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Last Notes

2026-07-17 21:38:19 GMT

“We grow 80% of our food, we only buy grains like oats and wheat.”
“We only spend about £50 per week for food in the two of us.”
wtf?? How do you spend that much with an admittedly fabulous garden?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KRILhkSPD9Y&ra=m

2026-07-06 14:37:16 GMT

https://order-order.com/2026/07/06/labours-social-media-crackdown-consultation-doesnt-let-people-oppose-state-control-of-platforms/
Labour’s consultation does not even allow people to say they are opposed to state control of algorithms:
https://media.spinster.xyz/41619a4a34d84780d92a51334d7126474f07783eaf6ba2c1d49c381318c3fe61.webp

2026-06-29 19:39:03 GMT

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.

2026-06-22 16:55:00 GMT

Bloody hell!
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2026-06-12 06:30:36 GMT

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No, fog for me is low cloud and usually cold/wet.

2026-06-11 20:21:58 GMT

June.
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2026-06-08 18:07:52 GMT

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One of the tests of a non-arse vegan is whether or not they will eat my ducks’ eggs.

2026-06-08 17:22:44 GMT

Jesus, just use an egg!
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2026-06-07 15:03:46 GMT

https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15879879/Andy-Burnham-accused-chilling-attack-free-speech.html
Firefighters who support Reform UK have been cautioned over their views by bosses under the command of Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham.
Senior figures at Manchester’s Fire and Rescue Service said they have had words with employees who backed the party, saying it was a cause for “concern”.
And in an Orwellian move described as a “chilling” attack on free speech, staff were also urged to inform on any Reform-supporting colleagues. Bosses also said they were seeking legal advice on what to do about firefighters who decided to stand on a Reform ticket in last month’s local elections.

2026-06-04 11:48:17 GMT

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The media angst over Farage’s ‘rage’ was superbly exposed by Zia Yusuf in his clash with Cathy Newman on Sky News. She badgered him about Reform’s stirring up of anger over Nowak’s death. But he’d done his homework. He reminded her she once wrote a column on the ‘fury’ of 2020. It’s fab, she wrote, to see ‘the fury over Floyd’s death’ being transported to ‘all four corners of the globe’. Got that? Fury over Floyd – good. Rage over Nowak – don’t even think about it. Some are putting this down to the fact that Floyd was black, and thus sympathetic, while Nowak was white, and thus ‘privileged’. I think it’s more to do with the different social make-up of those who are ‘raging’. In 2020, it was primarily bourgeois leftists who broke out of lockdown to mourn Floyd. It became mandatory in polite society to join their orgy of performative virtue. ‘Silence is violence!’, they yelled at any sinful mortal who refused to bend the knee in the fashion of the liberal establishment. Now it’s mostly working-class non-Londoners who are fuming about what was done to poor Henry. Some are even wrapped in the St George’s flag, and nothing is more alarming to our betters than a swarm of patriots. The elitism is rank. It feels as though some people are more unnerved by the growing rumble of working-class anger than they are by what happened to Henry. You can feel the wheels of the discussion turning, away from that horror in Southampton and towards the supposed horror of ordinary people saying: ‘We’ve had enough.’ Yes, there were ugly scenes in Southampton on Tuesday night. A breakaway mob threw bins at police officers. I have no doubt that the decent mourners for Henry gathered at the police station would condemn such behaviour. And you know what? Their condemnation counts for a hell of a lot more than the hypocritical bluster of leftists who whooped when their mates threw bottles at cops after a man died in Minneapolis.

