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Jenny Andrew

@drandrewv2.bsky.social
160 followers 139 following 438 posts

Trade union nerd. Chronically fatigued. No patience for long bios.

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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 8h
Don’t even joke about that… my empathy regulation is not great, and now I’m in contortions of grief at the possibility that the tortoise lived their life without love. 😭
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 9h
Been listening to #BBC R4 on the way home from the supermarket, with Tinie Tempah enthusing about his daughters’ decoupage baubles, and if this is what Matt Brittin is gunning for when he says “a little less conversation” then I’m afraid the national broadcaster is being run by an idiot.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
That was an age of actual wonders!
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
All the IT ‘strategies’ that are just “everything matchy Microsoft”: this is your future… GOOD LUCK!
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Crammed in there is a bunch of flowers still in the plastic wrap, a shoe, and a bag full of M&S deli foods plus one entirely melted tub of ice cream. And he did still buy the house.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
And there’s a note from the estate agent on the kitchen table: “we noticed a slight smell of gas when we opened the meter cupboard”… Oh holy night… *they opened the meter cupboard*? So the two of us, in mute horror, open the cupboard ourselves to see what impression these strangers may have of us…
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I’m nearly done now. We got back to the house on the Sunday pm, to a light sprinkling of glittery ‘happy birthday’ confetti over all the floors and most of the furniture, with which some wanker had apparently booby-trapped one of my husband’s cards. I mean… were they TRYING to make my life harder?
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Then I got a call on the way to the reception - estate agent saying the viewer had offered the full asking price, so that was good… and then we did what you do at an Irish wedding, and got hammered again. But at least we didn’t have to get up at 5am the next morning…
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
I haven’t even got to where we arrive at the church and Lisa tells me I’m reading the bidding prayers, and by this time I’m so hungover, it’s all I can do not to vom on the lectern. And then the priest’s telling me how beautifully I read it: such emotion! and YES! - GENUINELY, Christ have mercy!
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
You should check the meter cupboard to see if she’s hidden anything interesting in there… ours was a veritable treasure trove after that the house-viewing. But maybe the stupidest item was the squashed birthday cake my husband packed with the suit he was meant to be wearing to my bestie’s wedding.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
So I’m guessing one of your daughters arrived home with a friend, was horrified to see something as unholy as a family-member’s undergarments in the middle of the kitchen floor, and whacked it in the nearest hiding place before she could expire of sheer embarrassment.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Oh GOD it was one of the most miserable moments of my life! But the point is that EVERYTHING got shoved in the nearest cupboard-like thing, appropriately or not. We only realised how mad it looked when we got back the next evening. There was all manner of random shit in the fridge…
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Reminds me of waking up the morning after my husband’s birthday, still drunk, with a taxi beeping outside waiting to take us to the airport. Got downstairs to find the house was a shitheap, and we had to tidy up in no-minutes flat as the estate agent was showing round prospective buyers that day…
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
From a superficial point of view it might sound like a silly thing to say, but I don’t think we talk nearly enough about how big a part of the Earth the moon really is!
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Found an bunch of photos from one of dad’s early 80s trips to study Andean mountain lakes… Big brother: “he looked like Pablo Escobar’s quality control guy”
1980s, unintentionally sepia-toned photo of a white man with tightly curled black hair, tinted glasses, lab coat and a weirdly manic grin in a workshop piled with gas cylinders, tubes and heath Robinson sampling equipment
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
‘Duguid describes Colman’s hair as “spectacular” but has all the trademarks of a much younger woman. “It’s a sort of fetishised version of grey hair,” she adds’ Genuinely … what does this mean? Asking for a woman whose actual hair just looks a lot like this. 🤷‍♀️ www.theguardian.com/fashion/2026...
Picture of Olivia Colman: white woman, in a white dress with a big smile. Her hair is long, swept to one side and in loose curls; base colour is chestnut brown, but with significant grey coming through, so it looks fairer from some angles, and streaked white from others.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
😭💀
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Yeah, but you know if you get rid of them, there’s going to be some terrible 3D emergency…
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Suggest a coffee… see what happens!
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How’s public health itself doing? What even was the plan? How’s that going? What’s the next big, stupid idea???
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Say what you like about the opportunity-cost of social media, but at least you’re not reading that Princess Diana book right now.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Like ‘discover Siberia’?
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
One of the delightful oddities of party (and trade union) conferences is that folks all turn out in their best clothes… but whether it’s Sunday best, corporate-Monday-morning best, or Friday/night-at-a-death-metal-gig best is a reasonable clue to their agenda for the week.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Americanz need unionz too.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Postdocs need unions. IMO PhD students, who certainly contribute to the labour of research, need unions. I don’t think it’s sufficient to bundle them into the established unions of tenured academics (or undergrads) without constitutional protection for independent representation of their interests.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
For instance, you can suppress the voice of a subset of workers by not allowing them to unionise at all. Or here in the UK, where ALL workers have a statutory right to join a union, you can bury that voice under monolithic democracy, in a union overwhelmingly dominated by contradictory interests.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
