Behold, my Christmas faggot:
Looking for fabric that my mum would like.
Massively side-tracked.
https://www.cottonpatch.co.uk/tochio-yarn-dyed-10-patchwork-palette
I feel really sorry for my financial planner’s secretary.
(I eventually deciphered it as “with very best wishes”. I think!)
Help: what am I going to get my mum for Christmas?
Things I have bought her in recent years: a rose plant; a big fluffy fleece dressing gown; a raised planter with seeds for growing salad; a fancy smoked salmon hamper.
Things there is no point buying for her: clothes; homewares; any kind of non-gardening hobby stuff; books.
I had a blinder of an idea the other day (I’m going to make her a blanket with old cashmere jumpers that she’s given me because they have tiny bits of damage; while this breaks the “no homewares” rule, as it will be colours she chose I think it will be acceptable), but it won’t be done in time so will be for her birthday next year.
Nearly 10,000 Pakistanis entered the country with temporary visitor, work or student visas before then switching last year to claim asylum in an attempt to secure permanent residency in the UK, according to government data.
Pakistan now accounts for one in 10 of all asylum claims, more than any of the 175 other nations from which migrants seek refugee status in the UK. It topped the table with over 11,000 asylum applications, ahead of Afghanistan, Iran and Eritrea in a five-fold rise since 2022 when its claims numbered just 2,154. […]
“The rise of Pakistan in the asylum league tables exposes a truth politicians often avoid: Britain’s migration system isn’t just failing at the borders - it’s failing within them. Yes, small boats matter. But ‘legal entry, then asylum claim’ shows how the system is being gamed from inside.
The Covid inquiry is an extremely slow and expensive way of reaching some highly questionable conclusions. It is based on a remarkably limited range of material, much of it lacking in objectivity. Some of its arguments are logically incoherent. And it is riddled with solemn warnings against methodological errors and omissions which the author then proceeds to commit herself.
This is the second “module” of the inquiry. At £200 million and with another eight modules to go, one is bound to question whether the public is getting value for money.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/11/17/how-net-zero-will-deepen-the-uks-housing-crisis/
Landlords will soon face a stark choice. A retired teacher who rents a two-bedroom flat to supplement her pension might soon discover that her property is rated Band D. The cost of upgrading to Band C is from £5,000 to £8,000 – a cost she may not be able to bear. If she continues to let the property after 2028, she will be liable for a £30,000 penalty. The likely result is a forced exit from the rental market, reducing the supply of affordable housing at a time of chronic shortages.
The policy’s reach extends beyond those who let properties. Any homeowner who sells his home must provide a valid EPC. If the rating is below Band C and no exemptions apply, the sale cannot proceed until the necessary works are completed. For those inheriting a property, the burden falls on the estate. In each case, the £30,000 fine looms.
For those days when your shoulders are having a hot flush.
Some force required to get him out of the house. Went far enough to have a poo then turned and route-marched home.
Actually difficult to walk in the stronger gusts, but not that much rain: the low patches on the road aren’t flooded all the way across. Yet.
Women cannot rape in the UK. The law specifies a penis.
Dear Diary,
Today, I almost saw the sun!
I checked the message carefully before I did anything.
He’s since replied and it turns out he thought he was BCCing his travelling companion.
sigh
German chap has just replied to me explaining that he BCC’d ‘me’ in his email to the hotel, but still blithely assuming that he was addressing his mate he’s going to Czechia with….
At least I’m not going to be getting all the hotel’s email, I guess?
I have an email address along the lines of FelicityJSmith@gmail.com. It’s not the most common name in the world, but there are evidently others: I’ve had a job interview offer from the FBI, a message from the RSPCA about the dog I want to adopt, and various similar things in the past. If it looks important, I reply and explain. There’s also an elderly lady who emails me whenever she won’t be in for her regular weekly phone call and will not be told that she has the wrong email address.
In what might be the oddest yet, today I’ve had an email from a German chap that was sent to an hotel in Czechia asking for a room price. Checking the headers, it’s been redirected from the address he sent it to to felicity.j.smith@gmail.com (a punctuation format I never use but often see in these types of messages) so presumably my namesake works there now….
Can I be bothered trying to find an alternate contact email for the hotel to let them know? Probably not. I guess I’ll reply to the German chap and let him know his message probably hasn’t gone through.
I love the fact that the Taliban flat out said “We don’t do that any more” but the Home Office hasn’t thought to ask them.
I think today may be worse than yesterday. First use of my winter coat….
