🐕, 🦆, 🌱 New Spinsters: I’m not going to follow back until you post a bit. Wider Fedi: I’m not going to follow back if you post too much. Nostr: 2c60241a778e47057c7b457e8e31750216a924877c8c21637b719ba573568161
Public Key
npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Profile Code
nprofile1qqswrdajp9fhrjgres5l4jcajjw2vruhvtqhhngw2yg7jtxfncaf9lqpz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerfw36x7tnsw43qz9thwden5te0wfjkccte9ekk7um5wgh8qatz4qgplh
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2026-07-09T21:22:05Z Event JSON
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"content": "{\"name\":\"Flick 🇬🇧\",\"about\":\"🐕, 🦆, 🌱\\n\\nNew Spinsters: I’m not going to follow back until you post a bit. \\n\\nWider Fedi: I’m not going to follow back if you post too much. \\n\\nNostr: 2c60241a778e47057c7b457e8e31750216a924877c8c21637b719ba573568161\",\"picture\":\"https://media.spinster.xyz/accounts/avatars/000/151/650/original/4cbffb576014425fa72e3c441f5bc3ce.png\",\"banner\":\"https://media.spinster.xyz/7ec4984fcdb4f0cb5ca273b26db546987fb6a12ba3308287abe982dbb260faa7.jpeg\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected] \",\"fields\":[[\"Nostr\",\"2c60241a778e47057c7b457e8e31750216a924877c8c21637b719ba573568161\"],[\"Also Nostr\",\"@[email protected] \"]]}" ,
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Last Notes npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I expect so! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I am definitely no bee expert, but I think they might have decided that they’re sick of getting stuck in the house…. Will see what the bee man says! https://media.spinster.xyz/a73bb203ee6e2c0adb4df50fc8b5b8b0aa205bd3af8c4e8d5f966fd55f32ec4d.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Popcorn time! https://metro.co.uk/2026/07/07/count-binface-willing-take-farages-fake-pathetic-by-election-29078731/amp/ It could be Nigel Farage versus Count Binface in the battle for Clacton’s hearts and minds after all the main political parties dropped out of the running for his by-election. Labour, Conservatives, the Lib Dems and Restore Britain have all ruled themselves out of running against Farage amid questions over his £5million gifts. But Count Binface, the intergalactic crusader, has told the other leaders ‘leave him to me’. Count Binface has said: ‘Labour, Tories, Lib Dems and Greens: I demand you stand down in Clacton. ‘I will be a unity candidate and pledge to build at least one affordable house. Nigel Farage says he wants The People versus the Establishment. So be it.’ npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I think it’s fascinating that the women in these recordings have the same accent: I do not think that they are representative. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 1976 https://media.spinster.xyz/90128d690145a2f04c4cc67027cca8a3a7add582d416a967d04022b1f720f664.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/68cea7327d53554419dc53120542840abda3a4aa8f54a0b10c1a998ef4f891a2.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/030e497a472ed3685a5fc2a8302ea63de91205bc6e7d3c75284a93c44ccf6486.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/26f3abd49712c825827d4587c74016aa265cc43c87c42cff515b8b39a10657bf.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Plus they’re in big cities without local knowledge of where to get good quality stuff, I presume. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 No, this is the fresh meat and veggies that their chefs have been cooking for them, not prepared food. The quality is so bad that they’re getting things flown in. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/the-fuss-over-gay-conversion-therapy-is-a-charade/ So why, after the legalisation of gay marriage and the Equality Act, in a world with wide-reaching protections for gay people, have calls for a conversion therapy ban erupted over the past decade? It is actually nothing to do with gay rights at all. It is another attempt by the trans lobby to hijack support for sexual equality to prevent any questioning of their desire to use medical means to surgically alter young men and women. […] The ‘conversion therapy’ they want to ban is the sharing of basic facts with children who are considering life-altering medication and surgery. They want to make it more difficult to dissuade teens from taking the puberty–blocking drugs or undergoing the surgery that could render them infertile or traumatised. Campaigners are not seeking to prevent medical abuse – they are trying to make questions about the validity of transgenderism illegal. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Mushrooms. Hi, Dolly! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/3d2513975aa9c665393b19eb2f4950f63cb7bdc4cbf1777d1bca8273aaa70224.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Why are the noodles green? npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Andy Burnham has done a Reddit AMA. Cringe. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/fde2aa5c153a89f0af52c995f96447e07e6fd5e022c8077eb72e45f9eaf49f98.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/59fed05ac1a713041edd7f9816e61168677550cfab50c9aa23852fd4a309b616.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/e6486df4a3fe2af571b8ab9a76337e2c4bb4ea63fdc4536b4f15dd2c9787be32.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/2743e7890a808bdcd93c8b09138cbf237d0000fdce8e792225f384e8da85a73a.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/f96c9ad4fcde561c695219c93f431c83d725cd6a229053ea1664bdf9daaeca72.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/638128a74b681d35b1597b22a19175868b3c7c528f285d6afe4e1fd794296267.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/bfcdf16bd9e6995289947b9e57dad66acc5dc62e62f75448a9145eb4d31df375.