leanne bourne

Wanderer, Eater, Drinker, London living and working

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@HotelChocolat Lucky him! He got his wallet with everything in back, Just glad to be of help 😊
Not yet, but love your chocolate, have a velvetiser too 🍫 ☕️

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@HotelChocolat #HotelchocolatThanks Enjoying these from Alistair Sandler, I reunited him with his lost wallet by sending 2 x 1p payments to his bank. Used reference to give my number, best trick I’ve ever learned! Worked twice now💪🏻 😃

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@AmyJoSays Who is SZA????

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@DrJessPotter @MartinSLewis @DaveGorman I have just finished some Morrisons wheat bisks, never again! Weetabix all the way!

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@Kit_Yates_Maths Hasn’t changed in 30 years then! I remember going as a kid to Cadbury world! 🤣

[pop culture gal @allurequinn]

a thread of how marilyn monroe actually looked in real life, in honor of her 98th birthday

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@aDatingDad Excellent that you are in a better please!
30 second hugs for the people you love are the way forward! Read it somewhere and it does make you feel instantly happier the embrace 🤗 🥰

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@MartinSLewis If anyone is interested how after I’ve had them 3 years, 3 replacement pairs and 2 cases in the 4 years. I claimed unfit for purpose and didn’t last a reasonable length of time considering the sky high cost. The AirPods 3 I have now, have a new 2 year warranty on them!

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@MartinSLewis Just sat In Apple in Covent Garden and claimed under Consumer rights for my AirPods bought in 2020. 2 hours later and having to call USA for the sales receipt. They made me prove I bought them, even though I bought them online from them! Got a brand spanking new pair tho 😀

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@AnExpatWife I was walking on the Camino in Spain and a lady developed this. It’s to do with sweat and walking a lot. Pretty much heat rash it was in the end. Gave her my savlon to help!

[James Dreyfus @DreyfusJames]

Unless you’ve followed or paid close attention to what @jk_rowling has been saying, extremely courteously & politely for 10 long years now, & witnessed the decade-long, non-stop onslaught of the worst possible abuse, threats, lies & slander…

UNLESS you’re 100% aware of how civilly & calmly she has conducted herself in the face of such vitriol, hatred & aggression & actively involving family members…

UNLESS you’ve watched, time & time again, men telling her to “sit down & shut up”, “control yourself, woman” or “I don’t think that’s very nice. Why can’t you just be kind & accept what we are telling you?”,
I’m really NOT convinced that it’s your f***ing place to pop up NOW & instruct her to exercise ‘basic common decency’…

SHE’S BEEN DOING THAT FOR 10 YEARS.

So, I’m sure all you bleating, barking men, out there, who’ve suddenly decided she’s “crossed a line”, you, embarrassingly, HAVEN’T BEEN PAYING ATTENTION, have you?

She’s done the whole “being kind” schtick. (For many more years than most of us would, to be honest).

Where has that got her?

TRA’s don’t CARE about that. They are going to hate her regardless. They want the hate. They crave it. Nevertheless, she continued to debate with grace & courtesy, whilst others raged at her from basements etc, worldwide.

But, to you, watching from the sidelines, now popping up like f***ing whack-a-moles, you might have failed to notice that she is out of fucks to give & has said so. Clearly.

And believe it or not, she has the unwavering gratitude & support of a HUGE (& ever-growing) number of women, girls, gay people, transsexuals, detransitioners, parents & children.

Why?

Because she took the fall for those who felt they had no voices nor a chance to say “No”.

Well, they do now. And if that bugs the heck out of you, you’ll have to find a better coping strategy. Because our voices, loudly & given strength because of her, will NEVER deny the truth & always speak up for those who are TRULY vulnerable & marginalised.

And shame on all the Q+ organisations for turning your backs on her, after all the help & financial support she gave to those with HIV. Shame on you.

Thank you again @jk_rowling for standing tall & for NOT “staying in your goddamn’d place!” ❤️

(Please RT. Account restricted. As per.)

