If you want women to have trust in the justice system, you need to put your energy into improving the justice system, not berating women for not trusting it.

what is it about this "women's rights" issue that puts a billion restrictions and burdens on women and zero on men that appeals to so many men? it's a mystery!

I've just sent my passport back to Three Cherry Trees Lane. No, not 3, Cherry Trees lane, Three Cherry Trees Lane. I have no idea how that got passed whoever's job it is to make addresses make sense!

Yeah, we’d have had to give up half our garden and get the back fence replaced with a wider gate. None of which is impossible! But if you’re asking “what are the barriers”, that was it! Not a barrier to having a car because that can just park on the road.

Nah, they get nicked in Germany too. For e-bikes, we need manufacturers to incorporate better security features the same way car manufacturers have done.

I would really like something like that! Would definitely have considered a cargo bike over the last ten years if we'd had somewhere to put it.

(And whilst I kind of love the aesthetic of chaotically-parked bikes everywhere, it is clearly crappy for accessibility!)

Our flats in Germany had bike storage in the ground floor or the courtyard, which was ace. That was rare in Manchester flats. I currently live a mid-density terraced area a mile and a half from Leeds city centre, and there are no residential/communal place to park bikes.

And the denser your housing, the more sense cycling makes as a primary transport, but the less likely you are to have space for a bike. It feels like the primary cyclist is still conceived as a suburb-dweller with a nice big back garden and/or a paved flat-access front drive.

It's just weird to me that this isn't a bigger thing! There's lots of talk about bike security when you're out and about, but almost none about any kind of communal, planning or design solutions to how to store them accessibly and securely at home.

right? We have a huge Victorian house and we're not actually short of space, but it's still really hard to find a space for bikes that isn't either a giant pain or actually dangerous. Currently they're out in the utility room but they make the downstairs loo nearly inaccessible for visitors.

- and the fourth is in the cellar and consequently doesn't get used. In the past when I was still renting, I was once on the verge of signing a city-centre flat when I remembered to ask about bike storage and discovered there wasn't any. There was parking.

the back garden is flat but tiny. We used to have a small shed out there, but it was a giant pain to store two bikes in, never mind four. All four bikes now live in the house, three of which are by the bike door and reasonably accessible (but access to the downstairs look is now difficult)

genuinely confused about how rarely this is discussed as a barrier to increasing bike ownership. It's kind of the #1 thing for us. We have a front garden with step access, and there's no way I could get an e-bike or a cargo bike in there.

(cannot imagine this is LESS of an issue in Dublin.)

never not furious that I can leave my entire car on the public street for the princely sum of £20 a year (up from £10 last year!) but four family bikes / one cargo bike takes up the space of a small room either in our house or our garden, and is a giant awkward pain to boot.

OK BUT WHERE DO YOU PUT THEM.

Oh gosh Hannah, this is awful.

so annoyed I've forgotten how to thread comments.

"does children's overall nutrition go down if more of them switch to packed lunch and what's the state's responsibility to ensure all children get a healthy, affordable meal" is a totally reasonable question and it's one with real trade-offs. Nobody needs shareholders in that conversation.

like the article is explicitly not saying, "we think the quality of children's nutrition will go down if more children bring packed lunch", it's saying, "but we'll sell fewer school dinners if children bring packed lunches".

but "the kids will bring packed lunches" is only a problem from the shareholders' point of view. Families having a choice between their kids having the school-provided meals or making packed lunch is fine!

"but what about the children" *indulgent laugh* "well, we'll get around to the children, but first of all, ✨🤑💲💰shareholders💰💲🤑✨."

as a parent of one child who hates food and one child who loves food, I am genuinely interested in how you manage the trade-off of "healthy" vs "but will kids eat it" at scale. The fact that we also have to play "but what about the shareholders" makes me incandescently furious.

Online abuse of politicians is a profitable business Senator Eileen Flynn's comments on far-right use of the tricolour have made her a lightning rod for online abuse - because viral hatred is highly profitable

In the space of a few weeks in 2025, Simon Harris required armed gardaí at his family home due to multiple bomb threats, while former taoiseach Leo Varadkar was subjected to a homophobic tirade by a self-styled citizen journalist who filmed the confrontation for social media. A man is due before the courts in July in connection with an alleged assault on Mary Lou McDonald and two canvassers the day before the presidential election last year. The incident was filmed and went viral online. So, last week when a video of Senator Eileen Flynn speaking about racism and nationalist propaganda went viral, a predictable and inevitable online pile on began, with posts attacking Flynn's "patriotism" or perceived

Much of the abuse directed at Ms Flynn came from Irish accounts run by people who benefit from algorithmically amplification (so called blue tick accounts), and content monetisation. Monetisation is now a commonplace feature on social media platforms like X/Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, that allows the company to "share" revenue. The more attention (likes, shares, comments etc) a post gets, the more revenue a user earns. Influencers also often have accounts on three or four platforms and post dozens of times a day, and can also benefit from tips, and paid subscribers so it is difficult to gauge how much they earn, but a single viral post on X can generate over €300 for an influencer, so this can become a quite lucrative activity for not a lot of work. Power

The abuse directed at Ms Flynn did not only come from Irish accounts; international social media influencers whose attention was already on Ireland since the fuel protests latched onto it too. Defiant Ls, an account run by a Macedonian influencer who promotes Maga content shared the video, as did the account LibsofTikTok, with the caption, 'Irish Senator Eileen Flynn says that she is "terrified" to see her nation's flag and thinks it's "disgraceful" to fly it', received more than 250,000 views and over 1,300 comments, mostly abusive. LibsOfTikTok has nearly five million fans and the account is run by Chaya Raichik, a right wing influencer who has previously targeted schools, hospitals and libraries across the United States. Victims of her attention have gone to be inundated with threats of violence.

I have a piece in the Examiner today on how content monetisation is fuelling a new wave of online harassment

Irish influencers with monetised accounts are mimicking the behaviour of people like Chaya Raichik, the owner of LibsOfTikTok, who has turned online abuse & harassment into a business model.

why does one pipe CO2?? what's it for?

last RT: sometimes I dream of a better world, but quite often I think I'd settle for chaos with Ed Milliband.

while ed miliband is doing the rounds, accidentally letting slip that he thought hiring mandleson was a bad idea, and so did lammy.

it's rare you see somebody dig themselves into a hole like this. like, every step of the way he throws a rake down in front of himself before taking the next step.

8yo has shifted into her school-refusal era, so we’ve tried bribing her with a breakfast sausage. She is up and dressed, so this is good, but the entire house is organised around the porL smell, avoidance thereof.

Every so often people ask me if I mind living with a vegetarian and whilst there are a few things I would cook a little more often if I didn’t, I do haaaaate cooking meat.