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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 1h

Is this a polite way for Archer’s poor beleaguered editor to say his work was effectively dead man writing?

Jeffrey Archer, the bestselling author and former MP whose political career ended in disgrace when he was imprisoned for perjury, died yesterday at the age of 86.
Archer, who was a Conservative MP for five years before serving as the party's deputy chairman, died "suddenly and peacefully" at his home *highlight*"between writing sessions", *highlight* his publisher HarperCollins said.

JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 04/10/2026

Thank you for this. I’m at my wits end. The only party that even approaches my views is also separatist. (Really, Mme Ghazal, I just need to have the joys of separation explained to me? Because I’m too stupid to get it?) As for PSPP and his bigoted buddies… Bon gars up your ass, sonny.

Beaupré.

« C’est davantage dans la Montréalité qu’on a fait des efforts de m’en parler, de m’en reparler d’une façon récurrente », a-t-il dit au sujet de ses propos passés.

Dès le premier jour de la campagne, en août, La Presse a révélé que François Gariépy avait utilisé le terme « squaws » pour qualifier les femmes autochtones en 2022. Des propos qu’il a lui-même admis être « problématiques ». Paul St-Pierre Plamondon l’a ensuite défendu, le qualifiant de « bon gars ».

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 03/10/2026

Luckily the Canadian newspaper headlines are focusing on the *real* hero of the FlyDubai plane emergency: ‘A Canadian television programme is mentioned by a passenger on board the FlyDubai flight’.

Une émission canadienne mentionée par un passager à bord d’un vol FlyDubai.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 02/10/2026

Montreal folk! Martha Wainwright is appearing on Tuesday at Pollack Hall for an evening of talk and song, on life, death and everything in between. Tix at mcgillmusic.tuxedobillet.com/main/kappy-2...

Martha Wainwright @ Pollack Hall
Tue, Oct 6 @ 6:00PM Pollack Hall, Montréal, QC
The Kappy Lectures 2026 : An Evening with Martha Wainwright

The McGill Council on Palliative Care is proud to present The Kappy Lectures 2026: An Evening with Martha Wainwright, in collaboration with the 50th Montreal International Palliative Care Congress and the Schulich School of Music, McGill University.

On October 6 at 6 PM, Pollack Concert Hall at the Schulich School of Music will host an unforgettable evening of conversation and song with acclaimed Canadian singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright. In an intimate and moving exchange, Wainwright will reflect on a life shaped by one of music's most celebrated families.

*********************************************

Les Conférences Kappy 2026 : Une soirée avec Martha Wainwright

Le Conseil des soins palliatifs de McGill est fier de présenter Les Conférences Kappy 2026 : Une soirée avec Martha Wainwright, en collaboration avec le 50e Congrès international de soins palliatifs de Montréal et l’École de musique Schulich de l’Université McGill.

Le 6 octobre prochain, dès 18 h, la Salle de concert Pollack de l’École de musique Schulich accueillera une soirée inoubliable de conversation et de prestations musicales en compagnie de la célèbre autrice-compositrice-interprète Martha Wainwright. Au cours de cet échange intime et émouvant, l’artiste reviendra sur son parcours au sein de l’une des familles musicales les plus célèbres.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 02/10/2026

OK, that headline did not go where I expected.

Man Charged with Impersonating a Probation Officer to Sell Watches is Detained in SDNY 2nd Time.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 01/10/2026

I know nothing about football, or Manchester City's malfeasance, but I do know that if your company is called 'Sparkleglow', you are A) an 8yo girl playing with Barbies; or B) the coach of the Italian national team. How to say you're not a serious person w/out saying you're not a serious person.

Leaked documents identify him as City’s manager, Roberto Mancini, with payments routed to his company, [highlighted] Sparkleglow [highlighted] Holdings Ltd. We believe the evidence points to £12m in unpaid UK tax. The consequences could include a much larger tax bill and a criminal investigation.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 29/09/2026

Your reading is undoubtedly correct, but I always read it as 'They're just too stupid to know that their clothes don't fit.'