2026-06-04 11:48:05 GMT

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I see that the people who took the knee and tore down statues after a man was killed 4,000 miles away from Britain are now yelping ‘Don’t politicise Henry Nowak’s death’. The same leftists who poured onto the streets to rage over the death of George Floyd are barking at the rest of us not to rage over the death of young Henry.
‘Don’t stir up tensions’, says an activist class which in that heady summer of 2020 happily hurled missiles at British cops and danced like Taliban-lite loons on a monument to a slave trader they’d just toppled. What a festival of cant we have endured since the conviction of Vickrum Digwa for his savage slaying of Nowak. It reached its peak on Tuesday during the eruption of working-class fury at Southampton Police Station. Angry men and women gathered to roar ‘I CAN’T BREATHE’ – Henry’s last words. How crass, said snooty leftists all over social media. But you did the same thing, lads. You marched to the US Embassy in London in May 2020 crying ‘I can’t breathe’, which were Floyd’s last words too. There’s more than hypocrisy at play here. We are witnessing the drawing of a line between the well-informed, righteous fury of the middle classes and the apparently low-information rage of the lower orders. If you are from leafy London, have a university degree and use phrases like ‘structural racism’, you’re allowed to vent your fury. If you read a tabloid newspaper, have never darkened a university door and say ‘Nigel Farage is the dog’s b*llocks’, you are not. This is a campaign to pathologise working-class anger.
Fear of the masses is in the air. You can almost smell the establishment dread that the wrong sort of people are about to hit the streets – not graduate leftists in keffiyehs but gammon-hued blokes in white t-shirts. The front page of Wednesday’s Independent is a classic of this fretful genre. ‘Family’s plea for calm ignored’, wails the headline over a photo of the protest in Southampton. But the people in the pic are perfectly calm. It’s just rows of mournful folk carrying the England flag. Are you okay, Independent? The Guardian, too, seems consumed by foreboding. It says there are ‘fears’ that ‘the populist right’ will ‘whip up racist resentment’. Demagoguery is always the chief dread of the bourgeois left, given their view of the little people as a coiled spring of bovine fury that might be unsprung at any minute. The Guardian blasts Farage for calling for ‘pure, cold rage’ in response to Nowak’s death. It’s a complaint that would carry more weight if the Guardian hadn’t published pieces in the wake of Floyd’s death saying ‘We need the rage that abolished slavery’. So it’s okay to ‘rage’ over the tragic demise of a career criminal a whole ocean away but not over the horrendous death of a sweet kid right here in Britain? The theatrical gasping over Farage’s use of that r-word is absurd. Leftists love a ‘rage against Israel’ or a ‘rage against the Tories’ or, indeed, a ‘rage against the police’. Yet the minute Farage-supporting oiks propose a new ‘rage’ against Southampton’s sloppy cops, the left is dashing for the fainting couch. Their rage is noble, you see, while yours is scary.

2026-05-30 18:33:32 GMT

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If you can grow onions and garlic then I would have thought you could grow leeks. Odd!

2026-05-30 18:30:09 GMT

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Chard and some leeks that were in the way of what I was planting out.

2026-05-30 18:24:56 GMT

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2026-05-29 13:24:20 GMT

@nprofile…ctu6
Those potato onions throw one hell of a flower spike! Getting on for 5’!
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2026-05-28 20:12:44 GMT

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I think Zil was saying she doesn’t know what the weeds are called, not the lupine.

2026-05-28 09:43:32 GMT

They were just tiny buds a week ago!
https://media.spinster.xyz/5444948057c4feca8df1307f4ef8fecf1882a9edd650eafb4ce11aee695622d8.jpeg

2026-05-27 19:52:51 GMT

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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.

2026-05-27 14:18:00 GMT

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I’ve oddly only ever found them on my lavender!

2026-05-24 17:55:12 GMT

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2026-05-22 19:44:24 GMT

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Oh, FFS. We really are fucked.

