Ok Twitter - I’m going to write something here now that I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing up until recently and which I might end up regretting. It’s personal and going to make me feel vulnerable and might invite ridicule - please be charitable. So, to be blunt: I feel really lonely. I don’t mean I’m alone. I have a wonderful wife and wonderful children and come across lots of wonderful people in my work. I am not in any way isolated. But as a bloke with all the appearances of doing ok, a lot of the time I feel lonely

It is interesting there is a growing reaction, in light of new transgender guidance, against keeping things secret from parents and assuming children can make decisions of such magnitude on their own - because for years, we did precisely this under the euphemism 'sexual health' In that context, we were very comfortable with children being given 'protection', being referred to SH clinics, going through with termination processes - and parents not being involved. We said it was ok because of Gillick competence and, hey, it's the current year

I am a geriatric millenial, so grew up late 80s/90s. Forever reading on here how much the country has changed, which nearly always reverts to a discussion on immigration. What gets left out is the subtle and important ways other things in society have changed too. Some examples: 1) Everyone knew someone who had fought in the War. It didn't really feel like history yet, it was something you could (sometimes) talk about to people who were there. Nobody was in any doubt the war was a triumph, and a tragedy.