Sort of ironic that the Trump administration are improvising a legal remedy to a cancelled jazz concert.

27 December 1879 | A French Jew, Sylvain Schnerb, was born in Colmar. During the war he lived in Paris. In September 1943 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection.

NEW Jane Austen as a writer about law Some notes on Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, by me (And also why there is only one good adaptation of her works.) emptycity.substack.com/p/jane-auste...

the epstein files as rick owens fall/winter 2024

They want to culturally associate Christmas with pogroms again.

23 December 1931 | Dutch Jewish boy, Max Adolf Frits Cohen, was born at The Hague. He was deported to #Auschwitz from #Westerbork in December 1942. He was murdered in a gas chamber after the arrival selection.

Happy Christmas, all. I wish my (temporarily unpaywalled) final thoughts on the English NHS in 2025 could have been more positive, but reality is what it is. www.healthpolicyinsight.com/cowpers-cut-...

Good news @haringeycyclists.bsky.social. The barriers have been removed. So now reverted back to being disappointing rather than useless. #Cycleway1

Might get this printed on a t-shirt. @drhick.bsky.social @draflint.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

Thanks to @jim.londoncentric.media I discover that Daisy Green has profits of £2.4 million a year, in case anyone was wondering how money is concentrated into the hands of the wealthy. Presumably the family who have run the Parliament Hill café for 44 years will be encouraged to retrain in tech.

21 December 1934 | Dutch Jewish girl, Sofia Sluijter, was born in Den Helder. She was deported to #Auschwitz from #Westerbork in April 1944. She was murdered in a gas chamber after the arrival selection.

Happy winter solstice ☀️ 🌙

#MoreInCommon www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

What’s more, the proposal is that any potential new statutory consultees should be “pro-development”. Not neutral, not objective, pro.

Lots of you will be logging off at the end of today. So what's coming up in 2026? It'll be packed. M'colleagues @drhick.bsky.social and @draflint.bsky.social from the 'All Our Footsteps' project will be publishing a book on 'Outdoor Singing in Modern Britain'! www.cambridge.org/core/element...

No-one seems to notice that in series 1 Hiddleston character likes sex with women still showing bruises as a result of rape and assault by men he’d supposedly rescued them from. www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

LIVID at the City of London’s decision to boot out the existing café owners, some of whom have been there over 40 years, and replace them with Daisy “we are not a chain, but a group of independent cafés owned by the same company with the word Green in our name, serving the same £20 burgers” Green

A post about children's books that's NOT about David Walliams: I've just made my annual donation to the @booktrust.org.uk Christmas appeal, to help give books as gifts to kids in care and whose families need to use food banks. If you can help spread the #MagicOfBooks, please do - they're brilliant.

Absolute perfection. No notes. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

How should a newspaper behave when its own country is at war? The Israeli newspaper @haaretzcom is both revered and reviled for the path it has chosen. My long read profile of a remarkable institution www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/israel...

16 December 1937 | A Dutch Jewish boy, Max Henri van Son, was born in Rotterdam. He arrived at #Auschwitz on 3 October 1942 in a transport of 1,014 Jews deported from #Westerbork. He was murdered in a gas chamber after the selection.

"Zionists can draw on the military imagery featured in the First Book of Maccabees and other sources. For those who prefer the holiday as presented by the rabbis who founded Rabbinic Judaism 2,000 years ago, there is an equal wealth of material."

Optimism is currently unfashionable. The newly published Community Life Survey asks, "do you agree or disagree that this local area is a place where people from different backgrounds get on well together?" I wondered if we might see a sharp decline this year; it has gone down 1%, to 80% agreement.

It is absolutely wrong to say that Israel's actions are the reason why there was an antisemitic terror attack against the Jewish community of Australia. And likewise, it is also absolutely wrong for the Israeli government to blame Australia's decision to recognize the state of Palestine.

Bizarre!

Instead of paying so-called social prescribers to send a few people for a walk, invest sustainably in parks themselves and in community organisations to strengthen our social infrastructure and avoid needing a prescription in the first place.

Camden and Islington’s Parks for Health Strategy puts this into practice, combining design and stewardship approaches to ensure everyone feels public parks are for them. www.catherinemax.co.uk/portfolio-pr...

Anyone else having a Ring of Bright Water moment?

I’ve posted this before but the light was perfect today- a little Victorian cat paw in a brick at the front of the old Norfolk & Norwich Hospital. As this is on the front-facing corner of the main gates, the bricklayer quite clearly put it there on purpose, at a height where children would spot it.

"The reality is that Trump means what he says, and says what he means repeatedly. It is past time to pretend that things are otherwise." www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Once more for the haters...

*In their homes* www.theguardian.com/world/2025/d...

The grim death toll from heat waves across European cities this past summer would have been captured in shocking headlines if they happened all at once, in a bombing or plane crash—835 in Rome, 630 in Athens, 409 in Paris.

Short men too, apparently. I’d like to see the actual report, which appears to be about offering options rather than one super-sized default. Mail’s interpretation entirely predictable and should have been pre-empted. That said, if I am treating myself to chips, I don’t want any stinting either.

7 December 1939 | A Dutch Jewish boy, Joan Vintura, was born in Amsterdam. In September 1943 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber after the selection. --- A short video showing the ruins of gas chamber and crematorium III: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ipQmBPAlJQ8

I don’t know much about politics but I do know that in a democracy, if you don’t like the state of the parties then you have to do the work: join, show up at the meetings, do the canvassing, post the leaflets, vote when it’s time to vote...

Anarchy in Londonistan.

Last week's @theobserveruk.bsky.social had Julian Barnes being lunatic, lover, artist...all compact. #Imagination #boom

Isn’t the very definition of a high earner someone who takes a lot?

Just objects?! @drhick.bsky.social @draflint.bsky.social @alisonstenning.bsky.social @salawatson.bsky.social

The tech oligarchs are the most organised, determined anti democratic force we’ve seen this side of World War II For way too long this has been ignored, elided and under estimated What someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time

My dad abhors any negative comments about immigrants. Asked him recently why he’s so strong on it: ‘Because we’re always happy to take the rich and clever ones. Which means it’s not about disliking immigrants. It’s about disliking the poor and vulnerable. And that’s a bad human instinct.’

my great-grandparents arrived in the UK in the 1890s with nothing. they sold pickles from the front room window, took in laundry, worked as tailors. their children were nurses, teachers, salesmen. their grandchildren were professors, designers, opticians, doctors, magistrates, entrepreneurs.

A wee bit I wrote about the hammerblow of watching people from the country that gave us the Glasgow girls and Kenmure Street turn to the right. And about the opportunism of Farage as he heads north. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

My great-uncle was born in the Russian Empire and wrote God Bless America

The news that Zipcar is folding at the end of the year is deeply dismaying. The car club availability was at the heart of our decision to abandon car ownership around five years ago. Do share your reccs for other car club services (covering south London). www.theguardian.com/business/202...

30 November 1892 | A Pole, Jan Guzik, was born in Boguchwała. A gardener. In #Auschwitz from 13 April 1942. No. 29546 He perished in the camp on 30 June 1942. --- "Poles at KL Auschwitz”: http://lekcja.auschwitz.org/en_2020_06_polacy/

Team work!