Diana M

[Diana M @dianamadill]

@LordWalney @DAaronovitch Read the comments

[Muse @xmuse_]

What a surreal spectacle! 🤍

Three artists from Gratte Ciel turning height into poetry, letting the wind write the choreography.

[Henry Winter @henrywinter]

Fulham getting Sander Berge to push ticket sales for tomorrow’s Wolves game. Some tickets in Riverside Stand £105 adults; £80 young adults 18-21yo; £80 seniors 65+. Putney Restricted View 18-21yo £52. Players don’t set ticket prices. Club does, so get a board member or exec to flog them, not a player. It's unfair on players.

As well as potentially annoying players, Fulham risk losing more fans’ loyalty and risk diminishing the atmosphere that broadcasters pay billions for. Fulham’s annual gate receipts are roughly £18m compared to £140m+ for broadcast.

How about…have fairer ticket prices, then full house, more noise, more support for Berge and the team, better results, better league finish (£2.7m + a place), more revenue. #FFC

[Dissident Teacher @educatedandfree]

Yesterday, my 7th graders finished reading Fahrenheit 451.

Some in my 6th period class were confused about the ending. All the talk about books and then this: "Come on now, we're going to go build a mirror factory first and put out nothing but mirrors for the next year and take a long look in them."

They wondered why mirrors.

So I told them all to put their hand on their copy of the book (I don’t actually know why I did that — but it makes enormous sense to me now). Then I said:

“Raise your hands if you’ve ever watched TV all day and then felt kinda gross about it but then kept watching TV?”

All their hands went up and I raised mine too. Then I said, “Then you’re Mildred.”

I asked, “Have you ever known something that was happening was wrong and known you should say something but then didn’t stand up for the right thing?”

All their hands went up and I said, “Then you’re Faber.”

Then I asked, “Have you ever known something you were doing was bad, but knew you were going to get away with it and enjoyed it because it was bad and because you knew you were going to get away with it?” Fewer hands this time — about half. “Then you’re Beatty.”

“What about this. Have you ever just wanted to be alone, to walk in the woods, slowly, to think your thoughts, to let your mind wander without any noise or interruption?” More hands, though not all. “Then you’re Clarisse.”

“The reason the men talked of mirrors is because great books are mirrors. They show us that we’re all bad guys but we’re all good guys too — and by showing us the ways we’re like the bad guys, we can see how to be less like them and by showing us how the good guys are good — and helping us see that we are made of the same stuff — we learn how to be more like the good guys.”

Great books make teaching kids so much easier and, I must add, give me a deep sense of peace because guys like Bradbury and London and ladies like Harper Lee are doing way more of the heavy lifting).

I hope that posts like these inspire you to read books like these with your children if your children aren't reading them at school.

And even then -- I've had some parents reach out to tell me that their dinner table talks with their children inspired them to buy and read their own copies and encouraged them to chat in more detail with their own children about Fahrenheit and To Kill a Mockingbird and how the messages in such books align with their family's ethos.

In love and in peace -- I hope you have a wonderful day.

[Wesley Yang @wesyang]

Lia Thomas's participation in women's athletics was deeply unfair. It was deeply unfair because despite his intense desire to be regarded and treated as a woman, he is in fact a man. It's correct to strip him of the titles he won in unfair competition and bizarre that he was given the opportunity to win them in the first place.

Recognition of this fact must apply across the board in all settings where sex-based distinctions matter without exception going forward.

[Shabnam Nasimi @NasimiShabnam]

1385 days since the Taliban banned teenage girls from school.
925 days since they barred women from university.

This will go down as one of the great betrayals of the 21st century.
A generation of girls, locked out, while the world looked away.

[𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰 ✨🎵 @Hoang_HQ]

Get that girl a contract! Fantastic!! 🔥🔥

[Diana M @dianamadill]

@bedlamswife @MartinSLewis Happened to me too on day of exchange. Walked away. They came crawling back. Their solicitor was none too happy with them.

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.

I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?

I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.

Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?

But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.

History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.

Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.

One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.

I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.

[Ukrainian Art History @ukr_arthistory]

Today is the remembrance day of Lyubov Panchenko (1938-2922), a great artist from the Sixties generation. She died after the occupation of her hometown, Bucha. I've noticed that I made a small thread in 2022. This is a bigger one about her life and art 🧵

[Matthew d'Ancona @MatthewdAncona]

A victory for women, reality, science and the rule of law.
My ⁦@TheNewEuropean⁩ piece on the Supreme Court ruling https://t.co/4wjtEzDWzP

[Emily WD🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @Wommando]

Six months ago, a 17-year-old girl footballer cried during proceedings when @FA found her guilty of 'discrimination' and banned her for six matches - for stating what Supreme court ruled yesterday - that a bearded 'transgender' player was a man.

[Paul Hodowanic @PaulHodowanic]

There are incredible photos of Rory McIlroy's winning moment, many I'm sure you've seen. Most have been shared without proper credit to the amazing photographers who were out there.

So here's a 🧵 of some of the best photos with attribution. Enjoy and follow them!

[WRN West London @WRNWestLDN]

Some WL WRN members attended the excellent protest against men being housed in women’s prisons.

#NoMenInWomensPrisons
#KeepPrisonsSingleSex

Thank you @NoMinWPrisons

[Diana M @dianamadill]

@McWookiee1 @monterogabriela @cadoganhall @PSO_FOK Fantastic concert

[Katharine Birbalsingh @Miss_Snuffy]

Following my meeting on Monday with the Education Secretary @bphillipsonMP my open letter to her is below and here:
https://t.co/O9T19eJaXr

My first open letter to her on 17 Jan is here: https://t.co/phAiybzQFx

[Habib Khan @HabibKhanT]

On International Day of Education, let’s not forget that the Taliban has banned girls’ education in Afghanistan, robbing 1.4 million girls of their right to learn. #LetHerLearn

[Adam Hibbert @adhib]

My daughter's return netball fixture with the team in her league that's fielding a large male GS is tomorrow.

Last week, after 7 weeks of investigation, @EnglandNetball shared their conclusion:

[Aileen Barry (also on Bluesky) @AileenBarry18]

From today's Irish Times:

[Diana M @dianamadill]

@Samfr @lamdeinu ..Nor anti democratic