Juggling With Eggs

It’s right to highlight how #Sunak and #Starmer ‘s governments were completely asleep at the wheel on #wildfire risk and preparedness…but which ministers and departments dropped the ball? The Fire Service is currently overseen by Minister for Building Safety, Fire and Resilience…but under #Tories was Minister for Crime, Policing and Fire? Where is #Defra in all of this? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/04/government-dropped-plan-england-countryside-wildfires

I am just speechless. The Orwellian wording of a ‘minimum wait’ of 2 years before the real clock even begins to even start ticking of getting a diagnosis for #Autism and #ADHD is just spite. It’s wrecking kid’s lives. Waiting lists have existed for years, but this is a period of being locked out before you are even on the waiting list. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/sep/24/nhs-integrated-care-boards-england-two-year-waiting-times-adhd-autism-assessments

The #AfD move to ban ‘stumbling stones’ that commemorate not just Jewish lives taken by the Nazis, but that show where they last lived. Being a Brit I’d not heard of them until now, but I love the psychogeographical nature of their purpose. A chance encounter with them, a means of viewing a street scene through a Time Machine and to read them you must pause and bow your head. They are small but convey so much about the extent of the Holocaust. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqm2mm4y5dkko

Anyone British or Irish of my generation and older has surely woken up this morning thinking ‘what deliberate fuckwittery took place in the wee hours?’ #ukpol #NorthernIreland

Three aspects of this story horrify me: 1) It’s taken 8 yrs for the family to get any kind of justice 2) The property developer and ‘facade contractor’ found responsible for the window falling 26 stories onto the victim were fined total of £1.3 million. The luxury flats in the block sell for £3 million each 3) The piss poor design of the window is approved by the Health and Safety Executive (#HSE ) and has been installed widely across the country #UK #constructionhttps://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/sep/24/st-james-group-ltd-lindner-prater-fined-mick-ferris-killed-falling-window-corniche-london

Political donations have always been about buying favour and privilege. A true democracy would not be dependent on donations. They undermine concept everyone has one vote and those votes count equally (they don’t in the UK also because of FPTP). Notice that neither #Labour nor #Tories are suggesting political donations be banned from UK residents - just capped. #Reform are just making clear how obscene and undemocratic political donations are by the scale of those they accepted. #ukpol

Asked one of my kids today who really loves history to name anyone dead or alive who they thought was a genius. I was expecting Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Sir Isaac Newton or maybe Alan Turing. But no. They said Dolly Parton….and then said “not a lot of people know this, but she didn’t have kids, but she loved them all with her Imagination Library” We then later sat down and watched her Glastonbury set as it happened to be on. We watched her play guitar, banjo, fiddle and saxophone

Yes, the fascists are gonna fash… But I naively wasn’t expecting it to be done in such an ugly, stupid, straight up criminal way. Silly me. Assuming this is what happens when #Musk ‘s Grok is tasked with instantly creating authoritarian US state tv. #Trump https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/22/trump-launches-youtube-channel-amid-boycott-by-us-networks

Looks like now the #Met have had #Reform ‘s overseas fundraising actions smeared in their faces by Channel 4, they’ve deigned to say there are potential crimes to investigate… Imagine if we actually had an Electoral Commission and police force in the UK that actively enforced political donation laws, rather than being embarrassed into taking action long after rogue parties have benefitted in elections from their crimes. #ukpol

Too on the nose? #AI #Fascism#Racism #bayeuxtapestry The Bayeux Tapestry of Fascism: The Stephen Collins cartoon https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/picture/2026/sep/18/the-bayeux-tapestry-of-fascism-the-stephen-collins-cartoon?CMP=share_btn_url

How about the UK government stop doing business with US companies that have no intention of ever properly paying taxes against the income they generate in the UK…would that be wild or just common sense? In 2024 the company [#Palantir ]paid just £2.1m in UK corporation tax, despite declaring profits of over £25m, giving an effective tax rate of just over 8%, researchers found. The UK corporation tax rate was 25% that year and remains at that level. #EatTheRich #FairTax https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/05/palantir-corporation-tax-uk-2024-accounting-practices

@fesshole@mastodon.social Tempting. I have the earpiece in that I wear hearing aids. But I save my ire (middle aged woman stare combined with arms thrown up in the air) for those driving SUVs that plough through zebra crossings…because they endanger my life more often than kids on e-bikes.

