God, just seen a chap who had his wife’s last words to him tattooed on his leg and am wondering whether having “Stop nagging, Ush” etched on the back of my hand would improve my life. To be clear, I was trying to stop her accidentally injuring herself, and would nag again.

My partner recently moved into a boat and discovered that firewood can be obtained from Log Man John. This has led to intense speculation about the powerful Man-John family’s grip on modern life. Neither of us has yet dared enquire after his (presumed) brother, Scat.

Got kettled tonight for the first time in ages. Really scary clash between police and protesters at one point.

Celebrating three years of very uncomplicated joy and companionship today. It’s been sweet and hot and very funny. Long may it last.

Yes, *this is the moment* in history to start watering down legal protections against hate speech. Incredible.

This, from the Quakers, is worth reading. It's a serene, confident, utter rebuke of the hate and fear that's peddled by Sex Matters. The last two pages are smokin'. If you're on the wrong side of the Quakers, you really need to sit down and have a good chat with yourself.

I sometimes worry that if I were to ever transition, I would look like JD Vance.

Ten years sans booze today. Not uncoincidentally, it would also have been S’s 60th. The last few weeks have been very full of her, somehow.

Sunday Independent...

I just told my mum that Tom Lehrer had died, aged 97, and she responded “taken too soon”. I’m inclined to agree.

I will not support any UK party in 2025 that does not explicitly state its support for the rights of transgender people. This party does not yet meet this criterion.

I have just eaten two perfectly ripe plums from the fridge and have concluded that William Carlos Williams can not be held responsible for his crimes. they were delicious so sweet and so cold

I came to the kitchen to check the weather this weekend. And then played the concertina, went for a shower and set the dishwasher running. The fact that I do not have an ADHD diagnosis is both a miracle and a triumph of a system designed to be too labyrinthine for anyone with ADHD to get diagnosed.

Twelve years since Sheila left. Someone smarter than me recently called her “a universe in a person” and she was.

Spotify has just served up the Turtles’ Elenore, which contains some of the finest “will this do?” lyrics ever written. “You’re my pride and joy, etcetera” and “I really think you’re groovy: let’s go out to a movie” live in my head rent-free.

There is a cherry on my kitchen floor. It has been there for a couple of days. It is so beautiful, gleaming, dark, against the pale blue of my floor, that I can’t bear to clean it up.

Young Lucy Dacus really is bloody marvellous. Quite glad that I was at that gig with child 2 and not GnR with child 1, though he seems to have had a good time.

JK Rowling here advocating the harassment and abuse and public shaming of anyone going to the toilet who doesn’t immediately conform to her prescriptive standards of what a man or woman looks like.

Child 2: There were so many Union Jacks up in the canteen that I had to check if WW3 had broken out. Turned out it was just fish and chips day.

Brain: are neuticles still a thing? Internet: there’s merch. neuticles.com/product/neut...

For anyone who’s ever wondered what happens if you put fig leaf syrup into coffee, I can confirm that it rides the thin boundary between pleasant/weird and unpleasant/weird incredibly tightly.

This morning’s passive aggressive text to the children: I should not have to have a house rule that the person responsible for cleaning bolognese out of the gramophone horn is the person responsible for putting it in there. And yet…

It is absolutely intolerable that the Labour Government has another committed transphobe as their preferred candidate as new head of the EHRC. I rather doubt that the Women's and Equalities Committee has even been consulted.

The guy directing people out of the tube at Euston is telling the men getting on the escalator off, repeating “Ladies first please: women are vulnerable.” I have questions.

If I had 10% less self control, I’d sell up my comfortable metropolitan life and buy this marsh-bound money pit just for the What3Words address. www.onthemarket.com/details/1709...

There’s a real joy to leaning out of my bed and just seeing the fluffy butt of the Smallest Love sticking peacefully out of his soundproofed cave. There was such a long and difficult road to getting this dog to feel safe, and middle age suits his nervous system.

Don McLean: “Starry, starry night…” My brain: “if I could touch your body - I know not everybody’s got a body like you”

Loretta Swit 1937-2025 RIP

Me: Is going to the supermarket in Crocs and socks and bike shorts a sign of depression? Girlfriend: If you pull just let me know.

I have just resisted the urge to write “saucy goose=saucy gander” in a serious work document and would like my medal please.

brb putting 'squalid failure' on my CV

Today I’m thinking about the many immigrants who spent months trying to save my late partner’s life and how much worse this country would be without them. If this cruel, populist slide to the right is the best we can get from an ostensibly left-wing government, I have no hope left.

I just did toilet crimes by going and using a cubicle in the gents, a time-honoured gig tradition. I figure it’s probably fine: if we are a heterosexual couple I’m clearly the dude.

My girlfriend crocheted me a jumper and it is beautiful. That is all.

Every review of youth gender medicine is just, "there's evidence that this helps and no evidence that this causes harm, but here's why that doesn't count."

Here's the thing I have to stress about this letter: their argument is literally that "the UK Supreme Court Judgement has made life untenable for trans individuals, therefore it's unethical to let children transition if they'll be discriminated against by the policies we pushed for."

THE CHAFF PROJECT Hi! Are you cis in the UK and you'd like to support trans rights? Great! How: buy a trans flag pin and wear it in public. Why: chaff is an overwhelming amount of false positives so that when a missile gets close to the plane, it hits the chaff and not the plane.

The UK's political and media class has spent years heaping sadism on trans people, and they want to do the same in Ireland next. Calls for civility and calm won't cut it. We need to fight them tooth and nail. www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle-co...

Companies! Not too long ago a rainbow sticker indicated your store was a safe place for LGBTQ people. Time to start doing the same specifically for trans people. A little trans flag sticker in your window. I’d make a point to shop there.

Now would be a really good time for cis allies to start wearing trans pride badges and make it even more impossible for the toilet police to determine who is and isn’t trans

I am out in a trans rights t-shirt and my haircut is so overdue that I fear I am harming the cause more than helping it.

Yesterday my mother-in-law was buried. I loved her and will miss her and it was complicated. Today is full of sorrow for her and for my late partner and her living, grieving sister and grandkids, and for lost places (a greenhouse, a home). But wild and ancient things endure. Safe home, Audrey.

In Gaza, World Central Kitchen @wck.org is among the last organizations still able to cook meals. The IDF has shut all crossings to shipments, including humanitarian relief. We are now nearing the end of our supplies—and the limits of what’s possible. mailchi.mp/wck/4-23-25-...

I am still wishing I’d made myself an “unconvincing heterosexual” sign for the march.

Today was beautiful. There is so much joy in being in community, even if that community is really frightened right now.

Good to know that I’m in a straight relationship now. That’s going to really get in the way of our hobby of putting things in each other’s vaginas.

“Put some respect on Fishboy” shouts my child from his gaming den. I have, accordingly, done that.

Fuck the Observer. What a disgusting editorial.

There was I thinking we voted definitively for less shit in our rivers.