Natalie, I love you.

Lovely from Joseph Ratzinger, in German prose, on the Sign of the Cross.

Incredibly powerful front page from the Sunday Post ‘These are the faces of the close to 200 women killed by men in Scotland over the last 16 years. Many were murdered in the one place they should feel completely safe - their own home. Today, we ask for your help in ending misogynistic violence’

For the day that is in it. Happy Valentine’s Day. From Elizabeth Browning.

Happy birthday to one of the greatest, Frederick Douglass. Born into slavery, he didn't know his actual birthday, but chose to celebrate it on this day. Please read his books and essays; please teach your children his story when they are old enough to understand.

Justice minister says cases like Chloe Mitchell's should not be 'held hostage'. 🙏🙏🙏 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I would just reiterate, that it seems unlikely that I, Just A Guy, A Regular Guy, knew more in-depth detail about Peter Mandelson's links to Jeffrey Epstein than the Prime Minister off the United Kingdom who was at the time considering appointing him as Ambassador to the United States.

Not just the arrogance of the Labour oligarchy and their protection and promotion of the charlatan Mandelson, but also the English media that considered it a too impolite matter to pursue until a few days ago is the scandal.

Can remember also this speaker saying “a cloud of gas, meeting another cloud of gas, and exploding” was ridiculous and therefore God exists.

Thinking back to the school I went to, I’m still shocked and disturbed at the type of ‘outside religious group’ we were left exposed to. One speaker called a teacher, checking in on an unsupervised (!) session, satanic, when they left, for interrupting them. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

There’s now a clear double standard in official Northern Ireland’s George Best cult, which unfortunately nothing can be done about because of Here reasons. www.rte.ie/news/2026/02...

International law governing conflict isn’t just “at a breaking point.” It was intentionally destroyed to protect Israel’s war on Gaza.

Happy Candlemas to all who celebrate!

It's rare to see how lobbyists operate. But the Epstein-Mandelson correspondence shows us what happens all the time: plutocrats and government ministers conspiring against the public interest. This is why all lobbying should be in the public domain, but despite Labour and Con promises, it's not. 🧵

Remember that Mandelson quote? "We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, as long as they pay their taxes". By "we" he meant the Labour government. Turns out that he - as a government minister - was lobbying on behalf of his filthy rich chums to ensure they paid less tax.

RTE’s These Sacred Vows really went to town on the vulgar, vapid materialist Irish type abroad huh.

Guns N’Roses Knocking on Heavens Door is at least five minutes too long…Basically a bathetic jam session.

every epstein file drop underscores how elite power operates through shared socio-economic networks, regardless of people's ideological differences, populist posturing, or public feuds

These are concepts that presume that there is some point in which we can sit on judgement on each, when mathematics, physics and the humanities rightly eschew the notion.

Love how haunting this Aeschylus edition is.

The values of the world represented are actually something morally similar pre-democratic Classical Athens, an Aristocratic slave society, so this is good?

During the hearing today Madam Justice McBride said Bracas showed he had a "misogynistic attitude towards women. Domestic violence does not just involve intimate partners but wider family relations. It causes havoc in the family and is a scourge on society. www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/norther...

Miller Pacheco has been convicted of murdering 28-year-old Bruna Fonseca in Cork in 2023. Pacheco had been in a relationship for five years with Ms Fonseca in their native Brazil, before he followed her to Ireland where she ended the relationship within a week. www.rte.ie/news/courts/...

A 32-year-old man has been found guilty of the murder of his former girlfriend by a jury at the Central Criminal Court in Cork. www.rte.ie/news/courts/2026/0122/1554551-miller-pacheco-bruna-fonseca/

We already accept ageism in presidential elections, you can’t run til 35. It’s maybe time to consider an upper limit.

Dead woman's family say barrister strike adding to their trauma www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Things are especially normal at the New Statesman this week, where nobody is suffering some kind of dissociative crisis

Is there anything at all to be said about another transition fund? Just a small one. God I love funding paramilitaries to transition.

Sometimes hearing the denial of paramilitary involvement in the racist violence here makes you doubt the evidence of your own eyes and ears, so having this evidence is invaluable.

Everybody knows Franz Kafka, but almost no one knows his sister Ottla. She was gassed on arrival at Auschwitz on Oct 7, 1943 after volunteering to escort a group of orphans from the Terezin ghetto so they wouldn’t be afraid.

And despised US militarism.

David Moyes I love you!

Don’t expect the expected is the Everton fans motto but that was ridiculous again.

British exceptionalism is the idea that England must have an undivided sovereign, and citizens that are not disloyal to it, and also that America should decide all its major policies in the economy and in military and foreign affairs.

There should be a law against entertaining writers in their ambitions in being feted as TV big shots before their actual work is completed.

While global events are horrifying - the situation at altnagelvin, SWAH and especially Craigavon hospital emergency departments is nothing short of catastrophic and it will never not amaze me that basically nobody cares. It’s described as “the worst it could possibly be” this is a deadly situation

Don’t see the virtue in the obsessive focus on one children’s authors mundane Twitter feed, nor the desire to prove some discontinuity with the type of liberal elitist they are and always were.

Hard to deny Unionism as a whole is just a moribund case. No unifying narrative or agreed coherent principles. Fragments as a solution to crisis. Defensive and plainly irrational when dealing with its rivals and neighbours. sluggerotoole.com/2026/01/08/i...

English Bluesky when you point out the U.K. has provided virtual immunity for the state killing of its own citizens in Ireland since forever.

Excerpt from the Nuremberg judgment…

The Trump administration just reminds me of every insecure, cowardly bully you’ve ever known hoping to lap up the intimidation factor they’ve desperately craved all their lives, and feeling the hollowness of it.

Barristers' strike 'devastating' for crime victims www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Yeah, I feel like it might also embolden America, as evidenced by their threats to Mexico, Colombia and Greenland

Blows my mind that some of the same journalists who see Trump as a want-to-be dictator at home are earnestly discussing the "challenges" for this same man to "bring democracy" to a country it just illegal invaded. Please grow up.

The US has launched an unprovoked and illegal attack on Venezuela. This is a brazen attempt to secure control over Venezuelan natural resources. It is an act of war that puts the lives of millions of people at risk, and should be condemned by anyone who believes in sovereignty & international law.

Welcome to the family little Harry Haddock! He enjoyed his first Everton victory last night!