Just want to share my joy in this incredible book. Morag is the person I know with the most sensitive and critical antennae for place. And she writes with power and beauty.

Jessie Newbery (186-.1948), Scottish artist and embroiderer and one of the artists known as the Glasgow Girls. She created the Department of Embroidery at the Glasgow School of Art where she was able to establish needlework as a form of unique artistic design. #womensart

@davewragg.com are you the person currently talking to me on a thread about authorship on The Independent's Facebook?

Israel bombed a hospital. Rescue workers and reporters rushed to recover the dead and the wounded. Israel bombed the hospital again. Live on TV. Read that again. Our government’s legacy will be its complicity in crimes against humanity. End all arms sales to Israel, now.

When you walk into a bar, and the landlady looks you up and down and says "I got you, I'm pouring a big one". This is what a day of sorting out footnotes does. Good news: it's nearly ready to go off to Granta. Bad news: I'm going to have the worst hangover tomorrow.

Check out my state of the art greywater recycling system! Cost: £3 from Screwfix. Now I can reuse the water from my washing machine and kitchen sink in the garden during the hosepipe ban. (Obviously I'll be using ecofriendly detergents to try to protect the soil and plants as much as I can).

Not a surprising finding, but that doesn't diminish the importance of research that draws attention to this unfolding problem. Green and blue spaces can be important in mitigating this.

Am I right in thinking this is a popular site for water sports and wild swimming? www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Novel ways to spend a gap yah: living as a goat.

Enforcement action over landscaping!! 👀

For some reason I get a LOT of scam calls. I have started telling the person on the other end that I am placing a sickness curse on their whole family. I don't name disorders, I go full Bruegel on symptoms. Every single one of them has hung up on me, and not called back.

This remains the single most persuasive explanation I've read for US fiscal policy right now: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

At school, James Quinton & I loved Alan Ahlberg's Jolly Postman, with its neatly folded collection of letters. James became a poet. After years apart, he wrote me. I read the words. I missed what sat between them. Ahlberg's death, a black-edged envelope, with another loss tucked quietly inside.

Things that make me go all Larry David #452: people who linger around at the top of escalators, checking their phones, finding tickets, doing up shoelaces etc. oblivious to the massive pile up they are causing below.

This is ridiculous. Either these people are too dumb to be given power, or they are flagrantly abusing it to bully innocent people. Extremely worrying either way. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

Last day of Tour de France and leader Today Focaccia looks set to beat second place John Ass-Vinegar though noone knows if it is already over or if today is an actual race. It depends on whether it it rains or not.

#MonarchMadness spreads to France.

Understanding the basics for human and more-than-human ecoflourishing (and the economic impacts of biodiversity loss) should be a prerequisite for any political office. Especially the Treasury. This is just pathetic drivel. It's honestly embarrassing. www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...

Fungi are hugely important to ecosystems but not accounted for *at all* in systems like Biodiversity Net Gain. www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Man whose profile says he's retired, and formerly worked as a journalist, advises end of holidays for entire country "to be more productive"... www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

I get really frustrated with complicit academics. We have such freedom to speak out and protest at what is happening to the natural world - and so few make use of it, because it's easier to pursue "impact" by cosying up to capital and the government. And said "impact" generally does enormous harm.

Some good news (for a change!)

This Friday! Byline Festival! At Keele University! 3pm! The Chapel! Could I be more emphatic in my use of exclamation marks ‼️

I feel like instead of accepting austerity and withdrawing the fundamental right to a jury trial, we could just, you know, refuse to accept it and tax the rich?

Yorkshire Water just issued a hosepipe ban. And social media is now full of people complaining that they're extractive, polluting wankers who have totally failed to invest in infrastructure. And saying they won't comply. Could be an interesting moment for privatised water.

If you want to see how well farmers have done at promoting the idea that they are guardians of the land, look at any campaign against housing on agricultural land. A huge % of people just don't understand that intensive arable isn't ecologically brilliant & brownfield isn't automatically awful.

😱 When I became so physically unwell I couldn't walk, this book made me feel terrible. Someone with the toughest condition doing an arduous walk without any ill effects made me feel like I was weak, and amplified every "It's just in your head" voice that I faced in the long fight to get treatment.

Read our response to Defra's consultation on improving the implementation of #Biodiversity Net Gain for minor, medium and Brownfield development.

What - just what the shitting hell - are we doing?

I'd like to say "Can't believe noone noticed this" but I totally can.

Also, why is the word "thus" clearly ridiculous yet simultaneously difficult to avoid? Asking for a friend.

It's Tuesday. You're dragging yourself through the world, one cup of coffee at a time. Can nothing liven up this day? How 'bout a thread of eel ships on maps? These maps are what got me into eels in the first place! "Cool!" you say. "But wait...what's an eel ship?" Well... 1/14

We need the same powers for nature conservation as we have for development - compulsory purchase at the lowest agricultural land values (i.e. not inflated "grouse estate" prices) and then management for wildlife.

Temperature in my Airbnb right now. It's a revolting, mean little conversion job with no airflow and very little natural ventilation, built by an exploitative landlord. I'm lucky, I can escape Wednesday. Hundreds of others have to put up with this permanently. It's lethal. PS I bought the fan.

Can't quite believe what I'm hearing from the Environmental Audit Committee: development sites will be surveyed by Natural England up to ten years in advance. What?!

Have a lot of people stopped responding to emails in the last year or so? And given up on 'out of office' messages too? Or is everyone just trying to avoid me? 👀

Come on MPs, it's time to ban driven grouse shooting!

As the country teeters towards a hosepipe ban, a reminder that businesses who pump under 20m³ of water a day - roughly two thirds of a large tanker, or enough water for 140 people - don't even need a permit to do that. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

@skomerisland.bsky.social just put a BRILLIANT gay birds post up on Facebook, in celebration of Pride. And they are copping hate for it in the comments. So please lets show them some love on here by dropping them a follow and a supportive tweet!

GLOW WORMS!! I might enter this into the Wildlife Photographer of the Year.

Mini moth trap at Coton Orchard for their second BioBlitz weekend – a lovely finale to #CambridgeNatureFestival 2025 #SaveCotonOrchard

Side by side in real life as well as image: two very different agricultural modalities.

Side by side in real life as well as image: two very different agricultural modalities.

NEW | Just 3% of population cause quarter of aviation emissions. Our new report with @neweconomics.bsky.social calls for tax reform so ultra-frequent flyers taking six or more flights a year pay for their pollution. Read more 👉 www.wearepossible.org/our-reports/...

Am I the only person who thinks LinkedIn might be part of the problem, not part of the solution, when it comes to the role of professionals in solving our environmental crisis? I know I need to post on there, but I find the whole thing divorced from reality and tonally unhinged.

My biggest piece of advice to community groups fighting poor planning applications is: don't waste time developing arguments that won't work, and focus on things that will. Most of the time, it's not conspiracy or corruption causing the problem. It's that the planning system is legit awful.

Inside and out.

I don't want to brag or anything but all my shoes are on the shoe rack right now. ALL OF THEM.

Remembering Gus Hunter today, a model ecologist and champion for nature. www.linkedin.com/pulse/rememb...

Excited to be getting involved in this. And to see what can happen around this really important issue that brings together land, ecology, water/flooding, air pollution, and social justice.