The neighbourhood what's app is going off tonight with LTN v anti LTN chat, plus a wholesome dose of random requests for hand me down football kit and thrush treatment thrown in 🧐😅🍿🏙️🚶‍♀️#hackney #ltn

Around 600 votes needed; gap closing fast. petition.parliament.uk/petitions/73...

guests: Alisa Oleva, Anna Minton @annaminton.bsky.social Cathy Turner, Clare Qualmann @cqualmann.bsky.social, Dee Heddon @deeheddon.bsky.social Elspeth Penfold @threadandword.bsky.social Helen Stratford, Keira Chapman, Sarah Benjamins,Saffron Swansborough Sonia Overall @soniaoverall.bsky.social

This is your reminder that Hungarian-Jewish scientist George de Hevesy dissolved two Nobel Prizes in aqua regia to keep them out of the hands of the Nazis. He then left the dissolved solution on his shelf and fled to Sweden. (After the war he un-dissolved the gold and the prizes were re-cast.)

My new post on Substack tells the story of Clay Cross council's famous 1972 rents rebellion against the Conservative Government's plans to raise council house rents: ‘Doing our job – and that’s to help the working class, the cream of the nation' municipaldreams.substack.com/p/clay-cross...

You can donate to Omar’s family here: chuffed.org/project/1400...

More of London's roads will have safer speed limits because there's irrefutable evidence it save lives: 📉 25% fewer main road collisions 📉 34% fewer people killed or serious injured on local roads 📉75% fall in children killed on local roads @itvnews.bsky.social itv.com/news/london/...

A rare victory for artistic freedom and common sense. Proof that everything could be different.

Pavement parking ban for Birmingham to end 'completely out of control' danger in huge change: www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midland...

I have walked to work for 2.5 years, a little under a mile each way: it has changed my life

Just heard an AI ethicist talk about how important it is that we say ‘MEN are using Grok to undress images of babies, children and women’ not ‘Grok is….’. Grok isn’t responsible for the action, the men enabling & using it for this repulsive purpose are. Small but important bit of linguistic accuracy

A year late to the party, just as enthusiastic! I just bought the ebook version, which was on sale on the Routledge site (because I don’t have access to a library where I am.) i’m excited to read 🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️🤸🏻‍♀️

Free on our open library. All the works we undertook in an attempt to find somewhere to build the new visitor facilities at Stonehenge. wessexarchaeologylibrary.org/plugins/book...

I wrote about some very strong feelings I have about the royal family. open.substack.com/pub/naomiald...

Counterpoints Arts has been selected by The Observer as the beneficiary of their Christmas Appeal 2025. A new article by Philippe Sands on how migrants enrich our cultural life, and why this work matters. 🔗 observer.co.uk/news/nationa... #ObserverAppeal #CounterpointsArts

Fyi…

166 browser tabs and a few windows now closed! It's getting easier to find things and my dock is less cluttered. The open tabs require me to do more work, but I'm going to read things properly before closing them. Please join me in #TabClosed2026! #NYE2026

Beautiful moonrise over the Regent's canal tonight. January's super moon is looking 💫

A long poem An invisible line A 270-mile walk “The idea was to walk the line from Peacehaven to the Humber. I had devised the notion that the physical act of walking would help me to locate what was lost”. New year offer: £3 off Nancy Gaffield's 'Meridian' ngmeridian.wordpress.com

Similarly, I want nature docs that consist of someone knowledgeable ambling round a patch of landscape, periodically saying 'Ooh, look at this'.

In the words of the drawing I made in 2008 (part of a series that put together texts from pizza flyers and religious leaflets) It is time to rewrite our destiny...

An old drawing from my studio, part of a 2008 series that combined texts from pizza flyers with religious leaflets. The message holds though! #ItIsTimeToRewriteOurDestiny

Almost a year now since I received this absolutely classic burn from the Canadian government.

www.spiegel.de/panorama/jah... „In Bielefeld kamen zwei 18-Jährige bei Unfällen mit selbst gebauter Pyrotechnik ums Leben. In Berlin gab es Hunderte Festnahmen. In Leipzig wurde die Polizei mit Flaschen und Knallern beworfen. Das war die Silvesternacht.“ Es wird immer so weitergehen.

