The way the word elites has become devoid of all meaning is interesting. It’s a placeholder for “someone I don’t like” and it fascinates me that the people who use it most are wealthy, went to “elite” schools and hold positions of power. Look in the damn mirror. You’re talking about yourself.

Porty Books work to get books to people who possibly wouldn’t get one otherwise. You can donate money on their website if you can’t get to the shop.

His opportunism is bad enough. But never forget that this is the same Nigel Farage who allegedly made hissing noises and whispered "Hitler was right" to a Jewish contemporary at school. Things he has NEVER apologised for.

yeah. when asked, the most common view around the world is that about 1-2% of people in the world are Jewish ie 70-140 million people. it's 0.19% there are 12 million of us. world Jewish population has never returned to the pre-Holocaust number of 18m ajourneyintotheholocaust.com/wp-content/u...

I’ve gotten a few replies like this today and I just want to point out 1. None of them have come from Palestinians 2. Violent antisemitism predates the existence of a Zionist movement, which began in Europe in an colonialist environment 3. These comments themselves conflate Judaism with Zionism

I think this statement sums up the horror Bondi and the horror of the world succinctly

Imagining myself sitting atop the rubble with a pillar of crowns on my head, waving regally to the cockroaches.

What's always missing from those grim dystopian stories where someone is the last surviving human is that, by default, such a person would be the inheritor of all hereditary titles and honours that have ever existed. Some consolation, surely?

All I can say this morning is look for the helpers, like Ahmed. “Seven News reported the bystander was a 43-year-old fruit shop owner from the Sutherland Shire named Ahmed.”

Weepy.

It may not feel like it now as marginalised people and their allies are edged out of institutions in the arts - but those institutions are unreliable, antiquated and at this point, bending the knee to fascism. It’s absolutely the best thing artistically and financially to be free of that.

The hero who stopped one of the gunmen at Bondi beach is called Ahmad al Ahmad bsky.app/profile/katz...

Here’s a comprehensive list of appropriate responses upon hearing that a man murdered worshippers at a synagogue: 1- this is fucked up, fuck that guy, fuck antisemitism, solidarity with the victims 2- see above

📑"On the one hand, who has a greater insight into social phenomena than those who have experienced them first-hand? But on the other, what is the role for sociologists relative to the realities we study?" #LivedExperience #Sociology

Feels like a good time to support @robinince.bsky.social by buying one of his books for Christmas. 'Being Interested: Adventures in Scientific Curiosity' looks good, so I got that one, but he's done a few! www.waterstones.com/author/robin...

Last #FirstLastAnything of the series tomorrow morning. That'll make it 36 long read conversations over the past three and a half years, and I know some people do three podcasts a week, but it's just me and the guest making these. Do tell people about the archive, esp over Christmas. Ta.

I think the USA would do better under that drunk raccoon.

There isn't a single problem "solved" by edtech that couldn't be fixed with smaller classes led by well-paid teachers given real academic freedom

For the record, Robin Ince is a superb comedian, an absolute mensch, a remarkable thinker and the kindest human you’ll ever meet. And the BBC is a genuinely great and globally unique institution that needs to stop being afraid. I think that’s where most of its faults and issues stem from.

Robin Ince is a good, kind, thoughtful person.

i first worked with @robinince.bsky.social in 2003, having first seen him as a stand-up in 1998 (in the glastonbury cabaret tent!) and you won’t find a kinder or funnier person in the comedy industry

It surprises me that it took Israel and the US so long to realize the façade of a ceasefire would be the perfect way to get people to stop paying attention to Gaza. That's why we've been so critical of the calls for a ceasefire that do not extend to the liberation of Palestine.

We just moisturise and put on a smile.

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

This is your reminder that nothing human-made is inevitable and you hereby have all the permission you need to reject bad/harmful social, technological, and political paradigms and to work toward something better.

Ongoing decimation of British universities part 252: Apx. 1000 academic staff at University of Essex just received formal ‘risk of redundancy’ letters via email. Please share @ucuessex.bsky.social @ucu.org.uk

#BREAKING | Palestine Action activists are at risk of dying in prison, two of them didn’t eat for 39 days in a row

Thanks to Arifa Akbar for her powerful review of Museum of Austerity in the @theguardian.com: "This material should be front and centre so that those who still talk about 'benefits cheats' are forced to encounter it." Showing at The Young Vic theatre until 16 Jan www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/d...

It is an odd specific of UK govt migration policies that someone, somewhere, seems to think that families fleeing in fear of their lives are diligently keeping up with every new announcement about specific changes to the hostile environment.

Some poor, exhausted US Border agent, emerging from a fetid, windowless office six months from now: "Who the hell is Janey Godley anyway?"

I don’t know how you define someone like me who can speak and write and do *pretty much nothing else at all* and needs round-the-clock care for a bunch of comorbidities that mean I can’t be left alone for more than a couple of hours, but “low support needs” ain’t it.

Oh, 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' is well-intentioned, but rather patronising isn't it? #HenningWehn.

How about we DON’T let fascists set the agenda?

I guess we should update this to 'From the margins to WINNING the UK's biggest art Prize'! Congratulations Nnena Kalu 🎉

Wonderful news www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...

“Listen Wes, I tried really hard not to be autistic years before I was diagnosed” The comedian Fern Brady will run a marathon for a autistic charity 🏃‍♀️ while Wes Streeting insists that autistic and ADHD people don’t exist www.instagram.com/reel/DSDGthi...

Cat got out of the carrier in my friend’s car on the way to the vet’s today. Then she climbed onto my back to get away from the vet after her jab. We are now home and she’s happy. I’m very tired,

The winners in publishing who get lucky breaks don't have all the info. Somebody like me who's been battered by publishing & stays fighting to be heard, I know it.

So @bylinetimes.bsky.social is planning a Christmas cracker box - all Farage’s pro Putin statements - do share and add any you find to this thread

Nothing worse than signing an email "warm regards" and getting a reply with "warmest regards". Oh, now it's ON.

Is it so hard to say: The USA is a preposterous nation led by a buffoon?

Never go to bed angry. Stay up all night getting angrier and angrier.

Welcome to Britain, a country so short of dentists that an MP's 87-year-old mum pulled her teeth out with pliers. Also a country with thousands of foreign-qualified dentists who can’t work until they pass an exam so oversubscribed it’s like trying to book Glasto tickets. www.ft.com/content/f4e5...

You’d never know this was what was decided as part of that tribunal ruling…

Being a British parent is so weird bc you're actually worried about paying the sky high rent/mortgage & getting GP appointments but the entire press keeps telling you you're worried there's a trans person or immigrant nearby & the vat on Eton means there'll only be two skiing holidays this year

one small lesson to take away from the crumbling HE sector, btw, is that there is no such thing as meritocracy here and the only thing that matters is doing work that is meaningful to you and the people you care about and to make friends and collaborators in the process

As the trans community have known for a while now - the definition of activist is someone who dares to state they exist

Why should young people participate in an economy that offers them no hope for the future? The inter-generational bargain that kept British capitalism afloat has collapsed - and Labour is too busy listening to corporate lobbyists to do anything about it. graceblakeley.substack.com/p/generation...