Notices by David Njoku (davidnjoku@mastodon.world)

If a half-decent director turns this story of a single Russian soldier taking a single Ukrainian soldier prisoner and then ultimately surrendering to him into a movie, I guarantee they'll win Oscars. Plural.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2026/may/03/youre-not-one-of-us-are-you-how-a-ukrainian-soldier-survived-two-weeks-in-a-russian-dugout?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

@skinnylatte I don't know if this is aphantasia, but when people say "don't think of a pink polkadot elephant!" I think of ... nothing.

Apparently, most other people picture the elephant.

Here's a thought that I find freeing. Hopefully, it'll be the same for you.

No one on Mastodon is following *you*.¹ They follow a group of people which happens to include you.

That means you can toot about anything you like and as much or as little as you like. Boost whatever. Don't overthink it; no one is studying your timeline¹.

Thinking someone is following *you* is like a grain of rice thinking it's the reason I'm eating this huge bowl of jollof.

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¹ unless your mum is on Mastodon

@skinnylatte Welcome to the UK. I hope you have a great time

I'm not saying that the meeting camera in my office isn't calibrated for black skin, but I look like I'm about to snitch on the mafia and it's protecting my identity.

Just watched Louis Theroux's manosphere documentary on Netflx.

Holy shit. Sexism, misogyny, violence, and the worst antisemitism that I've ever seen.

Maybe I'm naive, but I honestly did not know it was this bad.

I know they go on about red pilling and seeing "the truth". Please, God, give me that blue pill. Anything to return me to a world where these animals don't exist.

#LouisTheroux

Random thought.

If public libraries didn't already exist, capitalism wouldn't let you invent it. Can you imagine how many billions Jeff Bezos would plough into fighting the idea, destroying any politician who dared to back it?

Support your local library.

If there was some kind of a rule that says that for every 10 bombs that a country drops on another country, they have to let that country drop 1 on one of their cities, rich countries would think twice about waging war abroad.

Let's be honest, the thing that we find appalling about this story of a middle-aged white British woman being locked up for weeks by ICE isn't the fact that she was locked up; it's that it can happen to a white middle-aged British woman.

Immigration services across the West have been cruel for a very long time¹, but just not to people who look like this or come from here.

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¹ ICE has got much worse recently

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/21/karen-newton-valid-visa-detained-ice?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

@skinnylatte I thought you were going to say that it was like posting about plane crashes, in that it's really rare but everyone gets scared that it might happen to them.

I have to admit that I didn't know it happened at all. But I guess you're talking about foragers, and not those of us who just buy them from shops?

@LoganFive Thanks for the pancakes!

@skinnylatte I've never been in an earthquake zone before. Is it scary, or is it just normal?

OK, own up. Who bought that one ticket? I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT TRUMP: Look at what he's done internationally. He's bombed Iran. He kidnapped Maduro. He's toyed with Ukraine. He's intervened in Gaza. He's threatened Greenland.

NIGERIANS (like me): What about us? What about us! Does our bombing count for nothing?

I don't want to spend the morning cleaning my house. I would rather use the time to contemplate the nature of life¹ and to create new, daring art².

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¹ Scroll on Mastodon.
² Post on Mastodon.

Wait, I'm confused. So now, Trump is *against* protesters being killed?

#USpol

I'm not perplexed that kids are going round saying, "6-7."

What perplexes me is all the adults complaining that "it's annoying! I don't understand what it means!"

That. Is. The. Whole. Point.

And, moreover, that's been the point of youth slang since the dawn of time - including when you were young.

If it's any consolation, it'll happen to today's youths too. As soon as they grow up.

#67meme

It breaks my heart to say this, but if what's going on in America teaches us anything it's that highlighting how much a politician hates minorities isn't enough to stop the majority from voting for them.

#UKPOL

https://www.theguardian.com/news/ng-interactive/2025/dec/28/of-course-he-abused-pupils-ex-dulwich-teacher-speaks-out-about-farage-racism-claims

I was chatting with a Black friend of Jamaican heritage. She was appalled that a Nigerian she'd met knew next to nothing about slavery.

It's Black history! she said.

It's *your* history, I explained.

For Africans that sad story ended when the ships left the shore. Our schools teach us about the impact of that devastation, not what happened on the other coast.

Black history is not one thing. It's not MLK.

It's also Songhai and Benin. Which they don't teach here

#BlackMastodon

@atsuzaki I don't know how bad it is in Indonesia, but in Nigeria when you eventually fill out the form and pay the extortionate fee, they'll make you queue in the sun ALL DAY, just for them to barely glance at your documents before stamping REJECTED on your passport. With no explanation at all.