An old drawing from my studio, part of a 2008 series that combined texts from pizza flyers with religious leaflets. The message holds though! #ItIsTimeToRewriteOurDestiny

Time for my annual #MendingSpree ! Instead of buying stuff in the post holiday sales, why not spend some time repairing things you already own? I got the sewing machine out and started with this beloved dressing gown today. #MakeDoAndMend #repair

One person died at Eisbachwelle in over 50 years and the city removed the wave. ~5000 people have been killed by cars in Munich since the discovery of Eisbachwelle and yet…

Jingle bells, AI smells. That is all.

Watch an Avant-Garde Bauhaus Ballet in Brilliant Color, First Staged in 1922

You know, millions of us once dreamed of being famous authors, and millions of us are not, including BIPOC & LGBTQ folks. It's true that there's plenty of discrimination in publishing. It's also true that sometimes, one's craft, talent, and luck don't get you the desired outcome. *That's life.*

Christ on a bike, this is brilliant. And disgustingly historically accurate. 10/10

Low on words today, but high on hope: anything really helps these six families & a camp of fifteen more survive. It's still survival: of unceased fire, blockade, famine, displacement, health emergencies, deadly winter weather. We don't forget them. chuffed.org/project/hope...

I always find these memorials at Postman’s Park unbearably moving. They make my eyes water every time. It’s a lovely idea, to commemorate ordinary people who do extraordinary things.

Something about winter woods always conjures up @conniewillisdotnet.bsky.social Doomsday book, especially the green of holly in amongst the bare trees.

Someone asked me once what white people could do right now to help. I said make a group of white folks that have the sole purpose of clearing every Black, Brown and Native mutual aid effort they see. Never heard from them again.

I've built a machine that can be Confidently Wrong. It can also make pictures that all look a bit the same, as well as make a video of you kissing any celebrity or person you know. In payment, I'd like to boil the world's oceans dry, & steal all literature. For some reason, my head is not on a spike

I’ve just discovered #DuvetKnowItsChristmas, where people share the funny/awkward/downright strange sleeping situations they find themselves in while visiting family. While I’m comfortably in my own home this year, when I visit my parents in their teeny retirement cottage, my bed looks like this 🤣

Heartwarming news that is actually dystopian Exhibit #2000

So excited to be able to join in for the first time since discovering #DuvetKnowitsChristmas as I’m in my spare/junk room with 4 cats as my mum is in my bedroom. @rhodri.biz

Twas the night before Christmas, and throughout the land The sleeping arrangements were carefully planned Down in the kitchen, a picturesque scene A mattress, a pillow, a washing machine

One of the best things about Christmas is the tradition of people posting their awkward yet loving sleeping arrangements at their family gatherings. So heartwarming how people make room and make do. So do follow #DuvetKnowItsChristmas and enjoy, and maybe bung a few quid to charity as well. ❤️

Brother and sister in law have invited both families and thus I have been relegated to this classic #DuvetKnowItsChristmas arrangement in their downstairs office/music practise room. Had to lobby to get a lamp 😂

So, is this the place? #duvetknowitschristmas

This is where my daughters are sleeping this Christmas #DuvetKnowItsChristmas

The formica stool of chastity returns! #DuvetKnowItsChristmas

#DuvetKnowItsChristmas is also a great hashtag to check out on Christmas Eve/Day for some smiles. Some unlikely and fun sleeping places for people visiting others at Christmas. Here's one of my favourites from last year.

TBH I think a duvet would spoil the glorious austerity of this beautiful Christmas scene #DuvetKnowItsChristmas

I’m a new vicar whose vicarage wasn’t ready for me to move into. But I have midnight mass and early morning service so I’m camping in the mainly empty house tonight. There now after the crib service. A friend told me about #DuvetKnowItsChristmas

Eslam's account keeps getting deleted, so not many people have donated to help her in over a month. It would be really nice if we could change that www.gofundme.com/f/a-final-fi...

Once again I am on the floor of my own study, with all the things that don’t fit anywhere else and once again I’m the one in the house working. #duvetknowitschristmas