2026-05-22 15:48:12 GMT

https://spectator.com/article/when-teenage-rapists-walk-free/
Almost all civilised societies that have ever existed would execute these rapists without a second thought. They have committed crimes of surpassing evil, which they clearly took great pleasure in. Two of them raped on more than one occasion, escalated to using a knife, sought to degrade their victims and even filmed their crimes, meaning their guilt cannot be in question. Their relative youth is no excuse. If they are old enough to rape girls at knifepoint, they are old enough to be sentenced as men. A just Britain, which actually cared about the safety of women and girls, would send these boys to the gallows. […]
Putting aside the questions of whether having ADHD or being stupid make or excuse a rapist (because of course they don’t), this case reveals a deeper rot in how we approach justice and sentencing. Characteristics which make someone more dangerous and more likely to offend are officially defined in the sentencing guidelines as mitigating when they are aggravating. Those criminals who are low IQ, don’t understand the concept of consent and are easily led are much more likely to continue committing crimes. As noted criminal barrister Adam King said to me, ‘given their disproportionately high rates of reoffending, young, impulsive criminals can be seen as precisely the people law-abiding citizens need protecting from.’
https://archive.ph/6djIF

2026-05-22 09:28:36 GMT

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2026-05-14 09:27:04 GMT

A day for seeing my neighbours from afar: Sue, walking the dog by the stones; her husband Dave, off for a day of cheffing; Jane and John, out for a hack.
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2026-05-11 19:54:23 GMT

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!
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2026-05-09 09:25:46 GMT

Come on, rain, just a bit further west! You can do it!
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2026-05-04 18:29:02 GMT

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It guarantees a good sauce to pasta ratio in each bite, and you can use a thicker filling than would work for regular pasta and sauce.
Yeah, the standard cooking instructions are 16mins, I give them nine before I fill them so they’re not too floppy.

2026-05-04 18:24:56 GMT

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Pasta shells stuffed with mushrooms and broccoli.

2026-05-04 18:12:04 GMT

Doorbell went at exactly the wrong moment :(
Still tasty, though!
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2026-05-02 09:33:50 GMT

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2026-05-02 09:32:04 GMT

Skylarks do make a tremendous racket for such tiny wee things.
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https://media.spinster.xyz/b53678ef88baf0c73485204175d52e1a95086e999eb696eb145e90e8ee422afc.mov

2026-04-27 15:08:46 GMT

Went to replay an old Switch game, loaded up mid-way through the game, looked for but didn’t find a new game option. Came out of the game, deleted the save data (on both my and my ex’s account), went back into the game, mid-way through again. Tried on my ex’s account, new game no problem.
Very weird.

2026-04-22 15:10:12 GMT

Well, lost my never-had-an-accident driving record.
(Assuming we don’t count the time I drove into a hospital.)
Am ok. Car is a bit sad. Other driver ok, car sadder.
On hold while my insurance checks local garages, very much hope my usual is on their approved list.

2026-04-20 18:05:03 GMT

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2026-04-16 12:36:55 GMT

Slow clap for my local council, who missed the garden/food bin collection last week and have now removed that bin entirely on the website schedule.
I’m guessing this is because I’m now supposed to pay for the garden bin and use my new food bin.
There is a slight problem in that there has been no communication to tell me about this change, no mechanism on the website to pay for the garden bin, and no sign of the new food bin being delivered…..

2026-04-15 18:23:08 GMT

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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.

2026-04-15 18:21:49 GMT

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!

2026-04-12 19:23:42 GMT

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2026-04-09 19:19:03 GMT

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.

2026-04-06 19:17:53 GMT

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Oh, how have you missed this? I have a subscription with a tinned fish shop, and I’ve been getting some seriously fancy tuna!
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2026-04-06 19:08:21 GMT

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Yup. Just the regular stuff, not one of my fancy tins.

2026-04-06 18:08:02 GMT

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2026-04-06 14:09:23 GMT

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/india/india-bangladesh-border-crocodiles-snakes-fencing-b2952385.html
India is considering releasing venomous snakes and crocodiles into its river border with Bangladesh as an alternative to building a physical barrier along parts of its eastern frontier.
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist party has ploughed significant resources into building a fence along the 4,096km border with Bangladesh, but around 20 per cent remains largely open. Of the 850km unfenced stretch, some 175km is considered unsuitable for a physical barrier due to the marshy terrain and the risk of flooding.
Now, the idea of dispatching dangerous reptiles into this riverine environment is being discussed in meetings and internal memos from the Border Security Force, according to local media reports.

