The Today Programme.

Parkrun: 'It's just a bit of fun! We just want you to have fun!' Also Parkrun: 'You came 127th out of 128. Your age-graded score is 39%. Just a reminder that your PB was three years ago, when we also noticed you were thinner and had fewer wrinkles.'

The absolute fucking state of this. www.liveaction.org/news/shockin...

The very specific feeling of seeing a video of people putting up flags in your tiny little town, featuring your kids’ former nursery school teacher screaming ‘fuck off’ at the person filming.

I give you: the season's itchiest sweater. AW25's hair shirt. www.essentiel-antwerp.com/be_en/p/grey...

The most brilliant thread, if you want an idea of what it's like to live in a place run by Reform. (Naturally, at one point Grok is consulted).

The commercial arm of Andrew Mountbatten Windsor’s entrepreneurs scheme has withdrawn almost all its remaining funds as the former prince prepares to relocate to Sandringham ⬇️

This is a huge problem in East Kent. There aren't many viable alternatives to East Kent Hospitals, so loads of my friends have chosen higher-risk home births. I was told off (though not turned away) when I booked into Pembury, over an hour's drive away from where I live.

Characteristically excellent local reporting from @edjennings.bsky.social today. "Kent has said for years that it cannot cope alone. Geography turned the county into the UK’s de facto reception service for unaccompanied children, and capacity has repeatedly buckled."

Really love this piece pointing out the fact that no Frankenstein movie has ever had a female director, even though it was written by a woman - and that a female director might finally understand what the story is actually about (ie. not a scary monster) www.thepersistent.com/where-is-mar...

Why do these things always end up being another iteration of SpinVox.

In the wake of Trump's IVF damp squib, a nice a dose of good old-fashioned foetal personhood for you all: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/views/people...

Help I've lost my glasses

Only mentions at the very end that the trade off for paying a bit less tax is no sick pay or holiday pay or mat leave (though leaves out the constant existential angst). Also assumes SE people would just go and get a ‘more productive’ job, when that’s not possible for many www.ft.com/content/0070...

How has no one in The Traitors cottoned onto the fact it’s the guy who is dressed like a literal supervillain

Last week @drhelenoneill.bsky.social presented new research suggesting IVF embryo grading techniques could be unwittingly favouring male embryos. In nations where there's a lot of IVF, that could be skewing populations. It's massive! I've written about it bigfatnegative.substack.com/p/ivf-might-...

My phone reminds me that we are coming up to the second anniversary of me being made redundant while on maternity leave 👍

‘Have you ever worked in a newsroom?’ a commuter asks his friend. ‘I think I’d be great at it,’ muses the other. ‘I could do the Guardian or the Times or maybe the BBC. I could be the next Laura Kuenssberg!’

Fascinating look at the feminist history Trump has erased by demolishing the East Wing of the White House. It was a place where women worked to change the world, and now it's gone. www.thepersistent.com/white-house-...

My hair looks really good today so naturally there’s a monsoon.

One of the weirdnesses of being a freelancer is that I’ve got a shit ton of stuff to do but can’t actually do any of it right now because I need to wait for interviews to happen. So I’m eating a fancy toastie.

Horrifying reporting from the WSJ on people's savings for surrogacy just disappearing. Surrogacy, and to some extent, IVF, is pretty unregulated in the US, so this can just happen with almost no consequence. www.wsj.com/us-news/surr...

“Primatology is now a female-dominated field…women make up somewhere btwn 1/2 & 60% of scientists studying primates. @keriannmcgoogan.bsky.social …says that ‘90% of my undergrad class were women.’ On 1 of her 1st trips into the field, to study howler monkeys in Belize,‘there were 17 women & 1 man’”🧪

Jane Goodall did most of her work alone in the jungle -- but still had to deal with a sexist boss :( www.thepersistent.com/primatologis...

My two year old had her first (first!) experience of soft play yesterday and has been talking excitedly about 'the soft place' ever since.

