author of https://t.co/kBVhmYs7mm, + novels 'Unknown Language', 'Red Tory' & 'Chubz'. Also @BadGaysPod - 'Bad Gays: A Homosexual History' out now @versobooks
Sep 13, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Found myself surprisingly moved by Andrew’s heckler. You can pay off your victim, implement the Police Act, swamp the media, search every mourner, line the streets with cops and snipers, but if there’s one kid who’s brave enough to do it, you simply cannot stop him saying it
A little John Lilburne moment
Mar 27, 2020 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
The British establishment seems to prefer playing down the pandemic and saving the government’s face, and raking lives, rather than acknowledging the seriousness of the pandemic, stressing that to the public, encouraging strict preventative measures and therefore saving lives
The language of “surrender” and “betrayal” is proto-fascist language, the birth of our own “stab in the back” myth that shifts the blame for the failure of Brexit away from the fact that there was never a feasible plan for exit, to create a new scapegoat for failure
To call that out at birth for what it is - the proto-fascist language of national humiliation that will sow the seeds of dangerous far-right politics for a generation - is not “just as bad” as those using it. This is the situation we’re in and we need to be honest about that.
Jul 26, 2019 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
As someone who makes their living from copyediting I can tell you that the “double space after full stops” rule is symbolic of the man’s approach. Not just anachronistic but continuing a practice for the sake of tradition, despite it now being counterproductive.
The reason people who learnt to type on typewriters used a double space after a full stop is because the type was “monospaced” - each letter was given the same space, whether an “I” or an ”M”, meaning some letters has irregularly large spaces between them, within words.
Jan 4, 2019 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
This week I visited the court of the Water Tribunal of the plain of Valencia. It meets almost every Thursday on the steps of the Cathedral in the city, and they settle disputes between farmers concerning irrigation and water supply. In such an arid region, this is very important
The court consists of 8 syndics, one for each of the irrigation communities, elected by the plain's farmers from amongst themselves. There is a president and vice-president, each elected from each side of the (old) banks of the river Turia.
Nov 14, 2018 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
I have just discovered the horrifying truth about figs
A fig is not a fruit. It's an internally blooming flower that can never spread its pollen on the wind. But every female fig (the ones we eat) is pollinated by a fig wasp, that climbs up into the fig and lays her eggs inside it. It gets worse
