Vivienne Westwood. but it's still ugly.
https://media.spinster.xyz/d98de4073cd1af1cc40af740cd559e0d1727c8e4a46a105e3dd6a47d47f772f2.avif
Are the green bits part of the jumper, or are the sleeves separate and she has a green top underneath?
(Ugly either way.)
Yikes. That sounds both smelly and gloopy.
Glad to see the Spectator has republished this: I read the pre-paywall part of it the other day and thought the whole thing would be worth a look.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-rotherham-cover-up/
The specific kind of crime that ‘Rotherham’ represents is absolutely racialised, and it is not rare. Rotherham itself is a small town. By a conservative estimate, 1,400 children (the vast majority girls) were abused over a 15-year period, representing a very substantial minority of white girls living in Rotherham at the time. A 2020 study by academics from Reading and Chichester universities estimated that 1 in 73 Muslim men in Rotherham were prosecuted for their involvement in the abuse, with an unknown additional number evading detection. Almost everyone in Rotherham knows someone involved, either as victim or perpetrator. It should not surprise us that, during last Summer’s race riots, the town was the site of some of the most serious violence.
But a post-industrial northern town like Rotherham feels a very long way from Westminster. ‘Rotherham’ as a synecdoche doesn’t just represent the racially-motivated sexual torture of adolescent girls, it also represents catastrophic elite failure.
Tbh, I don’t think anyone whose sole platform was “Palestine” (or, for the avoidance of doubt, Isreal or Ukraine or Russia or the Cape Verde islands) should be an MP.
Robert Harris - The Second Sleep.
Well, that was depressing! I sincerely hope that they made the father be less of a twat in the TV series.
It misses the current point, though: apparently it’s just the UK in (inflationary) crisis, and at the appropriate moment “ships from Calais” are expected to arrive.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
I succumbed to the lure of 15p sprouts. nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpqnnh80e3s5c9e5ktz9ny98tnqv43slhgucr7p4xvyc4hc84t7cpfq33sffp is right, supermarket sprouts have got crap. Very glad I also bought some from the greengrocer for Christmas dinner.
Added nostr:npub1uxmmyz2nw8ys8npflt93m9yu5c8ewckp00xsu5g3aykvn836jt7qyxujtm to the Brits list, sure there are loads I'm missing from nostr and mostr
nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4xqpzp89qh469qapddgsrr8qw84xx08y7q34fm3cw3m64c2g9ufq9ydqtqyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpz4mhxue69uhkummnw3ezummcw3ezuer9wchsqp2zwf5hgucmvkln2
#brits
Oh, loads of Brits on Fedi, but I’ve found a fair number on Nostr too.
https://unherd.com/2024/12/a-food-apocalypse-is-coming/
A lot of people assume that somewhere in Britain there are sheds full of food that we’d distribute in a disaster. Surely there is a grain or butter mountain somewhere? Surely the UK government has a plan for such a crisis?
Nope. No sheds. No stores. No mountains of food. No plan.
All politicians say that food security matters, but no one admits that basically we don’t have it. Britain probably has less than a week of food supplies. The only food in the UK is what’s on the shelves of our supermarkets now, and what’s in their lorries on the way to the shops. Oh, and whatever you have in the fridge, plus a few crops growing on UK farms or stored in barns, and whatever is edible and roaming around in fields. And perhaps you could hunt or forage if you have a gun or a trap or two.
Brrr.
I’m starting to wonder if my decision to not salt the steps was right, the flurries are showing no signs of turning to sleet.
I just heard a segment on the news about the Syrian music scene, and they played some snippets of very interesting fusion electronica.
It seems a very long shot, but can anyone point me at some artist names?
https://unherd.com/2024/12/the-private-police-patrolling-london/
Such is the national mood. Trust in the police is at an historic low, with crime recently surging to the fourth-biggest issue in the country. Yet in this vacuum of order, Hadley Wood offers one potential solution. For £100 a month per household, a firm called My Local Bobby will be your private police force, patrolling the lanes and back alleys, responding in 30 seconds to a break-in and even picking your wife up from the station in the dark. I spotted them myself, crawling by in patrol cars as I strolled the empty streets. Behind them, meanwhile, is a team that’ll privately prosecute criminals through the courts, with a conviction rate of 100%, a service recently used by Reform UK after the alleged assault of a police officer at Manchester Airport.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn4x24d1dkxo
Residents of a road near Sevenoaks have expressed their frustration at not receiving any post for over three weeks.
People living on Collet Road in Kemsing have been waiting for important letters such as medical appointments, bank statements and cheques.
Michael Creasey, who regularly attends Moorfields Eye Hospital and is waiting for confirmation of an appointment early next year, said: "It's a bit of a worry."
A Royal Mail spokesperson said letters and parcels were treated with equal importance and if a route experienced a delay, it would look to prioritise that area the next day.
Mr Creasey said he regularly phones his doctor's surgery for updates.
"I should have the letter by now," he said.
Post vans are still seen on the quiet estate on the edge of the village but are only delivering parcels...........................................................
The only time I get post now is if it comes with a parcel. Thankfully my postie does make the effort to grab the rest of my letters when he brings one
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp3zd40kdgyo
Elderly and vulnerable people in south-east England have told the BBC how they lost control of their money and property after dealing with a law firm based in Essex.
They described how they were persuaded - and sometimes felt under pressure - to grant lasting power of attorney (LPA) to a man called Ron Hiller, a partner in the firm.
LPA is a legal agreement in which someone appoints an "attorney" to make decisions on their behalf, either for finance or health and welfare.
Attorneys are supposed to act in their clients' best interests. But we investigated 30 cases involving Mr Hiller and his firm, Craybeck Law, and found a disturbing pattern of events:
People found they had no access to their bank accounts and no idea how much Mr Hiller was charging for being their attorney
Large amounts of cash were withdrawn without a reasonable explanation
Properties were sold for what owners and others considered was lower than market value, and possessions were cleared and disposed of without owners' knowledge or informed consent
There has been a massive rise in LPAs in England and Wales in recent years. In 2023, more than one million people registered - a rise of 37% on the year before.
I listened to the trailer for that series the other day, it sounds terrible.
They are making the right noises thus far, eg meeting with priests and issuing an order that women’s dress should not be policed, but we shall see.
If we’re talking Nostr, I’m @flick@henhouse.social (but less active than here).
nostr:nprofile1qy2hwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnddaehgu3wwp6kyqpq8htsymwgvzth35hka65qtr0xzku9vxp9agxqa9x6eyxrvke20w8q7pj4tv I am now seeing (some?) Bluesky content on Nostr, but I’m drawing a blank at getting a link to it over the bridge.
Eg: @aoc@bsky-social.eclipse.pub
You’re not the only one to say that, so I suppose it must be! I would have thought Bart would be a more likely shortening (he is old enough to be pre-Simpsons).