What it does (inadvertently) highlight are the sometimes contradicting interests of different groups of workers within a workplace, which must be refereed and resolved SOMEWHERE in the industrial relations system. If they’re not recognised openly, they’re usually handled badly, in a variety of ways:
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
There are too many red flags in this piece (starting with the loathsome title) to address them one by one, so suffice it to say that the person who tells you you don’t need a union is the reason YOU DO need a union.
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Reposted by Jenny Andrew
Jeff "Spooky" Crypt-sko @jeffkrisko.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Remember:
dasharez0ne "if it sucks... hit da bricks!!"
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I brought my replacement toothbrush on my work trip, so I can use the old one tonight and the new one in the morning. That is the rule.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
This thread was brought to you by a woman who spent SIX HOURS into the middle of the night waiting in the rain on the embankment of the M6 toll road last October. If you’re wondering how TF that’s possible in this age of wonders, I refer you back to point 1: review your choice of breakdown service.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
9. Know the drill. Get your car to as safe a place as possible (if possible). Hazard lights on. Grab your kit, get away from the car, call the breakdown service, and settle in for a potentially long wait. 10. If you feel vulnerable, also call the police and explain your situation, just as a back-up.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
6. Check the basics every time: oil, screen wash, tyre pressure and condition… 7. By all means carry a low-profile spare, a repair kit and learn how to use it 8. But know your limits. If a driver-side tyre has blown into ribbons on the hard-shoulder of the M6, NOBODY is safely replacing that in situ
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
3. Dust off your thermos. No big drives without a flask of hot water. 4. Keep a big old waterproof in the boot, one of those emergency foil ponchos, and ideally something to sit on to keep your bum off the wet ground. 5. Non-perishable snacks. Something with more substance than a packet of mentos.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Big drive coming up, and the days are shortening at top speed, so check your car emergency readiness! 1. Sort your breakdown cover. If it’s with the AA, I suggest you switch! 2. If you only take one extra thing, make it a charged backup battery for your phone (plus any leads to go with)
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
He’s so perfectly cylindrical! Do they grow them in tubes in the Netherlands… like cucumbers?
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
But also, as I have explained to my big brother who now lives in the Land of Horrors (Tasmania to be precise) : the bigger the worser - if I don’t have heart failure out of sheer terror, you can bet I’m wishing for death!
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
SOLD!
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
That is not a small sp*der… I would’ve burnt my own house to the ground to deal with that monster.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Bloody forinners coming here and paying our high taxes…
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Jim Ratcliffe: for tax purposes, resident in Monaco; for being-a-wanker purposes, still very much present in the UK. Petition to reform HMRC rules: shut up or pay up.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I’m pretty suspicious about anything that whiffs of ‘degree courses are failing’, because anyone who’s paying attention can see that its the fundimg model that’s failed… but interesting top 10 here: 9 vocational/professional degrees… AND earth/marine sciences! 🤷‍♀️ www.theguardian.com/education/20...
theguardian.com
Revealed: the university courses students regret – and those they don’t
We looked at graduates’ satisfaction levels after leaving university – and while most were happy, up to a third wish they’d picked a different subject
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
Also note this: hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2026... First day of ‘school’, these are the MPs that made time to talk about the future of public sector science facilities and laboratories … really shows you who’s been out listening to the scientists in their area!
hansard.parliament.uk
Science Facilities and Laboratories - Hansard - UK Parliament
Hansard record of the item : ' Science Facilities and Laboratories' on Tuesday 1 September 2026.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
This from my local metro mayor, Steve Rotheram, and his opposite number at Cheshire & Warrington, calling for a moratorium on the #UKRI > #STFC cuts, with reference to Daresbury Laboratory especially, really helps restore my faith in politicians! www.liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk/news/liverpo...
liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk
Liverpool City Region and Cheshire and Warrington leaders ask PM to pause budget cuts threatening Daresbury Laboratory
In a joint letter, the leaders ask government to work with them to fully understand the proposals’ impact before decisions are taken that could be difficu
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Good grief. What fathomless nonsense?!?
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
“…while you will be familiar with the process of moving a toothbrush up and down with your hand, Dyson explained that by “combining a camera, machine learning, precision fluid dynamics, advanced brushing technologies, connectivity and wifi” it offered an “entirely new way to keep your mouth healthy”
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
James Dyson… brexity grifter extraordinaire, still inventing new ways to make me despise him even more, and that’s REALLY saying something. #InternetOfShit www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
theguardian.com
Dyson launches £420 toothbrush that films ‘live cleaning footage’ inside your mouth
James Dyson says ‘complete dental system’ will also include toothpaste and mouth rinse that each cost £8.50
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Still gotta feel for all the kids and teachers getting that double-hit of gloom from the weather and ohmygodschoolagain
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Reposted by Jenny Andrew
Mr. Blabalino 🇳🇴🇺🇸💙 @blabalino.com · 30/08/2026
Just realized I haven't sent everyone a baby goat fix yet this week.
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Jenny Andrew @drandrewv2.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
Are we absolutely sure this is about cooking???
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