Pete Hegseth, looking particularly stupid in a jacket that is two sizes too small for him.

Corrupt Russian thug and Donald Trump Jr funder standing with ICC wanted war criminal Vladimir Putin while looking particularly stupid in a suit that is two sizes too small.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 25/09/2026

Fascist white supremacists murdered Jason Arday with the help of the British press less than a month ago. The result? French fascist white supremacists, with the same media collaboration, are now attempting to murder another Black man who has dared be successful in a white world.

A screenshot of eight headlines from French media outlets all repeating the same anonymous and absurd claims of AI.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 22/09/2026

What’ll they think of n— Or even half a century ago.

Library catalogue entry for Julian Jaynes’ The Origin of Consciousness and the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, with its publication date, 1978, highlighted.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 21/09/2026

I love Iggy Pop wearing a dress. Anything, really to get him to cover up.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 18/09/2026

How Not to Hyphenate (For non-history buffs, the name is von Renthe-Fink.)

extraordinary contrast with his position four years earlier.
In these last months of the Vichy regime, under the vigilant scrutiny of Ren-the-Fink, Pétain was lonely and isolated. He had lost almost all the advisers who surrounded him in 1940. Some had been removed because the Germans mis-

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 18/09/2026

So @katz.theracket.news ‘s (very good) newsletter has a typo — or has he just coined a neologism of genius? theracket.news/p/our-nazis-...

The Republican candidate for U.S.
Senate, current Rep. Mike Collins, has at least four antisemites and white-supremacist *highlight* extermists *end highlight* in his orbit, including a neo-Nazi intluencer as a son-in-law. Florida Republicans are set

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 18/09/2026

Except that for every Clint Eastwood there are a thousand...

Photo of George Bush with a plastic rain cape pulled over his head looking about as dumb as he ever did. There is a man behind him smirking, understandably.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 18/09/2026

The story of Donald Trump's grandfather, the pimp. I guess there's a reason he wished Ghislaine Maxwell, also a pimp, well: family feeling. From nunatsiaq.com/wp-content/u...

Canadians are well aware that America’s boorish and vulgar president is wealthy. Donald Trump received a head start in life with money from his father, a real estate developer in New York who bent the rules and skirted legalities while amassing the wealth that he left to his children. Fred Trump set up trust accounts for his five children, of which Donald Trump was the fourth. By the age of three, he was earning the equivalent of US$200,000 per year in today’s dollars, or about C$276,000. At the time he graduated from college, he was receiving about US$1 million annually (C$1.38 million). By some estimates, he received over US$400 million (C$553 million) from his father. Most of this is well known. Less well known are the northern Canadian roots to the family’s fortune. In Kallstadt, Germany, in 1885, Donald Trump’s
grandfather, Friederich Trump, was 16 years old and didn’t like the thought of working in the family vineyard or as a barber, a job for which he was being trained. So he left a note for his widowed mother and left home one night. He wanted to be rich and headed for Manhattan, eventually becoming an American citizen. He moved on to Seattle, where he changed his first name to the more American-sounding
Frederick and where he thought the easiest money would be made in the red-light district, known as the Lava Beds. He leased a restaurant, the Poodle Dog, and renamed it the Dairy Restaurant. It had a dining area and a bar, and it advertised “private rooms for ladies.” This was thinly-disguised code for the availability of prostitutes. In 1894, he was attracted to an area north of the city named Monte Cristo. He filed a bogus mining claim there and built a cheap hotel that offered food,
drink and women. Three years later, in 1897, he saw newspaper headlines claiming that gold had been discovered in the far North.
He sold his eatery and headed there. The following year, in Bennett, B.C., just south of the Yukon border, he opened a business called the
Arctic Re…

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 16/09/2026

Pretty much what happened to the population in Quebec, Montreal especially, post 1976, with even the threat of a referendum, where Montreal went through a decades-long economic slump (exacerbated, admittedly, by being virtually bankrupted by the Olympics). Population change:

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 15/09/2026

Totally appropriate that Trumpzzz has altered Nessun Dorma (Let No One Sleep) to just Dorma.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 14/09/2026

53 years almost to the day of the torture and murder of Victor Jara.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 09/09/2026

Oh, & that he was VERY hot stuff. I edited Jan Morris' book about him & had this photo blown up to poster size, which she kept on the back of her cupboard door.

