Get a lesson, from a proper accredited teacher (accredited by British canoeing) britishcanoeingawarding.org.uk/stand-up-pad...
And for the love of god, wear a quick release leash - it could literally save your life.
I love paddleboarding. Many of my friends ask me to take their children out to 'play' on the water. Paddleboarding is wonderful, but you need to be safe, wear the proper leash and PFD and respect the water. Its dangerous when not done properly: www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Catching up on #TheArchers from last week.
Fergal Sharkey about water companies polluting! AMAZING.
Screenshot of the home page for 'From Easter Rising to Civil War: Ireland, 1916-1922', part of Warwick Digital Collections. It includes a photograph of Dublin, partly in ruins, with trams and carts crossing a bridge, and people gathering.
![Front page of booklet:
"The "Sinn Féin"
REVOLT
ILLUSTRATED.
PRINTED AND
PUBLISHED BY
HELY'S LIMITED,
DAME STREET &:
ACME WORKS, DUBLIN.
PRICE ONE SHILLING.
[ photograph of O'Connell Bridge & Sackville St. Dublin.]"](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ftf7vbjjxo5a2evku73enyoe/bafkreif5cp2v3vdgir4iay56nscpnr4mmv3736otbyjg2dj3yfiuhgxyo4)
Front page of booklet: "The "Sinn Féin" REVOLT ILLUSTRATED. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HELY'S LIMITED, DAME STREET &: ACME WORKS, DUBLIN. PRICE ONE SHILLING. [ photograph of O'Connell Bridge & Sackville St. Dublin.]"
Front page of Labour Party leaflet, 1921: "THE STRANGLING OF IRELAND An Appeal to British Women BY A British Woman. OUR RESPONSIBILITY. It is a pity that every British woman — Welsh, Scottish, and English — cannot go to Ireland and see for herself the abomination of British rule there. This cannot be. But ignorance of the facts cannot be accepted as an excuse for indifference. Quite enough has been published in all reputable newspapers to show British women that what the Government calls "law and order" in Ireland is in fact "anarchy and terrorism." The whole world is looking on in disgusted horror. Irish men and women can and will accept no plea of ignorance. British women, unless they stand out for justice and humanity in Ireland, will be branded before the world, and in the long memories of the Irish people, as callous or cruel, deaf to the call of liberty, narrow-minded, and slothful. If we keep silence, we tacitly condone the atrocities ordered or allowed by our Government. If we support the Government we are guilty in the first degree. Great Britain has for centuries ruled Ireland by force against the will of the enormous majority of the people. This, no doubt, is one of the reasons of our indifference to the wrongs of Ireland. They are so old! But every generation in turn is responsible for the wrongs done in its time, and the horror of wrong for which we, now living, are responsible in Ireland has never been surpassed. What is the state of affairs? TERRORISM. There have been many repetitions of sacking, looting, arson, and murder during the centuries of British rule in Ireland, but never worse than what has taken place during the past two years, with ever-increasing violence, culminating in the burning down of a large portion of Cork's main street, its Town Hall, and Carnegie Library."
Front cover of printed report: "THE AMERICAN COMMISSION ON CONDITIONS IN IRELAND INTERIM REPORT (BRITISH EDITION) Price ONE Shilling (Post Free is. 3d.) HARDING & MORE LTD. 119 HIGH HOLBORN LONDON, W.C.1 1921"
'From Easter Rising to Civil War: Ireland, 1916-1922'
Browse 82 pamphlets, reports, leaflets and postcards relating to the 1916 Easter Rising, Irish War of Independence and Irish Civil War.
Free and digitised in full at cdm21047.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/coll...
Wednesday night is burger night.
Home made pickles.
Plastic cheese (obligatory).
The UK's descent into being nothing more than a Minitrumpland, while continuing to scream that it is the opposite, continues.
Do you have any concept of how difficult it is to get a gender recognition certificate, and how much pain you must be in in your own skin to put yourself through that?
Trans rights are human rights. This is bull.
my toxic trait is saying “i have nothing to read" while having approximately 63590 unread books scattered around the house.
