Melinda Batchelor

The view out the back of the library. The streetlights are off. The sky is blue with yellow at the horizon.

Okay brace yourself because this is BIG!

It's Monday night and it's 5pm so it's time for EPISODE SEVEN of 'How light is it in #Orkney at 5pm this week?'

OH MY THE STREETLIGHTS ARE OFF AND IT'S LITERALLY THIS LIGHT! 💡

Keep sharing the words of Akinola Davies Jr that the BBC would not broadcast. Keep repeating them. Keep amplifying them.
Words matter.

Some day we'll all regret this & we'll hold hearings & rend garments & pledge "never again" & we'll be just as full of shit as we were last time.

Tess Finch Lees: From the Winter Olympics to Nasa, wearing masks is back – except when it comes to our hospitals Despite mounting evidence on Covid’s harms, healthcare guidance is inadequate

“Meanwhile, when asked why she’s masking during chemo, Meg now says, “I’m training for the Olympics”.”

It’s wild that masking in sports is sometimes more normalized than masking in medical settings.

The reason they’re going to stuff you all into concentration warehouses instead of camps this time is because you have drones now and might take pictures.

I think you may be right. I’ll pass the point on to the production team.

Who's the billionaire behind London’s biggest mass eviction? He's the London philanthropist who says he's committed to solving homelessness. So why is Asif Aziz's Criterion Capital rushing to make hundreds of Londoners homeless in the coming weeks?

London’s “worst mass eviction in recent history” is underway; hundreds of households across London told to get out of their homes this week by the same landlord, ahead of the renters rights act. The landlord? Billionaire Asif Aziz’s Criterion Capital. www.londoncentric.media/p/asif-aziz-...

A cat who once had a big suburban house and a hugely stressful prestigious job and now lives on a cliff instead, free of the trappings of modern life, to the admiration of its friends, who, as they idealise its life, never imagine the terrible loneliness it feels during cold winters, six miles from the nearest shop, cinema and pub.

THREAD.

A collection of photos I have taken of excellent cats I have met on walks.

You will find the all-important captions to the photos in the alt text.

One UK school trip last week saw US border guards attempt to isolate & ‘interview’ a few children in the party with non-UK backgrounds, locking them in the control booths on arrival. The teachers had to shout from the queue that their minors needed supervision & couldn’t be taken for questioning.

a race car is driving down a track with a red and white striped barrier . ALT: a race car is driving down a track with a red and white striped barrier .

Visual representation of Trump's tarrifs:

SCOTUS basically said “quiet, piggy”

And yet we were told that Brits in the EU and EU citizens in the UK had nothing to fear from Brexit.

In unrelated news, Jon Moynihan and Matthew Elliott are now in the House of Lords, Mark Littlewood was reported to be on Liz Truss's resignation honours list, and Helena Morrissey has been knighted.

Jenrick Among the Folding Tables A New Yorker profile

ICYMI open.substack.com/pub/mrhenrym...

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Inquiry brought up the case of Denholm Elliott's daughter - PAUL McMULLAN: Oh, yeah - BROOKE GLADSTONE: - which is one case that you truly do regret. PAUL McMULLAN: I do, yeah. After Denholm died, she hit rock bottom, was allegedly doing methadone. And although she had, you know, the half-million-pound flat that Denholm had bought her, she didn't have any money to get her ten-pound bag in the morning. So she'd get up and go begging at the tube station. Here was a young girl crying out to be helped, and she met a police officer who didn't help her but rang up the News of the World and asked for money because he couldn't believe that this is the same girl who'd walked down the red carpet behind Eddie Murphy with Denholm Elliott, you know.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And you offered her 50 pounds - PAUL MCMULLAN: Yeah. BROOKE GLADSTONE: - if she would come to your place and have sex. So you led her into prostitution, which she wasn't in that space for. PAUL McMULLAN: No, indeed. But she was in such a bad place that someone offering her 50 pounds for sex. I mean, that's five bags.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So how do you justify that? Yes, she was a drug addict, yes, she was begging. Why push her that extra step? Why take pictures of her topless? PAUL McMULLAN: I was keen. It was in my first year. I wanted to impress Piers Morgan, who was my boss at the time, and just wanted to say, not only have I caught this girl begging, but l've got pictures of her topless and I've got her offering me sex for 50 quid. How great am I? BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is a pretty dehumanizing enterprise, not just for Jennifer Elliott, but for you, yourself. PAUL McMULLAN: Yeah, that's why I feel terrible about it, not just 'cause she killed herself afterwards, but I, I actually liked her as a person.

Sharing from a friend, a passage from the Leveson Inquiry regarding the British actor Denholm Elliott, who died of AIDS in 1992. Three years after her death, the News of the World journalist Paul McMullan did the following to his daughter—neither a celebrity nor even someone of public interest.

The noise of the executive complaining of the judiciary, even in circumstances like this, is a sweet constitutional sound.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan, appointed by RFK Jr. to chair the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, questions whether Americans still need the polio shot, arguing individual autonomy should outweigh public health mandates.
theintellectualistofficial.substack.com/p/rfk-jrs-to...

Study Finds Intermittent Fasting No More Effective Than Conventional Eating Disorder

Study Finds Intermittent Fasting No More Effective Than Conventional Eating Disorder https://theonion.com/study-finds-intermittent-fasting-no-more-effective-than-conventional-eating-disorder/

YouTube video by eddiepurple The Day Today - Constitutional Crisis Film

youtu.be/7Fjv5JJbjvw?...

Another article by Libby Purves which reveals her ignorance of characters in The Archers. She is unaware Harrison & Fallon are married.

Wish Radio Times would have articles by people who actually listen to #TheArchers

Just been commissioned to do a quick libel-safe and contempt-safe explainer of Misconduct in Public Office. Should be up shortly.

Don't try this at home...

Reform's "policy" on the two-child benefit cap has switched more times than Trump's on the Chagos Islands, and over a much shorter time.

#R4Today

@mrjamesob.bsky.social Bedford CC dealing with the bigots like an absolute boss.

Normalize laughing derisively in men's faces when they deserve it.

Counterpoint:

Don’t upload your medical records to any LLM.

That’s fucking insane.

Good work, Brendan Carr.

Chicago Clergy Win Court Order Against ICE. Will ICE Comply? A day before Ash Wednesday, clergy say they still haven’t heard from ICE about providing pastoral care to Broadview detainees.

"Clergy remain unsure if ICE will follow the judge’s injunction. Its terms also require that government authorities confer with Chicago clergy to establish safety protocol for Ash Wednesday and negotiate future ministry ... As of Tuesday, Feb. 17, CSPL said they had not heard from ICE officials."

1st one lemon juice/sugar but the vanilla icecream/golden syrup.

Two lambs jumping in the air, they are facing away with a brick wall in the background

When you realise it's still light outside at 5pm!

Photo: Justin Minns