Tom Rank

Obviously this makes Lowe look like a complete tool (if further evidence were needed), but it also shows the pernicious effects of confirmation bias. 'People in boats = illegal migrants' is just one of a string of equally false equations, including 'irregular migrant = illegal migrant'. 1/2

Meme from 'The Simpsons' cartoon shows a bus driver saying "don't make me tap the sign". Underneath, the sign in question reads "entering a country to seek asylum is never illegal".

We'd really love to stop having to tap the sign.

The book a vengeful Ham-let is reading in Act 2 Scene 2 about "most weak hams"

Today's homonyms:
Reins: used to guide horses you're riding, hence metaphors about "having free rein"
Reigns: something the King* does, and nothing to do with letting someone have free rein

*Other monarchs are available

O do not ask if I am beach body ready O do not ask if I am beach body ready.   Observe how the folds of my stomach ripple like the wind-pulled waves.   Rub your hands over these pale buttocks, sand-smoothed by time.   Note my milk-white limbs like washed up whalebones, stranded and useless.   Consider these tufts of hair on my back and shoulders sprouting wildly like sea-grass.   And listen to the lapping of my socks at the shores of my sandals.   And still you ask me if I am beach body ready?   Brian Bilston

I’ve been in training all year - and I’m glad to now finally declare myself beach body ready.

A banner advert for the University of Warwick, which says "Beyond ignores curiousity". This is a spelling error.

The University of Warwick has paid a lot of money, I'm guessing, for their internet banner ads on the Guardian and elsewhere.

But they can't spell "curiosity". This isn't a US-UK variant. They just, genuinely, have a massive spelling error in their banner ads.

As summer begins, we’re sharing glimpses and lines of poems which feel perfect for the season. Week 1 features some lines from the wonderfully knowing "Hotel Petroleum" by Mark Fiddes (@fiddeswrites). Thanks to Mark and @themothmagazine. #ForwardPrizes

If you are more broadly interested in forensic linguistics and the kind of evidence we give, we have a podcast (doesn’t everyone!) It’s called “Writing Wrongs” and you can find it on all podcast platforms or at www.aston.ac.uk/writing-wrongs

Reminder, because one is sorely needed: Arriving in the UK via irregular means, such as by a precarious small boat crossing, is not in itself illegal.

Only those asylum seekers refused asylum are genuinely "illegal".

It's disgusting that Yvette Cooper and Labour paint them all with the same brush.

A lot of British people don't really grasp that we'd have a ceremonial and symbolic non executive president.

The whole "look at America and see what can happen" thing simply doesn't apply.

It's more a case of "look at Ireland or Germany".

I spoke to the AI avatar of a Leeds MP. How did it cope with my Yorkshire accent? Leeds MP Mark Sewards has launched a digital assistant, but the results of my chat show MPs’ aides ’ave nowt to worry about

Reet ladging, but it's got a focus on AI chatbots and Yorkshire dialect...
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

The ancient Byzantine Church of St Porphyrios, Gaza.
Founded 425CE.
Photographed by the Ecole Biblique 1922.
Bombed by the IDF 2024.

From the exhibition Trésors Sauvés de Gaza - 5000 ans d'histoire at L'Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris

Until I’m blu in the face. UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW IT IS NOT ILLEGAL TO ENTER ANY COUNTRY BY SMALL BOATS PROVIDING YOU SUCCESSFULLY CLAIM ASYLUM
68% of all those crossing the Channel in small boats are granted asylum. So Mr Starmer two thirds are crossing LEGALLY!!!

14 years of destruction and rigging of funding and undermining northern Cities in particular.
Sunsk boasted about stashing the shires
This should have the NeoCons of Tufton street ranting ...
Solid progress here by Angela Rayner
In the @yorkshirepost.co.uk today
@tracybrabinmayorwy.bsky.social

Steve Messam's wool covered tower in the heather at Penistone country park.

Nice day around Haworth. Steve Messam's Tower looking phenomenal in the Heather.

No country for cold homes • Resolution Foundation The Government’s imminent Warm Homes Plan aims to overhaul England’s housing stock so homes are cheaper and cleaner to keep warm. This note sets out how it can best work to improve living standards fo...

⚡⚡ New @resfoundation.bsky.social note out today looking at how the Government should prioritise its £13 billion Warm Homes Plan budget ⚡⚡ www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications...

My name is Juan, and last week, something special happened.
🧵

🌞

From English lessons and befriending schemes to days out to the beach - City of Sanctuary groups & our partners do all they can to ensure people seeking are sanctuary are met with dignity, support and the opportunity to thrive.

Get involved today:
cityofsanctuary.org/groups

The requirement to have a passport or documentation to prove nationality seems to misunderstand most asylum seekers' situations. It will eliminate vast majority of Eritreans (is it discriminatory?) Will certainly be challenged and become an ever lengthening process (like all HO processes)

Once more, with feeling: yes, fund councils properly, but this isn't really what's happening with allotments.
bsky.app/profile/tomr...

Well done to whoever did this in the concrete outside the Globe Theatre

Doorway with bust of Louis de Soissons in pediment

The bust of Louis de Soissons, architect and town planner, on Denmark House, Welwyn Garden City. De Soissons created WGC's masterplan in 1920 and designed and planned around forty percent of its building schemes over four decades until his death in 1962.

Oh yes. The liberalisation of gambling is one of the worst examples of corruption against the public interest in recent times. Just tax this crap to death

Indeed, and don't forget that very early Christian convert, the Ethiopian eunuch. Acts 8 if he wants to check.

Ban asylum seekers who work illegally from gaining refugee status, Tories say The Conservatives say the UK's informal working market is acting as a "pull factor" for small boat crossings in the Channel.

Once more for those at the back. Working as an undocumented delivery drive is not a "pull factor". People are not risking their lives crossing the channel to work for Deliveroo.
Doing so is an outcome of the system once people are here.
1/2 #r4today

news.sky.com/story/ban-as...

Everything you know about everything being wrong is wrong. (After thousands of years of enquiry and thought we have, actually, accumulated a fair amount of collective knowledge, which is in the process of being trashed by the worst people alive.)

Graph showing poverty levels including child poverty reaching 36%

Shocking news. 36% of UK children are living in poverty according to the latest Social Metrics Commission research (I am one of the Commissioners)
www.theguardian.com/society/2024...

Education just seems to contradict itself all the time. One minute we have hand wringing about screen time/attendance/isolation, the next we have virtual teaching, with students plugged in online…

Getting pigeon-pilled is an incredible ride. Rediscovering the beauty and prestige of the bird feels like a whole new world. Fun fact: though in English bibles we translate them as the "dove + olive branch" from Noah's Ark and the "dove" at Jesus's baptism, in the original languages, it's a pigeon!