My column on how you can always tell who's going to win an election: heawood.substack.com/p/the-politi...

Oh good I’m sat next to the man playing guitar on the overground. Some people are standing but please three seats for the width of his guitar.

@heawood.bsky.social on the front page as she should be 👌

Long shot (mainly due to how little engagement I get on here), but I'm looking for freelance writers with an interest, or specialism in, classical music. If you are one, or know one, please give me a shout.

Re Lily Allen, a friend just sent me this by @heawood.bsky.social and it is fantastic writing heawood.substack.com/p/love-and-g...

Lily Allen has taken us from Hot Girl Summer to Divorced Mum Winter and I am here for it.

I will never tell this Kate Bush story again. I can't.

I stayed up all night listening to her new album and then I wrote this about the Lily Allen I know: heawood.substack.com/p/love-and-g...

Lily Allen having a song on her new album called Nonmonogamummy has made me very happy.

I realise that Aesop is already the punchline to any hipster soap joke but I tested their perfumes this week and the sales assistant told me, with a face of pure sad poetry, "Other perfumes smell of things but ours smell of feelings and of places." I wouldn't mind but they smelled of mud.

Someone on my Nextdoor app has a cat called Colin Feral.

I’m not saying my 13 year old is actually evil but she’s sent me a photo of her new eyebrow piercing while I’m in the queue to board a plane and not see her for a week. The timing is iconic though tbf.

Quietly impressed by Corbyn and Sultana managing to reach the betrayal-of-the-Granita pact bit before they've even been to Granita.

Your Party (Zarah’s Version)

Shout out to all the editors on here: have you paid your freelancers? Currently waiting for one newspaper to allow me to invoice for something I did in July. Yes that would be allow me to invoice. (I've been trying to check their rates and other details.) Do they think we have salaries elsewhere?

My interview with a frightened and funny Alicia Vikander, who reveals that she has been rehearsing for her new play with an AI version of her co-star Andrew Lincoln, which she created on an app. She says the AI version of Andrew is actually quite good... www.standard.co.uk/culture/thea...

Daughter has left the house wearing a hoodie that she has screenprinted a union jack flag onto. Have told her all about the marches and St George's cross and the racism, fascism. She gets it, to the extent a 13-year-old can. Now thinking I should have put my foot down about the hoodie. Aargh.

Message to single straight men who would like to meet someone: go on a creative writing retreat. Always dominated by single straight women and always involves emotional work that opens up the heart and the local bar, leading to great opportunities for immediate and regrettable behaviour.

Well that's a nice glance at the headlines before bed. Political assassination in an American university, Nato on verge of war in Poland, Mandelson best mates with Epstein. Good night everyone and good luck!

Imagine if you not only went to queue in the Post Office to buy a stamp for an envelope on which you had clearly written the FREEPOST address yourself. But also dragged a friend in to queue with you! And spent the queue time discussing the novelty of the FREEPOST address! Imagine. Fucks sake.

Imagine pretending to be racist to make people take you seriously.

Each day I am astounded and mortified by this country’s descent into open and brazen racism I am equally astounded and mortified that rather than push back on the malign forces taking us to these dark places - an elected Labour government appears more interested in trying to learn from them

Does anyone have a hack for ringing Lloyds and getting through to a real person without passing the automated security checks? My card is out of date so I can't give the right numbers and new one never arrived, the app won't let me in, the website says my phone number isn't there (it is). HELL.

Can calculators suffer? Users have been making them say boobs and that must be a bit humiliating for them.

Google Maps keeps doing this to me on Safari on Mac Air. Anyone know how to fix it? It's fine on Chrome but I don't live on Chrome.

HOW short?

The way certain clothes brands follow me around the internet should qualify as harassment.

wow, all it took was one week of restricted access to porn.

Really appreciated the Observer’s story on Unbound. But also, this. It’s an important point and no one is saying it anywhere. #Boundless #Unbound

Do YOU know what day it is? heawood.substack.com/p/do-you-kno...

The irony I always find with Toast dresses (and I pore over every collection before not buying them) is that their lack of waistline seems intended to flatter a bigger-sized woman and yet they only seem to make things worse.

just not enough uk outlets publishing rancid transphobia defences i say, when will we have at least four more

I spent a week telling all my problems to Chat GPT instead of a therapist: www.perspectivemedia.com/my-ai-shrink...

From mi-neged and naamod demo yesterday outside the UK foreign office.

Said to my daughter, "But why do they all have such long hair, is it easier to tie back than a bob?" and this sort of primeval roar was expunged from her body, fists raised towards heaven. Followed by the outrageous slander that I make this exact comment every single time I watch women's football.

Did everyone know this but me? Go and type Geocities into Google, if you're long enough in internet tooth to remember what Geocities was. Hahaha.

imagine telling the columnists who wanted to send in the army on some inner-London kids in 2011 that fifteen years on they'd actually be pro-riots

I just read an article that contained the phrase, "The couple has two children together." Now I understand the argument that couple is a singular, but how can a singular be together? One single entity can't have children with itself. If you ask me! *hoiks bosom*

I would just call it Old Labour.

The readers of my Rightmove Roundup will absolutely love this. Superb effort and an instant follow.

If you're not aware of the levels of punishment now flooding our secondary schools (since academisation), read this. It is scaring a generation of children. 472 kids have had to leave this school in three years - but it's not just this school. www.itv.com/news/meridia...

Is everyone who writes a piece saying 'actually we've been too harsh on the Coldplay couple' going to include the photo along with both their full names, workplace and the details of exactly what they did - or is just the 20 that I've read?

Aah that lovely feeling of logging onto Vinted and finding your child selling off your own clothes.

People keep asking me if Raynor Winn will have to refund everyone who bought her book in good faith. Looks like she'll be able to do so with the proceeds of everyone who bought it without.

Read this, quick.

Was talking to friends about how likely our kids are to actually go to university and one told me something I feel I have misunderstood. She said one big law firm - Slaughter & May? - is now recruiting NON-graduates to train them up to be lawyers. By training them on the job. Can anyone clarify?

There are men on here talking about the Roman Empire.

I will confess to there being a slight element of clickbait in this headline as I did not, precisely, get caught on Coldplay's kisscam. But Chris Martin DID call me out from the stage at a stadium concert, and it went badly for both of us: heawood.substack.com/p/i-got-caug...

I came out of the toilets of a bar in LA and it was dark. Jennifer Aniston embraced me thinking I was the friend she was waiting for and I kept trying to say my hands were wet from the sink not the actual toilet.