Photo of Admiral Jackie Fisher, looking as if he knows how good-looking he is.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 03/09/2026

Hi, Alex at @1password.bsky.social. For the first time in my life, I really hope you're a chatbot, because if you're a human being forced to defend your company's embrace of fascism and racism as part of your continued employment, I am deeply sorry, and embarrassed for you.

Hi Judith,

I'm Alex from 1Password Support. Thank you for reaching out and sharing your concerns about our decision to become a corporate patron of the Omacom Foundation. We value the relationship we have with you, and we want to respond thoughtfully and openly about the purpose of this commitment and how we're approaching it at 1Password.

At 1Password, we support developer and open-source communities because they're an important part of the ecosystem our customers rely on. We have a long history of supporting open source projects, including the Linux, Rails, and Rust Foundations. We chose to support Omarchy because it is a growing Linux environment that developers use and value, and because 1Password already had a meaningful presence in that community.

Contributing to the Omacom Foundation is intended to support hosting infrastructure and provides stable, long-term funding for the upstream open-source projects and maintainers on which Omarchy depends.

We recognize that Omarchy is closely associated with its founder, and that raises questions about what our support means. Our contribution is made to the Omacom Foundation, not to an individual, and is not an endorsement of any individual's personal or political views. 1Password does not endorse hateful, dehumanizing, or exclusionary views.

The patronage is also separate from product decisions. It includes no requirements or guarantees related to product placement, exclusivity, endorsement, or roadmap influence.

We understand that this explanation may not change how you feel about our decision. We take all feedback seriously and share it with the appropriate teams. Our commitment to the security and privacy of our customers remains unchanged.

Best,

Alex
Sr. Service Representative - 1Password Support

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 02/09/2026

Headline: ‘The Conservative Party is Not a Boys’ Club’ says its leader. Eyes track to the right and…

Headline as in the text, with a photo of the non-boys’-club, consisting of 8 men and—and that’s it! Just men. Adorbs.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 31/08/2026

Donald Trump is 4 million years old, part 858: ‘Calling’ the Space Station with a phone that was last seen in 1973.

A photo of Trump holding a phone receiver last used when the BeeGees were breaking through.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 29/08/2026

I asked somebody to bring me something from my desk. Why are they now treating me so cautiousl-- Oh.

Handwritten notes, forming a list that says
Arsenic
Corrosive
Phosphorus
Opium
Strychnine
Prussic Acid

with figures beside them

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 28/08/2026

The final two pages of Boualem Sansal's La Légende, on his arrest and imprisonment in Algeria, seems appropriate:

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 27/08/2026

Lore ipsum. The words every publisher knows are Latin for ‘we screwed up’. This morning’s paper:

News article headline: Lore ipsum /Vitrine - disque

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Phasellus lacus quam, pulvinar et fermentum a, luctus a purus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Curabitur non ex sodales, consequat diam sit amet, aliquet augue. Ut at nisl id erat finibus congue. Sed at odio imperdiet, finibus dui quis, auctor erat. Sed at consequat dolor. Sed viverra malesuada risus, sit amet venenatis leo lobortis sed. Nunc pretium rutrum dui eget laoreet. Nam iaculis suscipit odio, ut rhoncus tellus. Pellentesque id metus rutrum, placerat lectus eu, ultrices tellus. Nullam tincidunt, nulla vitae semper varius, odio metus accumsan justo, non consectetur erat massa sed tortor.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 26/08/2026

I reviewed Spamalot in the UK with Tim Curry as King Arthur. I wrote that he was the single most charismatic performer I had ever seen onstage. The editor tried to delete 'I had ever seen', thinking I meant that night. Me: No. He is the most charismatic performer I have ever seen. Bar none.

