Living with disability #67: mending a broken footplate with a coat-hanger.

My daughter's parting message to me, as I set off with my son & 85 y.o. mother to Sri Lanka, home of her birth: "don't kill grandma!" Well, she survived flight & I got a book title.

#Books A Good Read Five Little Pigs by Agatha Christie, chosen by crime writer @martinedwardsbooks.bsky.social At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien, chosen by @tomshakespeare.bsky.social Thursday Night Widows by Claudia Pineiro, chosen by @harriettsg.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

“You're thinking of the $175 billion in tariff money all wrong. As if I had the money back in a safe. The money's not here. Your money's in the White House ballroom, the renaming of the Department of Defense, the $10 billion transfer to the Board of Peace, and a hundred other unauthorized actions.”

Not sure why Reform announcing they’ll scrap the Equality Act 2010 hasn’t provoked widespread alarm. They want to torch our human rights framework AND repeal our right to protection from discrimination. A smile and a shrug on BBC News. What the hell? FFS, media. Tell people what this really means.

Not ALL the tariffs—> just the emergency powers tariff. The made up tariffs on specific items from specific countries rather than the tariffs on traditional categorizations of goods

Breaking News: The Supreme Court struck down President Trump’s sweeping tariffs on imports from nearly every U.S. trading partner. nyti.ms/46kvngJ

Saw a bearded restricted person running down my lane. Thought I was hallucinating. Checked with daughter & son. Thankfully, I wasn't.

2026 basically

Just seen, stealing as a mantra: "I miss when stupidity had to travel by word of mouth."

Bus driver of #59 drove off without letting me on [illegal] because a guy with a big case was in wheelchair space...

Romania has decoupled economic growth from pollution faster than anywhere else in EU. Its net greenhouse gas emissions intensity fell 88% between 1990 & 2023, so each euro’s worth of economic activity heats planet 10 times less. Emissions have plunged by 75%. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

The Swan Silvertones - You Pray On (Do Your Thing Cover) [US, Gospel Funk] (1972) https://redd.it/6qx582 https://youtu.be/A1Tj-cHP8HQ

I am performing in LEICESTER on Tuesday - tickets here events.comedy-festival.co.uk/events/robin... #comedy #poetry

Now reading Robert Musil's Man Without Qualities, guided in part by one of the very best of @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social's Free Thinking episodes. Barometer at the ready... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

A horrific example can be seen in South Africa, which has been responding to one of the worst HIV epidemics in the world, with 180,000 new infections last year— a huge decline from when it was more than half a million, only possible because of funding which was just cut by the regime.

I just had the joy of lunch with Matthew Sweet & Robin Ince. It was like having your own private Radio 4 show: I wish I'd taken notes. We agreed they'd collaborate on a book about wigs in the entertainment world, to be entitled "British Hairwaya".

What you don't expect to see as you wheel around to Oval Tube: a burnt out car.

Loving this.

Parcel from Kyiv Independent! Slava Ukraini!

And another bites the dust? The BBC World Service will run out of funding in just seven weeks. Its funding arrangement with the Foreign Office finishes at the end of March. There is no plan for what happens next. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

"When they got home, the Rat made a bright fire in the parlour, and planted the Mole in an armchair in front of it, having fetched down a dressing-gown and slippers for him, and told him river stories till supper-time." - Kenneth Grahame, "The Wind in the Willows" 🎨Ernest H. Shepard #BookWormSat

The Tony Blair Institute out there today calling for more oil and gas drilling in an absolute gift for Farage and Badenoch. Government will be forgiven for thinking, with friends like these... www.businessgreen.com/news/4525624...

"The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you will never have." Soren Kierkegaard

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

The Trump administration on Thursday will revoke a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the White House announced. https://to.pbs.org/4610Jci

100 flood warnings have been issued across England and with that in mind, I'm re-sharing some of the articles our European journalism team have published on flooding across the continent. I wrote this for @prospectmagazine.co.uk on the awful aftermath: www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/enviro...

