From voice messages between them in the days after the felling, having something they did become a news item may have had some allure.

Though why they'd want that so badly, and why they'd opt for destroying an ancient sycamore & damaging part of Hadrian's wall to obtain such attention is another matter.

Land wasn't theirs, they didn't live near it nor on land which people cross to visit the tree. They didn't take the wood. Nothing has emerged to suggest they did it on behalf of someone else.

The pair went out on a stormy winter night, making a special trip to fell the tree, and leaving shortly after. Despite the darkness & lashing rain, one made a very grainy video recording of the other felling the tree with a chainsaw.

So far, they are pleading not guilty, so it'll be interesting to see whether they raise a defence or merely introduce doubts about the reliability of the evidence brought against them.

Idk, I feel it could have been an induction ritual for some group they hope(d) to join, or flagging up their willingness to conduct sabotage operations for hire, but more likely an unfortunate dissociation from reality caused by viewing the world and their own lives through the distorting lens of social media.

Attending the hearing yesterday, one had his face & hair entirely concealed as he passed press photographers waiting outside, which doesn't fit with a craving for fame. The only footage presented by the news of the other man was taken at a court appearance for an unrelated matter a few weeks ago - it isn't clear whether he somehow escaped their attention yesterday, or simply hadn't attended.

I'd rather live in the dark, haha!

Probably. Bright, wide-angle downlight dotted all over the damn ceiling create that uncanny valley look.

Struggling to think of any domestic application where they would not be an unreasonable choice - maybe a particularly small shower room where all of the walls where one might mount a wall light have some problem which means they cannot be used. Even then, ugh.

How is it "lecturing" to decide that a publicly-funded state company will not use products built by enslaved people?

It is straight bizarre to suggest the current Labour government (who'd like to abolish the monarchy fwiw) should embrace the evils of slavery because British capitalists often embrace the evils of slavery.

Furnishings are all hired for the photos/viewings from one of those property dressing companies, because apparently many buyers can't imagine furnished rooms. Typically you can opt to buy these as a job lot from the property dresser. The overall look is simultaneously tacky & bland but really bad compared to most dressed places.

Sheetrock in the fireplaces is likely because the refurbishment isn't yet 100% completed per the text. The inserts are either still at the restorers or still being recreated to the original design.

The restoration looks way too harsh in many areas, but if the house was in particularly bad shape before work began, it gets hard to fix damage and retain the softness of age whilst complying with building regs.

Spotlights, however, are death. Whichever heritage officer they worked with should have forbade them that.

Love this, and think it may well do more to raise awareness than more conventional campaigns.

Also giggling at the idea of a real curlew seeing this and believing they are witnessing a god.

Majority view amongst TERFs, and yes, a foot in the door.

Additionally, though the ruling places no onus on toilet* users, it does place obligations on toilet providers, and in any case will be used to harass and bully people who just need to pee in peace. Most of those who'll be persecuted by TERFs & friends will be cis, many will be intersex, a tiny handful may be trans.

In this sense your landlord is spot on, but he himself may find his business targeted for civil action under this new ruling on the interpretation of Equalities Act, should a TERF learn of his approach.

Worse, toilet providers are now prohibited from abandoning gendered toilets in favour of unisex toilets - if they have a unisex toilet, they must also provide a ladies' toilet.

Am wondering how best to help our trans & intersex & gender non-conforming siblings, besides writing to representatives, and protests. Could we agree to use our much greater numbers to swiftly demonstrate through our own toilet selection that the law is an ass which must be amended (and reversed to the previous status quo pending that amendment).

*using "toilet" throughout my reply as a placeholder for many single-sex spaces and not only toilets.

Not wild at all - who better to help with intelligence than defectors?

Founder of the school I went to maybe somewhat similar to your idol, having had to flee himself once he spoke out against the regime he'd previously advised on education, then persuaded parents to send their teenagers to him after. It is said the war memorial is one of the few which has British and German in equal measure, so he wasn't successful beyond keeping his own pupils safe whilst they were still his pupils.

Wake every day overwhelmed with dread, and the clinging stench of death and misery coating my everything.

Yup, there's plenty of scope for closer ties between Mexico (along with other Central America countries) & the EU.