The Blue Origin women..."positioning themselves as aspirational models of femininity – have presented a profoundly antifeminist vision of what womankind’s future is: dependent on men, confined to triviality, and deeply, deeply silly." @moiradonegan.bsky.social
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Harvard has set an example for other higher-ed institutions - rejecting an unlawful and ham-handed attempt to stifle academic freedom, while taking steps to make sure students can benefit from an environment of intellectual inquiry, rigorous debate and mutual respect. Let’s hope others follow suit.
Viral food trends are a nonsense.
That Tod bloke is a numpty.
You do not need to queue for 2 hours for a baked potato.
Don’t eat fish and chips in pubs -
universally terrible. Brick Lane Beigals are yellow shop or white shop - don’t eat the rainbow ones.
www.vogue.co.uk/article/tik-...
Tough week (it’s only Tuesday) equates to an excellent reason for Tuesday Night Roast Potatoes:
Our first inaugural lecture of the year, next month join us and Professor @lassethomassen.bsky.social for “'I sure miss George W. Bush:' Deconstruction, Post-Truth and Trump”
📅 26 March, 18:00-19:30
📍 QMUL, Mile End
🎟️ Register at the link
Nicola Jennings Cartoon from the Guardian, 16th Feb 2025. Shows exaggerated forms of Trump and Putin “carving” Zelenskyy’s head, which is in a silver platter. Putin has blood on his hands and utensils. Trump is wearing a soiled bib that says “Nobel Peace Prize”
1805 James Gilray Cartoon, The Plumb Pudding in danger. William Pitt on left wearing tricorn hat. Napoleon on right, wearing mad regimental feathers. Both carving up a ‘plumb pudding’ representing the globe/ particularly Europe. Pitt takes the sea, Napoleon takes the land.
Nicola Jennings cartoon in the Guardian referencing Gilray’s 1805 ‘Plumb-pudding in danger’ and “delivering Ukraine on a silver platter”.
The most famous political cartoon of all time, still revamped, still relevant.
Still bloody terrifying.
UKRI chief executive: research budgets ‘will be tight’.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-r...
#InternationalDayOfWomenAndGirlsInScience – A great opportunity to remind you that the British Council Women in STEM Scholarships are still open!
🎓Fully funded Master’s at @qmul.ac.uk
🌍For women from 🇮🇩 🇲🇲 🇵🇭 🇹🇭
✅Covers tuition, travel & living costs
www.qmul.ac.uk/scholarships...
Trump is an extremely dangerous man--stupid, vindictive, fixated on payback for his enemies. This country will be lucky to survive him.
The planet is literally dying around them. Their parents' generation keeps voting fascists into office who deny it's happening, and persecute people who have clearly, obviously done nothing wrong.
And you COMPLAIN about teenagers' mental health?
newrepublic.com/article/1903...
Sticky sticky stick stick.
Mark Titchner artwork. Red, Orange, Blue and Yellow splotches that look a bit like flowers. Bearing the legend in big white letters “it’s the hope that keeps us here”
2025 - already doing the hard things.
Mark Titchner artwork spotted on the Mile End Road reminding us of the good things.
I know there's a wider debate about Generative AI, the security, ethics & frankly the cost of it (both literal and environmental). But what is most interesting to me in this piece is the idea that GenAI bots have bias built in, & can express that bias as legit: www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Screenshot of Google docs generative AI agent asking me to Rephrase, Shorten, Elaborate, More formal.
Holy moly. I'm trying to write an academic paper, and nearly every application I'm using is not only offering Generative AI as an option for writing, but *pushing it* -- pervading the design to the point where a simple misclick would make my content AI-generated. Here's why that's a problem. 🧵
After the year of McCarthyism that we’ve seen, I have to entertain the idea that Kneecap got left off the Oscars shortlist because they would have used the platform for Palestine
The University of Leeds has become the first Russell Group university to officially announce that it is quitting Elon Musk’s social media site X.
It will, however, be alive and well on Bluesky.
www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-u...
Word of day is ‘unasinous’ (17th century): united in stupidity.
A riff on ‘unanimous’: which comes from the Latin for ‘one mind’. ‘Unasinous’ means ‘one ass’.
At the end of the first week of work 2025:
Friday night Chinese food comes with a hopeful message for the coming year. #fortunecookie #goingbacktoschool
