Varina

Sidenote: for some reason the final fact that you need to learn for the history section of the Life in the UK test is apparently that Donald Trump won the presidency on November 4th. Which....is simply not a thing that happened in the UK

You can really tell that whoever wrote the official Home Office study guide for the the Life in the UK test is acutely aware that no Irish person would ever need to take this thing. The description of Cromwell alone could re-start the Troubles (to say nothing of the Famine).

If you need something to delight you on your feed, I highly recommend following for Rat October

Look, I am a 40-year-old woman. I think any chance I was going to outgrow it and not always giggle at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has long since passed. It is what it is now.

Cheese emailed you?

A lady with short light brown hair wearing a purple top and green cardigan with a large Luxite necklace with medallions shaped. Like turnip lanterns and leaves

Today seemed like a good day for my neepie lantern necklace

The part about it being a LIGHT TOUCH of cologne can not be overstated

I mean alternatively: inside is safe and warm and dry and there's food and comfy places to sleep. Why would he want to go outside?

And this is the problem.

Because antisemitism is always, always wrong.

This was an attack on British Jews, praying in their shul on the holiest day of the year.

If your response to hearing of their murder starts with “but Gaza” you are missing the point.

It seems like a lot of non-Jews in the UK are learning that we always/already have extra security in our synagogues on the most holy days. It's kind of maddening, like the first time you explain to a male friend what you do to walk home alone at night and they're like 😳

Trad caths reinventing Protestantism is not what I had on my 2025 bingo cars

As every day, today is a good day to donate:

@edopenresearch.bsky.social do it! It only costs £25 in book tokens plus whatever your heart moves you to spend on trophy materials in hobbycraft

Everything may be awful in our governments, but this still brings me joy. Click through and see the cool AF entries from previous years!

Wow! Congrats on doing the bare minimum and denouncing the most explicit racism.
The suffragettes had a slogan that feels relevant here (they used it slightly differently): deeds not words.
If you're policies drive out and make life unlivable for immigrants, I simply don't care what you say.

Next week in UK politics:

Fuhwaage: we will execute all immigrants

Labour: Reform’s policies are racist. Under Labour immigrants will experience unalivement in a respectful and sensitive manner

Someone needs to tell the Labour party that they can address the legitimate concerns of the working class by improving society through good governance and re-funding the welfare state and exercising (dare I say it) leadership by explaining none of this is immigrants faults.

Shabana Mahmood to demand migrants earn right to settled status New tests will include learning English to a high standard, paying National Insurance and not claiming benefits.

When Farage said he wants to revoke settled status I immediately started to prepare to apply for citizenship and my friends thought I was being a bit paranoid. Farage is always saying stuff. It took Labour less than a week to adopt a watered down version of his proposal www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

J Draper recently made an excellent video describing how Britain destroyed the a rising fascist movement in the '70's. The short version is: build strong coalitions dedicated solely to the issue of stopping Nazis and never ever give an inch, especially in the press
youtu.be/XeHviTKEqSo?...

To be fair, with commercially published books authors have very little control over the book cover, so this is a case where you shouldn't judge the book by its cover. But I'm with you. I do judge the cover! Most severely

I believe this is the absolute nicest time of year to visit the shire. The weather is pleasant and brisk, and everything is sort of at full fluff before various harvests. I hope you enjoy it lots!

Who knows, maybe it's surprisingly satisfying

Exactly, a house cat always lives like we should on the sabbath, and so they make perfect examples of how we can properly rest and relax

A fluffy little grey cat sitting on pink bedspread between two legs

Luna says:Shabbat Shalom! Just stay in bed a little longer

Despite the fact that the proposal is driven by anti-immigrant sentiment, they would also hugely benefit immigrants in this country, as it can be a massive pain to prove right to work or right to rent as it stands now. Also the government already tracks you with NI and HMRC, so I don't get the panic

a woman is smiling with the words thanks i hate it below her Alt: a woman is smiling with the words thanks i hate it below her

Me every time an AI tool pops up on a different site/app I previously found useful, even though I literally did not ask for this:

What looks like a pop-up chat bot and is Elsevier's AI 'Reading Assistant' that claims to be able to quickly summarise the article you clicked on to read.

This now automatically pops up when you open an article on ScienceDirect. Fun fact: Nearly every article on ScienceDirect already has a brief summary of the article right at the top of every page. These are called 'abstracts'.

Cue 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' music

When you're dyslexic but always have to be on time, so in an attempt to arrive twenty minutes early for your 11:14 train, you arrive an hour early for your 11:41 train

The absolute worst