Alison Booth

If we don't use our small poetry presses, we'll lose them. This is why I refuse to flinch or shy from asking you to purchase a copy of Whatever You Do, Just Don't, my second full collection.

Here's a sample poem from the book. Just drop me a DM and I'll sort out a signed copy for you...

If only they might think about leaving a great legacy in their social circles, their local community and their work instead.

🤣 Superb!

Not a great look that so many university libraries are promoting AI. Libraries have always been a space for valuing authors' work and showing how to locate and properly cite sources--not encouraging tech that steals from authors and produces slop.

Academics & Librarians are all about anti-slop: tethered detail not simplification & generalisation. You start with the detail then gradually home out, identify patterns, links, structure. If you start higher up the information food chain, it's like only reading commentary, not the primary sources.

I think it's true in all fields (certainly including academia) that the way senior/big names treat junior or less well-established people is a real pointer as to their character and whether any 'charm' they are said by their peers to have is genuine or an act.

Labour launch the UK's first-ever plan to tackle forever chemicals Our Labour government are today launching the UK's first-ever plan to tackle 'forever chemicals'!

Important news you may have missed today:

Labour launch the UK's first-ever plan to tackle forever chemicals!

open.substack.com/pub/warrenoa...

It’s the Epstein files deja vu: how many more powerful men knew about his crimes, and helped him out anyway? | Marina Hyde I’m sorry, but this is not just a political scandal. Time to refocus on the horrific mistreatment of women and girls, and the role of these ghouls, says Guardian columnist Marina Hyde

YES, Marina. Standing ovation. Feel like framing this for hitting the nail with the contempt that all the squirming silence deserves.
#notallbillionares

This is the video to share and show anyone who thinks brexit hasn’t been done ‘properly’ yet and going further would be good for this country.

Join the @labour4europe.bsky.social and let’s take back control.

Click their account to do so.

I sometimes despair that the camera can never really capture just how amazing the natural world can be. But sometimes, just sometimes, the winter light hits those reeds and all those reflections pop... #birds #birdphotography #birding #photooftheday #photography #NatureIsAmazing

Matt Goodwin and the end of England How one man's career explains our public life.

Matt Goodwin and the end of England: How one man's career explains our public life iandunt.substack.com/p/matt-goodw...

How ICE Already Knows Who Minneapolis Protesters Are

A Minnesota woman observing ICE agents in her car was cornered on one-way streets. An agent approached, called her by name—citing facial recognition. Days later, her Global Entry and TSA privileges were revoked, with no explanation.

Isn't it the same in the States? Hollywood hero worship, reality TV president, rule by screeching headlines instead of measured, detailed debate. Everything is entertainment for the media. The visual rules. Has the "1st world" lost its sense of what really matters in life?

We urgently need a parliamentary debate on Palantir. Please sign this & share with your network. Via @the-citizens.bsky.social & @change.org.

www.change.org/p/hold-a-par...

When ICE pull people out of their cars or offices, or off the streets, is there a process to check whether there are children at school or vulnerable adults being cared for at home? The random nature of the swoops, the violence and the lack of due process are nothing short of horrific.

There is huge local effort in North Herefordshire to tackle agricultural pollution in the Wye & Lugg - but we need proper government support for the solutions local people want: farmer-led landscape recovery projects; more funding and teeth for the EA, and a WPZ for the Wye.

"Not ready for that yet"?!! 😱 Yet?

Now he’s policing free speech in the land if the free. Didn’t he learn “”Sticks and stones..,” from his mom? Any old excuse!

The midterms are 10 months away, but Donald Trump is already meddling in them.

Why a raid in Georgia today should concern everyone 👇

My last employer disabled all usb ports.

What Americans Lose If Their National Center for Atmospheric Research Is Dismantled - Eos Five ways dismantling NCAR will cost the American people, and two ways to save it.

eos.org/opinions/wha...

I compare here the rapid downfall of Johnson after Partygate with what might happen to Trump, when the scales finally fall from, and even his most addled supporters realize they’ve been backing a sleazy, shifty, corrupt crook. It will take longer and be harder in the US, but at least it’s a start….

Very good from @mrjohncrace.bsky.social

Can't see Mancunians falling for him.

How Badenoch’s meeting with Mike Johnson led to Trump’s Chagos deal rant A brief encounter set off a chain of events that culminated in a public rebuff to the US president from Keir Starmer

So it was Badenoch *personally* who stabbed Britain in the back during the Greenland crisis! Simply unbelievable. Ought to be a resignation matter.
www.theguardian.com/world/2026/j...

🎯 🎯

Record number of people in UK live in ‘very deep poverty’, analysis shows Joseph Rowntree Foundation finds problem is ‘deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years’

Meanwhile, back in the real world...

Here's how to identify some crowd control munitions, canisters of which federal agents have left on the ground after deploying them against people in Minnesota. bit.ly/3YWp1jE

Graphic by Mark Boswell/The Minnesota Star Tribune