(🚨) MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Trump Personal Lawyers Bondi, Blanche, and Patel Hid From American Voters a *Minimum* of *95%* of All References to Donald Trump in the Epstein Files (950,000 of 1M+), Establishing the Largest Political Coverup in American History

UK weather: One hundred flood warnings with weather 'stuck in a rut'

""Some of them were my friends," said Heraskevych, who was Ukraine's flagbearer in the opening ceremony. [] The 26-year-old said the International Olympic Committee had contacted Ukraine's Olympic Committee over the helmet." The IOC really are a shower of bastards www.bbc.co.uk/sport/articl...

On the 9th day of #BlackHistoryMonth2026— a little John Lee Hooker... Just because.😉 🗣🎸🎹🥁🕺🏾💃🏾 #ProudBlue #ResistanceUnited #USDemocracy #Voices4Victory #JohnLeeHooker #TheBlues youtu.be/QrsOdhK6FGU?...

Reminder: In light of Bad Bunny's Superbowl performance spotlighting Latino culture, here's a hefty list of Latino speculative fiction authors I curated if anyone wants to take a gander and read some phenomenal work. Much love to all! go.bsky.app/6BAmgpi

Saudi executed a record 356 people in 2025 many were foreign nationals for minor drug offences bit.ly/4aEWNjW Human Rights Watch @hrw is asking UK government to press the Prince in charge to halt them. If only we had a Prince we could send bit.ly/3O5GT9s

Keep him! “Information continuing to emerge from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) claims that the M23 armed group has detained Erik Prince, the American national known as the founder and former head of the private military company Blackwater.“

Man who has never been productive in his life & rarely did his job at either the European Parliament or House of Commons.

For the Interept, I reported from Uganda about the effects of USAID cuts on LGBTQ people, HIV prevention activists and sex workers—and tried to tell the story from the POV of these important but criminalized communities. Please read and share. theintercept.com/2026/02/09/t...

Global economy must move past GDP to avoid planetary disaster, warns UN chief

I have today been informed that, despite personal assurances to the contrary, the Green party have once again used my image and misrepresented my words on a second leaflet circulated in Gorton and Denton ahead of the by-election. I have now lodged an official complaint with the returning officer.

People of Britain! This Wednesday you can catch my R4 special Eleanor & Pals, a character comedy show starring me and Zara Gladman, and featuring everyone's favourite sad man, Craig! www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

I made a map of 3.4 million Bluesky users - see if you can find yourself! bluesky-map.theo.io I've seen some similar projects, but IMO this seems to better capture some of the fine-grained detail

Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.

Find out more about the exciting programme for the Learning Disability England in-person Conference 2026 📣 Speakers and sessions will share how they are working to make sure people with learning disabilities and their families are seen and heard in communities and policy... tinyurl.com/bdf748j9

Hearing about expansion of global gag rule - not just no abortion, but also no DEI (aka "Discriminatory Equity Ideology"] - to any recipents of US Foreign Assistance.

Join the STW Society in London on 29th-30th May for a conference celebrating 100 years of Lolly Willowes. Keynote address by Adam Mars-Jones. Early bird tickets till 31st March. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/lolly-will...

Rivers don't forgive debt. Glaciers don’t renegotiate. Wetlands don’t bounce back in election cycles. Scientists call it water bankruptcy — a world where even wet years can’t heal the damage. This is the future we were warned about, happening right now. phys.org/news/2026-01...

This extended interview from yesterday's Late Show between Stephen Colbert Ian McKellen is sheer delight from beginning to end. And the end will blow you away... youtu.be/2l2RqzVG4ag?...

Tesla reported paying ZERO federal income tax on $5.7 billion of U.S. income in 2025. Meanwhile, thanks to his new Tesla pay package, Elon Musk could stand to make $3 billion more per year than all 1.4 million elementary school teachers in the U.S. combined. See the problem here?

Book free places at EcoChamberFood.eventbrite.co.uk

IMBOLC (or Imbolg!) Saint Brigid's Day is a Gaelic traditional festival. 1st February is the start of Spring.

At least I have plenty of material about a chaotic online charity auction for my next book [sighs].