esp

CEO and non-executive director.
Neuroscientist with a keen interest in the psychopathology of groups.

[esp @opento]

@AuntieSyzygy I'm missing your updates!

[esp @opento]

#TheTruthWillOut

[Principal⭐️ @OkadikeOnyeisi]

When someone knows they've created lies and a false narrative about you, it doesn't bring them peace; it brings them a shoulder to have to keep looking over, a guilty conscience, and fear that the truth about who they really are and what they did will eventually make its own way out.

[esp @opento]

@MattBecker82 @AuntieSyzygy @overlandertheb1 @BarbaraNairn @WordleFR Le Mot (@WordleFR) #1752 4/6
⬛⬛🟨⬛🟩
⬛🟩🟨🟨🟩
🟩🟩⬛🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

https://t.co/3UVEbR8sSC

[The Exit Code @The_Exit_Code]

You don't need to take revenge on a narcissist because narcissists are perfectly capable of screwing up their own lives.

[esp @opento]

Is this an AI parody thing?

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham has announced five "everyday fixes" ahead of the Budget

1. Carer's Allowance will be changed so carers no longer lose their entire benefit when they earn over the limit - instead, their support will reduce by £1 for every extra £1 they earn

2. Import tariffs will be removed on more than 100 products, including baked beans, chocolate and gherkins, to save households up to £21 on their food shop a year

3. Tax-free mileage rates for workers using their own cars will be made permanent at 55p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, with the rate for additional miles rising from 25p to 35p

4. Parental pay will be extended to over 150,000 more parents a year, including self-employed fathers and partners

5. Hundreds more Post Office drop boxes will be rolled out to save people queueing at branches

[esp @opento]

@MoveBravely Exactly.
I have a very recent case example.
"Please escalate"
"Can't"

Computer says no.

[esp @opento]

👇 Leaving other people to deal with your behaviour is totally a dick move.

[Oli from Reading 🦁 @OliReading]

It's a bit of a dick move - running away to leave those behind to deal with the consequences!
#ThisCityIsOurs

[esp @opento]

@dtaylor5633 Good that you are thinking about it.
Decide that you are not going to fuck it up.
Every choice.
And ask for help from people who don't want you to fuck it up.
Especially your boss.
If you fuck up, your boss has fucked up so don't let them.
Time to help others not fuck up.

[esp @opento]

@overlandertheb1 Aye, "most of them".
So, where are the posh folk living?

[esp @opento]

"Always speak the truth. It costs less."

[visionaryvoid @Visionaryvoid]

Late one evening in 2003, Emma Thompson sat alone in her London flat, surrounded by the wreckage of a very public divorce

The press had been relentless. Her marriage to Kenneth Branagh had ended amid scandal, and the woman who'd won an Oscar for bringing Jane Austen's words to life couldn't find any of her own.
Then came a knock at the door.
Alan Rickman stood there holding a bottle of wine and nothing else—no advice, no pity, no expectations. He walked in, sat down, and stayed through the night. He didn't ask her to explain. He didn't tell her it would be okay. He just sat with her in the darkness, offering the rarest gift one human can give another: silent, judgment-free presence.
"You saved me without trying," Thompson later wrote to him. "And that's the kind of love I trust most."
Their friendship had begun years earlier during a 1980s stage production, when Thompson met a man whose fierce gaze and commanding silence intimidated most people. But she saw past the intensity to something tender underneath. "I recognized a fellow creature," she said, "one who felt deeply but rarely said as much."
By the time they filmed "Sense and Sensibility" in 1995, their bond had deepened into something rare in Hollywood—a friendship built on creative trust and emotional safety. While Thompson juggled the impossible pressure of starring in and adapting a beloved classic, Rickman quietly anchored her. "Alan had a way of being in the room that made you feel you belonged there too," she remembered.
What made their connection extraordinary wasn't grand gestures or public declarations. It was the accumulation of small, sacred moments. The long conversations about betrayal and forgiveness during "Love Actually." The way he never demanded she be strong when she was breaking. The trust that allowed complete vulnerability without fear.
Then, years later, Rickman fell ill. For a long time, he told almost no one about his cancer diagnosis. But Thompson knew. She noticed how he tired more easily, how his already quiet nature turned more introspective. One afternoon during a charity film shoot, he finally told her.
They stood in silence for several moments.
"Alright," she said simply. "Then we walk through this together."
In those final years, Rickman opened up in ways he never had before—sharing memories, regrets, and hopes with the one person he trusted completely. Thompson told him she had loved him from the beginning, though they'd never crossed the lines of friendship.
He laughed. "You would've ruined me."

"No, Alan," she replied. "I would've healed you."

When Rickman died in 2016, Thompson released a letter calling him "the truest of friends." Their bond had never been about celebrity or performance. It had been real, raw, and sacred—a story written in glances, in trust, in the knowledge that some people don't come into your life to dazzle you, but to hold a steady light.

Thompson keeps one of his handwritten notes tucked in her wallet: "Always speak the truth. It costs less."

And she still visits their favorite café, orders two teas, and talks to him like he's still listening—because the truest friendships never really end.

They just change form, becoming something even more permanent: memory transformed into grace, loss transformed into gratitude, and silence transformed into the loudest kind of love.

[esp @opento]

@overlandertheb1 Who is funding the trip because I'd be gobsmacked if they are paying it themselves.

[esp @opento]

Are yous listening?

[esp @opento]

@larabirdsnp @ProgIntl Have you resigned from your job as an MSP?
Who is paying you for this?
I was talking to some of your constituents today and they have a bunch of problems that you need to sort out.

[esp @opento]

@DalgetySusan Lack of common sense.
Lack of humility.
Lack of learning agility.

[esp @opento]

👇 True. Also a sign of emotional immaturity.

[Principal⭐️ @OkadikeOnyeisi]

People know when they've wronged you. But those same people often create a story in their minds to justify their actions. They do this to ease their guilt. It's not that they don't realize the truth, it's that they're so aware of it that they've convinced themselves otherwise.

[ⓘ @MyKindaHell]

Imagine spending your free time building a false image of someone while doing absolutely nothing to improve your own. Embarrassing as hell.

[esp @opento]

@rorysutherland Interesting.
Thank you Rory.
I'm looking forward to reading it.

[𝗘𝗟 @MasterNumber]

Gossip is one of the highest forms of witchcraft. You don't need spells or rituals when you can plant a lie in someone's mind and watch them spread it like it's the fucking truth.

Get enough people believing the same story about someone, and suddenly a false narrative becomes their reputation.

That's how powerful words are. People will swear they know you when all they really know is what someone else told them.