Tbh, the critical stuff has mostly been sold off to Chinese, Saudi Arabian & Indian companies. No doubt US firms own more than is desirable, but I think the interdependence of defence technologies & intelligence is the bigger issue with regard to the US.

The French State meantime owns quite a bit, but are allies with similar geopolitical needs, and for all that the relationship is often that of squabbling siblings, won't wish matters to sour with such a near neighbour.

Just as Nazi Germany caused millions to flee Europe for the US, Fascist US is causing the first of millions to flee to Europe.

Here's hoping all who make it will be safe for at least several generations.

Concentration camps conveniently situated near farms & factories & burgeoning with detained "undesirables".

Doesn't even need to be perpetrated directly by the Trump regime when he has pardoned Jan 6th extremists who have a great many non-MAGA journalists on their list of targets for summary execution, along with details about their lives.

Years ago, my parents set out on a long journey from their home city to a rural location in another country.

Approximately five minutes after setting out, a car went flying past them. It was a bright red sports model that was very eyecatching.

Not long after, they arrived at a toll bridge, right behind the same red car. They noted the number plate.

Past the toll, the red car sped off again, quickly accelerating well past the speed limit.

Over the next few hours, this repeated at a major junction. When they eventually arrived at the ferry again just behind the red car, my father flashed his headlights.

Disembarking, they got another flash from my father, and sped off.

Several hundreds of miles later my parents arrived at their destination, parked up, and got out to stretch, when pulling in beside them was a curiously familiar red car.

Not wishing to make assumptions, my mother casually checked the plates, then saluted the driver and inquired about their journey to the event they had all arrived for.

Nope, they'd made no detours or stops, they'd taken the same route.

My mother has a way in these situations of wording things just so, that totally makes the person she's talking to feel like an absolute worm without ever getting the escape of thinking my mother was being anything other than lovely and charming to them.

Red car was spotted driving most sedately in the local town the following afternoon.

Because they mostly have no clue that measles is a potentially fatal illness, with potential severe lifelong complications including some which require 24/7/365 full nursing care.

They think of it as a mild rash with mild flu-y symptoms for a week or two.

They also have no idea it is so very contagious.

So though the measles vaccine has an amazing safety & efficacy record, whether singly or as part of the combined MMR, with endless research turfing up no link to autism whatsoever, and carrying only a negligible risk of vaccine injury (none as severe as the complications of measles), those who reject it do so not only out of totally false beliefs about the vaccine, but also out of fully wild misconceptions about the risk of measles.

Though now the anti-vaxx movement has become such a big thing for a while, they're all egging each other on with the help of ideological pundits. This combines to create a group highly distrustful of public health organisations and all medical advice on the matter, who are much more resistant to accepting correct information than their vaccine-shy counterparts ever were in the past. It also seems to be true that scary conspiracy theories are comforting to them in a world where serious infections can just catch a person, where autism isn't something one can simply opt out of - they want simple answers, and everything which debunks that simple wilful ignorance is a threat to their sense of security.

"Neither" implies they have an opinion on the relative prioritisation of the US and Ukraine by the UK, and believe that both should be prioritised to a similar degree:

"Don't know" implies they do not feel they know enough about the relationships the UK has with either country to form an opinion.

But yes, there is some fuzziness, as anyone who does not care is more likely to choose "neither" as there is no "either" option, yet many of this type of respondent will have picked "don't know".

Possibly emerged from a triskelion, which exists as a motif across Europe and beyond, but especially in regions associated with Celts, morphing into legs for reasons unknown and a few meanings attributed long after the fact.

Pretty sure AfD's Alice Weidel additionally doesn't even live in Germany but in Switzerland.

Have always loved Dixon.

Reminds me of being a very small child, in that cusp between everything being strange and inscrutable, and the unshakeable confidence that everything sometime would be solved.

Though the friezes my toddler self gazed upon baffled and sleepless were much simpler, as a preteen pretending with protractors simpler again being mostly transparent, now blank and pitiless, there's all the plainlitoccult puzzlement of youth

no wonder my brow so furrows

Fantastic guide, and though am neither trans nor American, not fully knowing what to do to preserve material for vulnerable communities under threat has been gnawing at me.

Thank you for sharing!