No one likes to be accused of ‘dropping the ball’, but equally given the base was on high alert did those living locally have a right to assume their safety was being considered as well? Or is this an indication of how little care or practical thinking regarding civilian safety goes into the planning of operations around our military bases?

The account from the female farmer who called 999 early on Sunday morning…

I’m not sure that being labelled a future benefit claimant at primary school is the great motivating force that Milburn and #Labour think it is. We abolished the 11+ in the UK because we didn’t want children to be written off at that age and wanted equal opportunity of education. Primary school kids think of jobs in a similar way to how they think of fairytales…this will be just crushing and become a self fulfilling prophecy. We need to raise the morale of all kids. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/aug/07/english-primary-schools-to-be-told-to-identify-children-at-risk-of-future-unemployment

Don’t expect the #techbros to tell you when their apocalypse seeking LLM has almost reached its goal… #Google #OpenAI #Anthropic #AI https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/sep/18/google-gemini-ai-hack

‘Whether or not #Farage takes the Clacton seat, the number of voters who chose #Binface instead may be used as ammunition by critics and comedians for the rest of his career. There is a further irony: what counts as “fringe” or “ridiculous” is constantly renegotiated. Farage himself spent years cast as a fringe obsessive before becoming one of the most consequential figures in current British politics. It’s a reminder that the boundary he polices against Binface is one he once crossed himself’

Came home yesterday to find my partner fuming that someone had been whipping up a campaign against an old pub being converted into a mosque by putting a glossy leaflet through door. He usually leaves the fuming to me…but this time it had inspired him to put in writing his support of the planned mosque to the planning department. We are not even in the same postcode as this pub. Who is funding this subtle but glossy Islamophobia? #Norwich #Planning #islamophobiahttps://www.edp24.co.uk/news/26497737.mystery-surrounds-anti-mosque-leaflets-posted-norwich/?ref=cprfa

Imagine a US president so easily manipulated, that he entered a costly and open ended war he never needed to wage, immediately used up most of his stockpile of long range missiles to kill innocent citizens and manipulate the markets, had zero diplomacy skills to negotiate a meaningful ceasefire and so left his country wide open to its long term enemies…it’s so dumb, you can only assume he is actively working for the enemy. #Trump #Iran #usdefencehttps://www.cbsnews.com/news/u-s-stockpile-long-range-missiles-nearly-depleted-iran-war/

I took this photo a week ago of Chapelfield Gardens in Norwich…it’s a dust bowl. A couple of days ago the only person I saw on it was a teenager learning to use roller boots because there was no grass left on it. Why is it that public parks are allowed to wither and die, while private schools and golf courses, the preserve of the rich, are allowed to remain lush and green? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/31/england-hosepipe-ban-drought-private-schools-golf-courses-green-grass

Decided to be wildly optimistic and purchase solar eclipse glasses tonight for whole family online in the hope that: A) they arrive by Wednesday B) the weather is not cloudy on Wednesday evening C) we can find a west facing hill that we can get to by 6pm that won’t also have half of Norfolk there #SolarEclipse #Norfolk

And unsurprisingly the rightwing #Reform supporting local rags that are the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News (both Archant) have zero reporting on #Norwich #Pride today, despite the huge turnout that filled the city centre. Local news is dead to anyone on the Left.

