Ben Beck
bsbeck.bsky.social
Ben Beck
@bsbeck.bsky.social
See benbeck.co.uk - my interests include: firsts in the recording of sight and sound; anarchism and science fiction; UK TMOs (tenant management orgs); family history; British Quaker history
Reposted by Ben Beck
The USA shouldn't have the Olympics it shouldn't have the World Cup, it shouldn't be allowed to even participate in anything with the rest of the world.

Just cordon it off like there is a Zombie virus outbreak.
January 9, 2026 at 9:24 PM
Reposted by Ben Beck
"The maximum time a prisoner can spend on remand is 182 days (six months). Yet Muraisi and Ahmed were arrested in November 2024, and are not due to be tried until June at the earliest, which means they will be remanded for 20 months."

Shameful.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com
January 10, 2026 at 9:55 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
January 10, 2026 at 1:06 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
All power to the comrades in the Twin Cities and across the hemisphere pushing back against empire and death.
January 8, 2026 at 4:43 PM
anarchysf.com: December update

New additions:
• Phyllis MacLennan
• Vandana Singh

Update to:
• Robert Silverberg
Welcome to anarchySF! | anarchySF
anarchysf.com
January 1, 2026 at 10:36 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
Millions of animals are suffering unnecessarily by being slaughtered without stunning to meet religious demands.

That's why we campaign to end religious exemptions to animal welfare laws.

Read more👇

www.secularism.org.uk/religious-sl...
End non-stun religious slaughter
No more religious exemptions from animal welfare laws.
www.secularism.org.uk
December 23, 2025 at 2:09 PM
Reposted by Ben Beck
The government is right to say that animals should be spared avoidable pain, suffering and distress when they are killed.

That's why reforms to animal welfare laws must include the banning of non-stun slaughter.

www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...
Boiling live lobsters to be banned under animal rights reforms
Downing Street has published its welfare strategy, which sets out a series of new farming and food standards and banning trail hunting
www.thetimes.com
December 23, 2025 at 2:09 PM
A propos of nothing, a revelation: I’ve been reading Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and have had this nagging feeling of something else using the same meter.

I have finally realised what it is: the 1975 Jimmy Castor Bunch single ‘King Kong’.

Iambic pentameter.
December 21, 2025 at 8:09 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
Disabled people driving luxury cars on your dime? Just the latest rightwing lie peddled by Labour.

Govts stigmatize people claiming benefits as scroungers, claim fraud is rife.

Silence on corporate welfare, tax abuse by corporations/rich. HMRC failed to collect over £500bn tax since 2010.
Disabled people driving luxury cars on your dime? Just the latest rightwing lie peddled by Labour | Frances Ryan
Starmer’s ailing government is happy to pursue ideas like cutting Motability, but all ministers will do is damage lives and themselves, says Guardian columnist Frances Ryan
www.theguardian.com
December 9, 2025 at 8:12 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
Jury trials in England & Wales for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than 3 years will be scrapped.

Bad move

Money may be saved but justice and trust in the system will be the biggest casualty.

Poor and minorities at the mercy of toff judges.
Jury trials scrapped for crimes with sentences of less than three years
The reforms are being brought in to tackle unprecedented delays in the Crown Court.
www.bbc.co.uk
December 3, 2025 at 7:59 AM
anarchysf.com: November update

Updates to:
• Vajra Chandrasekera, Victor Koman, Ayn Rand, Joanna Russ, J. Neil Schulman, Robert Shea, Mary Shelley, Robert Anton Wilson & Robert Shea
Welcome to anarchySF! | anarchySF
anarchysf.com
December 2, 2025 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
i will never tire of this meme
December 1, 2025 at 7:36 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
Hope is here.

Help us beat Reform in May. Donate today ⤵️
November 28, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
Somebody posted an old photo in a Facebook local group and asked if anyone could clean it up. Well-meaning people turned to #AI. Lots of responders seemed happy with the results, but this is how you destroy historical records.
November 25, 2025 at 1:31 PM
Reposted by Ben Beck
This is a thing for British SF. Write it down and stick it on your wall because I'm tired of post oil British sf where the UK runs out of oil, and road, rail and air freight ends and this is a crisis.
We have *canals*, *navigable waterways* and a coastline around which you can *sail* cargo ships.
November 19, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
A Government of cowards.

Rather than tackle inequality - they've gone for pensioners, disabled people and now it's people fleeing war and persecution.

They can't get away with this.

Join.greenparty.org.uk
November 17, 2025 at 11:16 PM
anarchysf.com: October update

Updates to:
• Dark Star, Robert A. Heinlein, p.m. (Hans Widmer), and L. Neil Smith
Welcome to anarchySF! | anarchySF
anarchysf.com
November 2, 2025 at 9:21 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
It’s basically crap that the king has ‘private income’, which will now sustain the ghastly Andrew. He gets about £25m a year from the Duchies which were appropriated by the crown from previous owners and today not taxed. Basically theft or paid for by taxpayers like everything else they took.
October 31, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by Ben Beck
Yay. Priceless. The right column at the right time. And a gleefully English two fingers to the haters.
October 25, 2025 at 7:38 AM
Reposted by Ben Beck
Is there a single person who actually cares if billionaires left the UK because of a wealth tax? If we had no billionaires, society would reorganise itself accordingly (for the better).
October 9, 2025 at 9:06 AM
anarchysf.com: September update

New addition:
• Lois Waisbrooker

Updates to:
• Isaac Asimov, Iain M. Banks, Octavia E. Butler, Mick Farren, and James P. Hogan
Welcome to anarchySF! | anarchySF
anarchysf.com
October 3, 2025 at 2:50 PM
anarchysf.com: August update

New additions:
• C.J. Sansom
• Robert Charles Wilson
• The War Game

Updates to:
• Octavia E. Butler, Suzanne Collins, E. Douglas Fawcett, p.m. (Hans Widmer), William Morris, George Orwell, and Herbert Read
Welcome to anarchySF! | anarchySF
anarchysf.com
September 1, 2025 at 12:17 PM
anarchysf.com: July update

New addition:
• Seb Doubinsky

Updates to:
• Terry Bisson, Frederik Pohl & C.M. Kornbluth, Philip Pullman, Charles Stross
Welcome to anarchySF! | anarchySF
anarchysf.com
August 1, 2025 at 7:56 AM
I strongly recommend this video by the excellent Carne Ross, on complicity with the genocide in Gaza. www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLN7...
Is our government complicit in genocide?
YouTube video by Carne Ross
www.youtube.com
July 26, 2025 at 1:35 PM
I agree with every word of this.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECkV...
Sharing This Video Could Get You 14 Years in Prison
YouTube video by Double Down News
www.youtube.com
July 19, 2025 at 4:18 PM