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"The hearing was entirely conducted remotely by Zoom" says this judgment*. I wonder in some future era this will make as much sense as discussion of stannary courts or writing things down on vellum.

* [2020] EWHC 1238 (Fam)

in reply to Alexandra Lanes

"Zoom", hmm, let me see: "magnification, especially with the aid of optics". Well, it was at the time of the great illness, so probably they were sat in different buildings and using telephoto lenses.

Alexandra Lanes reshared this.



“Woke” is used as en epithet by those whose entire existence is trying to make reality conform to their simplistic prejudices, against those who live in the real, but more complex, world.

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Cass report: there’s a useful phrase in politics for the kind of thing that it is: policy based evidence making.


Algarve air is just indescribably wonderful after spending 2 weeks in the uk cultivating asthma attacks.

Deep breaths, because I CAN.




Don’t quite know what to make of this. Either it’s Cass trying to gaslight us, or maybe she’s realised that beyond the shores of Normal Island and the US, having her name on this bag of crap basically destroys her career? https://thekitetrust.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Cass-Review-Mythbusting-Q-and-A.pdf

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in reply to Sarah Brown

so, she’s a stooge? Not sure why I’d improve my opinion of her. Stonewall reports appointments being cancelled.
in reply to Kim Spence-Jones 🇬🇧😷

@KimSJ @christineburns

She's a transphobe. She knew exactly what she was doing.

I don't want to be uncharitable but she signalled at the beginning that she was a terf, she confirmed it with the interim report and now she's nailed her colours to the mast.

Hopefully she's wrecked her career as a consequence and that's why the damage limitation exercise.



There's a provision of the Children Act 1989 which requires the court to have the child's welfare as its paramount consideration.

I am finding it very hard not to call this the prime directive.



Exhausted. Going to take a quick nap before attempting to write this essay that’s due in in a week.


To read the UK media you’d think Cameron was swooping in to sort the mess Brexit left Gibraltar in. Talking to a Gibraltarian friend though he didn’t have much part in it beyond bringing the tea. The hard work has been done by the Gibraltar government and the local government of La Línea just over the border.


UK new builds: the builders will tell you that the toilet flushes are “European style” to save water.

This is a lie. I live in two new build flats. One in Portugal and one in England. The toilets they put in in UK new builds are just shit at flushing. The ones in Portugal flush properly.

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in reply to Sarah Brown

the UK blaming Europe (a continent of which it is a part no matter how much it insists it’s a continent of its own) for things it does to itself is a tradition going back to at least the early 80s but probably medieval times
in reply to Sarah Brown

the ones in Portugal probably flush to a sewage treatment system too, rather than the local beach.


Content warning: UK, mention of depression

in reply to S . G . A .

Content warning: UK, mention of depression

in reply to Sarah Brown

Content warning: UK, mention of depression





The acquisition of a PICADE has me playing OUTRUN. This is a game that I remember from my youth with spectacular graphics. The graphics are, in fact, shit. It also has HGVs doing in excess of 180kph. I am questioning SEGA’s commitment to realism.
in reply to Sarah Brown

@Sarah Brown I remember it in arcades with the big cabinet you could sit in. It didn’t matter that the palm trees looked like stacks of cardboard boxes somehow.
in reply to Alexandra Lanes

@Alexandra Lanes Stereo speakers behind your head. Cabinet looked a bit like a Ferrari. It cost 50p a play when most games were 10p, but my god, it was such a sight to behold!



So, Ukraine, right.

They gave their nuclear weapons to Russia. Bit of an error perhaps.

But they have nuclear power stations, so presumably have access to plutonium.

You see what I’m saying, right? They’ve got to be trying. If it were me, I would …

in reply to Sarah Brown

IAEA audits their fuel & waste chain & takes a dim view of nations outside of a very small group using power reactors to create weapons-grade material.
Also it's hard & expensive & they have more immediate things to do with their resources.



Bus your drivers trying to poach customers from the queue for the cable car. I think they miss the point that it’s a cable car!


Famous American murderer from the telly, O J Simpson, has been in the news recently for dying. Here are some lesser known facts about him:

O J was known by his fans as "The Juice". This is because his full name was Orangejuice Jorangejuice Simpson.

