Lol, the government make a big show of allowing licensed premises to stay open for the kickyball, the police point out what a terrible idea that is, then the weather intervenes and it looks like the game's going to be moved earlier (like way earlier, ha ha all those people who booked time off work to recover/celebrate). Kids won't have to stay up late (they'd never have made it to a 01:00 start anyway), they can watch England get knocked out by 21:00. #FIFAWorldCup #MEXvENG

A team time trial to start le Tour tomorrow. Best to get one of the most boring stages out of the way early. A shame it's locked behind pay-per-view to follow live, with highlights on Channel 5 each evening in the UK #cycling #TourDeFrance #TdF

kind of a long-shot, but does anyone know of a non transphobic solicitor / notary public in the south of the UK?
I want to finally sort my GRC (I’ve had the paperwork ready for ~4 years..), and I’ve been ghosted by all the ones I’ve reached out to so far… :BoostOK:

The home secretary ... will ... [allow] the extension of alcohol licensing hours on occasions of “exceptional ... national ... significance”.

National team playing with mediocrity, facing a team that isn't a historic rival, round of sixteen. Unexceptional.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/03/police-criticise-decision-allow-pubs-stay-open-england-match-world-cup

Can I ask for help from anyone about describing a #trans person?

So - Kae Tempest is amazing, and I have loved a lot of his work over the years. I also have a book written when he was called Kate, and going as "she".

So if I am referring to that book, and that author, should I use she or he - especially as the author is down as Kate, not Kae.

It is not often I have this problem, but I sometimes struggle to try and get it right, so I want to understand what the right answer is, if there is one.

Thank you.

A tennis commentator seriously just said 'doesn't her face look better with a smile on it' #Wimbledon #EverydaySexism #FuckThatNoise

What I've been seeing in my timeline over the last few is just ridiculous. Post after post saying you should absolutely NOT support Bandcamp anymore under ANY circumstances, that "everything there is shit anyway," that all the artists still on there are either lazy, ignorant, or sellouts. I'm reading this from people who have never released a single record or song in their lives, pointing fingers at us and telling us how to manage our livelihood.

And here comes the big, fat point everyone's forgetting:
With this blind activism, you're not punishing Bandcamp. Bandcamp already cashed the check and is sitting in their warm office. You're fucking us over. The artists. The ones who built their entire artistic existence there.

Let me break this down a bit more because I have a feeling many of you don't understand what it means to be an independent artist caught between the front lines right now.

You gather your most expensive people into a room to make your most important decisions. Then, somewhere in the second hour, the room quietly gets worse at making them. Not the people. The room.

I now travel with a portable CO2 monitor. Outdoors it reads around 400 parts per million. In a closed meeting room with a handful of people in it, I have watched it climb past 2,000. The photo here is a real reading: 2,143.

That number matters more than it looks. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory put people in a chamber and varied only the CO2. At 1,000 ppm, performance dropped significantly on six of nine decision-making measures compared with a clean-air baseline of 600. At 2,500 ppm, seven of the nine fell substantially, some into a range they called dysfunctional. A separate study out of Harvard found cognitive scores declining as CO2 rose, with the steepest losses in exactly the domains you called the meeting for: strategy, planning, and using information under pressure.

Continue reading on my blog because it's too long for here. https://blog.mikebowler.ca/2026/07/03/co2-and-decision-making/

@MiaMarkTwo

The Government: We’ve just spent £700k influencer advertising to kids on social media!

Also the Government: Kids shouldn’t be on social media ever, and we’re banning it.

The #MensT20International tomorrow #ENGvIND is available on Channel 5 in the UK #cricket

This shit makes my blood boil. This is why you can't have an intelligent conversation with these Nazi MAGA dipshits. Just listen to how her story changes in a matter of seconds with almost zero prompting from the baffled interviewer.

