Notices by Flick 🇬🇧 (flick@spinster.xyz), page 9

Dog, if I twitch: Ooh! Ooh! Are we going out? jumps up and runs to the stairs

Dog, when I get up and open the back door to reveal wind and rain: What? Nope! Not going out there.

Dog, running back to the stairs: So, are we going out???

@thatguyoverthere Glad it helped!

@thatguyoverthere @TinyHouse4Life Replaces the greens, I’m pretty sure.

@thatguyoverthere I know @TinyHouse4Life raves about sun-dried tomato pesto. I tend to make it when I get a reduced (because short-dated) bag of $LeafyHerbs, to stretch out the shelf-life.

Rocket makes good pesto, I dare say mustard greens would too.

Oh, and I usually use sunflower seeds, because pine nuts are bloody expensive!

@thatguyoverthere (But feeding it to the rabbits is also a good use!)

@thatguyoverthere It is good, and pesto is incredibly easy to make. Cheat sheet for you:

@thatguyoverthere I hope you saved the tops for pesto!

@thatguyoverthere See also: young people today.

https://historyhustle.com/2500-years-of-people-complaining-about-the-younger-generation/amp/

https://www.spiked-online.com/2023/09/14/orwell-would-loathe-todays-left/

I recently re-read George Orwell’s 1941 essay, The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius, and I was taken by his description of the bourgeois, left-leaning intelligentsia of his time. They live in the shallowness of ideas, he writes, severed from the common culture and life experiences of the working class. They spend most of their time bickering with their chief enemy, the equally bourgeois ‘Blimps’ – archetypal red-faced imperialists. Though they despise each other, both the bourgeois intelligentsia and the Blimps are united in their mutual disdain for the working class.

Orwell, perhaps England’s greatest-ever political writer, notes how the bourgeois-left intelligentsia use a lot of words to intellectualise issues without understanding them. He saw that they frequently Blimp-baited without engaging with the real challenges people face. And he saw that they were only prepared to discuss issues raised in a few select publications – mainly the New Statesman and News Chronicle back then – which they also happened to edit, read and write for.

I was struck by how well this description of the bourgeois-left intelligentsia fits today’s middle-class lefties.

https://unherd.com/thepost/the-pushback-against-youth-gender-transition-has-begun/

Yesterday, the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital announced that doctors there will no longer prescribe puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to children and adolescents. This decision follows months of controversy and comes in the wake of a new law that just went into effect in Missouri, which limits hormonal and surgical interventions for gender transition to patients over the age of 18.

[…]

Under a “grandfather clause” in the new law, the Transgender Center could have continued to prescribe puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to current patients. However, it decided to back away from these interventions altogether [citing “ an unacceptable level of liability”.]

[…]

Hence the “unsustainable liability” Washington University cited in its decision to pull back from this area of healthcare. That’s because Missouri’s new law also extended the period of time former patients have to sue for damages to 15 years. Perhaps, when the Washington University investigated themselves, they found more merit to Reed’s allegations than they were willing to acknowledge publicly. They fear being made to pay for it.

Huh. I thought I’d planted not-very-successful summer cabbages here.

Bonus sprouts! Yay!

@thatguyoverthere Me neither.

Plus, half the time there’s food still in the wrappers, so I have to watch Dog like a hawk and know that it’s just feeding the local vermin.

No, that’s fine, no need to take your rubbish to the bin at the end of the road or — god forbid — home with you, you just go ahead and chuck it out of the car as you drive past. I’m sure the litter fairies will be along soon to tidy up after you.

@thatguyoverthere @Zennblack Filtered to hell and back, she’s nearly erased her nose.

(Filters can add “makeup”, apparently, so it may just be filters.)

The bees are enjoying the leek and the runner beans, and it looks like I am actually going to get some beans!

@HebrideanHecate Threads of Life by Clare Hunter. You can borrow it when I’m done if you like.

@HebrideanHecate It’s pretty good. The writing is clunky in places, and it could do with illustrations*, but it is interesting. I’m not sure I’d prioritise it over something else, but if there’s nothing else you want then go for it.

*I belatedly, while looking for a picture of one of the pieces online, found her website, which has a few, arranged by chapter: https://www.sewingmatters.co.uk/images.html

@marathon Lol, re-waxing my raincoat. Much easier if wax and coat are warm, and this was much easier than faffing around standing the tin in boiling water.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/harrison-ford-snakes-indiana-jones-new-species-1235566363/

Per researchers, they named the snake after 81-year-old Ford to honor his decades-long environmental advocacy, evidenced by his role as vice chair of Conservation International, an organization that disseminated the news, among other eco-conscious work.

“These scientists keep naming critters after me, but it’s always the ones that terrify children. I don’t understand. I spend my free time cross-stitching. I sing lullabies to my basil plants, so they won’t fear the night,” said Ford, who also inspired the name of an ant (Pheidole harrisonfordi) and a spider (Calponia harrisonfordi).

@DrFell @HoolaHoolaNope That’s adorable, but I’m pretty sure she’s a he.