Charlotte Walker

The no DMs thing is really problematic IMO

It’s just the principle that you have to tell Bluesky who you really are that I disagree with. And data breaches happen all the time

This is catastrophic for UK journalists trying to use this platform vs Twitter, will kill DMs for most users and make the experience shit for newbies.

All to stop teenagers accessing porn on a site with no teenagers and where the most arousing content is some graphs posted by policy nerds.

I don't object to the principle of age verification, but I do very much object to uploading scans of my passport/my face/card details to some random third party.

I guess this is the end for everyone who wants to use this site anonymously for their own safety. My advice is to join Mastodon, no one cares who you are over there as long as you’re funny

Congratulations!

How disappointing

We need legislation to prohibit MPs from lying. It's a shame we need this, you'd hope that an MP would have integrity but sadly many have no qualms about blatant deception & misleading.

A white mug with the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction logo holds a spray of lavender next to a stack of the eight books shortlisted for this year's prize: North Continent Ribbon by Ursula Whitcher Remember You Will Die by Eden Robins The City in Glass by Nghi Vo Archangels of Funk by Andrea Hairston The Sapling Cage by Margaret Killjoy Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera The West Passage by Jared Pechaček Blackheart Man by Nalo Hopkinson

We're thrilled to present the shortlist for the 2025 Ursula K. Le Guin Prize for Fiction:

There’s a Catalan phrase for when someone leaves the door open that translates to “are you from Madrid?” A Portuguese version is “are you from Braga?” And the best colloquial phrase for this that I’ve come across from Slovak is “were you born with a yoke up your ass?”

A Mexican phrase often said by dads when someone comes into the house and leaves the door open is “did you come with a mariachi band?” An Italian version is “are we at the Colosseum?” But my favourite is a regional Polish version that goes a drzwi ci koza zjadła? It means “did a goat eat the door?”

Eeeeeee are they taking the top of your skull off or is it medical imaging?

😢

No wasps. A big bee

We’ve just put the parasol up so we can have dinner outside, first time it’s really been nice enough for that

I’ve come out of my cave, I mean office, and it’s so hot and sunny out here! I’d no idea

The interviews went extremely well and the soup was refreshing

The first one was really good

Isabel Oakeshott Britain is trapped in a dizzying decline and London is its epicentre My recent visit to the capital highlighted the grave consequences of uncontrolled immigration and reminded me why I have moved abroad

Isabel Oakeshott Isabel Oakeshott Related Topics Immigration, Central London, Homelessness, Crime, Cotswolds 10 July 2025 8:00am BST 494 Homeless people during the eviction of the Autonomous Winter Shelter on June 1 2023 in London A group of rough sleepers in London Credit: Guy Smallman/Getty The hollyhocks are at peak beautiful in the village I call home. Rearing out of clumps of vibrant lavender that has self-seeded all the way up the street, their little bells come in shades of pale yellow, white and faded pink. As autumn approaches, the plump, green stalks will keel over, flopping onto the pavement like the swords of fallen fairies. For now, they line the road like sentries protecting a piece of England that is so beautiful that being there is like drinking an aphrodisiac. On a midsummer evening, when the air is heavy with the smell of cowslip and the only sound is the beating wings of fat wood pigeons as they sail between slate rooftops, it is dizzyingly perfect. Advertisement Advertisement : 27 sec Returning to the UK this week from a long period abroad, I fell in love with my country all over again, the transition from gleaming, steaming Dubai eased by this glorious weather and a run of luck with trains and planes. For once everything worked, from the seamless eGates at Heathrow, to the thrilling and most unusual availability of decent public transport into London. Back in the Cotswolds, it was so damn lovely that living overseas suddenly felt like a mistake. If the UK is like this, what on earth am I doing, living in the Middle East? Instead of staring across the Arabian Gulf, looking out for stray missiles, I could be smelling peonies in the garden or walking the dog through barley fields. Very briefly, I wondered if, in joining the growing exodus of people from the beleaguered UK, I had taken leave of my senses. Beautiful Cotswolds village of Broadway with flowers, Gloucestershire, England Idyllic villages like Broadway, in the Cotswolds, do n…

A list of things which, according to Isabel Oakeshott, have not existed in London before 2025:
• People using drugs
• Political protest
• Petty crime and fare dodging
• Muggings
• Homelessness
• People with mental illness

Hey, no problem! I know you are a busy person. It’s so nice to connect again 😊

I thought I was going to have a chilled afternoon but I’ve managed to set up two research interviews, one at 12pm and one at 2pm. Time for lunch in the middle, it’s gazpacho today, yay! So the afternoon isn’t chilled but the soup is

Sorry to hear that

And the Universal Credit bill has passed. Some of the sickest people in the country will suffer needlessly more now. There is no justification, no excuse. Just ugly, cruel choices by ministers too cowardly to tax the wealthy rather than cut the poor. A shameful day for Starmer’s Labour.

My amendment to the welfare Bill has not passed.

It would have gone some way to making basic Universal Credit rates meet the cost of life’s basic essentials.

A more humane benefit system is sorely needed by the growing number of families struggling horribly day after day.

It works out so much better for me if I clean my teeth right after dinner instead of just before bed. Sadly I have neglected to do that this evening so now I have to clean my teeth when I’m tired

Saw the welfare bill passed the third reading. I know a lot of disabled comrades will be terrified right now. Solidarity to everyone impacted. We'll fight on.

Children have as much right to their streets as drivers. There is no legal basis for them being shoed off streets. And I have no doubt that cars - moving and parked - cause a nuisance for children.

This is extraordinarily depressing from Manchester City Council.

@playingout.bsky.social

A lovely time is a thing to cherish

Oh no!!!

MPs and much of the media have spun a false narrative about tonight’s Universal Credit vote. The PIP pause has created the myth the government has fully u-turned on its disability cuts. But £2 billion is about to be pulled from the sickest and poorest people in the country.