sheldrake

Disembodied brain. Very old. Tadorna On Bluesky and Dreamwidth, sheldrake on AO3. Currently living at The Night Manager (now farmed out to my sideblob blueespressocup), previous address The Beatles (see you round the clubs).

[sleepnoises]

come look at selected retrospective works of ruth mcdowell with me

Ladders, 2017. 57" x 45". Machine pieced, machine quilted, cotton fabrics, cotton batting.

Sycamore. 1989. 74" x 52". Machine pieced, machine quilted, cotton fabrics, cotton batting.

Who Are We? Where Do We Come From? Where Are We Going? 1993. 45" x 73". Machine pieced, machine quilted, cotton fabrics, cotton batting.

[thememedaddy]

[screenshotsofdespair]

[aletheyass]

washing machine time to human time converter online

[phantomrose96]

Gosh I’d love to give it a try. It’s just so hard to find the time with all the *describes a daily schedule that is 65% dilly-dallying*

[wizardarchetypes]

absolutely looosssinggg it. i'm so obsessed with movies which portray the woman MC in a highly specific job because the writers clearly think it's like "off-beat" and "quirky" but have no idea how the field works whatsoever.

i decided to try a romcom i somehow missed i the 2000s 'head over heels' and i got 3 and a half minutes in and we're introduced to the lonely MC with bad taste in men as evidenced by her extremely short list of ex boyfriends, including her first boyfriend when she was 11 or something because i guess that's still relevant in her adult life.

so she's resigned herself to never finding love and prefers to ignore men to focus all her energy into her career.

this job is immediately presented as though it's for spinsters with no hope of ever finding a man.

the mc's lesbian bestie (whose first line involves her being scolded for being too sexual in the workplace, but moving on) points out their colleagues as evidence that they're doomed to a romance-less, sexless life if they don't switch up their shared career path. the colleagues are three old women, so-dubbed "the menopause triplets":

these women are presented as if they have no idea what's going on at any given moment. this is 2001, and presumably this is an entry level job requiring low effort and no experience.

then their boss bursts into the room, unceremoniously bumping a large painting into the door jam and walls, announcing that it's a new project for our MC.

our MC is thrilled to see the painting. apparently it's a light in the daily slog at her dreary job for loser women with nothing going on in their lives.

And that job is? Conservator of paintings (specializing in Renaissance) at the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The painting being handled like an old couch on its way to the curb?

The Bacchanal of the Andrians by Titian.

Her lesbian colleague who is presumably also a a highly trained & skilled curator finds it depressing that the MC is so excited about the painting.

it's a quirk unique to this MC that she cares so much about paintings, in her department at the metropolitan museum of art, where her colleagues find all that art business rather dreary. because we all know that's what conservators in extremely competitive museum positions are like.

[wizardarchetypes]

I'm not saying there can't be lifelong love in here somewhere but I also just feel like the monogamous heterosexual marriage you're fantasizing about isn't necessarily best represented by the bacchanal. and that's okay. but i do stand by that.

[curiouswisp]

Kids Design Glass

I went to a glass museum recently and they had a program where they let kids design glass artwork and it brightened my day so much that I had to share some of my favorites:

Kids have such neat ideas and I love that a group of artists were willing to bring them to life.

[elodieunderglass]

Thank you so much @13lizardsinatrenchcoat this is what it’s all about

[invisible-goats]

In honour of having it for tea two days in a row due to weather

Fellow brits: what do you call a meal that is made up of various bits and bobs such as might be found in a picnic?

Bitsa

Picky bits

Indoor picnic

Buffet

Nibbles

British tapas

Beige dinner

Something else

Voting ended onMay 29

God it's hard to phrase this question in a non-biasing way. Also I promise I've encountered all of these phrases irl

if something else please tell me what!

ok now that you've voted i call it bitsa (short for bitsa this and bitsa that) because that's what my mum calls it and if you call it picky bits i assume you shop at m&s and use phrases like holibobs and hubby

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[themirokai]

[juju-fisher]

I need to see this guy paint a tunnel on the side of a rock wall.

[the-haiku-bot]

I need to see this

guy paint a tunnel on the

side of a rock wall.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[theinternetarchive]

Tanagra Figurines: a haircut; cheese making; a scribe Mediterranean Antiquity; Greece c. 199 BCE Terracotta sculpture

[disorientation]

Having a "stupider people have done this" attitude about the things you want to do can open so many doors

[sapphia]

i needed this because i find doors very difficult sometimes

[princessdelacruz]

[ineffabledandelions-deactivated]

The only intelligent take on shipping in this whole fandom.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

some suggested framings for your letter to your mp to protest against the EHRC guidance, UKPOL (26th May 2026)

Following up on this briefly now the guidance has been delivered. I have briefly looked through is and read analysis by legal experts. I am likely to follow up in more detail

As far as I can tell, it is an absolute dog's dinner, full of contradictory statements, ambiguous hedging (lots of may be/is likely/is unlikely) and is of almost no use to service providers wishing to ensure they are legally compliant.

