Author of 'A Murder in Auschwitz'. Currently looking for an agent for my new novel, 'Merle'. Inventor of the chip omelette. ๐ซ Be aware, DMs may result in a block.
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Question to Zach Polanski at the leadership announcement: "Q: How can you take on Nigel Farage when your policy on immigration is so different?" Everything wrong with British politics and media summed up so succinctly in a single absolutely unhinged question.
This is how dictatorships behave
Honestly. Farage farts and Labour want to do a shit to outdo him. Are these really serious politicians? Where is Labour's spine? BBC News - International students warned not to overstay visas - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
I was hoping that after the nationalisation of Scotrail, Scottish Rail Holding Ltd would win tenders to run rail companies in England, extracting as much profit as possible to subsidise rail travel in Scotland.
Krishnan Guru-Murthy, "Peak rail fares have now been scrapped across Scotland's rail network" "it is to encourage people to switch from cars to trains" Why isn't this happening across England and Wales too?
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Surely the UK Prime Minister baldly admitting that England is more important to him than the other nations of the United Kingdom is a watershed moment for independence movements.
The problem isnโt refugees on boats. The problem is oligarchs hoarding obscene amounts of wealth while most people fight to stay afloat. Wages aren't tied to inflation, so the working class keeps falling behind no matter how hard they work.
Yet another capitulation to Reform, when all the evidence shows that following the far right agenda is a disaster for centrist parties. Politics 101, which Starmer has once again entirely failed to grasp.
Peak rail fares have been scrapped on ScotRail trains, meaning passengers will no longer pay higher prices for travelling during busy weekday rush hours. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
What do Jenrick, Farage, Goodwin, the Telegraph etc think will be the consequences of their actions? And what does Starmer think will be the consequence of his inaction?
This sort of stuff drives me nuts. www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/whats-on/wil...
What we're seeing in the UK (predominantly England) today is simply thinly-veiled racism dressed up as patriotism. Just call it what it is: scapegoating immigrants for problems created by decades of government policy and corporate greed.
Good God!
I'm not sure the Tories really understand what the phrase 'climate change' means. Anyway, weren't we told that North Sea oil and gas would have run out by now? BBC News - Tories pledge to get all oil and gas out of North Sea www.bbc.com/news/article...
I vaguely remember this paper getting published. But where was the push for EU representation after NI got it? The polite publishing of papers is one thing, but it doesn't work. It needs a concerted, loud campaign.
The Scottish Government should be demanding the same access to the EU that Northern Ireland enjoys. But it doesn't and won't. We need a more radical SNP than the current iteration.
America is fucked. Utterly fucked.
A new insult has been born in Scotland ๐๐ป โYER DA PAINTS ROUNDABOUTSโ! ๐ซถ๐คฃ
Went to an Afghan pop up restaurant last night- the food was all cooked by Afghan refugees who had settled in my town Amazing food, lovely people, a great night. Thank you Oh, and fuck you Fartage
A memorial to William McGowan of the Massachusetts Infantry, in the cemetery of Dunblane Cathedral, Scotland.
Time to move all UN functions out of the United States. BBC News - US blocks Palestinian leader from attending UN meeting in New York www.bbc.com/news/article...
Congratulations. This is fantastic news.
When I joined the @scottishgreens.org in 2009 we had fewer members than my high school had students. Sixteen years later, we're a major force in Scottish politics, delivering for people and planet. It is an immense privilege to be elected co-leader of our party with @gillianmacmsp.bsky.social ๐
"Pat, why do you carry that ridiculous 600mm lens on long hikes?" Buddy, I can see mountains reflected in the eyes of a trailside pika.
Oh look. It turns out that Jack Straw, who was instrumental in the illegal war in Iraq, and who some people describe as a war criminal, doesn't want UK citizens to have the protection of the ECHR - mainly so it's easier to deport brown people. What an astonishing turn of events.
The SNP needs to tool up for a dirty fight to the death with the far-right The Scottish government should lead the battle against extremism โฆ because the Tories and Labour certainly ainโt gonna do it My @heraldscotland.bsky.social column www.heraldscotland.com/politics/vie...
The Pentagon is reinstalling a portrait of Gen. Robert E. Lee, which includes a slave guiding the Confederate generalโs horse in the background, to the West Point library three years after a congressionally mandated commission ordered it removed, officials said.
Found at the Obi-Rakhmat rock shelter in Uzbekistan, the small, sharp points were produced around 80,000 years ago, when Neanderthals were the dominant humans in the region. www.iflscience.com/80000-year-o...
Barley in a cave in Uzbekistan, 9,000 years old, suggests foragers far from the Fertile Crescent were harvesting cereals long before farming took hold. A mosaic of innovation, not a single birthplace. #Archaeology #Agriculture #HumanEvolution @pnas.org
One of the things that infuriates me is that so much about Trump and his constant madness, is that so much UK news is given over the US news. BBC News - US Fed Governor Lisa Cook sues Trump over his attempt to fire her www.bbc.com/news/article...
Sounds a bit fascisty to me. What happened to the demands for free speech? BBC News - Reform UK Nottinghamshire council leader bans local newspaper's reporters - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
My new book uses science to solve the Second World War once and for all. You will literally never need to read anything on the subject again. I have freed you.
I donโt always feel comfortable punting my book here but the reality is it helps sales and I badly want to get good quality info into the hands of dog guardians facing challenges. Hereโs a video of Mika working on her puzzle toy to help things along. amzn.eu/d/iv3Iz4F
Yesterday: Nigel Farage says Reform UK "will detain and deport absolutely anyone that comes via that route.. Yes, women and children" Today: Nigel Farage, "Deportation of illegal immigrants, we were not even discussing women and children at this stage. The news reports who said that were wrong"
Why, you might ask, do the BBC and Sky News, casting their editorial guidelines to the wind, keep giving massive airtime to the far right, while shutting out leftwing voices? Don't their bosses understand the likely consequences? Only one explanation now remains. They do. And it is what they want.
