bombs on BBC Sounds. Really interesting podcast about a forgotten part of Putin’s rise.

My books cartoon for this week’s @theguardian.com

Former UK PM Gordon Brown is providing - voluntarily and not for the first time - information to the police about abuses of power relating to the Epstein files. As PM Brown was briefed against by people such as Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson as being ‘psychologically flawed’ ….1/

Scenes at the gym where the management have reduced costs by taking a cheaper music licence package. As a result the music is pretty much all 80s, 90s and some early 00s. Everyone born after 2000 is struggling with how “ancient” it is but I enjoy it. Head bobbed along to Mambo No 5 while planking.

Ah. The Annual Gouging Of Mobile Phone Prices is near and I will finally have to sign up to a new plan after 18 months of lowest SIM price smugness. Let the games commence.

London’s “worst mass eviction in recent history” is underway; hundreds of households across London told to get out of their homes this week by the same landlord, ahead of the renters rights act. The landlord? Billionaire Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital. www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

This clip is all over the other place and has made its way onto GB News and Talk TV so I’ll do a bit of an explainer here too! The clip doing the rounds is of a fantastic police officer telling a group of Muslim men that a Christian preacher nearby is entitled to freedom of expression. 🧵 1/19

I hate image quoting but i am apparently blocked from replying directky to this. It is NOT diminishing the role of women to, nicely, highlight a story isn't true. You diminish the real contributions of women in WW2 elsewhere by pushing a false narrative because the story is nice. /1

Just listen to what Andrew’s nickname was amongst royal protection officers.

A retired British primary school administrator with a British passport and a valid visa was shackled, chained and detained for six weeks by ICE www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

"We owe conspiracy theorists a huge apology" No we fucking don't. They were talking about a secret conspiracy of gay trans Jewish lizard people. The Epstein files uncovered a conspiracy of rich, straight, white, right-wing Christian men, which these motherfuckers never even considered.

Fucking HELL. It's one of the great modern British tragedies that Leveson basically went nowhere. Our tabloid media are borderline evil. They could have been properly regulated and they weren't because Cameron wanted to be mates with Murdoch instead.

NEW How Palantir captured the Ministry of Defence How a close read of public domain documents show how MoD was commercially colonised by Palantir By me, at FT www.ft.com/content/5207...

that's silly, it's not going to work, trains are too fast for that

Really annoyed. Booked my usual contractor to do a simple handyman job (taking a battery powered smoke detector off the ceiling and replacing it with a new one). The company has billed me at a higher rate because they say this is a specialist fire and safety service.

My sister is staying with me this weekend. She doesn’t know it yet, but she is going to help me double check that I have fire safety labels on my furniture by helping me flip my 2 sofas. Don’t tell her. It’ll be a nice surprise.

Reposting with ALT text

Wednesday

Pleasant evening with some old uni friends having a catch up. Bit daunting though to be at an age where their kids are themselves either at university or getting ready to go to university.

This is indistinguishable from right-wing anti-SJW agitprop

Wholly in favour of this as long as it also applies to Eton, Westminster etc.

It’s that time again, folks.

Josh Johnson destroying Elon Musk for begging Epstein to come to the pedo island is the funniest shit I’ve seen this morning.

A MAGA memecoin run by Steve Bannon went off the rails, according to a lawsuit, with $2.7 million missing and investors' money frozen. My latest False Flag newsletter for @thebulwark.com: www.thebulwark.com/p/steve-bann...

“Your guy is late.” “It’s only been five minutes, chill.” "Something doesn't feel right." “Everything’s fine, Dave.” "You sure this is the spot?" "Yes." "And you know this guy is cool?" "Yes, just relax." "Don't give him the money until-" "Until I see the kibble, yes I know."

Played badminton this evening. I still suck but I got some good shots in - total flukes but I will take it. Charged to some fun people as well so that definitely makes it worth it.

I’m not normally that person but…. It’s really annoying that Democracy for Sale a has hardly been credited anywhere in last 24 hours for breaking story of Labour Together paying to spy on journalists *almost two weeks* ago Hadn’t expected Tory press office to be the exception!

The fitness class today was very strenuous but I am quite proud of how far I have come along with it.