Philippa Islington-Smythe - aka my cat Roscoe - hanging out on her favourite armchair, but mentally trapped in a reverie about the summer of 1995.

THREAD. In her exclusive interview in today's Daily Telegraph Magazine, the actor, influencer and designer Philippa Islington-Smythe (pictured) discusses the price of fame, her controversial new perfume, working with Margot Robbie and how becoming a parent changed her perspective on the world...

"This is an important thing to think about."

They'll probably just change it once a year to be obstinate and watch Alberta slowly grow totally out of sync with the rest of Canada, but then slowly get back to the right time 24 years later.

Trump's trans healthcare ban is affecting Americans in Canada • Celeste Trianon U.S. international students studying at McGill now need to contend with the fact that if they are transgender, they can't get trans-specific healthcare on campus until they turn 19.

SCOOP: McGill University's on-campus doctors are now refusing to prescribe hormones to trans youth and adults under age 19... if they're U.S. citizens.

They claim liability issues, but this isn't the first time U.S. EOs have interfered with Canadian doctors.

My report: celeste.lgbt/en/2026/04/d...

Canadian doctors obeying a U.S. executive order that doesn’t even apply to Canada is deeply offensive to both trans people and to Canadian legal sovereignty.

Press pack arrived today and claims it'll be out in paper in MAY!

*looks at calendar, screams quietly*

Exploring the Prize Papers, a global early modern archive Using language skills, examine previously unknown records from the Prize Papers collection and produce descriptions to support digitisation.

Dream positions: 3 (!!) PhD placements at the Prize Papers with emphasis on finding students with the following language skills: French, Spanish, Dutch, and Scandinavian languages. (Of course, I emphasize the Dutch language!)
www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/professional...

I get why Americans don’t
want the FBI spying on them, but as a non-US person outside the US, it’s jolting to read that Sect 702 makes me & all other non-US persons normal & legitimate targets for surveillance.

I also don’t want the FBI reading my emails. (Naive—but no less so than for US persons?)

"The Vice President is infallible in matters of doctrine"

--United States, Executive Office of the President [Donald Trump]. Executive Order 21637: Vicepastor aeternus Establishing the Infallible teaching authority of the Vice President. 14 Apr. 2026. Federal Register, vol. 99, no. 3, pp. 24401–402

Many Popes Have Been Entangled in Politics. Here Are 5 of Them.

TIL that the earliest example of a pope being "entangled in politics" dates from the mid-20th century. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/13/w...

DJT trying to one-up the Vicar of Christ by claiming he himself is Christ. I'll bet Henry VIII wishes he thought of that.

#1 Canadian summer destination is getting away from Poilievre OTTAWA - Trendspotters have identified the hottest destination for Canadians this summer, and it is putting as much distance as possible between you and Pierre Poilievre.

#1 Canadian summer destination is getting away from Poilievre

please send JD Vance to campaign for every republican senator up for reelection

put him front and center, photo ops, tv spots, the whole nine yards

Kennedy is a eugenicist.
His words and choices to date provide ample evidence of his deep hatred for disabled ‘weaker’ people. All his ‘policy’ is driven by one goal: make the population ‘fitter’ by ‘weeding out the unfit.’
Speak of him as the open, rank eugenicist he is.

I don't know how to explain to the people who pop up when creatives complain about "AI" to say there are legit uses for it just how much they sound like someone saying "Well actually fire is used to make bread" when people are talking about an organized arson ring burning down their fucking houses

I converted to Catholicism last week. Here’s why it’s necessary for the United States to invade Vatican City and install its own pope.

Things that help calm the nervous system, quickly:

- Box breathing (in for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4, repeat)
- Immerse your face in cold water (activates mammalian dive reflex)
- Humming (stimulates vagus nerve)
- Exercise (anything helps, outside even better)
- Impeachment and removal

As he grows into a toddler I’m sure he’ll want to be pope in his own dominions

If you think this is exhausting, imagine being Iranian.

Definite a resemblance! Hopefully he is less tyrannical

The wild thing to realize, having tweaked a bunch of assignments and figured out balanced ways to detect AI without being overly coppy, is that AI isn’t inevitable at all. Like most things it can be managed. It’d be really nice if universities and the AFT would help in this rather than giving up.

Probably going to have to flesh out the traditional dismissal of Great Man Theory in first-year historiography lectures now it turns out that two to three deranged geriatrics actually can slingshot the entire planet into the sun

I know it makes people squirmy when I say it, but this is why it really matters that Trump is a sexual predator.

"She wants me to rape her" is rapist logic. Of course he applies it to people he also wants to murder.

It is absolute demagoguery to say that a foreign student took anyone's spot. Foreign students have enriched and, bluntly, funded U.S. universities. Those universities will be less successful and less desirable as a result of this rank protectionism.

Dr Ade is doing her Canadian funded post-doctoral fellowship in my lab. I can attest that she is an exceptional scientist who studies the immunology of age and teaches immunology and not someone who builds robots. Madness.

PSA for Canadians trying to do the math on EV « fuel » costs:

Take your per kWh electricity cost and *double* it. That’s your « effective gas price » in $/L

Eg. $0.15/kWh = $0.30/L effective gas price

Compare to this in Vancouver right now… Yup, ICE currently 7x the cost.

I'm thinking that now would be a good time for historians to jump in and give us a history of the etiquette of written threats by heads of state. Being a medievalist (but not a historian of war), I can't think of any that top today's threat from POTUS in their complete lack of diplomatic skill. 🗃️

The Iranian embassy in Iran quote tweets Trump's insane 'Fuckin Strait tweet with the comment: "This low level of civility and intelligence shown by a leader of a country is regrettable; the shameful fervor with which intentions to commit war crimes are repeated is staggering; and the fact that the Divine is invoked regardless of ill intentions clearly exposes deep fanaticism. Apologies for sharing this language." Trump's tweet reads: "Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP"

my entire timeline on x is now just iranian embassies demonstrating a facility with the english language that puts everything i've ever read from the trump administration to shame

The first women being admitted as undergraduates at Columbia University is something that happened in my lifetime. There’s a lot we take for granted that is ~2-3 generations old, and people in power are actively trying to undo a lot of it.

Sometimes readers are skeptical when I tell them that retailers would rather pay for self-checkout kiosks and product lockup systems and all manner of other questionable in-store tech rather than staffing because of an ideological preference for capital spending over labor spending and, well,,,