Japanese cherry 🍒 blossom in North London 😍

Say no to pesticides, mix up your lawn – and six more ways to help bees to thrive

A couple of years ago, I planted a small growing Japanese cherry tree. Every April it has the most beautiful pink blossom 🌸

@drjennyathatcher.bsky.social I think stalking, coercive control and murder cases outside of the Western world needs to be recognized much more: not a personal quirk, but a real threat. www.scmp.com/news/hong-ko...

Only a male academic could take 4 months away from his family to write a book and then state that fact proudly as if it was some kind of badge of honour.

Government to consult on banning trail hunting amid illegal fox hunting concerns www.channel4.com/news/governm...

Cat therapy

Middle class cu#ts

@survivingsociety.bsky.social I've sent you a message via X, but of course you're not on that app 🙄. Can you allow me to message you on here? It's important.

...The Sands and introduced her to Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. ‘Who’s this?’ Sammy: ‘It’s one of the showgirls from the Tropicana.’

Sturgeon cannot be allowed to rewrite history - After 27 years in Holyrood, the former first minister urged unity and respect — but, says NEIL FINDLAY, her time in power told a very different story morningstaronline.co.uk/article/stur...

Everyone is six degrees away from a Beatles story I edited this because I confused the dates – it was 1966 when my mother moved to New York. She was still working as a showgirl in Las Vegas in 1964. sociologistslefttotheirowndevices.wordpress.com/2026/03/21/m...

My Mother and the Republican Politician’s Son When I need to find peace, I think about songs and music and this one always reminds me of my mother: Don McLean’s song “American Pie”. sociologistslefttotheirowndevices.wordpress.com/2026/03/21/m...

I'm so grateful that my mother shared that experience with me. She was in her 20s in the 1960s - scared and vulnerable and alone. She always believed in a woman's right to chose. Her body, her choice. ❤️

So the main hits on my blog are from the USA! My next piece is actually bringing together my mother's experience of an illegal abortion in the USA with what is happening in the UK right now with women's reproductive rights. sociologistslefttotheirowndevices.wordpress.com

In 1995 (anyone that has been following my story will know what this means) my dad would ask me if I wanted to go for a drive, so essentially a drug drop off. He used to stop at a pub in Camden to have a drink and the barmaid said that 'she is too young. www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lWJ...

‘Unbelievably unequal’: report shows how 1% of Mexicans own 40% of country’s wealth In line with international trends, the rich here are only getting richer. Mexico’s 22 billionaires have seen their fortunes double in the last five years. www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

High levels of debt on essential UK bills are the ‘new normal’, warn campaigners “The cost of everyday essentials remains prohibitively high for many households. Rising household arrears show little sign of slowing down.” www.theguardian.com/money/2026/m...

It is about class and the inability of those within positions of power and status to reflect upon their own privilege within a class divided society.

Mandelson files: Starmer was warned Epstein links could be ‘reputational risk’ www.channel4.com/news/mandels...

It's a small thing in the grand scheme but I wish the media would stop reporting that "mental health" is the main reason for being off work. Mental health is a good thing, everyone wants to have mental health. People are off work due to mental illness, mental distress, anxiety, depression...

Of all the things I've written (so far) about my time in academia, this one got me the most hate mail, particularly from anonymous accounts 😃 The Little Servant Girl: Being a Working-Class Woman in #Academia sociologistslefttotheirowndevices.wordpress.com/2022/05/31/t...

MP tells Commons she waited 1,088 days for her rape case to reach court Charlotte Nichols said she was waiving her right to anonymity to speak about her own experience and opposition to the bill. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Hundreds of thousands displaced by Israeli strikes in Lebanon www.channel4.com/news/hundred...

Mum backstage

When my mum was in her 50s, she needed a hip replacements. She told me it was from doing all the jumping splits in Las Vegas. Her operation kept getting cancelled all of the time, it was 2003. And finally they found a doctor to do it. The surgeon was a transwoman ...

From the colonial oil plunder of 1909 to the current threat of a regional inferno: Western interference in Iran forms a chain of coups, puppets, and cynical geopolitics centered on oil, says MARC VANDEPITTE morningstaronline.co.uk/article/eter...

At least 700,000 people are thought to have been displaced by airstrikes in Lebanon. From Beirut, Lindsey Hilsum considers videos published by the White House against the backdrop of real-life war. Read the full newsletter: channel4news.substack.com/p/white-hous...

Please 🙏 The Sociological Review give me one hour to talk to you about my experience with you and UK sociology. You give this to your new employees, they get to sit there with the board of trustees and talk. I worked for you for 4 years, one year unpaid. Give me this.

I as a working class woman, on an precarious basis, is entitled to share a picture of myself in a t shirt to celebrate my educational achievements A senior male at an elite university is not entitled to use that picture as an example of a problem with academia without my consent

UK sociology for a working class woman whose father was a drug dealing heroin addicts that died of AIDS and whose mother was a schizophrenic. You were never going to give me a seat a your table.

You think the cost of living crisis is bad now, just wait. While you're struggling to feed yourself & your kids, the government will expect working class men & women to fight & die in an illegal war just so a bunch of elite & billionaire paedophiles can bury the #Epsteinfiles

Manufacturing war, paying the price - History shows from Iraq to Libya, and now Iran, that regime-change fantasies rarely deliver stability — but they always deliver human and economic cost, says MARYAM ESLAMDOUST morningstaronline.co.uk/article/manu...

Kafka understood that an even greater indignity than being turned into a giant insect was still being required to go to work afterward.

Three in four women unaware menopause can trigger new mental illness, poll finds

As the article mentioned - Be F.A.S.T www.stroke.org.uk/stroke/sympt...

47 seem frighteningly young for a stroke. Ex-MP Jonathan Ashworth recovering after stroke The 47-year-old said he suffered stiffness in his left arm and a loss of sight in his left eye. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Housing is one of the main reasons council budgets are so stretched. But radical action could turn things around.

Three in four women unaware menopause can trigger new mental illness, poll finds The report lays bare the mental health impact during perimenopause www.theguardian.com/society/2026...

Trump and Netanyahu’s attack on Iran is an illegal act of aggression | Kenneth Roth

Death toll from Iran school bombing reportedly rises to almost 150 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

BREAKING | Multiple people injured in Dubai airport incident on day of Iranian strikes across region trib.al/fMB0B2p

Not surprised. Jack Whitehall has never hidden his contempt for the working classes. Why on earth didn't they get a working class Mancunian to host it? ‘Weird and bizarre’: Jack Whitehall condemned for ‘classist’ jokes at Brit Awards in Manchester www.aol.com/articles/jac...

US-Israeli strikes ‘undoubtedly an illegal aggression’ – former British Ambassador to Iran www.channel4.com/news/us-isra...

Couldn’t agree more.

Israel attacks Iran as blasts heard in Tehran – live updates

I'm so glad the BRIT Awards is being held in Manchester. It's a great city. One of my favourite. Manchester is also a brilliant place to organise a large scale international event in - in my opinion, it's better than London because of it central location and transport infrastructure.

Exclusive: Woman paralysed by violent ex urges more awareness of coercive control www.channel4.com/news/exclusi...

‘Our own people hate us’: Labour given byelection wake-up call after 13,000-vote majority disappears