Dr Jo Kershaw

I’m not trying to suggest the current situation is OK, I agree it’s awful.

I remember that poor guy who was arrested while flying into Philly for doing maths while looking like some idiot passenger’s idea of an Arab (he was actually from southern Italy and was a Ph.D student or junior academic).

I know it’s not impossible but I’ve never seen one on this site!

Yes

I had to pop up to the monastery, and I think I just heard a blackcap

Dignity of labour does not mean “your work is a vocation (and therefore we can exploit you)“

And the article doesnt even engage with whether working class voters are actually socially conservative. Note how many poorer voters are going Green here

I mean it’s not like anyone believes it’s all going to be smooth sailing anyway!

It helps if you start from the perspective that actually saying 'due to this war, things will get worse' is more helpful than making unduly optimistic claims.

There has always been a right wing working class vote, though their party of choice has varied (and there’s clearly a difference between working class Tories who would never have dreamed of voting for the National Front and people who voted Tory but would have gone or did go further right).

Most of the Reform-curious (or actually Reform supporting) people I come across haven’t voted Labour for some time, if they ever did.

I think they are over-estimating a) how many properly socially conservative people there actually are in this country (and I live in the sort of town that Naismith is invoking) b) how may people who are a bit socially conservative care all that deeply and c) how open the ones that do are to Labour

But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one, the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.

I’m absolutely not saying it’s an ok policy, it’s bad and the implications for Gillick competence are also worrying.

Build is imo more useful anyway.

Not that I think large numbers of trans youth are on this decidedly Millennial, Gen X and Boomery website, but fwiw, it’s true. People are absolutely awful at spotting trans people *because it’s impossible to do it with consistent accuracy*

The news about the banning of prescribing puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to under 18s is bad, but I just want to say that transitioning post-puberty does not doom you to never pass (if that’s what you want to do). It is absolutely untrue that “you can always tell.”

If you’re reading this and you’re scared, that’s understandable. And I can’t tell you that you’ll be able to pass as cis. But just to give you a single data point, I didn’t come out at work until I was 34. You can be alright, and you do have a future. People know what trans people are. It’s fine.

Sounds a bit like Peterhouse, which when I was in Cambridge (eek, getting on for fifteen years ago) had some of the worst high table food - but a large proportion of the dons were public school and a combo of public school dinners and the nursery was what they liked…

Yeah, probably. Or even there was a size guide on the website. If it’s a US firm I’d expect them to give it that way, I just think some translation would be useful…

Transgender laird takes to the battlements over tourist lodge The Daily Telegraph9 Mar 2026By Telegraph Reporter Samantha Kane, also known as Lady Carbisdale A TRANSGENDER laird is locked in a planning row with a neighbour over plans for a new holiday let in the Scottish Highlands. Samantha Kane, who became the self-styled Lady Carbisdale after buying Carbisdale Castle near Ardgay in 2022, has objected to neighbour Rupert Haig-thomas’s plans to build a lodge for tourists. Under the proposals, the lodge would include three bedrooms, a kitchen-diner, a snug sitting room, a living room, a boot room, and several bathrooms. But Kane said the plans were not suitable for the area, which is surrounded by ancient forest and is in an area of outstanding beauty. Cardisdale Castle “should be cherished and protected”, Kane said, telling The Telegraph: “I want to preserve it for future generations, I don’t want anything to harm the castle. “It is a complete disregard for the area and history of the land.” In planning documents, Kane said the plans would “devastate the castle”, was “not in keeping with the design” and would “interfere with the aesthetic setting of Carbisdale Castle”. A second objection from Kane’s company, Carbisdale Castle Ltd, added: “The lodge will be adverse to the historic listed building and it will negatively impact the setting and the nature and our business model here at Carbisdale Castle.

You would never know it, but the Editor's Code of Conduct says that someone's status as trans should only be mentioned if relevant to the story.

Anyway, here's the Telegraph today...

In fairness I don’t understand why Det Insp Anthea Ponting put it that way, because I don’t think most British people can visualise that without doing some possibly inaccurate maths, but it’s fairly clear it’s a weight range. You’d have thought.

I know giving people’s weights in pounds is an American thing (even if you still think in imperial for those purposes it’s stones here), but seriously?!

“HIELANMAN'S UMBRELLA” should be a new law of journalism, which states that if AI generated photos are used in a news article, all reporting from that publication should be instantly distrusted.

A website to avoid (not, of course, the peerless Seat 61…)

NO NO NO YOU DON’T

GUYS LET ME PLEASE SPREAD THE GOSPEL OF FREE TAX USA

federal is free, state is $16, handles even my chaotic freelancer taxes just fine, same step-by-step “designed for normies” kind of interface as TurboTax but NOT EVIL

tell everyone you know

www.freetaxusa.com

Stonework detail: a bearded chap with a bare chest and a very spiky dragon.

Father Clyde wrestles a dragon, from the old Southern Fire Station in Tradeston.

Right. No disrespect to Viggo Mortensen, he played the part very well, but Stephens was iconic.

Hats off to the fire brigade.

”Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality.”
The Wealth of Nations, landmark work by Scottish Enlightenment economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith, first volume published #OTD 1776.
Portrait medallion by James Tassie, 1787, National Portrait Gallery London