My brother in law introduced my daughter to chat gpt but chat gpt can’t spell her name and now she’s just screaming the spelling of her name at it.

This is SO important. I'm so glad we're all talking about the menopause more - but the absence of official information and advice is causing this 'gold rush' from private providers and coaches which is costing women millions. www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

YAY for the return of The Backlash - if you're not subscribed, you should be.

Highs and lows of small town life epitomised today: - fireworks tickets go on sale, but are only available from the local vicar, whose office is open for 30 minutes when the moon is full and the wind is coming from the north-east - today is one of those days - but I’m on holiday!

Am going to bed now, for I have to parent my state-funded IVF baby tomorrow. (And also the expensive one)

This won't be a huge story tomorrow because most people think IVF is for career women and repenting childless cat ladies. But a lot of Trump's voters will be struggling to conceive, and they're going to be sorely disappointed that these are the best suggestions his team could come up with.

"Under-babied" is going in my bio. Also, if by "he is delivering this in a way I don't think anyone thought was possible" he means incredibly half-arsed promises, then Dr Oz is absolutely right! France offers everyone - literally anyone who wants it - four rounds of state-funded IVF. Just saying.

Why yes I *am* available to talk about Trump's IVF proposals at any point over the next few days and, naturally, my DMs *are* open. Thanks for asking!

My very quick take on Trump IVF proposals: - He's going to 'issue guidance encouraging' employers to offer fertility benefits, which sounds extremely wishy washy and not very certain at all. - A drugmaker will sell Gonal-F, which stimulates ovaries in IVF cycles, at a discount through TrumpRx

It’s happeninnnnggggg www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Loving the Victoria Beckham doco but there’s a bit where an investor says ‘there was someone coming to water the plants who cost £15,000 a year’ and then it cuts to Victoria saying ‘I hadn’t been to business school!’, which is just masterful.

At a press conference with a Taliban minister in India, all the male journalists went to the back of the room so the women could fill the first couple of rows. Great picture. edition.cnn.com/2025/10/14/i...

We're looking for a new data viz person on our graphics desk to work closely with us in the data projects team!

Yep - one to keep a close eye on. And credit to @bylinetimes.bsky.social, who've been on this for a while: bsky.app/profile/adam...

This is a huge story but massively under the radar in the UK. A US Christian legal org called the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is working to roll back abortion rights here using the same playbook it used in the US: briefing politicians, watching, waiting. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/13/w...

Bit of a case of tiny violins here, but this is a great chart from the Telegraph - goes to show why London is becoming an increasingly childfree city. www.telegraph.co.uk/business/202...

It's taken me a full week to process the total absence of data literacy in this. Let's pick it apart: - 20,540 cycles of NHS-funded IVF, down 25% on 2016 - Heterosexual couples got 19,660 (down from 27,420 in 2016) - Same-sex female couples got 405 (four hundred and five) (no 2016 figure) 1/3

Researching a piece on chemical pregnancies and so far papers are suggesting it's more likely if women 'work outside the home' (based on 16 women) and also that the cause "may be dependent on the embryo, the mother, or even, possibly, the father." This is why fertility medicine needs more funding.

Can't get over this gorgeous piece about finding community during maternity leave. Takes me back to long hours wandering around a place I'd lived for years but where I hardly knew anyone, chatting to people I'd seen often but had never spoken to. www.thepersistent.com/maternity-le...

Nice news but is it a bit... Cybertrucky?

I've just gone down a First Website Ever Made rabbithole (it's here > info.cern.ch) and there's an Etiquette page for people thinking of putting up their own web pages. Look how optimistic they were! 'Be accountable'! 'Let users know if your information is reliable'! 🥺

A friend of mine runs @5050parliament.bsky.social, an organisation working for equal representation between men and women in parliament. They're part of the Big Give campaign, where for the next week, any donation to them is doubled. So please do give! donate.biggive.org/campaign/a05...

My new audience growth strategy is now just whining at people with bigger followings.