Louise

A charming socialist meets a charming socialite and sparks fly

A tale I must tell today on my late mother, and in doing so, I mean no actual disrespect to the Cheney family, grieving as they are for the actual loss of their loved one. The humor that follows is that of the Simon family's dark and dystropic sense of humor and so, an apology in advance.
However...

1 Nurse: It’s become a real problem in this area 2 Nurse: We’ve seen the whole community lost to addiction 3 Show a building sign posted: Westminster ‘X’ Addiction Clinic With various Westminster people or looking at their phones outside it Nurse: Ministers, Spads, Researchers… 4 Nurse: Most mornings we’ll get a call about someone acting strangely [Nurse on phone taking a call] Ok - we’ll be right over 5 Nurse: We just have a gentle chat [Nurses approach a minister –Robert Jenrick? - standing in the Palace of Westminster Minister: I understand your concerns… 6 Nurse: Are you OK love? Minister: Yes I’m just hearing legitimate concerns from real voters 7 Nurse: That’s a robot, a Nazi and a poorly-disguised Russian [Show that the people he is talking to are precisely these characters] Nurse 2: Give us your phone, love 8 Nurse: At the clinic we put them in a Grass-Touching Pod, with a real voter to talk to [We see them back at the clinic, holding the minister's head and pushing him into a glass isolation booth with a grass floor. And it is a baffled looking woman, on a chair, ready to talk to him.] 9 Minister: YOU MUST BE WORRIED ABOUT THE COMING CIVIL WAR [woman looks baffled] 10 woman: I just want a bus service Minister: LOOK AT MY FLAG [produces a St George's flag] [ends]

Article reads: Woman named as Archbishop of Canterbury in historic first The 63-year-old archbishop-designate is married to Eamonn Mullally, with whom she has two children. Originally from Woking in Surrey, she was the UK's chief nursing officer from 1999 to 2004.

This article manages to name her husband before it names… her.

A little kindness goes a long way - Refugee Council Not everyone agrees all the time. It’s normal to have different opinions on immigration and asylum. But there are some things we can all agree on.

Useful advice
www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/support-us/c...

Let’s make this happen #KidicalMass #Insurance donate and share in your networks @walkridegm.org.uk @rideleicester.bsky.social @bricycle.bsky.social @londoncycling.bsky.social @camcycle.bsky.social @yorkcycle.bsky.social @kidicalmass.bsky.social www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/km-insuran...

As big/bigger issue in social care is career progression. A skilled care worker with years of experience barely earns anything more than a new hire, so care services loses staff to the better paid NHS where that experience is valued.

Super interesting. Is there a paper that sits behind this?

This Fucking Guy I lived in New York City for twenty-five years and I don’t live there anymore.

If you or anyone you know is still considering ranking Andrew Cuomo for mayor, please read this piece from @rtraister.bsky.social - the NY Mag journalist who covered the sexual harassment allegations against him
substack.com/home/post/p-...

Show Your Stripes Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

A good British summer is a joy and a delight. 32⁰ is too hot, and a sign that our climate is in crisis. #showyourstripes

showyourstripes.info/c/europe/uni...

Looking for something to do this weekend? There's a family friendly #communityride leaving from Pond Square in Highgate this Sunday lcc.org.uk/events/highg...

How To Do Soul-Craft With State Tools On Literacy and AI

"our society selects for the affordances of a medium—speed, ease, efficiency—not for its effects. And it is the effects of literacy that hold its civilizational value. [Those] deep cognitive and ethical capacities are not being selected for. They are not easily monetized or optimized."

No one anywhere would want voters to elect a tier of government that just runs one largely invisible thing badly with rules and obligations it doesn’t set using money it doesn’t raise. Yet, thanks to a generation of failure on social care policy, that is now what “local government” means here.

A Union for Hopeful Technologists What if progressive people who work in technology had an advocacy body?

Since I posted this last Thursday, nearly 50 people have offered their support to try and set something up and more than 250 have expressed an interest in joining. Not sure what it is yet - a union, a professional body - and how it relates to other orgs buttondown.com/justenoughin...

thank you x

So pleased to see this. I often wonder whether a facility like this could have saved my sister's life. I hope it is able to save other people's sisters.

And there it is. #whamaggedon thanks to a busker at London Bridge. Curses

This sits really nicely alongside Mimi Onuoha's Missing Datasets project bsky.app/profile/anab...

I met Thi earlier this week and he is now my number one example of what management science could and should have been

I sat in court at the Gisèle Pelicot rape trial. This is what I saw Gisèle Pelicot became a symbol of courage when she waived her anonymity to attend the trial of her husband and 50 other men accused of raping her — and ignited fierce debate about the law surrounding ...

I hadn't originally intended to post this - not so much because it must be one of the most harrowing (but brilliant) pieces of reporting I've ever read, but because many wouldn't be able to access it anyway. Apparently (and apologies if this isn't the case), however, it's currently free to read.

On Small Seasons and Long Calendars

What are good things you've read about time, and how people think about their time, organize it, etc.? This is one of my favorites

rosszurowski.com/log/2018/sma...

Ever wondered why walking around museums is weirdly tiring? At normal speed our legs act like pendulums, swinging forward from the hip & saving us a huge amount of energy. In "museum shuffle" our muscles must do ALL the work of constant readjustment. So cake in the cafe is scientifically justified 🥳

Women Speak Volumes Between Generations - Words of Colour

Young Black women aged 18-30 are invited to join an exciting new hybrid programme for budding archivists and curators. Open until 9th December. Please share :)

Screengrab of tweet by PerfumeAdsforSale says "New York is empty but for one man / Idris Elba is in a kilt / His eyes are eternal/ His thoughts, black and white / He pulls out a pocket telescope & looks out / Telescope POV: in the distances, Elba is looking back at himself through another telescope /BOTH ELBAS: "Checkmate" / 'BELONG'

@perfumeads is one of the weird twitter accounts I miss the most. They were all genius.

Three things DALLE-3 can’t do: “relations (e.g. “a picture of a potato under a spoon”), negations (e.g. “a picture of something that is NOT a potato”), and discrete numbers (e.g. a “a picture of 6 potatoes”).”

Joined up thinking: Seven tests for the integrated national transport strategy | IPPR Transport isn’t working for people. It is also not living up to its potential in supporting the government’s missions. The Labour government inherited tran

New blog from me on seven tests for the integrated national transport strategy. The strategy could demonstrate joined up thinking by government and drive tangible improvements in communities across England before the next election. What do we need to see for it to live up to its potential?

yeah I don't think it's about income, I think it's about notional asset value, derived from the rental value.

I *think* that part of it is that the local authorities themselves are the owners of a lot of the properties and if they drop their rents then their in-year accounts become even more dire and they're at greater risk of section 114 notices? (Caveat: Not sure if this rumour or fact)

I am grateful to my brother for telling me to slog on past the baseball at the beginning of Don DeLillo's Underworld. I would have given up otherwise, but actually once you get through that bit it's a great book.