Emergency summit on opening the strait but remember kids, this is not getting drawn into the conflict if we all believe hard enough we can summon a dIpLoMaTiC solution i promise

wouldn't it be funny if EVERYONE blocked this Attie AI account @ bsky.app/profile/atti... before they could do anything with it

Procrastinating on reading Necropolitics by doing art... I'm ok with my life choices.

At a loose end this sunny Monday in Oxford? Come along to seminar room 56 in the Schwarzmann Centre at 4pm to hear me attempt to organise my thoughts on what human rights tell us about what it means to be human Coffee and pastries are provided to further sweeten the deal.

I'll be speaking @torchoxford2013.bsky.social at Oxford University on 12th Feb 'The British Empire and its Legacies: From Slavery, Criminalisation and the Civilizing Mission to Re-articulating Human Rights amid Colonialities', 3.30pm Kopperberg Room, Exeter College torch.ox.ac.uk/event/the-br...

Two exciting events with Queer Intersections Oxford coming next week: 📆 Thursday 12th Feb 3.30pm, a seminar w/@matthewwaites.bsky.social on their chapter in their forthcoming co-edited book Colonialisms and Queer Politics. Join us for a discussion on sexualities and genders under the British Empire

Positive: I was absolutely right in thinking that 'Braiding Sweetgrass' would be a great birthday present for my sister. Negative: I was so correct, she already owns it. ... ah well, late birthday present it is.

Also featuring my first solo authored paper presenting an index of LGBTIQ+ inclusion and agency in truth commissions - you should check it out: academic.oup.com/ia/article/1... (I did a thing!)

Apropos of the BBC front page: The right to free speech means you can (within limits) say what you want to say and the *government* can't stop you. It doesn't mean others can't protest what you're saying, and by that protest make it difficult for you to be heard. That is *also* free speech.

which language? which human expert? what level of expertise? in which domain? by what metric?

Stages of cold: if I eat enough banana bread it'll go away. Right?

And they'll be very good and interesting doing it, can confirm!

Presented without comment: My top song of 2025 was 'I Say No' from Heathers.

I'm in Thailand... How have I *already* lost whammageddon?

you do have to do it in a couple of places but this tutorial makes it easy to go uncheck the boxes that otherwise lets Google's AI read all your shit. or move everything over to protonmail but moving everything over is a giant thing I know.

Kathleen Stock has written an article against "abortion permissiveness". She claims abortion requires "justification" saying the state should limit "unacceptable decision-making" by women about their own bodies. This is who anti-trans activists proclaim as the feminist thought leaders of our time.

The i Paper is reporting that once the changes are brought in, the 20 year route will be applied to refugees who are already here. I can't over emphasise the level of terror this will cause to our refugee population, and the lack of detail and timescale will make it very difficult to calm nerves.

“One common strategy of mainstream political parties — adopting the same topics and rhetoric as the far-right — often backfires. Instead of reducing their appeal, it can amplify extremist narratives and legitimise their agenda.” We cannot defeat fascism by platforming it and debating on its terms.

Dogs off-lead on shared use cycle/foot paths: discuss.

Into the annoying period when I need to put events in for next year but my diary company haven't released their 2026 diaries yet.

People recognised as refugees fleeing persecution & granted the right to live in the UK to be denied the right to be joined safely by their spouse & children. This Labour govt is a moral void, a stinking darkness, an empty hollow of cowardice & contempt. #r4today www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

This is also true for LGBTIQ+ people - I've had so many more friends report instances of harassment both verbal and physical in the last year.

In other news, we are now making school cake.

The north-south divide in our house currently being played out in a Bake-off provoked argument over whether school cake has pink icing or white icing.

Does anyone have recommendations for good second hand book websites that aren't owned by Amazon?

I do not like being in a version of the UK where I am actively considering whether it is safe to have the rainbow/queer stickers I have on my laptop while travelling.

Do cross country design their trains as Faraday cages so you have to sell your data to their WiFi service?

I am a stuck and broken record but every time it's true: scratch a terf, sniff a racist.

It’s quite do-able from a legal perspective. I don’t think dismissing Reform in this way is wise. Voters need to understand that this stuff can happen if they vote for it - and that it would be morally, socially, culturally, economically disastrous. So they shouldn’t vote for it.

Retrospectively removing indefinite leave to remain would be immoral and economically damaging. It would tear families apart. Attacking it as ‘potentially illegal’ is completely beside the point. Argue with the (awful) idea. Don’t try ’well, actually you can’t do that’.

My favourite thing about cooking in other people's kitchens is that everyone answers the question "if I were a vegetable peeler where would I live" in a different way

Sometimes you need to push through on your PhD. Sometimes you need to go to the county library, get a stack of completely unrelated books and go sit in a coffee shop with cake.

Q for the reporter: did you feel any desire or obligation to point out that all of this *is* racism? Or are you just here to observe the racism and amplify it without commenting on the fact that it is, indeed, factually racist as hell? Press neutrality is an oxymoron. Time to show some principles.

All of this. It's no good trying to play nice and "understand" why people are espousing racist ideology. We have tried that. We ended up allowing racists to feel emboldened. The only option to confront racism is to call it out. If people don't like being called racist they should stop doing racism.

BBC managed to report on the UN finding of genocide in Gaza as their frontpage article this morning - yet you'll note that no Palestinian is allowed to speak in the article, while Israel's refutation is prominantly cited. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Becoming that person: going for a run in my Ice Hockey Varsity T-shirt from 2013.

"I don't care that he's dead." "He's not a hero." "He's a scumbag." "He shouldn't be celebrated." No, no. I'm not saying that about Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk said that about George Floyd. Just in case anyone's interested in what he thought was fair to say about someone who was killed on camera.

My letter to Lord Reed. This was posted today, so should be with the SC tomorrow. If you would like to see Lord Hodge interviewed as suggested, you can tell the Supreme Court directly with their general contact form: supremecourt.uk/_next/static...

The Greens could be polling at 40% and all we’ll read about is the rise of Reform

You have to be extraordinarily naive or criminally indifferent not to find this absolutely beyond the pale. From the Labour government, not a word…

Yes, I may need to use tape to keep my joints in place to do the high impact sport of embroidery. But, it does have flowers on it So who's the real loser here?

Did not need taskmaster reminding me I don't know my 7 times table on a Saturday morning

ex-IDF chief confirms Gaza casualties over 200,000 That’s 10% of the entire population of Gaza in 2 years www.theguardian.com/world/2025/s...

First single-author paper has just been accepted for publication!

(politely) AaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaRGH.

One of the joys of reading things you strongly disagree with is getting to exercise your spite by crafting a perfectly polite yet cutting critique of it.

this is a lot of people to be deeply disappointed in (and a lot of nonsense casting, not that that matters anywhere near as much)

So, right now, the only reliable way to diagnose endometriosis is with exploratory surgery. But finally, real scientists (instead of male scientists), are on the job & of course they’ve identified multiple markers in menstrual blood that point to noninvasive testing. www.science.org/content/arti...

Slightly obsessed with the discovery that Bluesky has three facepalm options: man-facepalming: 🤦‍♂️ woman-facepalming: 🤦‍♀️ face_palming: 🤦

sit with this quote for a minute