If it’s real, it’s probably the one login thing they’ve been pushing for a while.
If you have clear skies, it’s worth looking north as soon as it gets dark.
https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/09/11/progressives-are-dehumanising-charlie-kirk-even-in-death/
His death does not come out of the blue. It happened after years of violent and hyperbolic rhetoric from the mainstream media and Democratic elites attacking conservatives as evil, Nazi-adjacent threats to the status quo. Indeed, the day before Kirk’s assassination, Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Murphy announced, ‘We’re in a war right now to save this country… so you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary in order to save the country’.
Nothing is beneath these people. After Kirk’s death, ‘progressive’ pundits and assorted online leftists have claimed that Kirk brought this on himself. That he deserves it for espousing ‘controversial’ views. MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd said that ‘[Kirk has] been one of the most divisive younger figures, who is constantly sort of pushing this hate speech aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which lead to hateful actions.’ By hateful thoughts and words, of course, Dowd means any views that challenge his liberal-left worldview.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/09/trade-unions-vow-to-oppose-supreme-court-trans-ruling/
Trade unions have vowed to oppose the Supreme Court ruling on transgender issues and have called official guidance on single-sex spaces “flawed”.
Delegates at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) voted unanimously in favour of a motion which said the April ruling went against the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
One representative of the Unison union accused Bridget Phillipson, the equalities minister, of overseeing a “segregation” of trans people in society.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwylp71vnjgo
A vaccine which could save Australia's endangered koala population from a rampant chlamydia epidemic has been approved for rollout for the first time.
University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) scientists have spent more than a decade developing a jab to curb the spread of the disease, which has devastated wild koala populations across most of eastern Australia.
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqjl0280zkvs8zq360kl3fn8nze6tp0ejpuxvnjc4zxt9xjne7g0qsznrpw6 ^
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwylp71vnjgo
A vaccine which could save Australia's endangered koala population from a rampant chlamydia epidemic has been approved for rollout for the first time.
University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) scientists have spent more than a decade developing a jab to curb the spread of the disease, which has devastated wild koala populations across most of eastern Australia.
Belarus is saying it was Ukraine’s fault because U jammed the drones’ signals. Just lol ffs.
Yeah, there seems to be slight concern that pegging it down might have caused damage but I suspect it will be fine.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-truth-about-the-trans-school-shooter/
For journalists to take a trans-mollycoddling stand in the pronoun wars isn’t merely to default to niceness. Misidentifying the biological sex of figures in news stories is an implicit declaration of support for an incoherent, unhinged ideology. This grammatical loyalty to progressive dogma apparently trumps journalistic integrity – the obligation to report the truth – and even decency. Chronicling the Annunciation Catholic Church and School shooting, the New York Times and the BBC are pandering to the tender feelings of someone who’s 1) a would-be mass murderer (the successful kind, by a rather arbitrary definition, kills four or more), 2) insane and 3) dead. We alive people resent once-reputable news outlets choosing the occasion of two murdered and 15 sometimes seriously injured schoolchildren and three injured adults in their eighties to propagandise and yet again defy biological reality.
Media kowtowing to trans orthodoxy alienates their mainstream audiences. Incorrect pronouns drive news consumers nuts. Alluding to a burly guy with five o’clock shadow in a pink wig as ‘she’ makes journalists seem like fools, and readers and viewers feel mocked. Even the wussy middle course of calling trans people ‘they’ leads to grammatical confusion.
Police have removed a banner calling for drivers to 'beep if you think Starmer's a wanker' over fears the noise could disturb residents.
Locals have said the sign created the 'loudest dual carriageway in Britain' before it was brought to the attention of police.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-small-boats-are-a-national-security-emergency/
But what is especially alarming is the demographic breakdown of recent small-boat migrants who have arrived on Britain’s shores. It is safe to say that that we are not referring to migratory trends dominated by women and girls who are at serious threat of sex-based violence in warzones where rape is used as a weapon of war. From January to June 2025, 70 per cent of the 19,982 small-boat migrants who were recorded as arriving in the UK were males who were 18 to 39 years of age. During this time, the top five nationalities among small-boat migrants are the following: Eritrean, Afghan, Sudanese, Somali, and Iranian. They originate from parts of the world where women’s rights are not in especially high supply.
