Magpie-A

Of all the things that never happened, this never happened the most

www.theguardian.com/world/2026/o...

An exhibition I wish I could see! Now open #PalaisGalliera A Wardrobe of One’s Own: Dissident Femininities in the 19th Century explores the masculine coded clothing and queer identities through tailored dress. It looks fabulous & if I could wiggle my nose I would go immediately! #FashionHistory 🗃️🪡

They had to invent ‘mantox’ because ‘bo’, short for ‘botulinum’ was too female-coded

Throw the word resilience in the bin. It has been overused into pointlessness.

My own experience as a lower tier roller derby athlete has been seeing my team mates get kicked out of spaces in public parks by groups of men who wanted to play football. It happens at all levels from the ground up and then women's performance differences are held up as justification for inequality

That is a stadium full of employees being replaced by AI in one email

So no ambition to save the planet then.

Very sad to lose this old friend and Star Trek icon.

A Cork man who went missing 34 years ago was located deceased in the UK this month - and LGBTQ+ campaigners say he was just one of a whole generation who fled Ireland’s anti-gay laws and repressive society in the late 20th century. www.thejournal.ie/patsy-osulli...

daughter died. Fairfax recorded the disturbing events in Daemonologia: A Discourse on Witchcraft, describing fears of familiars, spells and local witchcraft. But the accused women had defenders. Villagers signed petitions protesting their innocence, challenging Fairfax’s

🧵Another Halloween tale. In the eerie world of 17th-century Yorkshire, few stories are stranger than the alleged “Fewston Witches.” Between 1621 and 1623, poet Edward Fairfax accused six local women of forming a witches’ coven after his daughters suffered terrifying fits and trances, and his infant

Climate-threatened Fijian utopia rejects calls to relocate. As the sun sets over Fiji's tiny Serua Island, its climate-threatened inhabitants soak in one of the reasons they have rejected attempts to relocate their village -- the "$100 million views" u.afp.com/Sy52

Michael Atiyah 🇪🇬: Fields Medal 1966 (also Abel Prize 2004), for K-theory. Ahmed Zewail 🇪🇬: Nobel for Chemistry 1999, for his work on femtochemistry. Omar M. Yaghi 🇯🇴: Wolf Prize 2018, Nobel for Chemistry 2025, for his work on reticular chemistry Naguib Mahfouz 🇪🇬: Nobel for literature 1988

This means that freelancers like me who read the website would lose the right to sue the company if (when) we got stiffed. #consenttheater #bindingarbitration #dickovers

Well this is eleventy-million kinds of Fucked Up. @latimes.com (who once contracted with me as a freelance reviewer and whom I struggled to get paid by) asserts that *merely reading its website* constitutes a permanent waiver of your right to sue it under *any circumstances*.

After being in anti-choice hands for many years, the domain "Abortion.org" came up at auction and has been purchased for 5 figure by I Need an A, an org that provides legit info on how to get an abortion.

The death toll in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza climbs to 74,555, including 1,559 killed since 'ceasefire' last year.

To be clear, "we" [i.e., IE Govt] are not actually engaged in any serious good faith *attempt* to end our fossil fuel dependency in any meaningful time frame. Always watch what "we" do, not what "we" say.

Forty miles separate the Israeli beach of Jaffa from the beach in Gaza City, but they are worlds apart. NPR's Frank Langfitt and Anas Baba report a tale of two beaches. n.pr/4dXbct4

Japanese prosecutors charge US marine suspected of robbing and killing woman

I just want to name that people overcame this. Even against a stacked deck, the good fight is worth it. Win or lose, it's worth it. And sometimes the good guys win.

A new survey of 1,000 American adults found that the strongest supporters of transgender sports bans are not the people who admire women most: they are the people who hold the most hostile views about women. www.helenwebberley.com/news/transge...

"What, according to Jim O’Callaghan, is supposed to happen when a child expresses discomfort about hugging an older relative? Their parents should make them do it anyway?" Here's a Surrealing in the Years Bank Holiday Special. The commenters absolutely love this one, I'm sure you can imagine.

Listened about it on BBC Radio Leeds www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... This was the week before the larger and more famous Battle of Cable Street

Does John Banville think artists have a duty to take a stance on moral issues? His stand is apparently for amorality. www.independent.ie/irish-news/s...

Number crunching: Royal Mail From the latest Private Eye, out now.

This is not a "you didn't KNOW?" post because I truly envy and respect anyone unaware of Linehan's output BUT he's been EXTREMELY racist for years now. Attacking black actors on his wife's show Motherland as diversity hires; podcast screeds about muslims in Ireland; delighting in Palestinian deaths.

If I'd loudly, and at length, bemoaned the fact that Muhammad being a popular name in Ireland was a sign of creeping Sharia law, I think it would come up. With Linehan it doesn't. Because frothing transphobia is not merely excused. It's worse. If you hate trans people enough, all else is forgiven

President Trump temporarily waived clean-air rules for industrial facilities that spew cancer-causing gases. Then his appointees worked to gut the regulations altogether. Our investigative reporter Eric Lipton explains how corporate interests took power inside the EPA. Read more: nyti.ms/4il3336

‘Zero-energy companionship’: bizarre hobby takes seed among China’s stressed young adults

And start doing that here right?

Portable solar kits in disaster zones fuel everything from communication and cooking to cooling and education. ➡️ https://l.euronews.com/y9Hf

AI "slopaganda". The video looks hyper-real, depicting a US Senate candidate laughing at cards that read "Death to America" and "Celebrate 9/11." But it is part of a multimillion-dollar blitz of AI-generated political ads ahead of the midterm elections u.afp.com/SyJK

www.thejournal.ie/alci-confere... The usual suspects preventing LGBTQI inclusion via unsubstantiated claims.

This is horrific. And unsurprisingly the work of a "conservative" multimillionaire. Other adjectives might include creepy, prurient, dictatorial and abusive, not to mention, of course, transphobic. Once more with feeling: we need to get the money out of politics. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

SpaceX describes Starshield as a "secured satellite network for government entities" that "leverages Starlink technology." And don't forget SpaceX gets *paid* to provide both Starshield and Starlink to Ukraine by NGOs, governments, etc. Poland is a big customer so is U.S. Pentagon.

Trump is straight up saying during speeches that he wants white people coming to the country but not black. I don’t know what else people need to see.

Bolsonaro had corrupt media on his side, Meta interference on his side, US propaganda operations, and his party's officials actively sabotaging public transport in Lula strongholds to prevent turnout. Yet he was still beaten by the power of voter turnout.

People dressed as a Catrinas take part in the Paseo de las Catrinas Festival, a parade marking the upcoming Day of the Dead celebrations, in the historic center of Guatemala City 📸 Johan Ordonez

On this date in 1415 the battle of Agincourt took place. A fascinating bit of history that also gave us Shakespeare's masterpiece 'Henry V' and several glorious films. Here are clips from 3 films showing the famous, delicious, rousing speech:

Thousands defy ban to protest in Milan, echoing French slogans

The Government™ has made an ad about all these protests happening around the world, and it’s surprisingly honest and informative.

Zelenskyy said on Sunday that Russia has launched roughly 1,600 guided aerial bombs, 48 missiles and nearly 2,300 attack drones against Ukraine over the past week. #EuropeNews

As a young man, magazines were my window to the world. That wonder will be lost when all the shops have gone | John Harris