Why is Bath called 'Bath'? Was it because the Romans called it after something they did there? And if so, why are there not 'Baths' everywhere? And why did they use a language that hadn't been invented yet?
I think you're being unfair. They only need to score 8 goals to draw.
This might be the result 9f the same teams playing each other over and over and over and over and over...
Jesus. I think they need to change the rules so that a club can decide to give up after a certain number of goals.
Is the Rangers away strip, the England strip on purpose?
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V. Good. ๐
Yes. Which racist said this?
www.theguardian.com/world/live/2...
Poor sinister dexter Ned.
Witkoff: "There's only one thing I wish for: that that Nobel committee finally gets its act together and realizes that you are the single finest candidate since that Nobel award was ever talked about."
RFK Jr claims that windmills are "wiping out the whale population" in the Atlantic
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
open.spotify.com/track/0Ql68H...
This time we need to be clear about currency. UK pound during transition, then a Scottish currency as soon as possible. It is not difficult to set up your own currency look at recent independent countries like the Baltic states. www.gov.scot/publications...
Ok, but seriously, historians, who wants to tell him?
Israel is in a situation where it has committed so many atrocities that it can never actually allow independent international press into Gaza. Imagine the horrors yet to be uncovered, considering what we already know.
The "I'm just asking the question" narrative is an excuse for extremism.
'Become' irrelevant?
Anyone out there get the 'wanderlust' bug? You know - you've been travelling; you are in an airport to head home, and you look up at the departures board and you see - Istanbul, Marakech, Rome etc...
The question EVERYONE who lives in Scotland should be asking is - "How would an independent Scotland react to this compared to the current UK government?". BBC News - Israel pounds Gaza City in preparation for planned offensive www.bbc.com/news/article...
Just out of interest, as a non-US citizen, can a state's governor call out the National Guard? And what would happen if called out to protect against another state's National Guard?
Where would one get a tail?
Iโm at a music festival where an older woman is on her daughterโs shoulders in the mosh pit and honestly this is what the suffragettes tied themselves to railings for
They are still extreme.
William Wallace was dragged naked to Smithfield today in 1305. He was strangled, castrated, disembowled & his insides burnt. Then beheaded & quartered. His crime, according to Edward I, High Treason. His retort: "I could not be a traitor to Edward, for I was never his subject."
"I pray / oh my God do I pray / I pray every single day / for revolution".
๐ A Handwritten #Phrase on a Page of an Old Book, 18th Century: โ๏ธ โWhoever shows respect to pen and paper, shall find in the world whatever he desires.โ
Is it the same species we get in Scotland?
In my 'out-of-office' I have taken to adding a bit of poetry, or a quote. Next ooo will include - It is not in the bright arrival planned, But in the dreams men dream along the way, They find the Golden Road to Samarkand. by James Elroy Flecker
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Watching Star Trek TNG where to fix a software issue, they literally switch the Enterprise off and then switch it back on again.
Sneaked out on Friday afternoon by UK Labour Government to successfully avoid โScottishโ media coverage, 60 000 disabled Scots many on below national average wage, to be stripped of winter fuel payment. When will labour voters here open their bloody eyes ๐ก talkingupscotlandtwo.com
There will never be a reason for the UK to ask the IMF for a bailout www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2025/08...
Not being from the US, I didn't know that Cracker Barrel was a restaurant. So I Googled images of the type of food they sell. The design of their logo is the last of their worries.
Members of far-right party organising asylum hotel protests across UK, Facebook posts show Activists from Homeland party, which split from Patriotic Alternative, set up groups to spread protests beyond Epping www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
BBC News - Womenโs Rugby World Cup 2025: Scotland stun Wales in six-try show of solidarity - BBC Sport www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-...
I can confirm that Heineken is not the best lager in the world. Probably.
Just HOW safe is the safety curtain?
BBC News - Asylum hotel protesters met by counter-demonstrators across UK www.bbc.com/news/article...
Now, who in their right mind ever thought for one second that was going to happen, Lindsey Oil refinery and again ยฃ500 million to Scunthorpe works anyone see a patron here. YOU YES YET IF NOT WHY NOT!!!!!
BBC News - Union accuses PM of 'failing to deliver' Grangemouth cash www.bbc.com/news/article...
After UN agency officially declared famine in Gaza, Israel's officials ran to social media to protest against the announcement, saying 'Israel does not have a starvation policy'. But they've forgotten that their own PM, Netanyahu, declared it on March 2. It was televised. | #Gaza #Famine
Remember, as we enter Giant Spider season, that when people say 'they are more scared of us than we are of them' this remains unproven and is spider propaganda.
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This might be one of my favourite photos of the dog.
Managed to spell 'zat' wrong.
Hello? Is this thing on?
Zap crisps?
Pretending to sleep while checking out the pub for snacks.
I call this 'Walk with Dad'.
Have gone for a 'walk'.
Had to be saved as a strategic asset. You watching, Grangemouth? BBC News - UK's third-largest steelworks collapses into government control - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
My MA in Central Eurasian Studies was funded by FLAS fellowships. I studied Uzbek. Then I used my knowledge of Uzbekistan to predict that the US would turn into an authoritarian kleptocracy that does things like cut the FLAS fellowships. In horrific ways, it was an undeniably useful education.
Heading there next month. Do you have a top 3 best tips for visiting?
Who dat?
White woman puts Mexican flag on her truck to waste ICEโs time.
I have heard the argument that in fact it never existed because it was just a continuation of the Roman Empire, and was renamed retrospectively.
youtu.be/oCWordf7uLQ?...