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/8ddc1a2ac95ac525d61e521492f67fa5ee86773f837050853397560287caf5d6.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Ah, the BBC. https://media.spinster.xyz/4cedf6af6b42c92a824e140eb054033261d0c5a0a91a2277d7cfaa56fa451475.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/54f6f3270b447ca0c1a79366cd0b743aafce03c61ebfcc30d94e201e1e91c49b.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Ear vacuuming. This morning, I went to see the ear lady at the chemist. She had a terribly fancy little device, basically a smart phone with a tiny trumpet on the back, into which she entered my details. Then she stuck the trumpet in my ears and took photos, and declared that my right ear was completely bunged up and my left mostly so. She also had a teeny tiny high suction vacuum cleaner, which she proceeded to poke in my right ear: slightly uncomfortable, but very quickly I could hear and shortly after she pronounced it all cleaned out. The sensation of having gunk sucked out of your ear canal is most peculiar. On to the left ear: again very quick to get me hearing but rather more uncomfortable. She went back in to try to finish the job but it was absolutely excruciating, so she left some of the gunk in there. No sign of any infection or damage. I’m not sure if not being able to hear properly for the best part of a week has me hyper-sensitised or if I’d been gradually getting gunked up for a while (or both) but everything is now terribly loud. It’s lovely! Unfortunately, I’ve just blown my nose and my left ear has gone slightly crackly. Fortunately, I get free follow-up in case of any further problems (presumably within a certain time frame, I didn’t think to ask), so I’ll see how it is over the next few days. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Although the buggers still pop up. Must be at least three years! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 They’re a bugger to clean, terribly bumpy. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 They’re nice, but I’m not sure they’re worth the faff (aka I tried them and no longer bother). npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 What on earth is a “male rupture”? https://media.spinster.xyz/636e037c5397f3d6cadd6011cbb34280bdfc59c66c45c909af063780c4a99468.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/daa909de05a131f056ad3a5eaf916b38f879e5ba30b124564d52c52b39f52e77.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Holy cow. One, kudos to him doing that. Two, even allowing for the presence of bumbling noisy USians, that is an insane amount of effort for a tiny amount of meat. Three, some humour is apparently universal: https://media.spinster.xyz/480465832a2226f74856b1277eb4477baeff9b4eaeaa9e3e53adad81bb8f341f.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/f7326029f20d9423dfb44b796e2743e8fe25280a91f32fe08a2c895208462efa.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/0738cfa43a7a683388bfb133010113287ff6e3f35c27c8c2211f527fb8768236.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Bloody hell! https://media.spinster.xyz/891c0251c782e3a448ec6b8f6a3434fcd07ca6fd4b63b69a6a870a37822e42af.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://thecritic.co.uk/on-travellers-and-trail-hunting/ It is from Western civilization that the very idea of respecting other cultures arose. However, the principle of tolerance has morphed into something much more dangerous. Something which privileges minorities over the majority, which wilfully emphasises our differences and eschews assimilation. What else could explain why the law requires planning authorities to make provisions for travellers’ caravans, but not for churches, village halls, cricket pavilions or football pitches? Nowhere is the different approach to our cultural inheritance starker than in the Left’s hatred of trail hunting. Whilst so-called progressives will bend over backwards to defend burqas, cousin marriage and gender segregation, they have just finished a consultation on ending this centuries-old countryside tradition. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Would it? (IDK, but my hob boils water far faster than my kettle.) npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I was going to say “no viable alternative”, but actually I reckon you could do something with a mini-induction hob. I wonder if anyone’s making something like that? npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I’m sure he would if he could. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Oh, gross. https://media.spinster.xyz/b7ada499d778bba7dca540d99dd25e08ba1c5371741bf77a423c6aad2e01112b.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 He’s better than the other prospects. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Bloody hell: now Al Carns has gone. If he stands, I’ll be rooting for him. https://order-order.com/2026/06/11/armed-forces-minister-al-carns-resigns-over-defence-spending-troubles-bill/ npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 And on sale! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 (Does cashmere Aran exist? Is it a swine to knit up?) npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Right, yarn ladies: recommendations please for a nice soft, snuggly, non-scratchy “Aran / 10 ply (8 wpi)” wool, please? npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 @nprofile…ctu6 Those potato onions throw one hell of a flower spike! Getting on for 5’! https://media.spinster.xyz/6cf534cecf4f58e41bd62fb98135a95a34a5463e2410d5636bfc208a137fcc87.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 They were just tiny buds a week ago! https://media.spinster.xyz/5444948057c4feca8df1307f4ef8fecf1882a9edd650eafb4ce11aee695622d8.