[Brian Cox @ProfBrianCox]

As you watch the Aurora this evening, it’s worth reflecting that you’re getting a rare direct glimpse of the power of Nature. Those charged particles causing the atmosphere to glow came from a sunspot complex 17 times the diameter of Earth and traveled across 90 million miles at a million miles an hour. Without our magnetic field to protect us, our atmosphere would have been lost to space long ago. Those colours in the sky are Nature reminding us that we’re very lucky to be here amidst the violence. And perhaps therefore also reminding us not to shite it all up :-)

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

Thread on the beauty of wildlife 🧵

1. When it’s cold enough to see the melody

[Rachael Wong @RachaelWongAus]

This afternoon, Roxy Tickle, the man who is suing @salltweets for not allowing him to use her female-only networking app Giggle, gave oral evidence in the Australian Federal Court. His evidence was brief and focused on what it means to ‘live as a woman’.

In response to his lawyer’s question, “What do you mean when you say you have lived as a woman since 2017?”, Tickle responded that he:

-Took hormones which changed his body, though not his voice.
-Had ‘gender affirmation’ surgery, including vaginoplasty and labiaplasty (i.e. removal of the penis to construct a fake vagina/labia).
-Went through social transition, telling family and friends.
-Started shopping in the female section of clothing stores.
-Spent a lot of money removing facial hair, which he says is unfortunately still there.
-Uses female bathrooms/change rooms.
-Plays on a women’s hockey team.

He says that up until this instance everyone had treated him as a woman.

His lawyer then asked whether there is any qualification to him saying that everyone has treated him as a woman, to which Tickle responded:

“I’ll sometimes get frowns and stares which can be disconcerting, but otherwise people allow me to go about my business.”

Tickle may “psychologically feel that [he] is a woman” (his lawyer’s words), but that doesn’t change the fact that no amount of hormones, surgery, telling people you’re a woman, clothing, hair removal, or intrusion into female-only spaces and sports, can make a man a woman.

Human beings cannot change sex and it is exceedingly cruel to pretend that they can - both to those who buy the lie and try to live it, and to those who don’t buy it, yet have it enforced upon them anyway.

#TicklevGiggle #IStandWithSallGrover

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

Well said 👏🏻

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

You’ve asked me several questions on this thread and accused me of avoiding answering, so here goes.

I believe a woman is a human being who belongs to the sex class that produces large gametes. It’s irrelevant whether or not her gametes have ever been fertilised, whether or not she’s carried a baby to term, irrelevant if she was born with a rare difference of sexual development that makes neither of the above possible, or if she’s aged beyond being able to produce viable eggs. She is a woman and just as much a woman as the others.

I don’t believe a woman is more or less of a woman for having sex with men, women, both or not wanting sex at all. I don’t think a woman is more or less of a woman for having a buzz cut and liking suits and ties, or wearing stilettos and mini dresses, for being black, white or brown, for being six feet tall or a little person, for being kind or cruel, angry or sad, loud or retiring. She isn't more of a woman for featuring in Playboy or being a surrendered wife, nor less of a woman for designing space rockets or taking up boxing. What makes her a woman is the fact of being born in a body that, assuming nothing has gone wrong in her physical development (which, as stated above, still doesn't stop her being a woman), is geared towards producing eggs as opposed to sperm, towards bearing as opposed to begetting children, and irrespective of whether she's done either of those things, or ever wants to.

Womanhood isn't a mystical state of being, nor is it measured by how well one apes sex stereotypes. We are not the creatures either porn or the Bible tell you we are. Femaleness is not, as trans woman Andrea Chu Long wrote, ‘an open mouth, an expectant asshole, blank, blank eyes,’ nor are we God’s afterthought, sprung from Adam’s rib.

Women are provably subject to certain experiences because of our female bodies, including different forms of oppression, depending on the cultures in which we live. When trans activists say 'I thought you didn't want to be defined by your biology,' it’s a feeble and transparent attempt at linguistic sleight of hand. Women don't want to be limited, exploited, punished, or subject to other unjust treatment because of their biology, but our being female is indeed defined by our biology. It's one material fact about us, like having freckles or disliking beetroot, neither of which are representative of our entire beings, either. Women have billions of different personalities and life stories, which have nothing to do with our bodies, although we are likely to have had experiences men don't and can't, because we belong to our sex class.

