Beautiful song by Ella Speirs. Briget/Brigid is a figure associated with poetry, the arts, fire, smithcraft, and healing. Some crossover with Saraswati. She's pretty damn cool if you ask me. So are Brigid and Saraswati. youtu.be/puyrTlDFHhU?...

I keep thinking again, in light of the latest Epstein files dump, about how MeToo “went too far.”

Some more of my ramblings - this time about mental ill-health and therapy. www.wedossett.com/post/birch In the piece, I talk about Rusalki — the malevolent female spirits of Slavic folklore. And I converse with a tree. #therapy #psychotherapy #birch #birchtree #weepingsilverbirch #rusalka

🗓️ Today marks 5 years since the Treaty on Prohibition Of Nuclear Weapons came into force. Let’s take a look at the treaty and its impact 👉🏼

The brilliant Sophie Calon on what can learned from addiction memoirs. She should know. Her life was shaped by her father’s addiction, as her heartbreaking, yet beautiful, memoir Long Going (Honno 2025) recounts.

“The Free Speech Union’s commitment to free speech would seem to end where transparency about itself begins.” @petergeoghegan.bsky.social and @mc00.bsky.social blow the lid off the backers of Toby Young’s outfit: https://democracyforsale.substack.com/p/who-funds-the-free-speech-union-toby-young

❤️‍🔥Tory sources confirm that Nadhim Zahawi made approaches to senior members of Kemi Badenoch's team about getting a peerage just weeks before defecting to Reform UK - but was turned down.

Interesting little article that could also have mentioned the role of the Temperance Movement in the Women's Movement. It was a crucial training ground in political activism for early feminists.

Temperance is often treated as a footnote, but in Victorian Britain it was a mass movement. Millions pledged abstinence and reshaped London with alcohol-free spaces - a hidden history still standing today. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

When Duran Duran reads the room better than your average Democrat

Just wow. By Christian he means ‘white’ (supremacist).

Christmas Eve in Eryri. #eryri #cymru #wales

The government failed at actually redacting the Epstein files because DOGE cancelled the feds adobe acrobat premium subscription is the funniest shit.

Failure of AI #2365346213 - the algorithm imagining I'd respond positively to underwear advertising that refers to breasts as 'the girls.'

I don’t charge rent to lines of poetry that want to live in my head.

The Nobel Prize committee should announce the World Cup winner tomorrow

"what has it got in its pocketses" - good question to ask when you're doing the laundry

I won’t be accepting any new invitations to speak at WI meetings while this exclusionary policy is in place. This ruling goes against everything I’ve come to learn about the WI’s commitment to inclusion and community. Bullied by billionaire bigots.

CW - sexual abuse, suicide. I wanted to write a reflection on a couple of books. With the enormous amount currently in the news about the #Epstein case, I wouldn't blame you if you were beyond saturation point. Please do skip on by if this is not for you. www.wedossett.com/post/lasting...

We didn’t get Books Council Wales funding, it would've meant 5 years of stability. It’s a blow, and it means a rockier road ahead, but our commitment to ambitious, inclusive, working-class publishing stays firm. If you want to help: buy a book, spread the word, or donate: ko-fi.com/brokensleepb...

Just heard Sky deputy political editor samcoatessky.bsky.social use the term Panglossian. Wow.

Just discovered this excellent podcaster/blogger. Makes me think of Laurence Fox’s legal action to prevent him being called racist, and his concomitant defence of his ‘right’ to call GNC people paedos. We’re getting nowhere if people don’t understand the relationship between rights & liberties.

Trying not to tax my life with forethought of grief (viz Caerphilly) - but it’s hard.

A reminder. Only 6.9% of people in Wales were born overseas. Just 2.9% of people in Caerphilly were born overseas. Whereas 38% of medical consultants in Wales were born overseas. Immigrants are not holding our NHS back, they are propping it up.

