Notices by Flick ?? (flick@spinster.xyz)

The future of the UK’s medical profession, ladies and gents:

@mittimithai If I was a US academic with an ongoing career, I wouldn’t want my name on it. There’s a reason the Cass review was done by someone post-career.

@KeepTakingTheSoma I don’t pay for it, I still care what it does.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/forget-adolescence-keir-starmer-must-watch-groomed-a-national-scandal/

I look forward to Keir Starmer hosting a special summit on the Channel 4 documentary, Groomed. And to hearing him gush about it every time a reporter puts a mic anywhere near his mouth. And to seeing his proposals for showing it to teens in schools across the land in order that we might prise open their innocent eyes to the dangers of so-called grooming gangs.

After all, he did all that for Adolescence, a Netflix drama about a made-up crime against a fictional working-class girl. So surely he’ll do it for a documentary that lays out in grim, eye-watering detail the industrial-scale horrors that were inflicted on real working-class girls by gangs of mostly Muslim men in towns across England.

https://archive.ph/ZCN9N

The BBC is doing a consultation on “the future of Our BBC”.

It’s mostly very cleverly phrased questions designed to elicit the correct responses (eg: “is the BBC sufficiently independent from the government of the day”, when the real question is “is the BBC sufficiently independent from the Westminster consensus”), but there are a few free text boxes where one might point that out, or request less shoehorning in of “trans” in both drama and news, or mention the mis-sexing of male criminals in the light of the recent Supreme Court ruling….

https://www.bbc.co.uk/send/u193491675

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/norway-is-laughing-at-milibands-net-zero-folly/

Yet still Norway has no net zero target. Why? Because its government, unlike ours, seems to have thought the whole thing through properly and realised that to go all the way to net zero would be fantastically expensive. It is one thing curtailing your carbon emissions; quite another blocking off every conceivable source of them. Norway, unlike Britain, values economic growth over ideological purity.

It shouldn’t really come as a surprise, then, that Norway’s energy minister, Terje Aasland, has just scorned Britain’s policy of running down North Sea production of oil and gas. His own country, he says, will continue to develop the North Sea for the long term. It will do so, he says, partly because the industry has helped make the country fantastically rich, allowing it to build up a sovereign wealth fund which our own deeply-indebted government can only envy, and partly because it recognises that however hard you might aspire to switch to clean energy, it is a long process, and that industrialised societies will remain reliant on fossil fuels for decades to come. […]

While Britain hit the oil and gas industry with windfall taxes in recent years, Norway offered tax concessions to ensure that oil and gas exploration could continue during Covid, in order to maintain Norway’s energy independence. That just about sums up the difference between UK and Norwegian policy. This week, with Tony Blair’s intervention, it seemed briefly as if the government might transition towards a more level-headed policy. But sadly, with Keir Starmer taking Miliband’s rather than Blair’s side, and Blair bizarrely backtracking on his remarks, the moment has passed.

https://archive.ph/35NZf

@TruckDriver @PNS “Temperature fluctuations”, reportedly.

Wait, what??

@BowsacNoodle Quite.

I liked him just for the name, but:

@95c7f867802a9c7cfb1d2b243be152234864e2cf9f60f467ae32bf1cf05f89fb @fb89e58f838b7d716a88300ea1f2539fff78766aa1121ec10968b6b10a498f28 If India/Pakistan kicks off, it’s going to make the riots a few years ago look like a playfight.

@Gnomeshatecheese They literally tried it and lost, ffs!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Sexes_(tennis)

Another event dubbed a "Battle of the Sexes" took place during the 1998 Australian Open[64] between Karsten Braasch and the Williams sisters. Venus and Serena Williams had claimed that they could beat any male player ranked outside the world's top 200, so Braasch, then ranked 203rd, challenged them both. Braasch was described by one journalist as "a man whose training regime centered around a pack of cigarettes and more than a couple of bottles of ice cold lager".[65][64] The matches took place on court number 12 in Melbourne Park,[66] after Braasch had finished a round of golf and two shandies. He first took on Serena and after leading 5–0, beat her 6–1. Venus then walked on court and again Braasch was victorious, this time winning 6–2.[64] Braasch said afterwards, "500 and above, no chance." He added that he had played like someone ranked 600th in order to keep the game "fun"[67] and that the big difference was that men can chase down shots much more easily and put spin on the ball that female players could not handle. The Williams sisters adjusted their claim to beating men outside the top 350.[64]

They managed to trap Valerie! Can’t believe she survived so long.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/04/26/valerie-runaway-dachshund-caught-529-days-australian-island/

The missing mutt was not seen for more than a year, with many holding out little hope for its survival.

Then, video surveillance and locals began spotting it, and volunteers launched a hunt for the hound, which seemed to flee from people and cars.

“Valerie seems impossible to trap,” wildlife rescuers posted on social media last month.

Investing more than 1,000 hours, volunteer searchers drove more than 5,000 km (3,100 miles) and deployed cameras, traps and lures.

https://archive.ph/fWlVr

@KeepTakingTheSoma @Phil I have a distinct memory of reading a horribly graphic description of the process that ended with words to the effect of “and then they stick a hollow read up the remains of the urethra and if the boy is lucky then the swelling / clotting goes down enough for him to pee before his bladder bursts and kills him”, but I can’t be 100% sure it wasn’t fiction. (Which implies penis removal as well.)

Oh my god, has no one in charge ever read a science fiction novel?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/22/experiments-to-dim-the-sun-get-green-light/

Experiments to dim sunlight to fight global warming will be given the green light by the Government within weeks.

Outdoor field trials which could include injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, or brightening clouds to reflect sunshine, are being considered by scientists as a way to prevent runaway climate change.

https://archive.ph/zbVQQ

Old man’s put on 3kg! Trougher!

(Clean bill of health, though, vet very happy given his age.)

@HebrideanHecate He’s getting very grey. This was when we took him for a walk from the rescue:

@graf @ForbiddenDreamer @lichelordgodfrey You deserve to be as well, though.

@BowsacNoodle What the fuck?!

@GalacticTurtle They have no resilience, it seems. Not entirely their own fault, given parenting and teaching trends.