Saw 2025 in on the couch with the Teen and the large dog, a packet of gingerbread Oreos, summer fruits squash, watching Ted (his choice - opened up some, uh, ‘casual discussions’.) The cat was asleep in a box in the hall, as is his wont when it’s windy. Liking 2025 so far. Think I’ll stick with it.

Things Can Only Get Better on the London fireworks display made me properly lol. Good old Sadiq. Happy New Year, folx x

In the past few days I’ve binge watched Black Doves, Poor Things and Megalopolis, and have concluded that I now want to watch every single thing Aikaterina Hadjipateras (aka Kathryn Hunter) has ever been in. I’m obsessed. I adore her. What a phenomenal actor.

“When I was growing up, our home was my family’s security. We can’t build a strong future for our country unless people have a safe home today” Prime Minister Keir Starmer writes in his Christmas message for @bigissue.com www.bigissue.com/opinion/keir...

If you ever fancy a glimpse of what privatised healthcare looks like, try taking a pet to the vets without insurance. General examination, antibiotic eye drops, anti-inflammatories, and two sets of blood tests: £511.

Spending a thrilling evening in an NHS briefing and then highlighting the highlights in yesterdays Devolution White Paper. Athough it’s probably going to be a colossal PITA from an admin point of view to initially implement, it certainly looks exciting. Ambitious, but exciting.

Dinner for 2: 400g canned tomatoes, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 v large carrot, 1/2 a large onion, 4 canned anchovies, 2 tbsp butter, 1 chx stock cube, 150ml water. Blitz to a smooth liquid. Add 1 tsp mixed dried herbs, pinch of salt, plenty of black pepper. Pour into saucepan, boil, simmer.

I’ve decided, after 37 years of singing about it with increasing curiosity, this is going to be the year that I research, create, and proactively ‘bring some figgy pudding’ to everyone who visits over the festive period, as a social cue. You won’t go until you get some? Fine. I’ve come prepared. 🎄

Bought a copy of In Defence Of The Realm as a Christmas present for a fellow nerd and it’s a thousand pages of very long tight paragraphs in very tiny print. Top tier chess move from GCHQ, publishing the only official biography of their secrets in a format that literally nobody can get through. 👏

Also: Red One is a glorious film! Bit darker than I thought it might be, but Dwayne Johnson was *excellent*. Possibly his finest movie so far. Am a bit late to the festive spirit this year, but that’s certainly got me into the swing of it. 🎅🎄🎁

Standing in a bookshop with the Teen earlier marvelling at all the books written by people I KNOW and pointing them all out to him with barely contained wonder. Oh look it’s Otto! And Alice! And Dean! And Susie! And Grace! And Teen: Mama… YOU write books. They’re over there. Me: Oh. Yeah. So I do!

Took the Teen for our annual one-day smash-and-grab Christmas Shopping Bonanza. Not very well at the mo so bundled up in bobble hat, big cosy scarf, sunglasses. Woman at the till in the bookshop: ‘oh I thought it was you, I recognised your smile! I loved that tin can cooking you did on the telly!’ ☺️

I love how much LinkedIn believes in me. Todays job picks for me: -Global Senior Vice President, Tony Blair Institute - Speakers Committee for IPSA, House of Commons - Media Editor, Financial Times - Head of Operations, The Royal College of Surgeons for England - Part time bar staff, Popworld

Keeping fish is like making risotto: everyone tells you for years how difficult and technical it is but IT REALLY ISN’T. Just follow some basic instructions, keep an eye on it, don’t mess with the quantities, and enjoy the results. Gatekeepers be damned.

Two years and nine months I’ve had this daft dog and I seriously admire her relentless determination to get the cat to play with her. A dozen times a day. Bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce bounce *swipe* bounce bounce bounce bounce rinse and repeat forever.

Currently up transcribing notes from tonight’s full council meeting; it was long, highly entertaining in places, but ultimately a snapshot of local democracy in action and what can be achieved when proactive, visionary, resident-focused individuals come together to build a city we can be proud of.

Having great fun with the nonsense of todays news cycle, especially for all of those ‘advisors’ early on in my career who told me to choose between food and politics because the two never mixed. Vindication has been a long time coming, so excuse me while I enjoy it.

Back in the day, journalists would often ask politicians the price of everyday groceries in order to ascertain whether they were in touch with the working class, or not. With that in mind, Farage decrying milk as ‘left wing’ and Badenoch’s anti-bread stance is quite the chess move.

I know ‘bread and circuses’ is a time honoured distraction and de-escalation technique for the proletariat, I’m just surprised it’s taken the ruling classes this long to actually combine the two. #LetThemEatSteak

Sandwiches are God Tier; anything can be slapped between slices of bread and carried single handedly as a perfectly portable meal. I grew up running around mess rooms full of firefighters and have witnessed folk scooping entire roast dinners into rolls when the bells go off, I will die on this hill.

Between 11.00 and 15.00 every Friday, Sacred Heart Church in Southend will be opening their doors for a community warm cafe and offering hot (and homemade!) soup, good company, and a warm place to sit, as well as a craft group - all free of charge.

