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Emma Bates

@emmabates.bsky.social
164 followers 124 following 464 posts

Fundraiser, cat owner. She/her.

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Reposted by Emma Bates
⤵️ @bryce.lol · 27/09/2026
If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber’d here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend; And, as I am an honest Puck, Show is over, off you fuck.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Obviously her political views are mad, but I'm intrigued by the economic background of lives in a council house + went to private school + family couldn't lend her more than £5k if she needed it + believes she's middle class.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I plan to read A Wizard of Earthsea to my daughter with Ged's gender flipped. I think Le Guin would have approved.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Also always missing from these things is the superb Vernor Vinge. Hopefully one day his books will get the reassessment that they deserve.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I feel like you can maybe get away with "the village that roars" if you're one of those Northern villages with a cool Viking-origin name, like Threlkeld. But... Piddington? Piddington?!
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
I've done similar as fundraiser training, to demonstrate why people care about case studies more than statistics. I drew a smiley face on a piece of paper and said, "this is Steve". Then I tore Steve in half. You don't even need the extra waffle about it being a gift.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I heard this story 20 years ago so I'm fuzzy on the details, but iirc this is how a schoolfriend's grandparents met. They were Parisian Jews and the only visas available to flee Nazi-occupied France were for married couples. As strangers to one another, they got married, and successfully escaped.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
She could presumably also just call if she needs help? Location tracking doesn't need to be on for that.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Parenting subreddits have an alarming amount of "should I let my 14 year old go on a sleepover?" and "my 16 year old wants to turn the parental tracking off on their phone, is it too soon?" A lot of kids being denied freedoms that our generation took for granted.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Yep, agreed. Season 2 is the weakest. Season 4 is strong so far.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
Unless it's Master & Commander or Dungeons & Dragons, both crying out for a sequel. Then we don't get sequels.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Antivax sentiment might be hard to overcome, but I bet there's a lot of low-hanging fruit with people who are busy and can't be bothered because they think it'll be fine.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
E.g. my GP does rotas 3 weeks in advance, so I have to book the vaccines at 8, 12 and 16 weeks separately. It seems like it shouldn't be *that* hard to change it so that the bookings can all be made at the same time, reducing the admin burden on busy parents.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
I'm doing the first vaccinations with my daughter at the moment and it seems to me that there are minor admin things that could be tweaked to increase take up.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Stranger Things is set in the 1980s in the same way as Bridgerton is set in the Regency.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Trying to decide between going to see this or Tony next week (can't manage both). I think this review has swayed me!
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
Feels like a missed business opportunity. Rebrand as A Bit of Sausage and make the most of the market.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
Also I'm not sure if the horny people who haven't had sex all year are going to have optimal condom technique.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 08/08/2026
And the enormous baby boom nine months after Sex Night! Got to be a nightmare for maternity wards.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
August and September have the lowest deaths as well.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
It was a nurse rather than a doctor, when I was getting the contraceptive pill: "I'm not sure that works, you know." Well, if it didn't, I think there would be some pretty clear signs.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
See also: a setting to change the default cycling speed away from "Tour de France" and towards "maybe stopping at traffic lights sometimes".
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Eurostar's booking system's idea of how long it takes to get between Gare du Nord and Gare de Lyon could be described as ambitious.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
There's a specific Chinese system for counting on your fingers, which is worth looking it up for ease of communication. Generally speaking not only are English speakers rare in Beijing, people also don't have much experience communicating across a language barrier.
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Reposted by Emma Bates
New-Cleckit Dominie @ncdominie.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
This is just to say I have OCRed the text thet was in tne arch:ve and whicb yov were prabaldy seamhing for "breahtast" Fargme ms fheg mem debo:w5 sb ?mccf mmb 5c oc1b
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
I had the same issue registering my newborn at the GP. Thankfully "not known" was an option on the drop-down.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
The opening of A Knight's Tale with We Will Rock You? I guess it's ambiguous whether it's diegetic.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Every time I hear the 1812 Overture, I think it sounds like the French won, because the bit with La Marseillaise just sounds so good.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
I get this from friends as well and it's exhausting. I think there's a bit more to the diagnostic criteria than 'likes trains and spreadsheets' and it's not great from any perspective to act like there isn't?
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
American comedies pause for laughs for slightly longer than British ones, and I find it intolerable.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Wordle today has a real 'running out of 5-letter words' vibe.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Do it as an anthology series with different writers and directors each episode, no story arcs, no knowing what you might get week to week.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
I haven't tried this but my cat before the current one used to love Lick-e-Lix frozen into a cat ice lolly. Doesn't help much with the water part though.
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Reposted by Emma Bates
Tom Phillips @tom-phillips.com · 21/05/2026
I don't think it's a good idea to legally privilege someone else's discomfort over another person's rights.
13.147 A legitimate aim for excluding a trans person from a separate or single-sex service for their own sex might be to prevent discomfort or distress for other service users.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
These chemicals are in spot-on treatments, but I think not in flea pills, so switching to the pills would presumably solve the problem? Unfortunate that the article doesn't make that clear though!
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
The most aggravating version of this is pet food. Good luck trying to explain to a cat why they're suddenly getting 85g rather than 100g of their dinner.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
I also dislike the way it means local parties are near-permanently in campaign mode, with elections most or every year.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
"Britain and Ireland" is generally fine until you get to the squiggly bits around the edges.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 29/04/2026
On Netflix it's constant. It's particularly weird when it's characters of roughly my age and background smoking like chimneys, when I don't know anyone who smokes in real life.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
Fascinating, and makes me wonder if there's a gap in the market now for *actual* social media where you interact with people you know.
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Reposted by Emma Bates
rom comrade @savasavasava.myatproto.social · 22/04/2026
it is devastating to notice how few benches there are in the world and how some benches have been replaced by weird "leaning" things. the world is incredibly cruel to disabled, elderly, poor, pregnant, tired, homeless, and all people. there should be benches fucking everywhere for everyone
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
I'm a bit disappointed that they were so equivocal even about the lowest-ranked play, but the bonkersness of the order (Titus Andronicus above Much Ado About Nothing??) really makes up for it.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Travelling while heavily pregnant, London > Brussels > Milan. Probably the opposite of what I would have expected.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Same, it even throws me out of things like Ludwig a bit. IIRC Cambridge averages about one murder annually in real life.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Yes, the crushing part always seemed a bit wasteful to me.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 13/04/2026
For what it's worth, the percentage of people who go to church weekly in the modern USA is very similar to the UK in the 1890s. But that doesn't tell you whether the mentality was the same, just the frequency.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
If I had to pick a human familial vibe, hers was much more 'dignified great-aunt' anyway.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
I found this particularly odd when I was 30 and had a cat that was 16. Apparently adopting her retroactively made me a teenage mother?
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
I think "provided the volume is reasonable" is doing some heavy lifting here. If it's quieter than conversational level then it blends into the background... but it never is.
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Emma Bates @emmabates.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Yes, but in practice it is also a battleship! Whereas I think it would be interesting to set a series on something more like the Hansens' Borg exploration vessel (ideally with a happier ending).
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