On top of that, there are emerging trends which underscore the reality of the small-boats crisis being a national-security emergency. In the first half of this year, 977 Yemeni nationals arrived in the UK through small-boat Channel crossings – adding to the 1,300 last year. From January to June this year, 266 small-boat migrants who reached the UK’s shores were recorded as originating from the ‘Occupied Palestinian Territories’ – a marked increase from last year’s total figure of 72. There are growing signs that the impact of the Yemeni civil war and the Israel-Palestine conflict is spilling over into the UK’s small-boats emergency. Irrespective of one’s views on UK Middle Eastern policy, the possibility of the UK importing Yemenis sympathetic to the Houthis and Palestinians supportive of Hamas – two Islamist political-military organisations backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran – carries significant public-safety risks, especially to Britain’s Jewish communities.
https://freespeechunion.org/police-gag-order-against-union-activist-overturned-in-free-speech-case/
A Free Speech Union (FSU) member was arrested in an early-morning raid after criticising his former employer in a private Facebook group, then placed under “Orwellian” bail conditions barring him from even revealing the arrest. Following legal intervention supported by the FSU, the extraordinary “gagging clause” has now been overturned at a special court hearing. […]
In 2023, an employment tribunal ruled he had been unfairly dismissed on grounds of capability. Since then, he has continued to advise firefighters in a private Facebook group, occasionally posting critical remarks about the service’s management. Speaking to the Telegraph, he said his comments – which have been reviewed by the paper as well as by the FSU’s casework and legal teams – were “anodyne” and “certainly not criminal”.
Nevertheless, these remarks drew police attention. Earlier this summer, Staffordshire Police carried out a 7am raid on Moss’s home in Newcastle-under-Lyme, seizing his phones, iPad and computer, before arresting him on suspicion of an offence under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988. Moss said the officers were “heavy-handed” and left him feeling “like a criminal.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjeykklwn7vo
A Labour councillor who called for far-right protesters' throats to be cut at an anti-racism rally has been found not guilty of encouraging violent disorder.
Ricky Jones, 58, has been on trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court after he called demonstrators "disgusting Nazi fascists" and said "we need to get rid of them all" while addressing a crowd in Walthamstow on 7 August last year.
Long but interesting.
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/08/12/the-land-that-forgot-about-wolves/
The image of the fairy tale wolf no doubt has lots of semiotic resonances but the most obvious (beyond the literal danger of wolves themselves, I suppose) is that of the sexually predatory male. The message of these tales is that although there are good people in the world (your grandmother, the woodcutter, the little pig who made his house out of bricks), it is also inhabited by dangerous actors who want to do bad things to you. And since these actors will often come in disguises, pretending to be nice – and particularly when your mother and/or father has gone out or is otherwise not present – be on your guard. Learn to discern the benevolent from the malign.
He goes on to analyse some recent BBC versions of Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Pigs:
In Little Red Riding Hood, we see “Little Red” going to visit her grandmother with a basket of treats, as in the original. And, sure enough, we discover that there is a wolf lurking in the forest. But he is curiously un-wolf-like. With bunny-like ears and a fluffy tail he looks more like a fox, and his behaviour is flighty, cowardly, almost effete. And we quickly find out that he has no interest in eating “Little Red” or her grandmother or anybody else.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/do-the-palestine-action-protestors-really-care-about-palestine/
The focus of the protest, Palestine Action, is almost incidental as a cause, because those arrested, and the rest of those who attended, were there not because they identify in any specific sense with the cause of Palestine Action but rather because they identify with every cause.
Support for Palestine Action is merely the latest example of what has been dubbed the ‘omnicause’. Whether they’re demonstrating for Palestine, trans rights or the environment, it’s essentially the same people doing the same thing, but under supposedly different labels. If you drew a Venn diagram of Palestine, eco and trans activists, you would draw a simple circle, because they are basically the same people. They aren’t protestors with a focus; they protest about everything, everywhere. Palestine Action is itself an offshoot of a green group.
Peculiar day, barely a breath of wind (which is not normal up here!) but that at least meant the clouds were so slow moving that the sun only came out for the downhill part of our walk!
Transgender detainees undergoing police searches will be allowed to ask for officers of different sexes to frisk their top and bottom halves, under new guidelines.
The advice — designed to accommodate people who have not completed a full surgical transition — is among a series of protocols outlined in new official Police Scotland guidance issued on Wednesday.
The latest guidance suggests detainees, who are not necessarily accused or convicted of any crime, will be able to request what is called a “separate area search”.
A new guidance document explains that it “means that one half of their body will be searched by one biological sex officer and the other half of their body will be searched by a different biological sex officer.”
Heh, good point but there’s no way he’ll go: everyone hates him!
All my own veg.