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 They certainly don’t seem to do any harm to my lavender, nor to my rosemary if they get at it when I’m not watching. They’re both about the same age, I’ve not been in this garden that long. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I’ve oddly only ever found them on my lavender! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 They really are quite ghastly. https://uk.lalique.com/products/feuilles-pepper-salt-grinders-10508400 npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I could respect Peter Murrell if he’d used the cash to invest in a dodgy land development, bribe his way into the Lords, or have a political rival rubbed out. That’s good, wholesome embezzlement. If I were an SNP member, I wouldn’t object to my donations being misappropriated the old-fashioned way. I would object to it going towards a catalogue of overpriced tat that Liberace would have deemed a bit garish. —Stephen Daisley npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Bugger! Maybe later. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Wrong side of the hills: https://media.spinster.xyz/41ea323f3e9f36a4835ba731fa82672db8a9c42648eb1403aaff28617f637c3c.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I was hoping we’d get a storm, but I don’t think they’re cumulusing enough, are they? https://media.spinster.xyz/4dc35f12a91815b14ae3747ac7b84f3c5e17364699acb8a96a2d274147e0a82c.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/9525a9cf6b5383406acc7e8cd1b7b5e66b83c55fccb175dc289c5f1aa1758b1e.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/feb6e6a966e73af4ce6218cee4814a971789ee58ebe6d895ca99855d5d58b3b9.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/6b9de79fd992582b71d2ab8daeb2a08cba1d30493e3e89eefa24731bdc0d901e.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/325a4348b5f2b3cd3627ef79d3401e28c8f3b0c8b48725199d0852c66fcbe8c4.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/8d8c498ad0f02403f41ab652a17c24e124871bfc1d42c52cb4093f87405417c8.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/41c9149d49c6568b6db62f6fe3c34e847fae10ea5cf4c8312bbd0bc60a090828.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/b0fdf82932e7868ff23f4c0d6db4dfc83f90ae2019b3ba1220a80aafc206c17d.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 During WW2, the US army tried to tell UK pubs that they had to be segregated. A lot of them banned white officers as a result. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c202vrxlwqgo Gunmen have kidnapped more than 50 children from three schools in the same town in north-eastern Nigeria, teachers and residents have said. Most of those missing are aged between two and five years old. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Not in the mood for that shit, mate. Give it a rest. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 He called me sister a fucking bitch and told her to leave him alone and get back into the kitchen. We’ve never really got along, largely because of a big age gap. Our father used to phone me up and convince me to make nice because “it’s upsetting your mum”; if that is actually the case then mum has shown no signs of doing similar since he died, which makes me think it was him who was actually upset. Kid’s 16-17 ish. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Lordie, just had an hour on the phone with my mother: my sister’s in-laws are imploding, largely because her stepson has turned into a quasi-Tate little shite. Marriage on the rocks. Given how much I cordially dislike my sister, and the opposite for her husband, I am almost tempted to send him a supportive text. But he has failed miserably at the whole “parenting” thing that he swore would never fall on my sister to get her to agree to have the kid live with them, so. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I quite like these abstract landscapes, although I appreciate they’re not coming from a good place. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Well, it was until it was put in a little plastic tub and sold to me…. I don’t use enough for a block to be worthwhile. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/d32ede00c484c2a5bd588c9e55e442731c239864addb3bc07ab8efe10ada57dd.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 In my head, cow parsley is a biennial, although the internet tells me it can be a short-lived perennial. This one is at least four years old. Technically a weed, but I like it! https://media.spinster.xyz/2733263a0ef4ddcae755fc67146b6062f7dcdd51c103d137965acdfa64de18ae.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 After subsidence left a country road riddled with almighty craters, workmen were sent out to clean up the mess. It all went awry, however, when their own lorry fell victim to a large hole in the road. Contractors from Stabilised Pavements were working at Butleigh Drove near Walton in Somerset when their lorry rolled into a ditch that had given way on the uneven surface. The workers were forced to abandon the vehicle after it settled at a 45-degree angle, metres from a sign reading “skid risk, max speed 20mph”. https://media.spinster.xyz/cca19a5a19fa386b12d20c7a9ea85900d5ae1a3e91bf81fdb54351f9e3726a7f.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/tv-doesnt-ruin-childhood-but-phones-might/ But at the same time, the screen-based entertainments of today aren’t the same as television. They are precision-engineered to be neurologically addictive. And Cottrell-Boyce puts his finger on something when he says: “There’s a big difference between happiness and distraction, and quite a lot of the time that we spend in leisure online we’re in a kind of suspended state. It literally passes the time, but that’s not what happiness is.” He describes the YouTube and TikTok content that so absorbs our children as “sedation” rather than entertainment. Shades of Soma in Brave New World. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Has there been any progress with the new detective (IIRC)? npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 wtf? https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15800819/Man-ends-court-breaking-wind-public-Austria.html A man ended up in court after he was accused of offending public decency by breaking wind near police officers in Austria. The incident happened on a street in Vienna when the young man was standing at a cigarette vending machine while talking on the phone. According to Austrian magazine Falter, two police officers were nearby when the man suddenly broke wind loudly. The officers allegedly viewed the act as inappropriate and confronted him over his behaviour. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Come on, rain, just a bit further west! You can do it! https://media.spinster.xyz/09150625b76d37bfc0f47fa6b742dabbed776bc5fd548520176d78e4c923a9ee.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/1380c0b93a26e6b8aa89862259fbd9033720ade3d203234f442fdd11c50ba528.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/91de9ac59738e6b6c4143be4b9cc8e3063be18a269374ffa517e6acfa8d38f98.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/f9590c53c419eabe1d2a7e8114a89fb97beb6f6f4e4efe88527a3aceba7cc014.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/is-it-time-to-start-feeling-sorry-for-keir-starmer/ Having Keir Starmer turn up to your Labour post apocalyptic pity party is a bit like being hit by a car only for the person who ran you over to come to your funeral and give a lecture on road safety. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I was in an accident. It’s going to take the best part of a month to fix, presumably because a part needs to come from Japan. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Horrible thought: I hope I’ve not inadvertently turned into a blue LED headlight wanker. I think this car is too new for that. Hopefully. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/mockery-is-the-best-way-to-engage-with-zack-polanski/ Robinson asked him about his actual plans for the police should a collective succession of catastrophic head injuries among the electorate see Mr Polanski anywhere near actual power. Apparently, funds would be put towards ‘community prevention’ to stop crime. Again, it was unclear what this meant – arming the Neighbourhood Watch? Gangs of vigilante WI Members roaming the countryside? (Although, this might actually be more effective than some police forces). Robinson also pushed Polanski on why some would-be Green councillors were making a big deal about Palestine in their literature: ‘you’d think it’d be about bins,’ he said. It’s going to be hilarious when some of these people get elected and find that their intrays are bin laden, just not in the way they were hoping. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/civil-servants-faking-office-attendance/ Whistleblowers have exposed a work-from-home scandal gripping the public sector, saying employees are shunning the office in defiance of rules that require them to attend the workplace at least three days a week. Insiders say managers have “no control” over remote staff who are “taking advantage” of flexible working arrangements, with one saying Whitehall offices were “like the Mary Celeste” on Fridays. Some staff, including at HMRC, are alleged to have faked in-person working by connecting to their office Wi-Fi from a nearby car park before returning home. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Finished my mum’s beach bag. Hope she’ll like it! https://media.spinster.xyz/22d2cb5ecfe21e4c8412555f11e55a1618674001483000752e3d50871a145035.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/8e0878783326048f94e3963f7a189c217702e0ef8e23b5203dd2be49618089bb.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/e34fb716f5a5f55324c7c3e5c9864198df8a743c1b3956fdbcbf07c91f3c4b8e.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/97e2707cc7621264ced893858ce834126a68e694fceb0b29ab39a38f2429e142.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 wtf? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn0p8yled1do Video game retail chain GameStop has made a surprise $55.5bn (£40.9bn) offer to buy e-commerce firm eBay. The cash and stock offer values eBay at $125 a share, $20 more than the shares were valued at when New York trading ended on Friday, GameStop said in a statement on Sunday, external. GameStop's chief executive Ryan Cohen said he is prepared to take the bid directly to shareholders if eBay's board rejects the approach. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Huh? Do quotes not make it across the bridge? npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/the-spectators-notes-2/ My sister has unearthed my precious copy of The Junior Puffin Quiz Book, published in 1966, when I was ten. […] A single question which encapsulates, including its careful semi-colons, the lost culture The Junior Puffin Quiz Book represents: ‘Is a psaltery (a) the book of Psalms; (b) a kind of musical instrument; (c) a term used in heraldry; or (d) a kind of fossil?’ What ten-year-old today knows what a psaltery is? How many more even know what the Psalms are or a single fact about heraldry? […] What I most notice is the book’s underlying, self-fulfilling assumption that children could and should know a great deal about a wide world. The book also has the spirit of enquiry. It loves to investigate meanings in order to spread knowledge. Hence this: ‘What is the meaning of the word “quick” in the phrase “the quick and the dead”? Do you know of any other phrase in which “quick” has meaning?’ The answer says, ‘“Quick” here means “living”. The quick is the living part of the nail. And if we cut this, we are “hurt to the quick”. A quicksand is as it were a living sand; a quickset hedge is a hedge of living plants as opposed to a fence; quicksilver (or mercury) seems alive as it moves about.’ How full, how economical, yet how poetical. https://archive.ph/KrP83 npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I mean, really! Even for a vegan, that is a low. https://media.spinster.xyz/93ee7d14555cb8f016054bd7987a2f39aa65e24130bb4cb849de6d6e5f2378c3.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 This (three day trip with no luggage) actually seems surprisingly doable. I would have to wash my hair on the day or the day before, and I would swap her comb/electric toothbrush for a mini-hairbrush/toothbrush, and ditch the PJs. And her food choices can get in the bin. Even if you like baked beans, put a bloody barrier between them and the fruit, ffs! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dC5EpSlG_G4&pp=ugUEEgJlbg https://media.spinster.xyz/93ee7d14555cb8f016054bd7987a2f39aa65e24130bb4cb849de6d6e5f2378c3.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I do not doubt that most people campaigning for online age restrictions are doing so in good faith. We can all agree that children deserve a childhood where their online experiences are as safe as their offline ones. Having grown up on the internet myself, I know first-hand that the online world has real dangers. But just as we expect parents to teach their children how to cross a road or to call 999 in an emergency, we must expect more from parents when it comes to teaching children online safety too. Currently, only a third of parents use parental controls on their children’s devices, and it is not uncommon to see children as young as 2 experiencing their first years in front of the flashing screen of their very own iPad. Banning children from social media by putting everyone’s privacy at risk will not solve the fundamental reason why young people spend so much time online. They do so because generations of adults above them have eroded away their youth centres, libraries and parks; have created a school system rife with impossible pressures; and have turned the offline world into something inaccessible, unaffordable and filled with chronically ‘unprecedented’ political and economic events. Rushed, sweeping laws like those being voted on tomorrow are the result of a political landscape too keen to impose restrictions based on a gut feeling to do ‘something’ rather than the result of well-thought-through policy. Our children’s digital safety and the security of our democracy are too important to fall victim to this kind of self-congratulatory lawmaking. Whatever form of restrictions MPs pass tomorrow, make no mistake: this is the end of anonymity online and the birth of a digital nanny state. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 This week parliament will attempt to conclude legislation allowing the government to ban young people from social media. It’s taken weeks of ‘ping-pong’ to land on the specific form that these restrictions will take, and there has been no shortage of ideas. Tory peer Lord Nash’s proposals would introduce a blanket ban on all social media for under-16s, while the government is angling to implement restrictions on features and even introduce online curfews. We’ll soon find out what the final compromise will be. But from an online safety, privacy and civil liberties standpoint, the details hardly matter. The wave of a legislative wand will not magically banish children from social media. The only way to do this is to force every single user to submit to invasive biometric face scans or digital ID uploads. It is not hard to see that for all the good intentions, age-based restrictions to social media amount to a Trojan horse for a de facto mandatory digital ID system. Biometric face scans, often falsely presented as a privacy-safe method of age verification, will fail for millions of people: no algorithm can tell the difference between a 16-year-old on the day of their birthday and the day before. Many more users – adults with facial disabilities, young-looking women, or anyone who isn’t white – will face a significantly higher risk of being prompted to upload an ID document because the algorithm cannot accurately verify their age. And so, a biased and inaccurate algorithm will be the arbiter of who does – and who does not – need to upload their ID to unlock huge swathes of the internet. Many people across the UK, particularly teens, don’t need or have IDs. But conveniently, the government’s national digital ID scheme is waiting in the wings. This multi-billion-pound solution in search of a problem may have just found one to solve. Monitoring and managing children’s internet use is vital to keeping them safe. But children’s online safety includes more than protection from harmful content or addictive algorithms – it includes their cybersecurity, data protection and freedom of expression as well. Since the introduction of the Online Safety Act, there have been many examples of just how vulnerable age-verification platforms are to data breaches and cyberattacks. Only this week, the government confirmed that the medical details of 500,000 participants of Biobank, one of the UK’s landmark scientific programmes, were offered for sale in China after a massive data leak. This data included full body scans, medical records and even DNA sequences. The mass gathering of biometric and ID information by age-verification platforms would mean that similar breaches, now on a national scale, would become more common. One can only imagine the devastating impact of such a breach on national security and democracy itself. Rather than taking these risks seriously, it is all too likely that the government will present a national digital ID system as a ‘safer’ alternative. But any giant database full of sensitive ID information is simply a