King Edward VIII of England was forced to resign because he wanted to marry him.

In addition to being good at rugby and murder, O J was also the first man on mars.

He was acquitted after his lawyer, who was one of the Cardasians from Star Trek, convinced the jury that there were five lights.

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Covid booster means I’ve been vaccinated against seven things in less than a week (measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, polio, diphtheria, Covid).

Done now. Feeling a bit sorry for myself b



“Traffic is heavy, best set off for your appointment now”, says my phone, for the second time in a week.

Thanks, Californian tech device. I’ll get right on that.



Readers of a certain age may remember a fun but flawed vertically scrolling progressive shoot ‘em up game from the mid 80s called Slap Fight. I played it loads on the C64.

I today found out it was called something entirely different in the US, and I feel like part of my childhood was a lie.



Instructor: gives stern words about timeliness in professional sailing
Also instructor: “I’ll be five minutes”


Sailing lots today, getting lots of practice at taking the helm and tacking the boat. "Helm to lee!" is cried and then there is much winching and pulling in of lines as the boat turns into the wind. When we first did this it was a bit disastrous and chaotic, but after doing it several times the panic distills into a concentrated focus that punctuates the periods where we just sit on the boat and let it go.


Comparative vaccine review: tetanus, polio, diphtheria arm hurts a LOT more than measles, mumps, rubella arm.


Now the UK has used “no medical care for trans people before 25 because brains not developed”, they’re gonna push for 40, “because fertility”.

I would actually put money on them doing that.

in reply to Sarah Brown

That's pop psychology at its worst.

Yes, there is still some development in "the brain" up to the age of 25, but it's mostly to do with the areas of the brain that deal with impulse decision making. The areas of the brain that deal with considered decision making are more or less fully developed at 15.

And despite how things look in transphobic fantasy-land, nobody is transitioning on a whim.

in reply to Cat!

@Catriona If people under the age of 25 shouldn't be making choices because their brains haven't fully developed, then those over 35 shouldn't be making choices either, because their cognitive faculties will have started to decline.

It's such a bullshit excuse.

@Cat!


Just had vaccines for measles, mumps, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria and polio.

On Friday it’s Covid.

My immune system is gonna have fun.

Wilfried Klaebe reshared this.

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown
@mycathas9lives I will, but right now my arms hurt.


Dear iPhone, being a bit American, aren’t we?

Al Wirtes reshared this.

in reply to Sarah Brown

I have mine set to use bike directions by default, which has inspired both disbelief and also amazement that travel times are shorter.


Dear UK residents. I’m sorry to be tedious, but I’m going to do the trans Cassandra thing again.

The government is now moving towards regarding trans people as effective children until the age of 25.

This will be established as precedent and then used to screw over any and all young adults who can’t escape from abusive parents, especially young women.

If you want to do anything about this, you need to fight for trans people. Yes, you. Now.

We all know that isn’t going to happen to any significant extent though.

As you were.

Unknown parent

kæt

@crocket2001
I think it's easy to underestimate how far most people have moved on this already. (Not that *most* makes it safe). There seem to be two groups pushing this:

1. boring folk who moan about the metric system, car parks, youth of today, ULEZ, "they're all as bad as each other", immigrants, etc.

2. Westminster-y policy type people, both left and right, professional dinner-party attenders, columnists, writers, wonks, essayists, student union types.

The (dangerous) difference now is that these groups -- our society's loudest, most boring, dull, dim, and reactionary, who only differ in social class -- are united on one subject.

The public don''t need to "come round".

People think Guardianista idealists lay out liberation's groundwork -- surveyors going ahead. But they're just apologists hanging on the coat-tails of emperors, minting excuses for comfortable lives at court. The powerful, their "clients", are moving right, so they're representing them, coining theories and writing reports.

in reply to Jinshei

labour candidate came back with all the things I want, including saying how well trans people do when they get treatment. He is a good lad.


Sweet pepper is the most disappointing vegetable (yes, I know it’s a fruit).