2026-04-06 13:59:12 GMT

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/04/06/labours-islamophobia-ban-spells-the-death-of-english-liberty/
The most important feature of this debate is who the critics of the government’s definition are. Jonathan Hall KC, the government’s own terrorism-legislation reviewer, warned he was ‘against an Islamophobia definition because it’s directed at a thing, at religion, rather than an anti-Muslim hatred law, which is about protecting people’. Fiyaz Mughal, founder of Tell MAMA – an organisation that records anti-Muslim hate in the UK – warned the process could be exploited by ‘Islamist groups and those affiliated with Muslim Brotherhood front groups’. The National Secular Society called it ‘unnecessary and misguided’.
These are not GB News talking heads. They are liberals, secularists and Muslims who understand something the government will not grasp: that the people most harmed are not comfortable commentators but the vulnerable: ex-Muslims facing death threats for apostasy, Muslim women suffering from honour-based violence, grooming-gang survivors whose testimony was buried because professionals feared the accusation. For these people, the free criticism of Islam is not an intellectual luxury. It is a matter of physical survival.
No religion deserves its own tsar. To assault a Muslim is a crime. To discriminate against a Muslim is unlawful. But to say Islam promotes the subordination of women is not a crime. To mock the proposition that a seventh-century Arabian merchant received the final revelation of the creator of the universe is not a crime. The capacity to give offence is not an unfortunate byproduct of free speech. It is its essential purpose. This is not about protecting Muslims from hatred. It is about protecting Islam from criticism. Those are two completely different things.

2026-04-06 13:50:03 GMT

https://spectator.com/article/the-easter-tradition-of-women-taking-men-hostage/
In contrast to the later custom of ‘lifting’, the essence of Hocktide customs was the capture and tying-up of a ‘victim’ – who was then made to pay a ransom for their release. Unlike the later custom, which was done to both men and women, Hocktide involved women (often in large, roving gangs) capturing men. The earliest reference to Hocktide is from London in 1406, and the practice’s heartland was Oxford and the Thames Valley. At Hocktide the respectable women of the parish would set out with ropes and chains and take captive as many men as they could in order to raise funds for the church. The men would not be set free until they paid up. In some parishes, such as Lambeth, Hocktide ransoms were the largest single source of parochial income. […]
The origin story that circulated in the 15th century was that Hocktide commemorated English women who captured Danes and ransomed them in the 11th century. There was even a Hocktide play performed annually in Coventry that dramatised this story. When Queen Elizabeth visited Coventry and saw it in the 1570s she reportedly enjoyed the spectacle of England’s women seeing off the Danes.
https://archive.ph/0EV1e

2026-04-06 00:44:57 GMT

2am oh jeebus.

2026-04-05 20:59:15 GMT

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I’ve got it in a metal water bottle, and am much refreshed by an hour with my feet up!

2026-04-05 19:45:01 GMT

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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!

2026-04-05 18:11:12 GMT

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.)

2026-04-05 09:02:36 GMT

My dog sitter has survived her first “storm” at my house (it actually passed further north):
Took me a while to find the duck food bowl. Bins are all tipped over. Can't see any major damage yet.

2026-04-03 18:39:24 GMT

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2026-04-03 15:16:31 GMT

Oh god, there’s a weeb convention in the hotel.

2026-04-02 20:51:18 GMT

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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.

2026-04-02 20:21:18 GMT

Does anyone have that amazing video of a police 4x4 pulling an HGV plus trailer on, I think, the M25?

2026-04-02 18:23:12 GMT

https://media.spinster.xyz/e64de89f359229d01d3beb797e1f0336d649b3fbbaa06b43247c2a30821a44f2.jpeg

2026-04-02 18:17:40 GMT

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Oh, no, definitely not. And that would be lots of small sources.

2026-04-02 18:16:07 GMT

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No, not close. Probably diesel exhaust, or maybe burning cleared scrub, but from memory that field is just rough grazing.

