"Despair becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Most problems are hard but fixable. Despair gets in the way of getting started. I want to read about problems in a way that helps me get a handle on what to do about them. I want to feel inspired to get started, not compelled to run away."

I renovated my kitchen recently, including getting a new hob. Builder didn't have a gas safe certificate, so he had to bring with him anothrr contractor who did.

And how do I phrase this?

"Please ask the guy with gas when he can come in".

Book Lovers of Bluesky: Is your bookstore ethical? Ethical Consumer (UK) has released their list of most ethical book retailers. Surprise surprise, Amazon (and AbeBooks) is at the bottom of the list.
Buy local, independent.
Buy second hand.

I obviously should not have expected to be the first person to make that joke in the comments.

"I'm not sorry and frankly don't see what the fuss is about."

Maybe they just aren't that interested in the team, they just want to shag the flag.

Lie back and think of England.

There was a thing in the same study that found UKIPers are the laziest in bed.

Now, ppl usually don't fantasise *about* dildos, but *while* using dildos. But you can see UKIPer in bed w. UKIPette & him being so lazy in bed she thinks "Could do the job better myself with a plastic one". 😁

I also live in a neighbourhood with a lot of Pakistani Muslims who don't drink and aren't pubgoers,so there's a lot of late opening coffee, cake and ice cream shops too. They wouldn't want the pubs they don't go to to close early - what they want is to have their own places to go at night alongside.

People who don't drink alcohol at all or who drink smaller amounts of it may still enjoy late night pubs just for the socialising aspect - they may just like some or all of their own bar orders to be soft drinks instead. (Case in point: many pubs nowadays have a good selection of alcohol free beer).

That should be an argument for more /more diverse kinds of places being open late than fewer.

I like to live in a neighbourhood where you can get a late night pint in a pub, a fancy mocktail in the same pub, AND a late night tea and waffle next door, if you feel like it.

Like maaaybe with a sports coat you can pull it off, or as part of a very hipster-ish /creative outfit, or maybe something like a leather cap can be made to work, but just slapping a very bog-standard baseball cap on top of a business suit is just really off.

Curious if @dieworkwear.bsky.social ever said anything about baseball caps with suits. I find it deeply jarring.

Where's the downside? www.theguardian.com/business/202...

I LOVE pistachio cream, like chocolate and like kataifi, but always kinda thought Dubai chocolate is a bit less than the sum of its parts.

Likewise 😊💙

"That doesn’t mean they’re miracle cures for degraded ecosystems. But it does hint at something quietly radical: renewable infrastructure might also offer unexpected environmental perks—if done thoughtfully."

This is pretty damn cool.

This is a huge problem that @workrights.bsky.social have documented in the past.

Crook opens company, treats workers like 💩, shafts contractors of pay - and then when sued declares insolvency, liquidates the company, starts it again under a new name - and good luck recovering your compensation.

Many such cases.

🚨 We have a cool new ESRC PhD studentship opportunity on the topic of political persuasion for someone interested in campaigning, field experiments and/or computational methods @lsegovernment.bsky.social, in collaboration with
@campaign-lab.bsky.social. All info 👇
www.lse.ac.uk/study-at-lse...

Flans you can be grateful for.

Yeah, sounds about right.

I remember this on Frasier:

-Manchester. That's where the Beatles are from, right?

-Oh, no. You're thinking Liverpool.

-Then who's from Manchester?

-No-one. That's why I live here now."

& I thought: Nope, no one from Manc would ever say that in 1 mill years.

I think a big element of this discourse is obscuring that the working class is in reality very ethnically diverse - reinforcing a very non-immigrant theme part vision of what "working class" means.