I’m stepping back from Twitter. I hope to keep posting news about #ACGAS and other professional stuff. Look after yourselves, dear people. Peace and love, Lemming out ☮️❤️

🏆 CONGRATULATIONS TO RACHAEL LI, WINNER OF THE 2026 U.S. WOMEN’S CHAMPIONSHIP! ♟️🇺🇸 I have known Rachael, her brother, and their father for many years. It is especially rewarding to see Rachael achieve this incredible milestone! These photos bring back wonderful memories, including the excitement on her face when she found a great move on the board at just 3 years old, as well as her time attending the SPICE Chess Camp, and playing in the SPFGI. ❤️♟️ A huge kudos to her parents for the tremendous sacrifices, dedication, and support they have invested in helping both Rachael and her brother excel in chess. Behind every great achievement is often a family that believes, supports, and makes countless sacrifices along the way. Congratulations, Rachael! What a wonderful journey from an enthusiastic little chess player to the 2026 U.S. Women’s Champion! 👏🏻🏆

Bad news: the BBC is set to scrap Radio 4 Extra. 📻 Losing this treasure trove of classic comedy, archive drama, and timeless storytelling would be a huge blow for millions of us. Sign the petition to help save it 👇 you.38degrees.org.uk/petitio…

In my opinion, we're going to lose something incredibly valuable to the cultural fabric & history of this country. If Radio 4 Extra with its carefully curated archive isn't the epitome of public service broadcasting, well, I don't know what is. Only the BBC can do it. A sad day.

I’ve written an open letter (found IN the link below) in my attempt to help #SaveSquareChapelArts (Halifax) & managed to get a group of well-known pals to back my cause. 🙌 I’d be enormously grateful if you could read the letter & repost. 🙏🏻 Many thanks x canncomms.co.uk/post/open-le…

I signed this open letter in the @NewStatesman. Sally Rooney is a writer, not a terrorist newstatesman.com/cover-story…

This latest article from Thomas Pikkety, the renowned French economist and leading authority on wealth inequality, should be essential reading here in the UK. His argument is simple. France has never been wealthier. Yet education funding per student has fallen by 20% since 2017, public services are struggling, and inequality is deeply embedded in the system. Sound familiar? The problem isn't that our countries have run out of wealth. It's how that wealth is distributed, who controls it, and the political choices made to protect it. For decades, we've been told that austerity, declining public services and falling living standards are unavoidable consequences of economic crises, yet those same decades have seen extraordinary concentrations of private wealth. Socialise the costs. Privatise the gains. This is the reality we all need to wake up to. These aren't inevitable economic outcomes. They're the consequences of political choices, made over time, that have prioritised the accumulation of private wealth over the needs of society. And as public anger grows, we're seeing a deeply concerning response: The rise of the far right, directing that anger towards immigrants, disabled people, those claiming welfare and other vulnerable groups, rather than towards the economic structures responsible for the inequalities people are rightly furious about. As @NaomiAKlein describes fascism, "it's capitalism's most ferocious threat response. A way of directing public anger downwards at the vulnerable, rather than upwards at the system." Fascism doesn't challenge the status quo. It protects it by giving people someone else to blame. The fundamental question isn't whether our societies can afford something better. It's why, when we've never been wealthier, we're repeatedly told we must accept less. We need to fundamentally rethink an economy built around extraction, exploitation and wealth concentration, and start building one that delivers equitable, sustainable prosperity for everyone. And with the UK Budget next week, this should be a serious warning to @UKLabour. If the Budget fails to acknowledge this fundamental reality, and instead offers another round of "difficult decisions" that protect concentrated wealth while asking ordinary people to shoulder the burden, then @andyburnham really hasn't understood what's happening across Europe. What's unfolding in France isn't an isolated protest. It's a warning of what happens when people stop accepting that a society growing ever wealthier somehow can't afford to give them a better life. This isn't something politicians can keep kicking down the road. The warning signs are everywhere. The question now is whether those in power are prepared to confront the causes, or continue defending the very system that's driving the anger. @ZackPolanski @jeremycorbyn @KemiBadenoch @Nigel_Farage

Remembering the late Actor, Timothy West CBE (20 October 1934 – 12 November 2024)

Now HERE is a fact we should Talk about EVERY Day

Five Hen Harrier chicks found dead in their nest on a grouse moor in Durham in June 2024 had injuries consistent with being stabbed, it has emerged: f.mtr.cool/8zrpzf2rlr

A very happy birthday to the wonderful Philip Pullman! Such a civilised voice, so beloved - and so wise: "We don't need lists of rights and wrongs, tables of do's and don'ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever."

Waarom zien we hier op X / Twitter NIETS over de MASSALE No Kings protesten van gisteren in HEEL Amerika? Wie is hier snoeihard de midterms aan het beïnvloeden denken jullie?

Interviewing a govt minister Hazarika shows a graph comparing young people claiming PIP to the size of our armed forces & declares it "tells a story about modern Britain" I can't even make a sarcastic comment about our fearless fourth estate, because Hazarika is a Lab politician

I would genuinely love to hear a member of the Newsnight production team, offer a justification of how it made a lick of sense editorially to have the podcasting former banjo player from Mumford and Sons argue tax and economic policy with an actual economist from the Green Party.

Very sorry to report that Douglas Dunn has passed away. He was the finest Scottish poet of the post-war period. Dougie was also someone we knew and loved as a dear friend, mentor and teacher, and he will be deeply missed.

An open letter from @KadiatuKM about the closure of the Departmemt of Music at Nottingham University, whose professors taught two of the Kanneh-Mason children. Please read and sign the @_CFTA petition campaignforthearts.org/news/…

EXCLUSIVE: Elon Musk came to Donald Trump with the plan to throttle Ukraine’s use of SpaceX’s Starshield satellite internet network, sources have told the Telegraph. The tech billionaire made the proposal during the US President’s row with Volodymyr Zelensky over strikes on Russian oil refineries. ‘The reality is that they were both in it,’ a senior source said of Musk’s and Trump’s involvement. But after a night of carnage in Kyiv caused by the slowdown, Musk was alarmed about the possibility of adverse consumer reaction in Europe. The SpaceX boss then proceeded to tweet, blaming the US administration, and ultimately, President Trump for authorising the slowdown. ‘He tweeted out that he was innocent and that it was the US administration that did it,’ the source said.

El-Sayed: Trump’s neat trick is to become the subject of every conversation and to force people to take sides. And here’s the thing about it: once you take sides, he’s forcing you to double down on crazier and crazier stuff. And soon enough, you’re out here signing on to a bunch of things that, like three years ago, you’re like, “That’s insane.” But here’s the problem: you don’t want to have to face down that one friend who’s going to tell you, “I told you so.” And so what happens is that you keep doubling down on the craziest stuff. And you find yourself so far gone up that tree that there’s no way you can climb down. We’ve got to help those folks. Because guess what? They’re paying for $5 gas too. They’re paying insane diesel prices too. They can’t see a doctor either

Time was you could look to conservatives to conserve. No longer. Welcome to slash-and-burn arts policy