2026-04-02 18:11:32 GMT

This whatever it is has been parked in that field puffing smoke at about this time every evening this week, but not during the daytime.
Starting to wonder if Howl is visiting on his holidays….
https://media.spinster.xyz/c115b94781626a2845991df99709b83438c84f8537e09ed8c18b0ad9ae2aafaf.jpeg

2026-04-02 13:31:06 GMT

I’ve been doing a lot of driving (by my standards) this week, because obvs that’s what you do when petrol prices are surging.
About 1.5hrs on Monday, 2hrs on Tuesday, and by the end of the drive on Tuesday I was getting a sharp pain in my dodgy shoulder. It went away when I stopped, so I thought nothing of it, but I woke up this morning with it very stiff and sore, and it’s still uncomfortable now.
This evening is supposed to be Pilates, which would probably help but it’s 1.5hrs driving, and then I have to do another 2+hrs tomorrow, and I really don’t want to spend the weekend in pain.
So I guess I’m not going :(

2026-04-02 08:45:09 GMT

Signs of spring: squashed toads on the roads :(

2026-04-01 21:00:48 GMT

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https://media.spinster.xyz/68ff4d54f1c539d8b7a6b573f0586f61742e4b4f54f0f45b2a59cde9ba7dde00.jpeg

2026-04-01 20:38:54 GMT

My feet still hurt from wearing smart shoes on Monday :(

2026-04-01 18:50:13 GMT

UK: Tesco is doing 15p veg for Easter. Not sure about other places.

2026-04-01 18:18:10 GMT

Oh good lord:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/01/elizabeth-i-will-be-transgender-in-itv-drama/
The Tudor queen, who never married and established England as a rising imperial power, will be shown as a biological man in the six-part series next year.
The independence of the ‘Virgin Queen’, who ruled from 1558 to 1603 and defeated the Spanish Armada, has given rise to improbable conspiracies that she was a man masquerading as a woman.
Claims of her being a trans woman will be a central focus of the new series, titled Majesty, in which the monarch will be played by a transgender ‘woman’, according to reports. […]
Maya Forstater, Chief Executive of Sex Matters, said the series “sounds like an April Fool’s joke”.
“The news that Queen Elizabeth I is to be portrayed as transgender in a new ITV drama sounds like an April Fool’s joke, not the basis for a six part show that people will keep watching,” she told the Telegraph.
“Some in the arts sector seem to think that portraying historical female figures such as Joan of Arc as trans-identifying is edgy, but TV viewers who are already sick of gender ideology may say ‘this is too much’ and vote with their remote.
“The sexist conspiracy theory that Elizabeth I was a man because a woman couldn’t possibly have led as she did is tired enough already.”
Sorry, archive is on the blink again.

2026-03-30 06:43:15 GMT

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No, my landline ones. At least they all change when I do one of them.

2026-03-29 20:32:00 GMT

I was looking for, and failed to find, something else entirely, but may I present: me, aged around three, after a long day in the garden.
https://media.spinster.xyz/01d63bca66a7459bff5a9a282e7e14335dda0e648327b81e974341a060e64909.jpeg

2026-03-29 20:12:43 GMT

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The phones always catch me out, for some reason I expect something so techy to DIY it.

2026-03-29 18:07:38 GMT

I’ve just spent the last half hour pondering, on and off, why it’s so light: surely clear skies can’t make that much difference?
Felt very dumb when I remembered the clocks had changed….
https://media.spinster.xyz/0986e6a65bdfd60526e1827be59fe0e46d97f6727e36df8becc904ce17c97b6c.jpeg

2026-03-28 21:17:57 GMT

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Neo-nazi-ish.

2026-03-28 20:51:51 GMT

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I think it’s actually an anti-Tommy-Robinson protest.

2026-03-28 18:14:27 GMT

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Just cheese, no fish.

2026-03-28 18:11:22 GMT

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Really! I tried it one time on a whim, just cheese in the roll. Not sure it would work with shrimp, though, I think the tastes would clash.