Operation Bluebird - could a new bird site rise from the flames? Holds no particular appeal to me, but I wouldn’t underestimate the appeal and pull of a distinctive brand name. #Twitter #Musk https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/twitter-blue-bird-returns-platform-challenges-x-trademark-1816864

I can well believe that the playing fields of #Norfolk and #Suffolk are too rock hard to play football on right now. They are parched and dusty with many threadbare in terms of grass. Falling on them would be like landing on concrete. Again this is where sport, #ClimateChange and class intersect… Golf courses and private school pitches are still lush green. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/aug/08/scratch-of-the-day-local-football-season-postponed-due-to-rock-hard-pitches

‘Several councils have now agreed to stop housing families in emergency accommodation in the glass-fronted block after the Guardian revealed they had been told they couldn’t use the air-conditioning during heatwaves as it had “not been offered as an amenity” for them.’ Social housing tenants have little say over where they are placed, particularly when it’s emergency accommodation. These tower blocks /greenhouses/ white elephants are not habitable for living in without air con. #Heatwave

You know you’ve made it almost to the end of the first week of September when you start to sneeze and feel a soreness in your throat… It seems no amount of sunshine, fruit, Vitamin C or D ever wards off a cold. I blame being a school pupil, then being a uni student, then working in universities, then having children who then became school pupils. Do people who claim to never get colds, have amazing super functioning immune systems…or just never meet anyone under the age of 25? #sneezes

“If you destroy nature, you destroy the core on which our economies depend. And that got people’s attention. This is not some kind of a flower-power, tree-hugging exercise. This is core economics. This is core financial stability, core price stability.” Frank Elderson, a member of the European Central Bank’s executive board #ClimateBreakdown #EcosystemCollapse #Economics https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/aug/01/ecb-climate-wildfires-global-economy-stability

If BP don’t think the #NorthSea is profitable for them…maybe that’s because it’s simply not and production has bean in decline for over a decade. This is already being seized upon by so called analysts (the rentagob quote used in Guardian comes from a graduate in War Studies) as evidence that there is no business faith in the new #Labour government. Such a surprise… #FossilFuel #Burnham https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/31/bp-north-sea-oil-and-gas-business-up-for-sale

It’s very sad that news outlets appear far more likely to cover the story of a #Pride attack than a Pride which has passed off peacefully in a spirit of love and respect. When news coverage is absent from an event, it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen…but it doesn’t enter into the wider public consciousness. If the only MSM coverage of #LGBTQ is of bad things happening, regardless of who the perpetrator is, then this leaves an overall negative impression. We need to call the media out.

Just been messaging a friend who also attended the parade who cannot understand the complete media blackout of Norwich Pride today. It’s unprecedented…and eerie.

Presumably #Burnham knows that by picking Mahmood for Chancellor he’s kissed goodbye to getting back traditional #Labour voters who have recently turned #Green before he’s even got the keys to Number 10? #Mahmood is #LabourTogether , she is against democratic protest , there is no evidence she gets the scale of the climate crisis or realises that inequality is tearing this country apart. This does not bode well for anyone.

I know I’ve been to the Royal Pavilion in #Brighton once before in the past 25 years…but I can’t picture quite when. It might have been having refurbishment works at the time, because I remember coming away thinking it was ok, but we didn’t feel like we’d seen much… Today, wow! It was stunning and there was lots to see. We loved spotting the devastation caused by the dragons and the black and white cat who reminded us of our much missed moggy, Griz.

Eventually today there was a photo report of Norwich Pride 2026 in the Norwich Evening News: https://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/26410183.20-photos-sum-joy-norwich-pride-2026/

My friend was just saying how he had really seen homophobia ramp up online in the past year and he was worried there would be a bad incident sooner or later…then we saw this news: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/25/berlin-pride-march-called-off-after-car-crashes-into-crowd-of-people-near-route Really hoping no one has been seriously hurt in #Berlin.

