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Alex MacLaren

@alexmaclaren.bsky.social

150 followers 420 following 1.4K posts

Reading, cooking, counting my blessings

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · Jan 24

If you care about the meaning of words, the Oxford English Dictionary offers free access to its online version via your local library, something that amazed me when I discovered it and has delighted and reassured me ever since. Libraries are the best. Go here: www.oed.com/information/...

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is the definitive record of the English language, featuring 600,000 words, 3 million quotations, and over 1,000 years of English.

www.oed.com

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 43m

It's one of the most profoundly intimate collaborative endeavours, and leading it is terribly difficult

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 7h

I deliberately chose last Friday to do both, hoping that by Monday would be fine. Blows out cheeks. I was ok by Tuesday morning but a close call I tell you

Reposted by Alex MacLaren

Grant @gdubbstl.bsky.social · 8h

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Denise Wheeler @denisedwheeler.bsky.social · 1d

Reuters photographer Jonathan Ernst noticed that Bondi flipped open a file during the Senate hearing and he zoomed in.

Inside were her crib notes for attacking the senators.

The GOP now practicing Cliff's Notes Fascism

In other words, under oath Bondi was purely a performance.

Bondi senate hearing had a folder full of notes for attacking the senators

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 1d

I’m imagining the furious conversation after exposure five, when cleaning lady’s unionized status means she can’t be moved to other premises. Archbishop complains to new girfriend about this. Slily says ‘but she doesn’t work Thursdays’. Never give up, your grace

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 1d

Everyone should keep asking him about his antics in the world of planning permission.

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 2d

I think the work of belief-sustaining is what mainly occupies their time and energy. Though there are many conmen of their number too, I don’t doubt

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 3d

You don’t think some are discovering they are out of their depth? Many have no experience of managing a budget beyond their own households; famously on election night there were many victorious paper candidates urgently discussing how they could stand down immediately.

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 3d

I hesitate to apply the term ‘stupidity‘, but I do think some of these people are in good faith, and must be managing some real dismay. There is no doubt that others are just vandals, using fantasies of prudence as cover

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 3d

This is basically a supergroup of UK screen dramatic talent, and the challenge will be to see it straight through the high expectations: www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Riot women! Inside Sally Wainwright’s joyous, raucous TV show about menopausal punks

The Happy Valley creator has turned her darkest hour into a rebellious tale of midlife women uniting in musical anarchy. The team behind the highly awaited drama talk vodka, rock’n’roll and hot flushe...

www.theguardian.com

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 3d

Well, look at them. Tools? or jewels?

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 3d

As a fellow whisk-mender, I endorse this. When you get one that is weighted such that it doesn’t trebuchet your cake mix across the kitchen wall, you keep it alive dammit

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 3d

Good thoughts these, and the sympathetic ear is already improving my kitchen mood

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 3d

It infuriates me because there was no need to rubberise anything, and they are otherwise excellent utensils now spoiled. My paranoid brain is beginning to suspect deliberate built-in obsolescence.

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 3d

Alright, please help me, internet. Some of my kitchen utensils came with a space-age rubberized grip element, which in my hands has degraded into a foul, almost sticky, texture. What am I doing wrong? Why did the manufacturers do this? And have they stopped?

Kitchen scissors and a bread dough scraper, the handles of which have been clad in some terrible material which has turned into chewing gum

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 4d

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attingh...

Attingham Park - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

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Alona Ferber @aloner.bsky.social · 4d

The Board of Deputies’ response to the Israeli government inviting Tommy Robinson to visit

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 4d

What an admirably clear statement from the Jewish Leadership Council, especially when all of those involved must surely have been dealing with so many other urgent challenges in safety, security and grief + shock today before having this further divisive and distracting intervention to address too.

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 4d

😂btw, *when* at convent school. There were nuns around in my school, but it was not a convent school

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 4d

A friend at convent school once told me she was instructed to write ‘For The Glory of God’ at the top of each essay, which I now wonder/suppose
proceeds from l’shem shamayim.

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Justin Hendrix @justinhendrix.bsky.social · 4d

Macron remarks are notable- some quotes: "We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks that are controlled either by large American entrepreneurs or large Chinese companies, whose interests are not at all the survival or proper functioning of our democracies."

Defend Democracy @defenddemocracy.bsky.social · 4d

President Macron: “Europeans, let's wake up!

We have been incredibly naive in entrusting our democratic space to social networks.”

defenddemocracy.eu/macron-democ...

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Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 4d

This is entry-level stuff. A professional does what I do: smugly keeps every single one, and then loses the box in which they’re all kept

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 4d

That is simply a brilliant framing

Alex MacLaren @alexmaclaren.bsky.social · 4d

FFS. I just wanna raise my hand and say Miss, the Daily Mail is copying, but there‘s no blooming Miss.

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dag @davidallengreen.bsky.social · 5d

This is a great piece of local journalism - about all those flags going up in Brum.

Some interesting details.

The Dispatch @birminghamdispatch.bsky.social · 5d

Ryan Bridge has become a familiar face in Stirchley lately. He's one of two "company directors" of raisetheflags.org, where he collects donations from £10-£500 for flags.

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