David Smith

Trans people have been *screaming* for *years* this was coming.

And here we are.

Column chart showing party political support among gay/bi men: Reform 25 Green 19 Labour 18 Lib Dem 15 Tory 15

Although Reform now tops polling for gay/bi men it’s only 1 in 4, less popular with gay/bi men than they are with straight men or with the general population.
Reform councils have banned Pride events, have been stridently anti-trans and would roll back equality legislation that protect all LGBTQ.

Now's the chance to make a £25 note with a pony on it and a £500 note with a monkey

A trans person drawing on a statue with chalk got comment from the Home Secretary and coverage on TV and in all the main papers.

A female Green MP being harassed and abused in the street by transphobes gets nothing...

#JustProtectingWomen

I'm too bored of this to try and be clever about it anymore.

If you think that two men kissing, or two women kissing, requires any more explanation than a man kissing a woman, that is homophobia.

The Dubots have spoken.

“I’d give it ten minutes if I were you.”

[We see a close up of a young white male, tanned, white teeth, coiffed hair clearly an influencer on social media. It is an image such as you see when social media posts are shown on the news. In the corner of the screen is named a location: DUBAI. He is staring slightly off-camera for several silent panels of the comic strip. His eyes move slightly. He is having a thought.] From off-screen a newsreader’s commentary comes: NEWSREADER: Extraordinary images here of an expat in Dubai [The influencer’s eybrows raise slightly] …Having their first ever geopolitical thought. [CUT TO a BBC news scene. The BBC newsreader CLIVE MYRIE is talking to an interviewee next to the screen showing the social media influencer’s face. The interviewee’s name is David Jones]. CLIVE MYRIE: To explain the significance of this moment we’re joined by David Jones, our Expat Thoughts correspondent DAVID JONES: Clive, this is momentous It was caught on film at the end of an Instagram post titled: ‘Dubai Is Brilliant’. [Pointing at the screen, the influencer’s expression still the same] You can clearly see in the eyebrows here, the dawning realisation that there *might* be something in the world beyond his dickhead self. It marks a *huge* departure from all the Dubai Expat’s previous thoughts. CLIVE MYRIE: Which are…? DAVID JONES: You've Got To Get Yourself Out Here Mate, Everything Is So Clean, I Don't Have To Pay Taxes, I Am Incurious As To Why I Do Not Have To Pay Taxes, and Spa. CLIVE MYRIE: And might we see an expansion of these new Thoughts in coming days? DAVID JONES: I think we can expect to see: “I Deserve To Be Airlifted By A Country I Pay No Tax To” CLIVE MYRIE: Mmm. [Ends]

Today in GIFs you* can hear

* if you're of a certain age

If anyone is friends with any Georgian air traffic controllers, buy them a nice bottle of wine. As guardians of pretty much the only narrow gap still available between Europe and Asia that avoids both Iran, the Gulf, Ukraine and Russia, they are under some substantial pressure.

Oh now I get it. Dubai is Golgafrinchan Ark B.

Amol Rajan's House of Games, coming soon

Meme of missiles heading towards a city at night as anti-missile defense is released. The defense is labeled "my tax dollars." The missiles are labeled "somehow also my tax dollars."

Evergreen

CYRPUS

Well, colour me shocked.

I had exactly the same thought. He did say the moon had become a desert, so maybe it was the lack of water?

But that doesn't explain why he was happily able to be blue when wandering outside on the ship's hull.

Yes! I imagine the writers thrashing out the story would've said "but here Jay-Den would say..." spoiling the parochially human story they wanted to tell (despite the non-human characters), so they clunkily wrote him out.

It left an odd taste in my mouth; something not totally unlike racism.

This episode left me cold, I have to say. At least partly because I’m not familiar with Our Town (seems a US high school staple).

Jay-Den’s illness conveniently excuses him from injecting Klingon scepticism into a very human (and human-passing) viewpoint.