Some language has softened, but it remains a lawfare bully's charter.

For example: 1) There are many references to the supreme court redefinition of terms in EA2010 to base "sex" on "biological sex" ("BS" which as far as I can tell is not the outcome of any specific scientific test, just observation, assignment and recording around birth or as near to that point where there is an external ambiguity - i.e. "administrative sex"). 1b) It then states that there is no document which categorically captures this information for an individual (13.197) and such relevant documents as there such as birth certificates or GRCs are cannot be demanded for privacy reasons 1c) It implicitly invalidates the solemn oath required by recipients of GRC documents "I _ do solemnly and sincerely declare that:

I am over 18 years of age.

I transitioned in DD/MM/YY I have lived as a (insert ‘male’ or ‘female’ as appropriate) throughout the period of years before the date of this statutory declaration and I intend to live in that gender until death." 1d) It also makes the lived experience requirements for new GRCs nigh-on impossible 2) It is simultaneously mandatory for trans men to be required to use female-designated spaces and possible to exclude them based on other users' sensitivities

3) Services covering multiple protected groups are declared possible. Providing a single-sex service may be mandatory and making it biological sex ("BS") only may be discriminatory to trans people unless proportional, but including trans people may be discriminatory to non-trans people. Litigation risk from all sides 4) There is an explicit example 4.100 that "GC" or religious-based beliefs about homosexuality should not be stereotypes as having negative attitudes to (respectively) trans or gay people (scope creep). This is a reworking of the "hate the sin, not the sinner" rationale used by some religious people. I cannot see how it has a place in equalities guidelines. Those beliefs are definitionally negative about the people embodying them. A similar statement would not be made about eugenicists or racial supremacists 5) Sex-specific medical services (gynecology, urology, mammography) can exclude trans people even when their bodies require attention from those services 13.147 elevates "discomfort" by an individual in a protected category to the level of justifying exclusion of one in another. This has nothing to do with "proportionality" and is an absolutely chilling precedent both in this case and for other categories 13.170 indicates "13.170 It is unlikely to be either practical or appropriate to approach any particular individual to make enquiries about their sex in relation to facilities, such as toilets, which are incidental to the primary service."

Are toilets part of the primary service of a pub, or restaurant or office? Are changing rooms part of the primary purpose of a gym? 6) This will inevitably result in service providers discontinuing sex-designated services and facilities or reworking to be unisex 7) The main outcome I foresee - beyond daily distress to several hundred thousand British people - will be years of legal threats and wranglings by those with the deepest pockets and a chilling effect on public life

8) There is a of handwaving based on assumed existence of segregated third spaces in addition to sex-designated. This is both unlikely to be represented by actal facilities on the ground, and is just an awful, dehumanising, othering approach 9) Enforcement is nigh-on impossible, equity is nil.

This could have been avoided with new legislation which reasserted the original spirit and intent of the earlier acts (as evidenced by the speeches in Hansard and surrounding commentary) to overturn this radical reinterpretation.

Worryingly, bad-faith or simply incorrect representations of rights are being trumped across media channels, including the national broadcaster.

This will devastate and victimise members of an already vulnerable group, as well as anyone who sufficiently motivated people decide may possibly be in those groups.

Horrific.

ALSO

Dear Clive,

Last time we met, we spoke about waiting for the guidance due to be published by the EHRC. That guidance has now been published and laid before Parliament. It will become law if not rejected by MPs.

It is now clear that this guidance is the bathroom ban trans people were fearing. Some features of older versions of the guidance have been watered down or removed, such as the unworkable advise about service providers asking for proof of “biological sex” by requesting identification (no form of identification records this information in the UK).

The updated guidance explicitly advises service providers enact a blanket ban on trans people using spaces according to their acquired gender by creating a catch-22 situation: that to include trans people in this way is discrimination against both cis women and cis men. To avoid being taken to court, service providers must enact a blanket ban on trans women using facilities according to their acquired gender.

This is a bathroom ban. Far from providing “clarity”, it pushes all responsibility for enacting the ban, and defending against nuisance litigation, onto service providers. It also explicitly points out there is no meaningful way to enforce such policies, because no forms of identification exist that record “biological sex”, or “sex at birth”.

