Kate

The Hidden Life of Trees Check out this great listen on Audible.com. How do trees live? Do they feel pain or have awareness of their surroundings? Research is now suggesting trees are capable of much more than we have ever kn...

£1.99 today, The Hidden Life of Trees is a fascinating glimpse into the greatest anchor of the natural world. #Trees echo through our history, connecting us with the most bucolic paintings, greatest sailing ships, and oldest church doors. But their legacy in our experience is only part of the story.

Struck once again by the way Elon Musk has become all the things his admirers claimed to despise when they lied about George Soros doing them…

We don't have a problem with vastness of space in England. I live in a Victorian-era terraced house with rooms where the ceiling height is greater than the width of the walls, the kitchens were added on the back in the 70s with matchsticks and papier-mache, and I think the stairs are haunted.

If today is hard for you for any reason, I’m sorry.
You deserve better and I hope you get it soon.
Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, I don’t know. But at some point whatever’s weighing you down is going to feel lighter.
Sit it out, you’ll get there.
❤️

I wrote this for @centralbylines.bsky.social back in February 👇🏻

Thank you to the MPs who spoke passionately in Parliament re: #AssistedDying. All sides offered a range of opinions and experiences throughout a respectful discussion about an emotive topic that ultimately touches us all.

It's vital we continue these conversations about improving end of life care.

Just as we expected, Reform are going to start singing from the Trumpian/Christofascist hymnsheet. Not because they care about abortion at all, but because they know they can weaponise women's rights and sacrifice them on the alter of their own ambition.

We cannot let it happen here.

He's like a pompous live-action Clippy from Microsoft Word. "Did you mean 'slavery was awful but haven't we built nice things with the money'?"

The irony would be amusing if he wasn't pestering you so constantly. Do you think he has any awareness of just how colonial his sense of entitlement is?

Shhh, don't tell the other one we're here.

I'm trying to keep up with all the people who are now only here, but it feels like going to Tesco's and finding they've moved everything around. It's all weird and I don't like it and no I don't want any cheese this is meant to be sausages!

Badenoch's memefied approach to PMQs doesn't make her seem 'eccentric', it makes her sound childish.

And not in a free-spirited or playful way; but like half the reason Starmer seems so exasperated with her is because he's trying to run the country while also stopping her from eating glue.

If you're looking for a reason to tune the news out a little and unwind better in the evenings, the new @bbcradio4.bsky.social #BookAtBedtime is Kit de Waal's brand new multi-generational tale of modern Ireland, which we explore through the many lives of a single family.

Listening to ep1 right now.

📌 To browse the Historians and journals lists tomorrow, thank you.

Oh he won't get anywhere with his toddler tantrum demands, but it's fun to imagine him being given a complete dressing down by either our PM or Deputy. They'd both wipe the floor with him in very different ways.

I'd actually quite like to see fElon go toe to toe on policy with a lawyer of Starmer's experience.

Better still; put him in front of Rayner and send what's left of his ego back to America in a Quality Street tin.

Dorries' brain is most accurately represented by two hamsters fighting in Boris' crustiest sock.

What do we have to do to stop her being invited to these programmes, as if she's an authority on anything but gin and rejection?

Benjamin Zephaniah "If you didn't have troublemakers, most women wouldn't have the right to vote, a black person wouldn't be talking to a white person and I'd be back in slavery. We need troublemakers to challenge the establishment. I want to be one of those people."

He's managing to make worse appointments than Kemi and I don't think even she knew that was possible.

"There's none so blind
as those who will not see."
Now they're blaming the dinghies
on the RNIB.

Play the Hidden Books Game from National Book Tokens! Guess all 20 book titles hidden in the picture.

It's the time of year where we ruin our peace of mind and threaten our sanity with the #HiddenBooksGame. I apologise in advance.

The only way to get through this madness is together, by sharing clues with people who will ignore the screaming...

hiddenbooks.nationalbooktokens.com/default.aspx...

As bat signals go, that one looks less like they're hoping to summon Gotham's favourite vigilante and more like someone's trying to resurrect Prince Philip.

Small acts of insubordination and resistance help, too. (You can still put a kiss at the end. Nobody will know where you're suggesting it lands.) 😘

Greg! Doesn't it go against some kind of children's author's code to give people nightmares like that? 😱

I really don't want to know why that exists. (It's going to be for the same reason I once saw a book cover of a t-rex in silk short-shorts, isn't it?)

Of all the different ways you have traumatised me, this is the worst. 🤢😆

Crikey, I'm not sure what Dawkins is taking but I think quite a lot of it got into the US water supply.

It's almost as cavernous as the whistling, tumbleweed gap between her ears.

#BlueskySocial is buzzing with a vibrant new community. Meanwhile, over on #ElonMusk's #X (aka #Twitter's zombified remains)...

It was so good, and incredibly poignant at this time of so much uncertainty for the NHS. A stark reminder of why its creation was such a vital step forward, and that it must be supported to better cope with the demands on it now.

📌

It really is such a marvellous resource. Browsing its stacks is is the spiritual opposite of doom scrolling.

And this is the way I discover there's no edit button here.