'months of delay' sounds like the EU was faffing about. Not the case. The loan was vetoed by Trump-poodle Orban. Now he's gone, it can be done

Pretty insane. Why not just leave them as they are and wait to see what happens? Oh, then no cronies would make money...

Goodness, fancy the Iranians wanting to sail ships along their own coastline. How outrageous 🙄

Seem to be spending my days searching for the length of large prehistoric beasties and the mass of extant insects. Former often given mass, latter often given length. Why?

Dear Bluesky, anyone know how much a giant Malaysian leaf #insect weighs? (Pulchriphyllium giganteum) Can't find out anywhere - needed for a kids' book #entomology #leafinsects #biology #science

Back to basics (1): I am not a robot — Anne Rooney Children's authors writers from the UK share thoughts on books and writing

Proving you didn't use AI - how writers can cover themselves against spurious claims of cheating
awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/2026/04/back...

Tbf, it's a tiny market because hardly anyone here would buy one even if they were legal

I worry about this on German trains. I have to rehearse the argument in my head in German. Last time I did this, it turned out the guy was an immigrant and didn't understand any German (he did move)

That's 'get better', not 'worse'

I used to say 'probably not unless you're a 10-year-old'. But 10-year-olds grow up so now some of them have heard of me because they were once a 10-year-old. Which makes me feel REALLY old

If you're in the uk, you buy it from backmarket - refurbished with guarantee

We see it in the uk - it's covered by the Guardian

You don't get to 'allow' us to do things. You need to earn back trust and it won't start for years, probably decades

No, you can still buy paper books, you can still buy physical DVDs if you really want to, you can print out your photos or store them on a local external drive. You can opt out of a lot, it's just effort

You're not the only one. I've not seen it yet, largely because it was often reviewed in the UK as disappointing

Anyone got any idea what colour Dickinsonia might have been? I'm hoping for flamingo-pink/orange on the basis of epossibly ating algae rich in carotenoids, but it's only a guess. Any better ideas? #paleo #stainedglass

Excellent cover artwork, too. My grand-daughter's little books like this also have a copyright declaration and 'all rights reserved'. Comes of living in a house with a professional author, I guess. Will this wonderful book be available soon? We need to know what happens!

Apologies, it appeared you were responding to the comment that people are more intelligent in Norway than in the USA

Why would having a small population make people more intelligent?

I saw one last year, in Germany :-(

oh what a shame never mind

Rather suggests our definition of 'clever' is wrong

We have held them accountable in Europe!

Back to working with paper (and pastries)

Try a trick I used to use with my students when I was an RLF writing fellow. Write a letter/email to someone (don't send it), explaining the problem and what you want the chapter to say/do. Often, articulating it leads you to the solution as you find out exactly what the problem with it is

Or tell people whether they can have an abortion, or which books they/their kids can read, or who they are allowed to love

Yes, Stapleford! Thank you 😀

I've just finished this #stainedglass panel. Not #paeleo this time, but some medieval fish copied from @yorkminster.bsky.social

The job you describe is mostly that of a copy editor. An editor should make sure the book works and that might involve restructuring, getting rid of unnecessary bits (of whatever type). Critiquing is not subjective but based on understanding how texts and stories work on human pyschology

I think you can understand, as an author, that you produce only half the work and the adaptor/reader/viewer produces the other half. So even if you had no interest in or knowledge of politics to add a subtext, others can add it and so it's there for them