2026-03-28 17:58:47 GMT

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Yay! Good for you, it does get easier and quicker with practice.
Don’t mock this until you try it: strong cheddar cheese next time you do sushi!

2026-03-28 13:44:26 GMT

https://beautymatter.com/articles/italy-halts-the-sephora-kids-ride
The Italian competition authority Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato (AGCM) has reportedly launched investigations into LVMH’s Sephora Italia and Benefit Cosmetics over “possible unfair commercial practices” relating to the advertising of products created for adults to children and adolescents.
AGCM claims the companies (Benefit Cosmetics LLC, Sephora Italia S.r.L., and LVMH Profumi e Cosmetici Italia S.r.L.) encouraged consumers as young as 10-12 to make compulsive purchases of face masks, serums, and anti-aging creams. The authority believes this fuels the issue of “cosmeticorexia”—an obsession with skincare among minors. AGCM also claims the companies used “insidious” marketing strategies that involved very young influencers.

2026-03-28 12:36:13 GMT

‘Scuse us, Mrs, but can you do something about the lumps of ice falling out of the sky…?
https://media.spinster.xyz/bfe09455879ed76451ac0c54c7d15df2e6b48753a0ca7abe5105c64c59bd49b6.jpeg

2026-03-28 12:21:07 GMT

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/03/28/no-one-is-addicted-to-instagram-or-youtube/
The real issue raised by this case is the aversion to responsibility that now prevails in the West. This is aided by the commanding influence of the narrative of ‘addiction’. We live in a world where bad habits, as they used to be called, have been rebranded, medicalised and diagnosed as addictions. I still remember the days when this psychological label was only used in reference to alcohol and drugs. Since the 1980s, however, addiction has undergone the process of concept creep. From sex addiction to shopping addiction, just about every form of obsessive behaviour has been pathologised as a deep psychological problem that deprives people of autonomy. It is no longer only heavy smokers, alcoholics or drug abusers who are deemed ‘addicts’ now – everyone from compulsive phone users to obsessive cake eaters fits the expanded definition.
The flourishing of the addiction industry is partly driven by individuals’ demand to be relieved of responsibility for their bad behaviour. It is also fuelled by the Therapy Industrial Complex, which aims to turn people into vulnerable patients.

2026-03-28 08:03:38 GMT

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Was it good?

2026-03-27 16:03:41 GMT

https://spectator.com/article/its-easy-to-blame-big-tech-for-the-results-of-parental-neglect/
If a child found Mr. Kipling cakes particularly addictive and began overindulging to the point of becoming overweight or unwell, would we be right to sue the baker? Or would it make more sense to ask whether the parent had enabled the behaviour by leaving the packets within easy reach, refusing to set limits or using them as a convenient babysitter?
A Los Angeles jury has just delivered a landmark verdict against Meta and Google, finding both companies negligent for designing addictive platforms that harmed the mental health of a young user, known as Kaley. The £4.5 million awarded in damages, with Meta shouldering the lion’s share, has been hailed as social media’s ‘Big Tobacco moment’. Tech firms, it’s argued, acted recklessly in knowingly hooking children with infinite scrolls, auto-play and algorithmic dopamine hits, and so they are therefore fully responsible for the depression and anxiety that ensued.
It is a seductive narrative. It’s also a comforting one, because it shifts responsibility away from the place it is most uncomfortable and most necessary to look at: the home.
(Archive still down, sorry.)

2026-03-27 11:06:15 GMT

https://www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/03/school-book-banning-escalates-in-the-uk-as-greater-manchester-secondary-school-censors-scores-of-books/
In November 2025, a school library in Greater Manchester underwent a purge. Inspired by the headteacher’s dislike of one particular title, books were pulled off the shelves, in a case unlike any previously seen in the UK. Within weeks, more than 130 books had been targeted – nearly 200 if each issue of the numerous graphic novels is counted. The books included a graphic novel of George Orwell’s Nineteen-Eighty-Four, young adult books like Dean Atta’s Black Flamingo and Alice Oseman’s chart-topping Heartstopper graphic novel series. Black Flamingo has since been reinstated, but the fate of many books on the list is unclear.
The school leadership pointed the finger at the librarian. She was threatened with disciplinary action, labeled as a safeguarding risk and at one point she was under risk of police involvement. She resigned from her job under severe stress.