Some people feel strongly that they should have been, or wish to be seen as, the sex class into which they weren't born. Gender dysphoria is a real and very painful condition and I feel nothing but sympathy for anyone who suffers from it. I want them to be free to dress and present themselves however they like and I want them to have exactly the same rights as every other citizen regarding housing, employment and personal safety. I do not, however, believe that surgeries and cross-sex hormones literally turn a person into the opposite sex, nor do I believe in the idea that each of us has a nebulous ‘gender identity’ that may or might not match our sexed bodies. I believe the ideology that preaches those tenets has caused, and continues to cause, very real harm to vulnerable people.

I am strongly against women's and girls' rights and protections being dismantled to accommodate trans-identified men, for the very simple reason that no study has ever demonstrated that trans-identified men don't have exactly the same pattern of criminality as other men, and because, however they identify, men retain their advantages of speed and strength. In other words, I think the safety and rights of girls and women are more important than those men's desire for validation.

I sincerely hope that answers your questions. You may still disagree, but as I hope this shows, I’m more than happy to have this debate.

[Gerald Posner @geraldposner]

Ironic that a woman who created a universe of magic was the one who understood the line between reality and make believe. Every reasonably minded person owes @jk_rowling a big thanks for her unwavering activism that exposed the Scottish hate crime law as a farce.

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

The greatest moment in TV history was when Jamie Oliver showed children how mcnuggets are made and smugly said 'now who would still eat this?' and literally everyone put their hand up and he looked really sad

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

🎉🌼🌸April Fools! 🌸🌼🎉

Only kidding. Obviously, the people mentioned in the above tweets aren't women at all, but men, every last one of them.

In passing the Scottish Hate Crime Act, Scottish lawmakers seem to have placed higher value on the feelings of men performing their idea of femaleness, however misogynistically or opportunistically, than on the rights and freedoms of actual women and girls. The new legislation is wide open to abuse by activists who wish to silence those of us speaking out about the dangers of eliminating women's and girls’ single-sex spaces, the nonsense made of crime data if violent and sexual assaults committed by men are recorded as female crimes, the grotesque unfairness of allowing males to compete in female sports, the injustice of women’s jobs, honours and opportunities being taken by trans-identified men, and the reality and immutability of biological sex.

For several years now, Scottish women have been pressured by their government and members of the police force to deny the evidence of their eyes and ears, repudiate biological facts and embrace a neo-religious concept of gender that is unprovable and untestable. The re-definition of 'woman' to include every man who declares himself one has already had serious consequences for women's and girls’ rights and safety in Scotland, with the strongest impact felt, as ever, by the most vulnerable, including female prisoners and rape survivors.

It is impossible to accurately describe or tackle the reality of violence and sexual violence committed against women and girls, or address the current assault on women’s and girls’ rights, unless we are allowed to call a man a man. Freedom of speech and belief are at an end in Scotland if the accurate description of biological sex is deemed criminal.

I'm currently out of the country, but if what I've written here qualifies as an offence under the terms of the new act, I look forward to being arrested when I return to the birthplace of the Scottish Enlightenment.

If you agree with the views set out in this tweet, please retweet it.

#ArrestMe #AprilFools #HateCrimeActScotland

11/X

[leanne bourne @bourney24]

@MadiRuve @PicturesFoIder You’re using the equipment but as a prop, you should not be at the gym. Give that space to someone who wants to improve their health, not their bank balance 👍🏻

[Moog @a_toots]

This is a joy to watch. Ian Hislop, full-throttle, absolutely shredding Jake Berry on Peston. Hislop doesn’t give an inch and talks at Berry the way Tory MPs hate and just can’t cope with (“You can’t just talk nonsense and not be interrupted!”). Superb. https://t.co/z8SRv4a0ht