Hi, I'm a gale in the Irish Sea. And an experienced skipper completely incapacitated with seasickness. And an enthusiastic but inexperienced crew. And a very, extremely leaky old boat.

Brilliant 🧵

Also (and I realise this is a pedantic point, but nuance and accuracy matter a fair bit in this discourse), the SC did NOT rule on the definition of a woman. It just didn’t. I wish journos would try harder to get the basics right.

Stephenson’s charm offensive continuing to go well, I see 🙄

Visited Cat in hospital again with daughter, T. He’s looking much brighter and clearly recognised us both straight away 🥰

In the 6th largest economy, 103000 people died in poverty in 2024. 120,000 died in fuel poverty, couldn't afford adequate heating. Ethnic minorities, pensioners, single working age adults more likely to die in poverty. Poverty and death sentence is a political choice as govts appease the rich.

Post a selfie from 2025

He needs two different eye drops, ten minutes apart, three times a day. There’s no way I could administer those at home, on top of the other two meds he’s temporarily on. He’s too strong and fighty. So… a few more days in hospital it is, then 😢

Visited Cat in hospital. He looks pretty miserable there 😢 But he’s being well cared for, and he consented to a head scritch and a rare tummy rub, and rewarded me with a quiet purr 🥹

6/ And this is nut. Her starting point is not liberty but fascist control. And no, I do not have a “Biological Sex”, she is not entitled to impose one on anyone, she can go fuck herself.

This is the paradox created by Blue Labour: imagining an electoral base that simply doesn't exist.

I can feel a cold coming on. I hate colds. OTOH I have no idea of the last time I had one. At least a year? So I guess I’m doing pretty well. Being an antisocial hermit has its benefits 😂

😳

Falkner v2.0 demonstrating here that she’s as clueless and bigoted as the first version. Good luck building a “relationship”with the people you want to segregate out of public life 🙄 Also: more anti-trans boilerplate for the slow news season.

Cat had his operation today, with an excellent ophthalmic surgeon who was pleased with the outcome. I miss him hugely but provided his eye heals up well he’ll be home soon 🥰

No.

If I wasn’t the kind of person that I am, I might have accepted the inflated Nestle price… and that would’ve meant taking out a loan (that I can’t afford) to pay for the aftercare. My advice? Don’t accept a quote from a veterinary referral practice if they don’t have an online price list.

I managed to find an excellent veterinary ophthalmologist to operate TODAY at less than half the price I was quoted by the price-gouging, Nestle-owned megavet. This means the insurance should also cover the aftercare. I’m exhausted, but trying to do right by Cat.

how all youtube ads sound to me

Suzanne Moore in 2020: "As a feminist, I would argue that gender is socially constructed, and it can be reconstructed." And in 2025: "This must be the year Britain finally kills off trans ideology." Transphobia is the engine that pulls the train of fascism.

The plot thickens. The eye-watering surgery quote was provided by a local veterinary referral service. It has no published price list and is owned, ultimately, by Nestle and VC setups. The quote is more than £2k above other vets with published price lists. Can you say “price gouging”?

In the early hours it almost seemed reasonable to my sleep-deprived brain that I should ask the vet to put Cat to sleep, and then do the same for me. I’m so tired. Veterinary care shouldn’t be this stressful. Cat deserves better.

“It’s up to you” is a ridiculous copout when my (/Cat’s) options and possible outcomes haven’t been properly explained, and one route involves spending a very considerable four figure sum. My insurance might not cover all of it, which obviously adds to the stress.

I’ve been spiralling as a result of this. It doesn’t help that veterinary care in the U.K. is an unregulated mess, mostly owned by a handful of VC outfits. Rapacious bastards. My questions aren’t being adequately answered and the bill is already eye-watering. I’m angry and distraught.

we are so far over our skis on llms, we are basically upside down you can’t buy ram, because the ram (which hasn’t been manufactured yet) has been pre-allocated for servers (which don’t exist yet) in data warehouses (that haven’t been built yet), to run systems that don’t work well and no one wants

For those dreaming of longer sunnier days, this new Blackpool print is now available from my shop 🙂 juliaallum.co.uk/product/blac...

