Today the UK celebrates 250 years of independence from the tyranny of the United States of America. Imagine living in a society where the leader can repeatedly break the law and nobody stops them!

You ever thought: "oh I want to go to the Holy island of Lindisfarne and see Jay read some poems alongside some incredible choral music" Well, this month is your lucky month, my friends!

Starmer saying it’s impossible for a prime minister to spend less time on foreign affairs has got me thinking that we need a cabinet position dedicated to foreign policy. Ideally they’d have their own department.

@spilledinkcoffee.com sent a bookish box this month, w/ a bookmark, a wallet, and most importantly a book cover that works perfectly for my Kindle!! No more losing it!!!

Just humans helping other humans here. And since heatwaves are becoming more frequent and more widespread, I figure all of this is good advice. Sticking your feet in bowls of cool water is the one that has particularly helped me, but you can bet I'll be trying the other recs.

A new Kate Atkinson book is coming out and I'm doing a bibliophilic dance of joy because I know I've got some brilliant reading ahead of me! Please buy/order at your local independent bookstore or @bookshop.org. I recommend all of her books without hesitation. #BookSky 📚 💙

Presume the US will hold its actual birthday party when they’ve got rid of the scum and villains. Should be some celebration.

America keeps trying to get me to go to her birthday party and I’m like no girl u need to go to the hospital

Some seldom use narrative principles. Boreshadowing Snubtext Allengory Checkov's Gran Worst Person Perspective Oh No Matopoeia Bird Person Perspective Poirotdox Metaflaws Dancethropomorphism Second Failson perspective.

ICYMI…

@bluebookballoon.bsky.social reviews Our Noble Selves

New review by David today!

My July article, long in the planning, discusses whether infamous Biblical baddies like Goliath shared a language with Homer and Plato. Happily, the piece runs contrary to Betteridge’s law of headlines ('any headline ending in a question mark can be answered with no'). dannybate.com/2026/07/03/d...

Writing/#folklore question. I’m reading here that people used to bury horse skulls in building foundations, either for acoustic or talismanic reasons. Wanna know more. Anyone got good resources?

Quick reminder: -fans (and wind gusts) don't lower the temperature of a room, they remove the layer of perspiration on your skin, therefore causing your body to sweat more and cool you down. Ie: careful about dehydration -it is indeed possible to die of heatstroke even out of direct sunlight (1/?)

This poem drove home that exact bittersweetness for me. @roguestrands.bsky.social

Rare serious post here, and I'd hope you lot are sensible, but for the avoidance of doubt please don't send people death threats. Even if you're very angry about something. Even if you think it's an obvious joke. Not only is it counterproductive, but English law famously lacks a sense of humour.

Early review of the new Kate Atkinson, coming out this autumn from @doubledaybooks.bsky.social A sideways look at the Festival of Britain - not all fun and games! bluebookballoon.blogspot.com/2026/07/revi... Many thanks for #NetGalley access #BookSky 💙📚

I bet she wishes she knew somebody who had the power to regulate X, so she didn't have to just turn her back while it continues to poison society.

Finished reading "We Live Here Now" in 2 evenings by @sarahpinborough.bsky.social - a real page turner, won't say more. You gotta read it if you like dark, gothic, thriller, mystery, genre-bending. I loved it.

ive seen some folks lately talkin on NEGATIVE REVIEWS and how to deal with them as authors or artists. personally i have not cared about reviews for several decades. negative reviews do not bother me in the slightest and buds often ask me HOW. ill explain a bit here and why this applies to everyone

This is Hina, Sasha, Momo, and Kikko. They just got in line behind their turtle friend. Not sure what the line is even for, but man is it moving slow. 12/10 for all (IG: yokokikuchi_ks)

The Red Sacrament by Sara Hinkley: A Vampire Coven in 1869 Paris https://gnofhorror.com/the-red-sacrament-by-sara-hinkley-review/

Hi! I’m doing a FREE family event in #Chester Town Hall on Saturday at noon — I’ll be talking about Roman Britain and signing books, so please do come along if you’re nearby! festivalofideas.chester.ac.uk/event/chaos-...

www.thebookseller.com/rights/the-b... Here it is, if you can read Bookseller articles! I have a two book deal with @thebrokenbinding.bsky.social starting with Oh Fortuna! Which is a romp though an alternate history where everyone’s pantheons of gods are real!