This is a calamitous situation for trans people, service providers, and gender non-conforming cis people. In 2016, the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office warned British LGBT people about travelling to the US in the wake of legislation in North Carolina that forced trans people to use toilets according to their sex at birth. What are we supposed to do when our own government issues legal guidance advising businesses to enact the same bathroom ban in our own country? This guidance must be debated by Parliament, and it must be rejected by MPs. Further, the Labour Government must legislate to make clear that trans women are afforded the same rights as cis women, and trans men are afforded the same rights as cis men in the Equality Act. It should also legislate to ensure that holders of gender recognition certificates are “for all intents and purposes” considered their acquired sex, as was written into the Gender Recognition Act in 2004. Anything less would be a permanent stain on the legacy of the Labour Party, and remembered long into the future in the same way as Section 28. It is my sincere belief that we are witnessing the systemic dismantling of the human rights of trans people under a Labour government. Regards, Katie Fenn

AND

(No alt text was provided for this one).

And this template letter:

take a mix-and-match approach and personalise it if you can. be polite and don't use language that will have your letter rejected, but don't shy away from describing the consequences.

You might want to reference:

"Like a snowball: the growth and impact of the gender critical movement in the UK", Amnesty International, published 21st May 2026.

Samaritans responds to EHRC guidance after 40% rise in calls following Supreme Court ruling, Samaritans, published 22nd May 2026

Samaritans responds to EHRC guidance after 40% rise in calls following Supreme Court ruling

Samaritans responds to EHRC guidance after 40% rise in calls following Supreme Court ruling

Press statement published 14th May 2026 by ILGA (prior to the EHRC guidance but relevant to the UK's piss-poor standing on trans and queer rights generally in Europe).

Press release: UK joins Hungary and Georgia With the Biggest Drops on Annual LGBTI Rights Ranking | ILGA-Europe

The UK has dropped six places in ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Map, as Hungary and Georgia also register steep falls following anti-LGBTI legislatio

If you have a UK MP (and if you live in the UK you do have one) please do this and share it ASAP, there is a limited period of time before Parliament vote on the guidance.

If you don't have a UK MP please at least share this post.

POST DATE: 25th MAY 2026.

WriteToThem

WriteToThem is a website which provides an easy way to contact MPs, councillors and other elected representatives.

To find your MP and send an easy email, use WriteToThem.

[beardedmrbean]

All right all you Hoopy Froods grab your towels, and be ready to celebrate the man who taught us just how useful they could be.

[artdjgblog]

Illustrations by Marc Simont for James Thurber's The 13 Clocks.

[penny-anna]

chatting w friends earlier like oh i'm a little annoyed my train home was only delayed 45 minutes, i was hoping we would hit a full hour and my friend is like i'm sorry?? and i'm like yeah bcos if it's an hour late you get a refund. and she's like .....HWAT??

[penny-anna]

anyway for any UK people not aware u get a 50% refund for 30+ minutes delay and a 100% refund at 1 hour. some train companies also for a 25% refund at 15 minutes. all train companies do some version of this bcos it is a legal requirement. 👍

[penny-anna]

#over on this side of the pond a long-distance train that’s only 30 minutes late is practically early

dont make the mistake of thinking that bcos they have to refund you delays are a rare event. i've received 3 delay refunds this calendar year and it is only May.

[dykepuffs]

I must share these absolute hometown heroes, Li Liu and Wangqing Yu, even if they were "technically" only here as students I am holding them up proudly as Leeds locals:

They bought train tickets, got them refunded a week before travel, and then if the train was delayed, they still got their Delay Repay payouts - Effectively, gambling on buying a £100 ticket, that they would either win £50 or £100 off it, and at the very least that they would be refunded the original £100.

In less than a year, they managed to earn £157,000 between them, because it was so predictable which trains would be delayed.

(I am an honest train-user and I've likewise had a delay repay for at least some part of every journey that I've done this year. Not always 100% but usually at least 50%, especially on long trips with multiple changes, where a 10-minute-delay on the Manchester-York train is enough to miss the York-Edinburgh connection, so to delay you for a full hour...)

posting niche fic on ao3 is like releasing a small creature into the wild and hoping it survives and finds sustenance

[hezenkoss]

got one whole comment… the small creature may yet survive the winter

[jewishpangolin]

[can-i-make-image-descriptions]

[Image ID: Tumblr reply from dont-drink-paint reading: Attenborough voice: “A small rarePair like this can sustain itself for months on just a few intermittent kudos. Now this one has lured an entire comment! A veritable feast for a creature in such a small fandom.” /End ID]