Took a while for me to figure out that the FWS fuss about being ejected from 'Spoons relates to something that (allegedly) happened back in *April*. The current slow news period is a great opportunity for confected GC outrage. See also: Stock, Sullivan et al in the past few days. They're grasping.

Don't think "gender critical" views are vile? Is that a bit strong? Just a difference of opinion? Try applying the othering, dehumanising and segregationist language used about trans people (and particularly trans women) by GCs to *any other minority* and see how it sounds...

I'm very worried about Cat and I miss him :( I've compensated by buying two dresses online in the sales, that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford.* I'll keep one of them. *Tbh I don't think it's a great coping strategy, but it's all I could think of at the time...

I've clearly put on a bit of weight over the last 10 days (who hasn't?). Thing is, I have zero motivation to go out and do the kind of exercise that would help burn at least a little of it off. Eating less instead it is, then 🙄

It’s the Gail Sale! 50% OFF Christmas cards & wrap 20% OFF unframed prints Use code GAILSALE Ends 18 January 2026 www.gailmyerscough.co.uk

"And I never say no" We need to have a serious talk about the way "AI companion" apps not only prey on the vulnerable, but are priming their users to ignore consent and to conflate love with control. We need AI regulations across so many sectors, but this area is particularly horrifying.

Written by the father of a trans girl… “When society tries to police and exclude trans girls, it ends up policing all girls. Because transmisogyny does not just say, “Trans girls aren’t real girls.” It also says, “There is only one correct way to be a girl.””

Cat is in cat hospital 😥 He has an eye injury that needs attention. Not sure what the outcome will be at this stage. House feels so empty...

Saw the details yesterday of a part time remote Masters course that sounds amazing and now I wish I had a spare £12k 😳

What’s interesting about this is that the media is (very) slowly waking up to the fact that the government has recognised the potential unlawfulness of the EHRC Code. They’re *weeks* behind.

It only just occurred to me this morning that the oddly quiet bit between Christmas and New Year is allowing my brain and body to decompress after a rather full-on year. Might explain why I’m sleeping so much? I don’t have much enthusiasm for *doing*…

Some allyship is too shallow to be worth having. Some is even actively toxic. That was this month’s hard-earned lesson, and I have the scars to prove it.

Alice Sullivan (butthurt that her Bristol uni talk was both protested and not particularly well attended), persuades someone (👀) to cough up the £1000s it would cost for a 42 (count ‘em) page pre-action letter. The absurdity of the GC movement, encapsulated in 1000s of words of legalese.

Internalised shame is my bete noir. I’ve done plenty of work on this in therapy in the past, and made some progress. But still. It’s SO corrosive. I’m so tired of it.

Cat's eye still isn't better so I just booked him in for an appointment tomorrow morning. The next challenge will be catching him and putting him in his carrier. He hates being picked up. I'll have 5-10 seconds max, assuming he'll let me close enough to pick him up, to get him in. He is STRONG. 🙄

Four days after electrolysis and that part of my face is clearly still very pissed off with the way it was treated (a bit tender, a tiny bit swollen, red and blotchy). Fair enough, I suppose. It got very hot. Fewer hairs though #winning

Thanks for the feedback :) I changed to a recent pic. Do not adjust your sets...

I changed my profile pic a week or so back because of a mean comment about my selfies. Should I change it back to the one I had before? I try not to change things too much because I know it can cause confusion.

Meanwhile 110 women a year in the UK are murdered by a current or former cis male partner. But making trans people's lives harder is 'protecting women' or something.

In the forthcoming “For White England” case, the Supreme Court will define race as “biological race, assigned at birth”. The EHRC will then put out an “interim update” saying it is now the law to send all dark-skinned people back where they came from.

This sentence sums up the utter lack of critical thought (and unwillingness to understand legal nuance) that underpins “gender critical” rhetoric: “I really thought that after the Supreme Court, people would say, 'OK, this is the law for single-sex spaces.” I mean, duh.

🧵An important article about this anti-abortion visiting schools in Scotland. I’m going to share more links about them spreading disinformation and their 🇺🇸 funding www.thenational.scot/news/2572424...