@arstechnica@mastodon.social After the 2008 financial crash, I remember many politicians despairing at the ‘socially useless’ transactions that take place millions of times a day on the stock markets. But it seems in 2026 there is a level of financial squalor deeper and more disturbing than ‘socially useless’…there is ‘market inspired physical destruction’.

As I’ve been away all week, I hadn’t clocked that #Farage had held a #Reform rally in Wymondham, #Norfolk on Tuesday stirring up anti-Pride sentiment: https://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/26401316.farage-warns-norfolk-police-pride-march-uniform-ban/ Glad to say there was still a friendly but not heavy handed police presence.

@danirabbit@mastodon.online We have known about the wisdom of crowds (aka diversity) for over a century. Francis Galton proved it in 1907 in his Ox Experiment about guessing the weight of an Ox at a country fair. Hundreds of people tried to guess the weight of the animal. No individual got it right. However, when Galton calculated the median (the exact middle number) of all the guesses it was almost spot on. Using answers of just straight, middle/upper class white men got us into this mess.

@Su_G@aus.social The dodgy #Covid justified and #Mandelson influenced ‘direct non-competitive awards’ that #Palantir have benefited from under the #Tories and #Labour have been discussed in Parliament: https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026-02-10/debates/FECED111-4FA8-4343-BFAF-18D6C13808D0/MinistryOfDefencePalantirContract And yet Palantir retain their grip on the NHS and UK defence. There is zero expectation for them to be good corporate citizens’ by the UK government. Why is that?

@junesim63@mstdn.social This kind of reporting is vital. The news cycle moves so quickly with the likes of #Farage and #Trump ‘flooding the zone’. Keeping a running record of their crimes and regularly reminding readers of it is part of how we hold them to account and prevent their power spreading.

@wood5y@mastodonapp.uk The recent incidents reported in the Guardian regarding American military base staff do indicate we have a problem in the UK that has to be addressed. The presence of the US on our soil makes us a target more than they protect us.

‘At least one person has died and 15 people were injured, "some seriously", after a vehicle was suspected of striking a crowd near Berlin's annual Pride event, Christopher Street Day (CSD), on Saturday night, police said.’ https://amp.dw.com/en/berlin-csd-pride-cancelled-incident/a-78116146 This is very sad news. Would rather the event was postponed than cancelled - it sends the wrong message to these murderous homophobes.

What I have suspected for decades - #asbestos and the #London Underground. And this one whistleblower case shows exactly how they’ve been shutting down any investigation into it for decades: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/18/london-underground-passengers-should-know-about-toxic-dust-risks-whistleblower-says

And this is the journalism that the #fossilfuel industry is licking its lips at:

‘Independent polling by trade association Offshore Energies UK (OEUK) revealed more than seven in ten people believe the UK should produce oil and gas from its own waters rather than rely on imports.’

• ‘independent polling’ my arse!

• just proves that 7/10 people in UK have no idea that we don’t domestically use oil from North Sea.

https://inews.co.uk/news/andy-burnham-north-sea-oil-drilling-bills-4654950

@VeroniqueB99@mastodon.social Is the mermaid luring us all to our deaths? Through drinking frothy abominations that may be many things, but are not an honestly priced, decent tasting cup of coffee.

@VeroniqueB99@mastodon.social I am genuinely stunned by how many people I’ve driven with who now rely on satnav to get somewhere they’ve driven to before - maybe semi regularly. I just find being bossed about in my own car infuriating. Also travelling as a pirate was fun - the journey was the experience 🏴‍☠️

The notion that the UK is being too woke by stopping drilling in the #NorthSea and somehow depriving itself of useful resources and tax receipts is a #fossilfuel funded lie spread by Badenoch, Farage and Lowe. ‘The economic viability of new developments is only possible with massive state support, which enables companies to profit while the UK public shoulders most of the downside risks, including the potential for significant net tax losses to the Treasury.’ https://www.upliftuk.org/post/the-declining-economics-of-the-north-sea