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My mother grew up in chaotic, life-limiting, rural poverty but my father and her library card changed her life. She died a good death last Saturday. My tribute to her in today’s The Scotsman scotsman.com/news/opinion/c…

As members of the Women and Equalities Committee questioned EHRC chair Baroness Kishwer, it was not clear they understood the Supreme Court ruling on sex at all. My reflections on a hostile session & the campaign underway to undermine Falkner’s successor… newstatesman.com/the-weekend-re…

“I wish we could stop talking about toilets all the time, because that wasn’t really the reason we went to court. We went to court about the prisons, about the rape crisis centres, about the hospitals, where people are uniquely vulnerable.” theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/j…

Putting this together made me late for dinner with my Ma. She's going to serve me mung beans and no malbec, so make it worth my pain. 😉Happy Saturday night, regardless! xx

I don’t mind politicians changing their mind, what I do find hard to accept is that Keir Starmer did not instinctively understand there was a need for a national inquiry into grooming gangs. thetimes.com/article/a53466…

Most readers subscribe or come direct from the site itself, but I feel duty-bound to share it here twice, for I am without shame. 😉Obligatory re-posting for my latest long-read. xx

I realise I am jinxing this by airing it publicly, but I got booked to run a full-day, properly paid, creative writing project for an excellent group in Ayrshire next month at a reputable place. Who totally know about my supposedly beyond-the-pale views. As ever, whoever is

This, coming after the Sunday Mail’s story yesterday about Isla Bryson, shows this issue still has huge capacity for causing the Scottish Govt - and other institutions- real problems.

It's the one year anniversary of my announcing I had written Hounded, that it was available to pre-order, and several of my Old Life colleagues shitting themselves that it was a memoir. (It is not.) Happy foxy announcement day to meeeeee! 🦊😂🦊

Sounds like Bryndis asked a perfectly acceptable, polite qu about the cognitive dissonance Sturgeon and other women must have to be able to hold two competing thoughts in their head at the same time. It's the most baffling thing about all of this & must be quite an effort tbh.

Joanna Cherry KC NS: Witch-hunting, that's very very bad. Audience: Oh, yes, we'd never do that. Woman: I think you're hypocrites. Audience: Boo! Boo! Boo! NS: Ignore the horrible, divisive woman! Audience: Hoorah! Lived experience satire strikes again.

Scotland: where it's "clown behaviour" to ask serving politicians difficult questions at book festivals, you should expect to be booed by the audience if you do, and a rote self-justifying response is rapier wit....

Tbh, I really feel for Zoe and Claire, whose excellent book deserves its success. I knew, seeing Sturgeon was their chair, that it was a daft decision by programmers. Sturgeon *is* a divisive figure, not the universally adored saint that the lit world keeps pretending she is.

"Gender activists have wreaked havoc in our cultural life for nearly a decade now...That you even know my view on this (you don’t know my views on anything else, I’m sure) is because activists are intent on forcing people like me out of cultural life. It’s that serious. And like

The organizers of ⁦Edinburgh International Book Festival⁩ are not bystanders to the culture of hounding, bullying, gaslighting and victimisation they are claiming to want to ‘repair’. They are participants. It’s astounding. Thanks for writing this ⁦Polly Clark⁩ ❤️ open.substack.com/pub/pollyclark…

I love these guys.