She says:
- "They're banning all flags across all Europe".
- "They're banning waving all flags in Europe."
- "They're banning waving your own country's flag in Europe".
- "They're about to ban waving your own country's flag in Europe".
- "They're banning putting flags up on your house in Europe."
- "They're in the process of banning putting flags up on your house in European countries."
- "They're in the process of banning putting flags up on your house in the UK."
- "They're in the process of banning putting only certain country's flags up on your house in the UK."
- *You can't show patriotism over there."

Notice how her story changed from "banning all flags" to "banning some flags" to "banning only certain flags". And how it changed from "all use of flags" to "waving flags" to "putting flags on your house" to "show patriotism". And how it changed from "all countries in Europe" to "European countries" to "only the UK" to the delightfully abstract "over there".

Here's the truth - and I'm sure it won't surprise you that every single thing she said was a lie. Four councils in the UK (Shropshire, South Gloucestershire, Bristol City, and Wiltshire), asked that flags not be hung from street lighting and road infrastructure like railings, roundabouts, and road signs, during the World Cup, as they could impair driver's visibility and pose safety issues.

Notice that's not a ban. That's an ask. And they're only asking because it's the World Cup.
Notice that's not all flags. That's only certain hanging flags.
Notice that's not on private houses. That's on public roadways.
Notice that it had nothing to do with patriotism. It was a driver's safety issue.
Notice that's not even happening all over Europe. Nor all across the entire UK even. Just in four small local government bodies mostly the size of a medium western state county like Santa Clara, CA.

These people are such fucking loser freaks. They exist in such a haze of disinformation, hate, and unearned confidence, that they literally have no idea what's going on around them at any moment.

Which is the most interesting thing about this July?
#WorldCup #Football #cricket #TaylorSwift #UKpolitics

to be clear even if she wasn't technical this is all still revolting. but there's something especially grating about how some men in technical spaces definitely hold a massive grudge towards women and minorities they perceive to be more technical than them

RE: https://tldr.nettime.org/@remixtures/116846629295018916

I can't help but think about the fact that at many protests people cover their faces and identifying tattoos and leave their hands visible.

Just a random thought that popped into my head while reading this, surely it's not related at all.

Reading about a director in Historic Environment Scotland who kept his job after using seriously racist language because "a mitigating argument in his defence was that the phrase is commonly used in the Navy" which he had served in for a number of years.

Really? During my formative years I heard many phrases used to describe people different to me, none of which would be acceptable use today and none of which I would ever dream of using. Life experience is no excuse for racist language.

I has some funeral trouser fabric left over so made some funeral shorts. The Parasol pattern by Ensemble (except I accidentally used the jumpsuit short pieces and not the trouser short pieces, so had to botch a few things). Darts for a more tailored look, my favourite thing about these are the massive angled pockets. #sewing #SewistsOfMastodon

God-botherers at the door again. Got a firm 'Absolutely not' and the door immediately closed on them.

Saying this again cos it's so important.

There is an eclipse this summer. And because this came up in a conversation, something I didn't realise needed to be said.

DO NOT TRY TO MAKE YOUR OWN ECLIPSE GLASSES.

Your eyesight is more important than that. A pair of iso standards certified eclipse glasses are about €3.

Seriously, do not risk your eyesight.

Y’all remember a ways back when I said 3 major #egg producers were scamming the country, and that #avianflu was not causing the price surges, it was price fixing, cause I can do basic addition?

And industry executives and analysts were saying that there was nothing to see except a supply shock of a disease killing lots of hens. As one industry executive put it at the time, it’s all just “supply disruption, ‘act of God’ type stuff.”

Yeah. It was a #conspiracy to fix prices. Emails between each other writing down the damn conspiracy. They made billions. Guess how much they have to pay in fines? If you guessed less than 1%, you’ve been paying attention to the #kakistocracy.

Eat the rich.

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/crime-pays-the-egg-bandits-made-a

I often feel that Gary Legum of Wonkette is the only reporter making sense about the Trump regime. This, on the regime’s planned fireworks display in DC, is an example. https://www.wonkette.com/p/park-service-warns-public-to-avoid