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Amy Gray

@amygraywrites.bsky.social

300 followers 420 following 430 posts

Red Duchess, my biog of the Duchess of Atholl MP, OUT NOW from The History Press. Freelance public affairs, small person wrangling, incurable reader, always trying to write. Also on IG.

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Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · Aug 28

She’s out today! The remarkable and unfairly forgotten Duchess of Atholl, Scotland’s first woman MP and the Conservatives’ first woman minister, turned the most unlikely rebel in British politics.

A book cover, the title RED DUCHESS in red lettering over a painted portrait of a woman reading a sheaf of paper.

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Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 44m

Social media was better when it was pinnipeds with buckets

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 1d

Milngavie. Worcestershire.

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 3d

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

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Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 1d

I used the BNA extensively when researching my own book and am delighted to hear this (though I was a little more focussed on Scottish local newspapers of the 1930s 😂)

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 2d

thank you!

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 2d

You can get private covid jabs if you look - see below

Alex von Tunzelmann @alexvont.bsky.social · 2d

There’s a search tool to find pharmacies offering it on the NHS website. The first one I went into didn’t offer a private option, but the second one did. Boots also offer it nationwide in many branches, though it’s slightly more expensive. www.nhs.uk/nhs-services...

Find a walk-in COVID-19 vaccination site

Find a walk-in COVID-19 vaccination site to get a COVID vaccination appointment without needing an appointment.

www.nhs.uk

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 2d

I couldn’t even find anywhere to get it done privately last winter. I do always get a flu jab now

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 4d

Before the Iron Lady there was the Red Duchess.
40 years before Margaret Thatcher got into a tank, the Duchess of Atholl took on communist hecklers in the streets of Aberdeen.
I wrote Red Duchess partly to restore this forgotten Conservative pioneer to her rightful place in the memory of her party.

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 5d

Oh this is too too sad. She added so much to the jollity of life.

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 5d

I’ve never seen Traitors either. Or any of the Real Housewives shows. Or Love Island.

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 5d

I’ve never seen The Sopranos, Gilmore Girls, Peep Show, Grey’s Anatomy, Modern Family, Parks and Recreation, Luther, The Killing or Happy Valley.

Hannah Fearn @hannahfearn.bsky.social · 6d

Inspired by a post I just saw in which someone admitted they hadn’t seen a single episode of Friends nor the film Love Actually… what cultural hole do you have that’s a bit weird for your generation?

I’ll go first: I haven’t seen Dirty Dancing.

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 8d

"Having children leads to a substantial and long-lasting reduction in mothers’ earnings; five years after the birth of a first child (Quarter 20), monthly earnings were reduced on average by 42%, or £1,051 per month, compared with earnings one year before the birth."
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...

The impact of motherhood on monthly employee earnings and employment status, England - Office for National Statistics

The change in employee earnings and employment after having a first, second and third child, for people with children.

www.ons.gov.uk

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 8d

We lost a decade of progress when the coalition scrapped the code for sustainable homes and govt decided not to mandate tech like solar panels for all new builds

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 8d

Absolutely not. No way. We should be keeping kids away from ChatGPT and its ilk for as long as possible. Reading stories at bedtime is one of my favourite parts of the day. Why would I outsource that to a computer?

Julia Carrie Wong @joolia.bsky.social · 9d

Some parents are letting their kids talk to ChatGPT in the guise of characters. Some are using it to tell bedtime stories or create coloring books.

"My son thinks ChatGPT is the coolest train loving person in the world. The bar is set so high now I am never going to be able to compete with that.”

‘My son genuinely believed it was real’: Parents are letting little kids play with AI. Are they wrong?

Some believe AI can spark their child’s imagination through personalized stories and generative images. Scientists are wary of its affect on creativity

www.theguardian.com

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 8d

All parties have always been internal coalitions, but they seem to find it harder to compromise with each other now. I remain unconvinced that Reform's internal coalition will hold

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 9d

A vicar friend whose judgement I trust says the Bishop of Bath and Wells is a very excellent person

Reuters @reuters.com · 10d

Two women seen as frontrunners ahead of Archbishop of Canterbury announcement reut.rs/42nMpZn

Two women seen as frontrunners ahead of Archbishop of Canterbury announcement

Britain is expected to announce the next Archbishop of Canterbury on Friday, with two women among the favourites to lead the Church of England and become the symbolic figurehead for 85 million Anglicans worldwide.

reut.rs

Reposted by Amy Gray

Ben Stanley @benstanley.eu · 9d

The "root cause" of a murderous attack on a Jewish place of worship on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar is antisemitism. It is no more complicated than that. A man deliberately chose that date, this target, and those means, following centuries of grim precedent.

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Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 9d

There’s also this brilliant anecdote about hastily rewriting the preamble so that the DUP could sign up.

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Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 9d

Oliver Letwin writes about the origins of the Climate Change Act in his book Hearts and Minds. He believed that cross-party agreement was vital, particularly to provide long term policy stability for investors.

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Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 11d

I’ve never understood why Labour doesn’t close its conference with their leader’s speech.

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 13d

Was planning to meet friends at the zoo last weekend but no way I was doing that on a rail replacement bus service

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Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 16d

On rewatching the 1995 Pride and Prejudice, I have had the horrific realisation that I’m now old enough to be Elizabeth Bennett’s mother.

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 17d

£450?

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 17d

Baffles me that the conveyancing system is not fully digitised and so much paper gets posted to and fro. Surely a vote winner to promise to streamline it

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Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 17d

"“If we create a legal system which allows unfettered use of all content by AI companies for training purposes, we lose the ability to reward authors for their work... & we end with a diminished cultural and academic canon.”
www.cambridge.org/news-and-ins...

Academic publishing is vital in age of AI

The value of the publishing industry as a driver of economic growth and the need for legislation of AI companies over content use were two key messages to parliamentarians this week from Mandy Hill, P...

www.cambridge.org

Amy Gray @amygraywrites.bsky.social · 17d

We need to start calling these out to try and deter people from outsourcing their brains to AI