honeypot for hackers and hostile states. It really is remarkable, watching hundreds of parliamentarians talk about how dangerous it is when children put personal information about themselves online and then, in the same breath, create a system that asks everyone in Britain to do just that. Even if banning social media would benefit children – which an alliance of 42 children’s charities and bereaved parents strongly dispute – the truth is there is simply no privacy-friendly way in which it can be done. Comparisons are often made with the requirement to present an ID when buying items like kitchen knives. But in those cases, you flash your ID to the cashier, who checks your age and that’s the end of that. But social media is connected to a personal account, which means that ID information you submit risks being linked to your online activity. A more accurate analogy then, would be that the cashier checks your ID, follows you home, stands in your kitchen, and carefully logs every time you chop a carrot. By relying on age-verification technology, all proposals to restrict social media for children pose an acute threat to the freedom of expression upon which our democracy rests. A future government could easily age-gate online spaces based on what political content they host, requiring users to pay for their right to free speech along with their right to privacy. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/a-social-media-ban-for-kids-puts-all-our-privacy-at-risk/ It is not hard to see that for all the good intentions, age-based restrictions to social media amount to a Trojan horse for a de facto mandatory digital ID system. Biometric face scans, often falsely presented as a privacy-safe method of age verification, will fail for millions of people: no algorithm can tell the difference between a 16-year-old on the day of their birthday and the day before. Many more users – adults with facial disabilities, young-looking women, or anyone who isn’t white – will face a significantly higher risk of being prompted to upload an ID document because the algorithm cannot accurately verify their age. And so, a biased and inaccurate algorithm will be the arbiter of who does – and who does not – need to upload their ID to unlock huge swathes of the internet. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I did think it was pretty slow when I saw it this morning. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Citroen. I think I’ve found the right video. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Veg from the garden! https://media.spinster.xyz/4175a1c77c1271b0dd8be448fb91eff1acfb0cbdcdddd1d3b9ca5cfc2ac4a5a2.jpeg https://media.spinster.xyz/ca858095f94df2b16cbc14a748dff21c792c010f6c86011a389862b8a59a5ffc.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Courtesy car is a hybrid, and has a very confusing graphic on the dash that I think is telling me when I’m on petrol and when electric, and when the battery is charging and discharging. It’s very distracting when I check my speed, which I’m doing constantly because the quietness is catching me out. It beeps a lot (it really hates reversing onto my drive, not helped by having a turning circle like a bus), and mostly I have no idea what it means. I wish it would beep when I’m over the speed limit (see above); I may be the first person on the planet to say this and will have a play with the massive flat screen panel tomorrow to see if I can turn it on. I phoned the hire place because I couldn’t figure out how to get the boot open. “Oh, yeah, it took me ages to figure out. I think there’s a little button. I had to watch a YouTube video.” npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 “Mind your own business” here presumably means “not say anything when we invade women’s spaces”. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Someone posted that a few days ago. It was interesting but mostly I couldn’t get over his arms! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Duke of Edinburgh (‘s Award Scheme). I was going to say it’s similar to [insert Italian Scouting award name here], but you don’t seem to have one. In the UK it’s the King’s Scout, in the US it’s the Eagle Scout. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 DofE group out today, I very much hope it was one of their first walks because the group dynamic was worrying. Five of them walking along in a line chattering, one slightly awkward-looking lad trailing behind them. One of the girls said “Is that it?” as they passed a footpath sign, at which awkward lad caught up with them and pointed in completely the opposite direction, then joined the group: phew. Then I passed them having a rest/drink stop (they were at least fifteen minutes into the walk), and he was sitting several feet away from the group. A bit later, I saw him striding along, the rest of the group back in their line five minutes behind. As I passed them on the way back down the hill (after another whole fifteen minutes of walking) they were having another rest, this time with the snacks being broken out. He was at least closer to the rest of the group, but the vibe was still very much “five mates and he can tag along because he’s studied the route in advance and is good at map reading”. Hopefully they’ll get better integrated. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Sort of. Very salty anchovy paste. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 @nprofile…esqv SNP manifesto link in Wings: https://wingsoverscotland.com/the-narcissism-of-no-differences/ npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Hurrah! https://www.thetimes.com/article/a1109b5d-c53a-4d27-a6d5-29b8644beef9?shareToken=59c8f4c5e02c68f39b4744e33660ded1 Only last week, Gentleman’s Relish was apparently consigned to the great sideboard in the sky but it appears that reports of its death might be somewhat exaggerated. Devotees of the pungent anchovy paste had been mourning its demise after AB World Foods confirmed that production had ceased. Now, in a twist that feels almost scripted, its owner says the condiment synonymous with the English upper classes may yet be saved. “We have been blown away by the response from Gentleman’s Relish fans since we confirmed our decision to stop production,” a spokesman for AB World Foods said. “Given this strength of feeling, we are pleased to say that we are at the early stages of exploring options with several third parties who have expressed an interest in taking the brand forward.” npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://news.sky.com/story/one-in-five-teens-fear-being-cancelled-over-political-views-13532348 A survey by the Economist Educational Foundation found that 22% of 15 to 17-year-olds had stopped themselves sharing political opinions because they were worried about criticism, along with 20% of 10 to 14-year-olds. Nearly one in four of the 4,000 students aged between 10 and 17 who took part in the survey said they have been asked to stop voicing their political views at school. […] But of course the biggest problem is that… "Instead, they are likely to go into chat rooms or forums that do allow them to share a fringe opinion, and that might be where their views become more extreme. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Just been out to put the girls to bed and bait the rat trap*, and… no trap. *with peanut butter. I have successfully bred rats that aren’t interested in Nutella, natural selection in action! I had a good check around, having previously had failed kills where they’ve dragged themselves off somewhere to die, but no sign of it. Presumably I got one and then either a raven or a stoat made off with it, trap and all. Guess I need to buy new traps! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 All this had, in fairness, been prompted by Kemi Badenoch. If the obliteration of the Conservative party is inevitable at the next election, it will be a shame to lose the one person who seems best at goading Sir Keir into his hissy fits. Perhaps the goings-on in the House of Commons don’t really matter but I suspect that nobody – not even Uncle Nigel – will be capable of poking Sir Keir with quite the same matador-style panache as Mrs Badenoch. Today she simply quoted things at him – starting with the accusation by ex-Nato chief Lord Robertson that the Prime Minister had a ‘corrosive complacency’ when it came to defence. I suspect that nobody will be capable of poking Sir Keir with the same matador-style panache as Mrs Badenoch Sir Keir inevitably gave an answer which involved a labyrinthine tour of every Tory defence cut of the last decade and a half. To be fair to him – and when are we ever not in this column? – the Conservative record is apocalyptically bad. However, the PM shot himself in the foot by claiming that he, unlike them, was overseeing huge increases in defence spending. As Mrs Badenoch told him, to his visible ire, talking about an increase is not the same as giving an increase. It was in response to this – which Sir Keir fashioned into a long tirade about Iran – that Sir Lindsay finally snapped and reminded him that it was Prime Minister’s questions and not opposition questions. Sir Keir sat down, bristling with anger, crossing and uncrossing his legs by way of distraction, not unlike Kenny Everett’s Cupid Stunt. Next to him, Douglas Alexander looked like a deflated bagpipe and Shabana Mahmood tried not to look like she was enjoying every minute of his humiliation. Pat McFadden sat there, looking as if what little was left of his soul had just departed his body. Sir Keir continued his clucking and ranting, but to less and less enthusiasm from his own benches. There were generally mournful faces among backbench Labour MPs. Labour’s matinee idol Henry Tufnell looked haunted, like a middle-aged Vincent Price. Even John Slinger, whose presence in the chamber is normally akin to a cymbal-clashing monkey, wasn’t nodding along as much as usual. ‘This is so poor from the Prime Minister’ said Mrs Badenoch, with the air of a disappointed deputy headmistress. Elsewhere in the chamber things were as predictable as you’d expect. With the upper-middle classes of the Home Counties descending on the Continent for their holidays over the next few months, Sir Ed Davey asked about the pressing issue for his core ‘worried well’ constituency – would Sir Keir do something about malfunctioning e-gates? A barely functioning backbench MP screamed a non-question about how great her local hospital was doing under Labour. The surgeon and assisted suicide supporter Peter Prinsley asked an anti-Reform-coded question about how much insurance-related health options might put patients at risk (very little, if outcomes from France and Germany are anything to go by). All a bit rich from a man whose primary aim for NHS users seems to be to euthanise them. Once again, the House of Commons acted as if it were some great podium for the needs of the people of Britain, when in fact it’s more like a low-budget Versailles c.1789. Still, in such situations one has to take what joy one can. Sir Keir turning the colour of Barney the Dinosaur as he confronted Sir Lindsay will live long in the memory. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/oh-the-joy-of-watching-keir-starmer-descend-into-fury/ Handbags at noon! It’s always nice to watch Sir Keir Starmer descend into the sort of incandescent fury that living under his government induces from most people on a daily basis. The absolute standout moment of today’s PMQs was one not caught by the cameras but a behind-the-scenes bit of piggy rage from the PM. Sir Keir Starmer’s anger when Lindsay Hoyle told him that it wasn’t ‘leader of the opposition’s questions’ was visible. But it was after the session, when a puce-coloured Starmer had an argument with Hoyle that the real joy was to be had, culminating in his flouncing out of the chamber. As he did so, he shot the Speaker an absolutely filthy look. Get her! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/04/13/farmers-threaten-protests-unless-reeves-cuts-fuel-prices/ Farmers for Action, a campaign group, has warned ministers of protests unless the Chancellor cuts tax on red diesel. The threat comes after similar protests in Ireland crippled the country, forcing Dublin to send in the army. Farmers for Action were instrumental in organising protests against Ms Reeves’ family farm tax. The group wants the Chancellor to cut the price of red diesel, which farmers use to fuel their tractors. It has soared since war broke out in Iran and is currently as high as 135 pence per litre, up from 60 pence per litre before the war. Howard Cox, the founder of the campaign group FairFuelUK, told The Telegraph: “I am in discussions with farmers and others to hold fuel protests in London and other places as drivers and businesses are sick to death of being used as Labour’s cash cows. https://archive.ph/gsaRO npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Does anyone not know this already…? https://media.spinster.xyz/f22dec07786f06bf7179d60a682b70811a8ecb2e1a176d078a6597da66792e49.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I would guess that it means “not open to public viewing or available for researchers to access”. Unusually for Delayed Gratification, the infographic does not list a source. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/c4c223eea6a856180cc3535c239a0cee590d5e0a00e04a2b0ce611052055178c.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Who the fuck, upon being entrusted with a Fabergé egg to take home from an exhibition, thinks “I’ll just stick it in my handbag while I have a cheeky pinot down the pub”? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj6098jngryo I would love to know how little money he got when he fenced it. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 #nevent1q…2rka https://media.spinster.xyz/4a06d94212a584adbe056aac164423717fc4ecd304238e10152db97a1f3a1740.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/russia-has-its-eyes-on-svalbard/ Where historically Russia’s interests on Svalbard appeared defensive – trying to stop Nato from coming too close to its defences in Murmansk – military chiefs have warned there are signs Moscow is shifting to a more offensive position. In 2022, Russia’s maritime doctrine stated its objective of ‘enforcing control over activities of foreign navies in the waters of the northern sea route’. Nato is alive to this scenario. In 2024, the alliance’s defence college identified a future Russian invasion of Svalbard as one of its ‘Dragon King’ scenarios – a unique yet predictable event of huge consequence. It envisaged a situation where Russian forces took Svalbard in the night, cutting its internet and cellular services. The risk was flagged up that Norway might fail to win consensus from Nato allies for triggering Article 5 for fear a conflict with Russia in the Arctic would take resources away from Ukraine. Norway, it surmised, would on its own lack the capabilities to oust the Russians. […] https://archive.ph/G7Gfi npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://spectator.com/article/the-christian-grace-of-jimmy-lais-prison-drawings/ In prison, Mr Lai has plenty to fear. He is alone, on an otherwise empty floor, so high up in the building that elderly priests cannot climb the stairs to visit. The one window of his tiny cell is blocked. At night, the electric lights are turned off and he can see nothing. There is no air conditioning, so the summer heat gives him bad skin rashes. Denied outside medicine for his diabetes, he has only what prison medics deign to bestow. His back hurts. His nails fall out. His teeth rot. He is fed little but, even so, fasts every Friday. The prison rules are harsh. Usually he is denied the eucharist because it is classified as food: he has received the sacrament only 11 times in two and half years, but did so on Good Friday last year. Might that happen again this year? Confession is rarer still. Instead, permitted the Bible, and six books at a time which he rotates out, he tries to achieve the ‘acts of perfect contrition’ recommended by St Maximilian Kolbe, the Franciscan in Auschwitz who died offering his life to save another. He reads Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis de Sales, Bonaventure, Benedict XVI, G.K. Chesterton and Thomas Merton and follows Bishop Robert Barron’s Word on Fire discourses. He copies out St John Henry Newman’s prayer: ‘God has created me to do Him some definite service… I have my mission – I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.’ https://archive.ph/CyGUQ npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 https://media.spinster.xyz/7ba309e091a0377fb93c657e03de250bd035b1421597399ef8c6ec1fe5657638.jpeg npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 Gone up to my room to put my slippers on and my feet up (on the bed). May end up staying here, we’ll see how the gin supply does! npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 God, my legs and feet hurt. Weird strained muscle feeling on my lower inner thighs, and my feet are swollen and tingly :( (Way too much walking and standing on marble floors.) npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 It’s not there during the day! At a guess, it’s a big tractor, but why it’s there and stationary for several hours each evening is a mystery. npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm Flick 🇬🇧 I said it was amazing! They’re really souped up.