Poster with a big red fist punching up through a wheelchair and holding a walking stick. “The text reads: Crips Against Cuts, National Day of Action 22nd of March. Time: 12pm, Location: College Green, Bristol, BS1 5UY. ‼️N95 masks REQUIRED (masks and earbuds will be available) 🗣️ speakers to be announced!” There is red blood dripping down from the top of the poster.

⭐️ REPOSTED WITH ALT TEXT!

Also, just to clarify, the mask requirement does not of course apply to those who are exempt!💗

My only disappointment was that, in a conversation where intersectionality was very important, disability was conspicuously absent. There’s no part of me that believes that they haven’t thought about how disability interacts with experiences of gender, but why not mention it?

Saw the incomparable Judith Butler at the South Bank Centre last night and was blown away by how warm, funny and unflappable they were, as well as obviously incredibly interesting and thoughtful. Ash Sarkar was the perfect interviewer for them and my brain is still buzzing.

So grim to see Keir Starmer going even further to the right.

He seems totally incapable of talking about why immigration is a good thing.

Totally incapable of talking about our skills gap.

Totally incapable of humanity & compassion.

#PMQs

A photo of a white cat with black patches sitting on a pink blanket. She has one eye and no ears and she is exceptionally beautiful.

It’s been 2 months since my precious Bullseye died & I’m still having to remind myself that she’s not coming back. She was the best companion, a beautiful soul full of love and sass. It’s hard to love a creature you know you will outlive, but I will keep loving as hard and as wholly as she love me.

We talk about how awful, ableist news stories have convinced the public that chronically ill and/or disabled folks are fakers and benefit frauds - we should also talk about the effect on doctors. 1/2

A white cat with black spots lying on a pink fluffy blanket. She has one eye and no ears and looks like a very contented little cow.

this is also a cow

A beautiful white cat sits on a pink blanket looking expectantly at the person behind the camera. She has one eye, no ears and an irresistibly kissable pink nose.

Hey, Bullseye was just wondering if you’re going to eat all of that? She hasn’t been fed in about 8 minutes and she’s pretty sure that’s against the law.

Yay you’re here!

It (and glymphatic system in general) seems to be talked about a lot in ME subgroups with a mechanical spinal element. Maybe more useful in this type of ME patient? My symptoms were initially triggered by a spinal fracture, so seeing talk from other similar PwME made me want to give it a go!

I will say that, in contrast to LP, this osteopath has never claimed it will cure me, and there’s no element of ‘It will only work if you want it enough’ that I see in NLP based ‘cures’.

I don’t think it’s a miracle cure, but I was surprised to see that even the at-home bit made a difference. I measure my HRV to help with pacing and my baseline has increased about 15 ‘points’, with my resting heart rate dropping 10 bpm. I changed nothing else during that time.

I have just started the full treatment, after seeing small but measurable improvements with the at-home self massage. It’s a very gentle manual lymphatic drainage, focussing on the upper body, and also cranial osteopathy and some gentle movement of the spine.

It’s hard to lose a community all in one go isn’t it? I found twitter such a great way to connect with people who cared about the same things as me! It will build back up though, I’m confident! With fewer bots and less hateful shit pushed into the feed. Distraction-wise: @apolloandfrens on insta 🦜

The cover of Mikaela Loach’s book “It’s Not That Radical: climate action to transform our world.” The cover has strips of pink, green, black and yellow, with the title in bold capital letters, one word in each strip in a contrasting colour eg yellow on pink, pink on black etc.

Today I am mostly reading @mikaelaloach.bsky.social’s BRILLIANT book. It can be hard not to dip into despair when you pay attention to climate justice issues & despair is the enemy of action. This book is electrifyingly hopeful, clear & honest about neo-colonialism - often ignored in climate spaces

People will keep needing 999 care and the UK will keep charting embarrassingly high on asthma death league tables until asthmatics stop being treated as drug-seeking by GPs for asking them to follow THEIR OWN PLAN.

Honestly the only thing that kept me fighting for appropriate GP care rather than just going to A&E was the infection risk of going to hospital and the memory of everyone yelling at me during my last two bad attacks for ‘letting’ it get that bad.

My peak flow was less than 50% of my normal, but my GP insisted on comparing it to the average for my age group, rather than my specific normal. Imagine my cringing as I wheeze out that ✨actually✨ I’m a trained theatre actor and flautist so my lung capacity isn’t comparable to the average person.

Breathing issues cause more emergency NHS admissions than any other condition Figures for England show one in eight of all unplanned hospital admissions in 2023-24 were for respiratory system diseases

This article feels well-timed for me personally: www.theguardian.com/society/2024...

Recently spent days trying to convince my GP to follow my asthma action plan and prescribe me pred for a serious exacerbation. It’s the only thing historically that can keep me out of hospital once it flares.

What a delight to see Twitter mutuals heading over here! I’m looking to follow performance artists, theatre folk (particularly queer or disabled people) and #PwME or involved in ME research.

The Government's Final Delivery Plan 'Should be a Watershed Moment for ME and Long COVID sufferers' A long awaited plan for ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome sufferers is due to be published this winter.

(UK)
The Government’s Final Delivery Plan ‘Should be a Watershed Moment for ME & #LongCOVID sufferers’ - Tamsin Flower

A spokesman for the DHSC said the focus will be on research, education and improving care for people with ME/CFS.

bylinetimes.com/2024/11/08/f...

#MEcfs #CFS #PwME

Still my highlight of this year’s fringe! She’s so incredible

Crying Shame by Sweet Beef. This cabaret show about loneliness artfully toes the line between superficial & self-indulgent. With burlesque, tap dancing & clowning, & a core of painful truth, this show incorporates verbatim & audience interaction to expose beauty & nonsense in equal measure.

Weer by Natalie Palamides. A masterclass in clowning. Natalie is a phenomenal talent and Weer is beautifully constructed, combining romance tropes with bonkers comedy and a surprising sensitivity. This show could easily have been an empty gimmick, but it couldn’t be further from it.

Wuthering Shites by Kate Butch. A hilariously clever take on jukebox musicals, with more Kate Bush songs than I knew existed. This show is smarter, more detailed and more musically nuanced than it has any need to be. The section where she deconstructs the Kate Bush sound is a music nerd’s dream!

My Mother’s Funeral: The Show by Kelly Jones. This is a tightly written play with excellent multi-roling and sharply accurate insights into being working class in theatre. This is a show about grief, so be careful if (like me) you are grieving. It was a hard watch, but a gorgeous piece of theatre.

Queer Planet by Bicurious George. A charmingly wholesome romp through nature at its queerest. Meet gay penguins, a pregnant seahorse and some fabulous fungi! George is a delightful storyteller and this show is so full of love. I left beaming! #EdFringe24 #Edfringe #Theatre

Not much #EdFringe chat on here yet, maybe next year? Here are some shows I’ve loved:

"Why can't climate activists go for [fossil fuel companies / petrol stations / fossil fuel transport] instead of art???"

^^ They have been doing this consistently for decades, and people like you ignoring that is part of why they're compelled to branch out much further in their actions

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”