Oops

Lost 19th century film by Méliès discovered at the Library | Timeless Library conservators recently made a startling discovery in a batch of decaying film reels -- a long-lost 1897 film by early cinema icon George Méliès. The French magician-turned-filmmaker's

"The 45-second film, made around 1897, was the first appearance on film of what might be called a robot"

HELL. YES.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: The Inquiry brought up the case of Denholm Elliott's daughter - PAUL McMULLAN: Oh, yeah - BROOKE GLADSTONE: - which is one case that you truly do regret. PAUL McMULLAN: I do, yeah. After Denholm died, she hit rock bottom, was allegedly doing methadone. And although she had, you know, the half-million-pound flat that Denholm had bought her, she didn't have any money to get her ten-pound bag in the morning. So she'd get up and go begging at the tube station. Here was a young girl crying out to be helped, and she met a police officer who didn't help her but rang up the News of the World and asked for money because he couldn't believe that this is the same girl who'd walked down the red carpet behind Eddie Murphy with Denholm Elliott, you know.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: And you offered her 50 pounds - PAUL MCMULLAN: Yeah. BROOKE GLADSTONE: - if she would come to your place and have sex. So you led her into prostitution, which she wasn't in that space for. PAUL McMULLAN: No, indeed. But she was in such a bad place that someone offering her 50 pounds for sex. I mean, that's five bags.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: So how do you justify that? Yes, she was a drug addict, yes, she was begging. Why push her that extra step? Why take pictures of her topless? PAUL McMULLAN: I was keen. It was in my first year. I wanted to impress Piers Morgan, who was my boss at the time, and just wanted to say, not only have I caught this girl begging, but l've got pictures of her topless and I've got her offering me sex for 50 quid. How great am I? BROOKE GLADSTONE: This is a pretty dehumanizing enterprise, not just for Jennifer Elliott, but for you, yourself. PAUL McMULLAN: Yeah, that's why I feel terrible about it, not just 'cause she killed herself afterwards, but I, I actually liked her as a person.

Sharing from a friend, a passage from the Leveson Inquiry regarding the British actor Denholm Elliott, who died of AIDS in 1992. Three years after her death, the News of the World journalist Paul McMullan did the following to his daughter—neither a celebrity nor even someone of public interest.

The Ski Mountaineering event at the Winter Olympics just needs water balloons and big fat heads to turn it into an It's A Knockout race. #OneForTheTeenagers #BBCOlympics

I wonder if he's sweating now.

"I can see the Traitors castle!"

a stat i always cite is the number of anti-trans articles in the press went from 60 in a year, to 7,500

"I say! Are you Georgina?" The child in the opposite bed sat up and looked across at Anne. She had very short curly hair, almost as short as a boy's. Her face was burnt a dark-brown with the sun, and “Famous Five 01 - Five On A Treasure Island” By Enid Blyton 7 her very blue eyes looked as bright as forget-me-nots in her face. But her mouth was rather sulky, and she had a frown like her father's. "No," she said. "I'm not Georgina." "Oh!" said Anne, in surprise. "Then who are you?" "I'm George," said the girl. "I shall only answer if you call me George. I hate being a girl. I won't be. I don't like doing the things that girls do. I like doing the things that boys do. I can climb better than any boy, and swim faster too. I can sail a boat as well as any fisher-boy on this coast. You're to call me George. Then I'll speak to you. But I shan't if you don't." "Oh!" said Anne, thinking that her new cousin was most extraordinary. "All right! I don't care what I call you. George is a nice name, I think. I don't much like Georgina. Anyway, you look like a boy."

To give you an idea of how deranged the UK has become about gender stuff, here's Enid Blyton - the absolute avatar of classic English conservatism and a huge fan of racist "gollywogs" - casually describing a gender non-conforming kid in the 1940s and having their friends be totally cool with it.

NUDE ELON MUSK: The invisible clothes I'm wearing are a product of xAthleisure, which will roll out self-dressing outfits within two years at the latest

THE CREDULOUS PRESS: Fully Clothed Tesla Innovator Does It Again

New School Guidance announces:

Full bathroom ban.
Full PE ban.
Full school trip accommodation ban.

Trans kids will not go to the bathroom, do PE or go on any school trips. 1/

Bit unfair on the other skiers who remain on two