2026-03-27 10:42:17 GMT

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It’s mined, not from the sea.
But: quite.

2026-03-27 10:22:21 GMT

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/03/26/the-end-of-the-british-salt-industry-could-be-apocalyptic/
the UK is on the verge of becoming a net importer of salt, for the first time in history. Inovyn, the company that produces roughly 50 per cent of Britain’s salt, has announced that it will likely have to close its facility in Runcorn, Cheshire, unless it receives government support. Like the rest of the UK’s manufacturing industry, Inovyn is struggling to cope with the UK’s breathtakingly high energy costs and crippling carbon taxes. In other words, Britain’s salt industry is to be sacrificed at the altar of Net Zero.
The decline of salt would be an economic disaster. The chemical and pharmaceutical industry is one of the largest manufacturers in the UK. Salt, which is used in 90 per cent of pharmaceuticals, is a vital component in a surprising number of everyday products. Only the food industry contributes more to the domestic economy – and the food industry also needs high-quality salt, for taste and preservative reasons.

2026-03-27 07:47:03 GMT

I slipped on some slushy snow yesterday morning, but I thought I was ok because I landed on nice bouncy heather.
I was wrong :(

2026-03-26 20:13:26 GMT

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/03/26/britains-energy-nightmare-is-of-our-own-elites-making/
The energy secretary is wrong on all fronts. Catastrophically so. As a new report by Offshore Energy UK (OEUK) confirms, North Sea oil and gas drilling has indeed fallen sharply in recent years. But this has been driven by government policy, not the supplies in reserve beneath the sea. Miliband’s ban on new North Sea oil exploration, and his continuation of the Tories’ windfall tax on the sector, are by far the greatest constraint on domestic drilling. As a result, according to OEUK, imports of LNG – which currently account for 14 per cent of the UK gas supply – are set to soar to 46 per cent by 2035. Under Miliband’s North Sea shutdown, Britain will become more dependent on suppliers like Qatar, and thus more vulnerable to external energy shocks.
And what might domestic protection mean for the price of energy? While nobody expects reopening the North Sea to instantly rescue the UK from the current price hikes, more domestic drilling could indeed lower costs in the long run. Miliband’s insistence that prices are set ‘internationally’, and so domestic production would ‘not take a penny off energy bills’, is straightforwardly untrue. If prices really were set globally, the UK would not be paying six times more for gas than energy-rich America.

2026-03-26 19:52:26 GMT

Had one of those cars whose headlights could double up as a thermonuclear detonation behind me for half the drive home, on a really windy road so they kept flashing in and out of my wing mirrors.
Dread to think how much worse my new headache would be without the fancy coating on my glasses.
Petrol 157 in WAG land.

2026-03-26 15:03:08 GMT

https://adfinternational.org/news/breaking-finlands-supreme-court-acquits-parliamentarian-on-bible-tweet-convicts-her-for-insult-in-20-year-old-church
In a narrow 3–2 decision, the Finnish Supreme Court has found parliamentarian Päivi Räsänen guilty of “hate speech” on one charge relating to the expression of her beliefs on marriage and sexual ethics in a twenty-year-old church pamphlet. Räsänen has been criminally convicted for publishing the 2004 pamphlet for her church, alongside Lutheran Bishop Juhana Pohjola. The conviction is for “making and keeping available to the public a text that insults a group”. The Supreme Court unanimously acquitted Räsänen for her 2019 Bible verse tweet.
Räsänen was previously unanimously acquitted on all charges by two lower courts.

2026-03-26 14:26:52 GMT

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According to my council, there’s a new nation-wide requirement that all councils do weekly food collections. Making the garden bin weekly would be too expensive, so they’re bringing these in.
(And adding a new charge for the garden bin, as there’s no requirement for them to offer that.)