Email from NetGalley urging me to read so Dark Academia. Look, I’ve already read CP Snow, what more do they want?

Doing some Comedy Art for @b3ta.com image challenge

So the Tory candidate for GM mayor is apparently Phil Eckersley (my former councillor). Can I suggest to any journalists who follow me, that you trawl though his social media output (especially X) because there have been some quite eye-opening things on there over recent years.

Folk horror doesn't need fields. Blood in the Bricks drags the genre onto the underground, the surgery ward and the skate park. Lonely in a crowd, terrified at home. Neil Williamson's anthology is bleak and brilliant. https://gnofhorror.com/blood-in-the-bricks-urban-folk-horror-review/

#TombTuesday #Visigoth sarcophagus discovered at Los VIllaricos #Roman complex in #Spain   , 2021. The six-and-a-half-foot-long sarcophagus is intricately carved with a curving spiral motif. Ivy leaves decorate the lid.  📸 THE UNIVERSITY OF MURCIA 👀 #Archaeology #History

A friend is looking for an experienced comic artist for a YA graphic novel (or short series I'm not sure). Looking for people who can draw spooky stuff, emotional stuff, teen girls things and can do places in a way that they are almost a character too. Please post your portfolio here, no DMs. Cheers

The building I work in (government office in Westminster) has some preserved/ restored rooms that are pretty like this - I feel I could almost walk into here…

It’s creepy how time & memory work. Today my wife and I visited a nearby market town (mooched around, had cake in a nice chocolatier’s). Don’t know why but I remembered a dark, rainy October afternoon 30 years ago when we went there to shop for baby stuff for Daughter, just newborn.

Five More Summer Books I’ve Read alifeinbooks.co.uk/2026/06/five... #BookSky

New Review - another Clarke nominee to explore. Ultimately I was disappointed by The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami which feels a fairly familiar dystopian tale www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2026/6/...

Oxford drinkers may finally be able to swear in the Three Goats’ Heads after the death of Humphrey Smith, the irascible owner of Sam Smiths Brewery, at the age of 81. The pub chain enforced strict bans on swearing and mobile phone use. Smith was described in a Facebook pubs group as “an absolute tit

NEW REVIEW A body-horror confession with teeth, where the gross-out feels like grief, and the satire keeps its villain in plain sight. The cruelty is that he had to become a monster before anyone would treat him like a man. gnofhorror.com/nothing-tast... @canelobooks.bsky.social

Discovered this afternoon that the house lacked WD40. I have corrected this.

A direct challenge to Andy Burnham, surely? If they continue this action they might seriously disrupt Cabinet business…

30 June 1928 | A Polish Jew, Oskar Müller, was born in Chorzów. His family emigrated to Norway. He was deported to #Auschwitz on 25 February 1943, he was registered in the camp. Most probably he perished during the Death March in January 1945.

Welsh speakers - a favour! We'd love to know what this card says: can any of you help, please? You've been super helpful in the past, so we're hopeful: thanks in advance! This was the 1903 Stanway viaduct collapse on what's now the #Gloucestershire #Warwickshire Steam #Railway. #RailwayHistory

Lads I'm really not liking the number of fellow children's authors who are experiencing homophobia/queerphobia in relation to school visits - lots of cancelled visits. If you happen to be a school governor/head teacher, can you give everyone's head a shake please? #KidLitUK

Could there *BE* an author or book more perfect to celebrate on Northern Horror Hub? @davidmbarnett.bsky.social's latest novel Scratch Moss is set in a northern mining town - and it's a folk horror triumph. In true folk horror style, this isolated and insular community holds dark secrets.

So, @andyburnham.bsky.social what do you think of this? Does taxing asylum seekers put “hope in every heart”? Is this what Labour is now? Until you answer that question, the jury remains out. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

Should read “under new UK low”

Sick to death of the village vandals saying that only they can fix the burned down Scout hut

It’s weird to be clearly living through exactly what was warned about with global warming and still have the concept treated as a future event or hypothetical.

Just a random thought, whenever I see on the news the current US president addressing a rally it always reminds me of those TV news shots of Ceaușescu being cheered. And then suddenly, he’s being booed. And then…

I'm calling it: the great american state fair is worse than the glasgow willy wonka experience