The other spoiler here is Helen Joyce (who is actually Irish)

And in the other half it isn't concealed at all

The news from Scotland

As a former senior advisor to Sir Keir* it pains me to say this, but I think at the present time, our country would be better served by placing the names of every Labour MP in a tombola and picking a new PM at random.

I tried it and got Yuan Yang.

*before he became unpopular

Say what you like about the Right Honourable Peter Mandelson, Baron Mandelson of Foy in the County of Herefordshire and of Hartlepool in the County of Durham, he still has the capacity to surprise. We knew about the weakness for very rich people. We assumed he was behind plenty of briefing to journalists. But blimey, we didn’t know he was just forwarding the prime minister’s emails to a paedophile financier. Monday’s revelations were gobsmacking in every way. Take the way that the then-secretary of state passed the market-sensitive information to the trader. You might have imagined that these transactions involve untraceable accounts or burner phones or pieces of paper stuffed into envelopes and handed over in underground garages. As it turns out, Mandelson was simply pressing “forward” within seconds of the messages arriving on his BlackBerry and winging them on to Jeffrey Epstein’s Gmail account. I guess that was the one thing that GCHQ didn’t expect.

You have to admire Peter Mandelson's capacity to deliver surprises. thecritic.co.uk/pete...

Act of Attainder! Act of Attainder!

Have just remembered that German biblical scholars use the term "Templeaktion", which also has the advantage of sounding rad as hell

Agreed - though being thousands of miles removed from Minnesota I'm in no position to judge the wisdom or otherwise of sticking to such a true in the recent cases

Indeed! It's partly why I'm iffy on people using it as a justification for protests in churches as it's a slightly different thing.

(I did ponder using a different shorthand, as "cleansing" is rather loaded, too)

(Pedantically, it's less than a week, as in the Gospels the cleansing of the Temple comes between his entry on Palm Sunday and death on Good Friday UNLESS you follow the Gospel of John, who places it three years earlier)

Not a problem, it meant I thought it was a bit OTT even for the 1860s as I originally read it as "my balls"

I think Anne Boleyn would not be surprised that the people portraying her has a penis because that was the convention of 16th century English drama.

I know this is hijacking a fun post with a serious point, but: the Feast of the Flight into Egypt is a commemoration of the fact that Jesus and his parents fled to Egypt as refugees, which should be more often remembered, particularly by those who say they want to defend the West’s Christian values.

That Nordic deployment to Greenland:

🚨 Uh oh, drama on the TL 👇

My wife begun to speak to me with great trouble and tears, and by degrees from one discourse to another at last it appears that Sarah has told somebody that has told my wife of my meeting her at my brother’s and making her sit down by me while she told me stories of my wife.

St Margaret's Loch has disappeared...
#Edinburgh #HolyroodPark

Desperate to paint scrutiny and heartfelt concern as procedural shenanigans

Is it so hard to believe that many of us MPs and peers are hugely worried by this inadequate poorly-drafted mess of a bill, and take seriously our responsibility as lawmakers?!

Frodo and Sam are small figures approaching Mordor. Barad-dur and Mt Doom can be seen in the distance. The star of earendil shines through the clouds. The text reads: Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere

Words that have been on my mind recently
#Tolkien #art

This artwork by Marc Chagall captures the dramatic moment of Moses shattering the Tablets of the Law in a blend of surrealism and biblical narrative. Chagall's use of dark, swirling forms and emotive expressions conveys both the chaos and the spiritual turmoil of the scene from Exodus.

In rage which he felt to the idolatry of the chosen people of God, Moses broken the Tablets of the Law (Exodus, XXXII, 15-19) www.wikiart.org/en/marc-chagall/in-rage-...

so cool how we keep inventing new and interesting forms of ship money

-2C by the Union Canal in Edinburgh.
Only a swan could fall through broken ice so gracefully. 🦢

Screenshot of a British government website, with GOV.UK logo at the top. Beneath it, four blocks/rows of text, reading: ALPHA: this is a new service — your feedback will help us improve it. THERE IS A PROBLEM If you're in the UK Sorry

Found elsenet: seems to sum up the zeitgeist nicely!

for instance, "I Saw Three Ships (Come Sailing In)" is clearly nonsensical as a depiction of the events of the Gospel, which involve no sailing, and is indeed a distorted version of the departure of Frodo to the West, accompanied by 'His Lady' (Galadriel)

a lot of people don't realize that Christmas carols and traditions are actually folk memories of suppressed pre-Christian events, namely the end of the Third Age and the Fall of Sauron.

This makes sense of why when I was a child no one else had ever heard of the auctions in Monopoly because, in our family, we Read the Rules, and no one else did

(We still had Free Parking money and $400 on Go, so it nonetheless lasted for ages)

We've all been playing Monopoly wrong The board game shouldn't go on forever if you stick to the real rules

Monopoly might be a bad game, but you’re making it much worse by playing it wrong.

A Christmas declaration of war, from me, in @thenewworldmag.bsky.social
www.thenewworld.co.uk/james-ball-w...

I like the concept of attending one in a friend's garden , and then turning up demanding access 18 months down the line.

This is a touching story, but how sad and worrying that the church hosting much of the support work is afraid to be named because they are scared of attracting far right attacks. It’s a growing phenomenon and it’s outrageous.