Fortuna Desperata
@fortunadesperata.bsky.social
30 followers 60 following 410 posts
Formerly posting as Mondegreen. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 Midlander but trying to learn 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿, reluctantly 🇬🇧, 🇪🇺 by commitment, citizen of the 🌍... Depressive 🌧️ but never giving up hope: "Keep your mind in hell and despair not."
Posts Media Videos Starter Packs
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
My daughter among them 😌
ieatpie.bsky.social
Alongside this they never want to mention that mixed race people are the fastest growing group.
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
😡
davehitchcock.bsky.social
I had thought there was enough residual dignity, and enough emphasis on maintaining the reputation of one's institution, left in the office of Vice Chancellor for a UK university that VCs would not stoop to such behaviour. How naïve that was.
theguardian.com
UK universities offered to monitor students’ social media for arms firms, emails show
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
"Didn’t we have the courage to completely remake ourselves? And did this not make us unto tiny gods? Hence our egos: huge, towering, confident, and my oh my, so powerful. Flawless. Immortal."
corinnacohn.bsky.social
Death Before Detransition? Yes.

"I long defended 'I am a woman.' A self-made one—estrogen, surgery, seamless she/her life. Even as my views shifted, I feheld that despite my sex, I lived as socially female."

corinnacohn.substack.com/p/death-befo...
Death Before Detransition? Yes.
“I am a woman” is something I argued and defended with no negotiation and no retreat for most of my adult life.
corinnacohn.substack.com
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
davidheniguk.bsky.social
*Daily Star reporters checking out which vegetable goes off even quicker than a lettuce*
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
beijingpalmer.bsky.social
“When I am 85 how annoyed I am with Society for wasting my time by making homosexuality criminal. The subterfuges, the self-consciousness that might have been avoided”
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
beijingpalmer.bsky.social
There is a reasonable chance E.M. Forster knew about Stonewall.
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
davidheniguk.bsky.social
Indeed, the NHS is one of the UK's stronger players, but couldn't stand up against the UK's need for investment to stay a big pharma player. Choices...
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
oldtrotter.bsky.social
Which is going to be difficult when you’re outside the EU and dependent on bilateral deals (see, steel). Big Pharma ,shows just how desperate we are for inward investment and, given the slap in the face for Streeting, less like government picking winners and more like winners picking government.
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
davidheniguk.bsky.social
The new trade agreements are going to be country-company as much as country-country. This NHS-global pharma deal may well turn out to be the most significant trade agreement the UK has signed since Brexit. www.politico.eu/article/brit...
Britain prepares NHS drug spending hike to stave off Trump tariffs
Officials briefed the Trump administration on fresh proposals for pharma pricing earlier this week.
www.politico.eu
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
mthrjo.bsky.social
Matrimonial Causes Act 1937 gives men and women equal grounds for divorce. It is still the case in the UAE that a man can divorce his wife simply by dismissing her, but a woman has to go to court.
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
Nowadays he would just leak data constantly to Google et al - job done!

We dont get paid for this though...
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
Nowadays he would just leak data constantly to Google et al - job done!

We dont get paid for this though...
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
jowolff.bsky.social
Ludwig Börne offering to spy on himself for half the price the police spy is being paid. (From Heinrich Heine’s book on Börne.)

And yet he knew that he was surrounded by spies, and he once said to me, "there's a fellow walking constantly behind me, following me through all the streets, standing in front of all the buildings I go into, and certainly is well paid by some government for it. If I only knew which government, I would write to it to say that I should like to earn the money myself, that I myself would submit a reliable daily report about how I had spent the whole day, with whom I had spoken, where I had gone; yes, I am ready to deliver this report at a much cheaper price,
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
Date corrections needed here please (2002, 2003)
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
jowolff.bsky.social
Was at a recruitment event with a colleague from the English department once. She said ‘are you the sort of person who can sit in your room reading for 12 hours a day, day after day? If not please don’t apply to read English.’ Few have the calling.
bearlypolitics.co.uk
So, the plan is to cut English, the arts, and sociology - the degrees that actually study culture - while on another part of your platform claiming to “defend” British culture.

It’s performance nationalism with a reading age of seven.
Badenoch: Curb students taking 'rip-off' degrees such as English
The performing arts, sociology and anthropology are among the subjects the Conservatives would like to cut
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
Will try and put something together tomorrow.
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
Maybe I should do a thread. I'm not a local, though I do visit from time to time.
Railway bridge parapet on Soho Road, Handsworth, with mural by the Pakistani street artist Haider Ali, showing the trade unionist Jayaben Desai leading the Grunwick strikers in the 1970s. A pair of South Asian wedding shops on Soho Road, Handsworth, the one to the left has shop window dummies dressed as Sikh men in turbans and tunics, the shop to the right displays embroidered dresses in a deep rose shade.
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
Soho Road is thriving but a bit specialised maybe, lots of South Asian wedding shops. Very interesting part of Brum with lots of history. Handsworth Park is beautiful and well used and cared for.
fortunadesperata.bsky.social
Helen Lewis has disappeared from this site, temporarily I hope. I don't blame her, though 😕
Reposted by Fortuna Desperata
stephenkb.bsky.social
He's strikingly incapable of setting out *why* something is bad. Everything he writes is a search for labels that avoid having to make an argument - Reform's policies are 'racist', these protests are 'un-British'. You are the prime minister! Explain why they are wrong!
thetimes.com
Sir Keir Starmer will warn students not to take part in “un-British” protests marking the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre and accuses those who call for violence against Jews of a “total loss of empathy and humanity”
Keir Starmer tells students: Don’t take part in ‘un-British’ October 7 protests
www.thetimes.com