Sahana Bajpaie’s post about her colleague being racially abused and spat at in London reminded me of how I am gravitating towards wearing relatively expensive jackets/formals to work - as if hoping that the visible signals of affiliation to a professional class will protect me.

This piece is well with your time. Read. www.equator.org/articles/ins...

Am going to use this excuse when everyone asks me why I’m not a partner at MBB or a VP at a FAANG yet. Sir it’s not that I am a dork, it’s the lack of binge drinking in my youth* *any drinking, tbf

In something slightly more uplifting than the horrors, I have discovered that one of the famous Instagram rescue cats might have the same condition as Bella cat’s mystery issue and hopefully we will be able to figure something out for her based on how Instagram cat’s diagnosis and treatment goes.

An exciting opportunity has arisen to work at the Royal College of Music for an experienced marketing professional #musicjobs #artsjobs https://workculture.uk/jobs/royal-college-of-music-marketing-manager-events-maternity-cover/

20 odd years later, I think about her* often *The phrase "þæt wæs gōd cyning".

Haunted and hunted

হায় রে অংশুমান, এতো পড়াশোনা করে এই হলো!

Not “necessary”?! Has he tried working through menstrual cramps without Meftal Spas? Wtf is this weird Protestant (?) attitude to women’s pain

This is such a HORRIBLE idea omg, why would you even consider this 😭

Tom, no ! *I* say “flabbergasted” 😢

Except if you are a girl. If you are a boy and "good at math but don't have social emotional growth" you are Elon Musk (miserable ugly shell of a human, but rich) If you are a girl and "good at math but don't have social emotional growth" you're shunned for life 🙄

I have two engineer parents and they gave me similar advice. That did not turn out well (understatement)

Apparently people my age in developed countries learnt reading using systems *laughs uproariously*

Many South Asian women* in their 50s could have had hip replacements. Didn’t realize that mean they had to be celibate going forward. * yeah I don’t know why this is a thing; I barely know any middle-aged Indian woman without hip and knee problems

Today is Armistice Day. The First World War did not officially end until 28 June 1919, but it was at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month #OTD 11 November 1918 that the guns fell silent. Siegfried Sassoon remembered that moment in his poem 'Everyone Sang':

Every six months or so I have to explain to someone that tuberculosis is still with us. Timer reset to zero today. Immunocompromised folks (or folks on chemotherapy) have to deal with this reality more. (And some of the meds for TB can make you psychotic*). [*so can TB]

Wow the sour grapes

Some of the early attempts at sorting this out seem a little strange to modern readers. I like the very-sensible-sounding Sale of Arsenic Act 1851 which had an explicit exception for medicine containing arsenic!

I once found this very touching inscription in a book: “This book belongs to Gillian Love, aged 7 8 10 12 60”

How lovely are these linoprint cut-outs by my mum, Jo? I'm sending these out to the next 7 people from Bluesky who subscribe to www.tom-cox.com at the annual Villager or Help The Witch rates. (Which, along with the Yokel one, gives you full access to my writing.) Let me know below if you do!

Indeed, the Carbolic Smoke Ball Company would like a word!

Immediately marry a man who is suffering from this condition

I can’t stop reading Gary Lineker’s surname as that of a Marathi uncle 🥲 cc: @smugdekar.bsky.social

“[N]ever be flippantly rude to any inoffensive grey-bearded stranger that you may meet in pine forests or hotel smoking-rooms on the Continent. It always turns out to be the King of Sweden.” (Saki, 'Reginald at the Theatre')

Make me DG you cowards! Homes Under the Hammer replaced with The Hair Bear Bunch Traitors with more bears Basically it's the Bear Broadcasting Corporation

Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!

The face of a cat who conned his staff into providing two breakfasts of Iams chicken in jelly in quick succession this morning.

I appreciate the sentiment but this reminds me of Gandhi in the 1930s saying Europeans should practice non-violence against Hitler.

This is completely understandable - a lot of 2nd gen Indian immigrants think they are white.

He was 26 in 1918. TWENTY-SIX.

Yes. I am haunted by Tolkien saying: "By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead."

A reminder to other lochs to abandon the pressure to be perfect maps.nls.uk/view/218516888

My great-grandad was a piano tuner from Huddersfield. He was conscripted into the army during the First World War, and had an awful time. After I found out a bit about what he went through, I wrote a short story. I thought today might be a good day to share it. richarddsmyth.com/2025/11/09/n...

Cat is confused by this second Diwali.

I love female mystics. Tomorrow is the commemoration of Margery Kempe en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margery...

If any of you are DMing me for legit reasons I’m so sorry - I refuse to get age-verified to access a social media site haha

Tyrion: i drink and i know things. Loki: i drink and call people slags

A documentary about hoolock gibbons (the only ape species remaining in India) Content note: body of a dead hoolock gibbon at 19:30 ish youtu.be/hwJWIecrx9o?...

BCP 🤝 Nasadiya Sukta:

There shouldn't be any need to explain (a) why I want to read books written by human beings, nor (b) how that might be somewhat jeopardised by an industry intended to produce an ever-more-passable simulacrum of the end product, at lower cost, in a capitalist landscape. And yet here we are!

The year is 2025. It's never cold enough to put the heating on but always too damp to dry anything on the line. The future smells of damp laundry. Welcome.

+1 This is why I don’t even enjoy using it for work reasons. Who wants a co-worker or brainstorming partner that doesn’t occasionally go “brother what the fuck are you on about”

I got a little pocket friendo from Katie’s shop and it is really quite lovely!

This is self-destructive for a country.