Mabel Slattery

DinoNephew requested “red dinosaur cake” for his birthday this year. I think I did alright. In fact, I know I did alright cos DinoNephew kept trying to lean over the table and lick the whole cake. The true mark of success.

To be a Luddite is to insist that humans are in charge of humanity, not the iron laws of economics, not the great forces of history, not the uncaring and illusory constellations.

Never forget!

My best friend had a trinket trade for her birthday and - not knowing that trinket trades are about telling people a story of the trinket as you lay it down in turn, I wrote little poems for mine.

🧵 Wow - this article is bordering on unhinged! Apparently the BBC is akin to a “North Korean re-education camp” for teaching children about net-zero and covering both the pros AND cons of immigration Join me for a masterclass in cherry-picking and context stripping to brainwash your own readers👍🏻

So I’m loving the game Dressmaker, but the fabric cutting portion of the game is making me so obsessed with clothes being “100% straight” I’m worried I might be hired by the University Challenge editing team.

Why be sad when you could be a happy lil skeleton?

Fuck you, EA

This this this. Calling out their hypocrisy is pointless because they believe it’s not hypocrisy- they just think they are people and you’re not.

Every politician should have to pass an enhanced DBS check with barred list. It won’t root out every asshole but it’d help.

[smiles in literary historian]

Do fuck off, Emily.

Telling Americans about the Christingle Orange again

Can’t believe I didn’t learn to do braid crowns sooner - it’s like the most Cornish hairstyle ever as you’re basically crimping your head!

My kid has started a Letterboxd list called Killer Sweaters for films where the killer wears a great sweater and they've asked me to throw it out to Bluesky for more because "that's the kind of thing those weirdos like to do"

Listening To Women Update

The first time I got dumped a woman and four small children went skipping past singing “Que Sera”. Genuinely a moment when I thought “well, the unbelievability of this makes it so much worse”.

I wish I knew what this said about me.

I spent so long today arguing my existence with someone who wouldn’t give a shit whatever I said. I wasted so much nice wine time and I hate myself for it.

My daughter brought me dessert and then presented me with a phone screen which said “Leave a tip”. The girl is a comic genius/mercenary and I couldn’t be prouder/poorer.

Each generation gets the Julian of Norwich it deserves.

Pigeon sat in the middle of the pavement with a wonky wing letting me get really close. Rang my mum - she couldn’t come to help me get it to the vet. Put the phone down thinking who else I could ring… pigeon flew away. Just a wonky lil weirdo. 🤷🏻‍♀️

TRAIN PEOPLE! I call on thee! My TrainNephew is young and loves train. We know this because one of his favourite sentences is “I love train!” Good non-fiction train books for toddlers/young folk? Viaducts a bonus. (I have to start Christmas shopping soon cos there are too many children.)

This is almost certainly true, and the UK fails women refugees in multiple ways, including by refusing safe routes to come here, wrongly rejecting asylum claims, barring family reunion & not recognising trafficking victims promptly or at all. If only Mahmood had the power to do something about this

Not in my family but best name I’ve found in a record: Patience Cocking.

It’s too early to be awake but something woke me up and now I can just hear the cat jingling round the house doing whatever she does in the early morning. Which is quite nice.

The reduction of politics to voting is part of the 50 year neoliberal project whose foremost goal is to make you think of yourself as an atomized individual and not as a member of a polity.

🏆 This week's Weekly Reads features ‘Gwedrow-Mires’ by Lianne Wilson, winner of the Holyer an Gof award for Books in Cornish for Adults and the Kowethas an Yeth Kernewek Cup. Thirty original Cornish-language poems reflecting on language, childhood, technology and politics. #nationalpoetryday 📖

a righteous act

Today is Andy Burnham’s first party conference speech as PM. We’ve taken your messages from the mass lobby on tour to Labour conference in Liverpool, with our friends at @transactualuk.bsky.social and @scottishtrans.bsky.social We aren’t going anywhere.

Is it me, or does Michaelmas start earlier every year?

Just seen someone posting (elsewhere) about 'developing teacher agency' while making their teachers use a set of specific steps in class based on a very narrow view of learning. The term 'checking for understanding' has become a proxy for compliance imho.

What happens if you have legitimate concerns about someone else’s legitimate concerns? You’d probably need to have some sort of system to represent that this stuff is complicated. Maybe a debating chamber and votes. Perhaps different voices and views could be represented there.

It’s far too early to speculate what’s going on down there, but it’s obviously posh kids, a dog, and lashings of ginger beer.

Look at this absurdly well-behaved collie I met today. Looks like a book jacket author photo.

Fuck ChatGPT flyers. The future is broadsheets.

"Pity no one turned up" - G. K. Chesterton at the annual Postman's Ball.

FUCK ME