The LTA has banned all trans women from playing tennis as women. Does this mean that a trans man (who by LTA rules would be considered female) would be forced to play as a woman? Because trans men have* more of a ‘testosterone advantage’ than trans women, and this is where the argument collapses.

If you’re applying for PIP, the charity Turn2Us has launched The PIP Tool: a free guide to navigate the benefits process. Their goal “is to make sure you know your rights and can afford what you need to enjoy life fully.” Share widely! pip.turn2us.org.uk

Well this feels very on brand.

My biggest issue with AI evangelism in our industry is that it treats creativity like a problem to be solved, and not an adventure to be had.

You’d think I was cooking sausages, or something. (You’d be right)

Tiny bits of sausage. Onion. Celery. Carrots. Garlic. Butter. Salt. Pepper. Mixed herbs. Fennel. Chilli. Chicken stock. Rigatoni. Canned tomatoes. Cream. Mozzarella. Mature cheddar. Fresh parsley. Dinner.

Paperback books are like velveteen rabbits — there to be loved and squeezed and read and stuffed into shoulder bags and left in the sun and read again until there's nothing left but the best kind of memories

My favourite new way to deal with trolls is to absolutely go OFF in a visceral reply that’s far too long to accidentally actually post, pause, exhale, delete it all, block, and yeet them out of my consciousness and timeline forevermore. Fully recommend.

Woke up early. Had breakfast. Made lunch. Ate lunch. At 7am. Immediately after breakfast. Just because it was there. FFS.

For all my new followers who are here because of one mildly spicy furious post defending public healthcare, I feel compelled to forewarn you that last week my most popular post was about accidentally enthusiastically enjoying dog biscuits in a public cafe.

Jack, you're so right and privatisation is sneaking in. Would you be willing to sign and share this petition to make covid vaccinations free again? (Instead of £99.) I have long covid, it totally sucks, so I want to protect other people from getting it. Thanks! petition.parliament.uk/petitions/70...

Someone needs to invent some kind of online calculator whereby we Brits can put in our recent healthcare appointments/meds/experiences and it’ll calculate what it would cost on average in the USA. Just to hammer home how bloody lucky we are to have the NHS and how fiercely we need to protect it.

One of my favourite things about reading John Grisham is that in every book so far, there’s a main character who is in recovery. And it’s not the standard ‘chaotic alcoholic for spicy plot’ trope, it’s understated, quietly reinforced, subtly mentioned, and they’re usually One Of The Good Guys.

I aspire to these levels of uncomplicated contentment.

Help me settle a rigorous debate with a 14 year old who is somehow as headstrong as his mother: Do you carefully re-close the windows the windows on your advent calendar to prolong the ‘hunt’ element, or not?

Well I picked a terrible week to turn down Question Time. 🐸

I have just completed an 860 hour, 37-spreadsheet, 9000 map pins, 20 years of election analysis, 136000 census entries, 10 years of housing analysis, and hundreds of miles of walking project, culminating in a 12000 word presentation and population forecasting street by street, and I am TIRED.

The pendulum has swung too far the other way: today’s children aren’t scared *enough* of quicksand.

Earnest post, but: a thing I like here is it’s okay to have moments of happiness in public without being broadly scolded, and I believe that sustaining this kind of humanity will be very important as we resist fascism. We have to sustain each other. Making joy isn’t denial, it’s how we will survive

Just had a text from the NHS saying I’m due my ‘SMI health check’. Didn’t know what it stood for so looked it up. Kind of a brutal way to find out you’ve got a Severe Mental Illness, but it tracks, I guess 🥹

Well, when put it that way…

Also whoever is in charge of Cynthia Erivo’s wardrobe right now is on FIRE. I want to nonchalantly wear enormous claw hands on shoulder pads and sports socks with cocktail dresses and outrageously structured hats and insane nails to do the housework ffs

This might be a controversial opinion but right now I am absolutely BINGEING on the Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande interview reels and clips - their energy and fun and support for each other is an absolute joy to watch. Like watching a thousand miniature Hallmark movies. I adore them. 💚🩷

Took Laurie to the local dog cafe today. Friendly older gentleman bought a large packet of communal biscuits and handed them around. Two down, I’m thinking they’re pleasantly savoury and go really rather well with a cuppa. By the third I realised I’m the only human with one in my mouth.

Sorry I’ve just had my hair cut by a proper hairdresser for the first time in over a year and as a result I am feeling SASSY AS ALL HELL. Not the time to pick a fight; I am fabulous and fearsome for at least the next three hours.

I’ve found my new fave comic on here. Worth scrolling back to the beginning and working your way through a panel at a time. Sometimes I’m Nerd, sometimes I’m Tiger, and all the times I adore this content.

Of the few snarky comments I’ve had on here (on a thread about watching comedies with my son, of all the outrageous things), every single one has been by an anon account who is actively hostile to trans and non binary people. Amazing coincidence, I’m sure, but we don’t do that shit round here.

I will never tire of this clip, nor of the brilliant @vicderbyshire.bsky.social

Night, BlueSky friends. A a single parent who works mostly from home, I’d forgotten how enriching and gorgeous and genuinely connective it can be to have a decent social media community around. Really grateful for each and every one of you this evening. This is nice. 😊