2026-03-26 10:39:55 GMT

They’re not bloody “depressed”, ffs. Predictive text doesn’t have feelings.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15678939/Google-AI-bots-locked-despressive-spiral-refuse-carry-tasks-repeatedly-told-wrong.html
Google’s AI bots reportedly suffer ‘emotional distress’ and abandon tasks when repeatedly told they are wrong, according to new research.
The company’s Gemini and Gemma models, which assists users with daily tasks, can fall into a ‘depressive' spiral if they get answers wrong or fail to complete tasks when prompted.
And the chatbots even go so far as abandoning routines and deleting work, according to a study conducted by Imperial College London and AI company Anthropic.

2026-03-26 10:27:40 GMT

https://media.spinster.xyz/d9a455c88e7cf9ef02c4df527467dcac4e3b1033c7535a0d05537e7e7bd6b646.jpeg
https://media.spinster.xyz/40be2b3018c1a76a8581ac6f7b0841fa555df7a09d10503b272d5c5613147fb0.jpeg
https://media.spinster.xyz/b3967558640517418b697ed46f03465458f76aebcf4b128a18fc48238d1c102c.mov

2026-03-26 10:25:27 GMT

That’s a new one!
We’re supposedly getting those little separate food bins next month. Given how often my big wheelie bins make a bid for freedom, I have no idea how I’m supposed to stop it flying to the next county.
https://media.spinster.xyz/82b48862180bed54ba8c9f7443350a3a323d9571181026ea1df6737870b4cf3f.jpeg

2026-03-26 08:44:55 GMT

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This might be bollocks: I have not had this happen.

2026-03-25 19:08:27 GMT

https://media.spinster.xyz/5719c5a634b53a6c6016d24b8775a9588fd9936b26289ed117d091e3da6ee213.jpeg

2026-03-25 12:44:20 GMT

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Yes, they can if they want to.
It’s turned back to snow now, at least.

2026-03-25 12:37:08 GMT

Poor ducks :(
https://media.spinster.xyz/e3428780dc799bb0a5dd242f17aaf134bd9b59fcd5e54ac1b9637449b4552f89.jpeg
https://media.spinster.xyz/23d188f63cfce16441e4d077f94afa75fd055fa475b032a1c6c96bdd17865482.jpeg

2026-03-25 12:28:13 GMT

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2026/bbc-eye-investigation-endangered-european-glass-eels
Another triad member tells BBC Eye: “Just one small glass eel is worth around 2 to 3 dollars.”
“We smuggle 500 to 200 kilos a time.”
“During peak season we usually make around 2 or 3 deliveries a week. At 9 or 10 pm a brother from Mainland China tells us when to begin.”
“No mobile phones allowed. We normally wait for the tide to rise in the early morning.”
“Big ships are waiting, with facilities to keep the eels alive. They transport them to China. We use speedboats or other small boats.”
“With the neighbouring gang we have six teams which is enough to run the entire European eel smuggling operation.”

2026-03-25 07:34:38 GMT

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That’s why I don’t use them.

2026-03-24 22:11:12 GMT

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My current favourite mash is with cream cheese and powdered bone broth. Cauliflower is my least favourite brassica, but I will have to try it with turnips in a few weeks when my early crop comes through.

2026-03-24 22:04:01 GMT

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See, FINAF, it’s not just me!
Vox, try it in mashed potatoes, too!

2026-03-24 21:14:36 GMT

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Disgustingly ironic that Kneecap played a gig, full of flood lights and high-powered amps, immediately after which the electricity grid fell over again.

2026-03-24 20:22:06 GMT

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Secret ingredient!

2026-03-24 20:06:31 GMT

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Crust is just my regular dough, rolled very thin (I can give you the recipe if you want but it’s metric!), “sauce” is finely chopped sundried tomatoes mixed with cream cheese (I’m not that keen on pizza sauce), toppings are salami, mushrooms and sugar snaps (snow peas, I think?) (a bit weird but they needed using), and mozzarella.