Issue 12 has landed! Our twelfth step… In this issue: Fallen Angels Dance Theatre @drdavidpatton.bsky.social Speakbeat Collective Sober IS Fun Jem Tovey Ameet Shah New Note Orchestra Daniel Leyton READ HERE: recovery-arts.org/pr-magazine/...

John keeps saying “Listen, Love, You’re trying everso hard.” Just to be funny. I’m feeling very, very, very, very tired. #farage #misogyny #racism

Stunning interview with Annie Farmer. I read parts of her story in Lucia Osborne Crowley’s The Lasting Harm. What strength and dignity in the face of decades of denial, minimisation and corruption.

This is a much better article on James Orr than the superficial one in the @telegraphnews.bsky.social this weekend. It engages with his actual thought. Orr’s work, like Nigel Biggar’s is not widely respected, but the status of his institution lends unwarranted leverage to his ideas.

Very sad. I read Baek Sehee’s book last year. It was was, indeed, frank, but, and this is no shade on the author at all, it was one of those books that makes me extremely concerned about the poor quality of much psychotherapy and about the toxic positivity of ‘wellbeing’ culture.

What a terrific night out! ⬇️

Whatever else you could say about Starmer's speech - forgtting that the women DID bring football home is surely a massive gaff.

"And that was how the Wittgensteinian dynastic wars began!"

Deleted my account with academia-dot-edu. New privacy policy is the last straw. It can sell all of your words, your profile picture, anything you post on it. I should have come off it a long time ago, like lots of people did, when it started to monetise the competition for citations.

This is awful news. Perhaps this a minority point given the horrific wider implications, but Texas Tech has been a beacon of hope for people in recovery from addiction seeking access to HE. Now it is actively erasing part of that community. #TexasTech

Subtly downgrade a band Moist Leg

Art is sexy. I mean, really fucking sexy. Historically fucking hot. And all forms of art "AI" is yet another attempt for uncreative, unsexy people to try to scream they are indeed sexy by screaming they know what sexy is therefore. While being sold by grifters. And fucking up a lot.

“Universities are perceived straightforwardly as places for people to gain a qualification for their career and personal advancement — completely ignoring their role as a public good and as the linchpin of civilised society.” unherd.com/2025/08/can-...

Grateful for the opportunity to add my name to this list of writers calling for a boycott. I remember the consumer boycott of South Africa towards the end of Apartheid. History shows that made a small difference. Thx @horatioclare.bsky.social for organising this. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

Another one? If only there were other books with great stories written by women that could ve adapted for tv …. I love it by the way but really?

People who aren’t mothers also weep. And people who are mothers, sadly, do not weep. Motherhood does not make anyone uniquely compassionate, empathetic or invested in children. We should all weep. And then organise.

We're huge fans of The White Chip at @swkplay.bsky.social. Our latest issue (recovery-arts.org/pr-magazine/...) features playwright @seandaniels.bsky.social, lead actor Ed Coleman and a poetic response from @wedossett.bsky.social. Book to see the play here southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/productions/...

Thrilled to have my poetic response to the play The White Chip in the latest issue of Performing Recovery. Go and see the play at @swkplay.bsky.social if you can! @performingrecovery.bsky.social

‘long walks in nature can cure rare diseases’ grifters = every bit as bad as ‘don’t get chemotherapy, drink juice’ grifters

that's some vintage antisemitism holy shit

A meagre contribution by me to this week's #poemsabout on the theme of #burnitdown. Nonetheless, I feel it's not wholly out of place, what with the weather recently.

Message to the handful of people who’ve said they’re planning to read ‘Touch’ in due course: This is advanced warning that I’ll be taking it off my blog in the next few days so that I can submit it in comps, but if you wanted to read it just let me know. www.wedossett.com/posts/touch CW - Dementia

Dalai Lama says there will be search for his successor after his death, ending years of speculation

Beautiful Malcolm Edwards painting of a glas y dorlan/kingfisher at Ffin y Parc Gallery in Llandudno.