It’s like someone was, “what if chilli, but shit?”


in reply to Alexandra Lanes

If it wasn't for the photo, I would have assumed that was a euphemism. 😀


After about the first night or so it’s amazing how you get used to sleeping on a boat. The rocking motion and creaking sounds of the lines just become the comforting background rather than the thing that keeps waking you up.

Reminds me of a holiday where the B&B was right above the platforms of Lancaster station. The noise of trains quickly became the background. So much so that when there was engineering works in the last night it was eerily quiet and hard to sleep.

in reply to Alexandra Lanes

We live within earshot of a very busy section of motorway. If it's closed it seems very strange how quiet it is.


Have recently been worried that I’ve been looking my age (50), but the problem seems to have fixed itself.


2nd MMR dose on Wednesday, Covid booster on Friday.

This week is going to be ... fun

in reply to like jam or bootlaces

@like jam or bootlaces At least the covid booster is Pfizer and not sodding "did you want to do anything for the next three days? Tough shit" Moderna.


Trans women, 6 months on HRT: “My breasts must have stopped growing now and I’m only an AA cup! WOE!”

Trans women 18 years after transition (e.g. me, now): “Aw fuck, I gained a cup size last week.”



After watching Oppenheimer the other week, I just rewatched Dr Strangelove.

For the love of god, will one of the nuclear powers announce it’s destroying its hydrogen bombs? These things are psychotically evil. Just get rid of them. Now, before the kill us all.

in reply to Sarah Brown

“one” of them doing it just ensures the other (big one) “wins”. The MAD doctrine actually worked and continues to do so. Putin knows full well that if he launches nukes at anyone he himself and much of Russia will disappear in a glowing radioactive cloud. There would be no winner on either side so he doesn’t dare launch.
in reply to Sarah Brown

one country did get rid of their nuclear weapons- Ukraine.


Ryanair just does “plane’s here, pile on”. BA does faff with boarding groups, and plays music while you board. In accordance with the prophecy this is no faster. https://youtu.be/oAHbLRjF0vo
in reply to Cyberspice

@Cyberspice I don’t know whether I’m just narrow or always choose extra legroom but I’ve not had problems.
in reply to Alexandra Lanes

I use Jet2. Never had a problem with them so wont be trying Ryan Air again. Oh and their 'home' airport is Leeds Bradford which is a 10 minute taxi ride, so there's that.
This entry was edited (1 month ago)


It is too early to be navigating airport land. Fortunately the only suspicious item in my baggage was conditioner and I have located a full English breakfast.


Apropos of a conversation elsewhere c, I’ve always been given the creeps by “Jonathan Pie”. It’s always struck me as “manufactured outrage click bait culture for left wing people who think they’re too clever to fall for that.”

The sceptics in the pub crowd had the same sort of attitude and it made them really really easy marks for the alt right to use as useful idiots in their culture war.

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in reply to Sarah Brown

I must confess I was one of the idiots who fell for it early on. It was when I noticed it was co-written by Andrew Doyle that I twigged what it was.
in reply to Sarah Brown

I'm distracted in my vague desire to look up who this is by being reminded that pie exists. I should probably have some lunch (sadly not pie).
This entry was edited (1 month ago)


Do Americans realise just how much it looks like they’re trying to speedrun “imperial power collapsing into failed state” to the rest of the world right now?

Guys, sort your shit out FFS.

Unknown parent

Sarah Brown
@Paul SomeoneElse @Ghost of Hope If you realistically only have two choices in an election, and one has the platform of “We masturbate to The Handmaid’s Tale”, it’s kinda mandatory to vote for the other as damage control.
Unknown parent

kæt
@grayface_ghost It only takes one election to turn one into the other, I think.


Portuguese language Siri’s Brasileiro accent is making my ears bleed.
Unknown parent

Sarah Brown

@Ghost of Hope I think that’s a stress timed/syllable timed distinction more than anything else (stress timed languages tend to swallow syllables to make them fit, so if you don’t know to listen for the tonic syllables it’s really hard to get the words).

Curiously Brazilian Portuguese is syllable timed, which is the biggest difference. That I wouldn’t mind. What made my ears bleed was rendering all the consonants as “tch”.