Tim Curry taking a curtain call in Spamalot, dressed as King Arthur, arm in arm with Eric Idle. Unfortunately that dipwad John Cleese is in the background. Into every life a little rain must fall.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 23/08/2026

Is his—is his hair painted on? Or is he just wearing a Hitler moustache on his head?

A man I have never heard of who appears to have painted a Hitler moustache on his bald head. Whatever.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 23/08/2026

Three generations of great women artists: Pitseolak Ashoona, Napachie Pootagook and Annie Pootagook:

Print by Pitseolak Ashoona, a stylized black and white waterway seen from above, with a green canoe and wildlife.

Print by Napachie Pootagook, a woman smiling at a small child in her coat as she carries two buckets

Drawing by Annie Pootagook, a self-portrait with a shock of standing-on-end grey hair.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 22/08/2026

Perhaps your subconscious is secretly hoping you'll be woken one morning to be told you've become queen of Great Britain?

A ridiculously romanticized painting of the story that the young Princess Victoria was awakened one morning to be told, in her nightdress, that she had become queen on the death of her uncle.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 22/08/2026

Please call if you’ve seen this cat!

A piece of paper taped to a pole saying’Lost Cat’ in a child’s handwriting, with a picture of the cat: a drawing that is a circle for the head, triangle ears and dots for nose and eyes. Then a reward offered: $1000000000000.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 22/08/2026

Even in a perfectly good statement, presenting a completely valid action, the hubris Mark Carney wears like a second skin can’t stay hidden.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 21/08/2026

Getting ready to go into court to testify as an expert witness looking like you're standing in a wind tunnel.

The toxicologist Alfred Swaine Taylor, who testified in many of the most highly publicized poisoning cases of the 19th c. He also admitted after a couple of decades that -- whoops! -- the reagent he was using to detect arsenic was itself contaminated with arsenic. It could happen to anyone. Really.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 20/08/2026

It’s so obvious once you see it.

Photo of Trump aide Natalie Harp smiling terrifyingly as she sits behind an out of focus doddery old Trump

Angela Lansbury in The Manchurian Candidate, smiling terrifyingly as she looks at her control.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 20/08/2026

Doonesbury as always waaay ahead of us.

Doonesbury book cover: the title is Give Those Nymphs Some Hooters, and a cartoon Trump is depicted as Adam in the Sistine ceiling.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 19/08/2026

Not a citation, but possibly my proudest moment as a historian:

A footnote that reads: It has been suggested that I am more interested in S-bends than I am in sex. For the purposes of social history, this is so, and I do not plan to discuss sex at all. There is a great deal to say on the little we know about the Victorians' attitudes to sex, but I am not the person to do it. For S-bends, however, see p. 293.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 19/08/2026

Today's TL cleanse. Did you know that the @rijksmuseum.bsky.social has put its collection online, free to download? Cheer yourself up!

Still Life with Flowers in a Glass Vase, Jan Davidsz. de Heem

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 18/08/2026

One can see why asking white people to be held responsible for their actions is terrifying to @nytimes.com.

Headline from the New York Times: Opinion | After a Scholar’s Awful Death, Mistaken Calls for Censorship

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 17/08/2026

Oh damn, the Guardian used the wrong headline: this one was supposed to read ‘Family of Slum Landlords May Finally be Forced to Clean Up their Business’

Photos of horrifyingly mildewed interiors in properties belonging to the Royal Parasites.

Evasive Guardian headline:
King Charles and Prince William face £10m energy efficiency bill for their royal estates

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 16/08/2026

TL cleanse! A small local supermarket chain (4 stores, maybe?) is holding a free barbecue outside one branch at lunchtime. What’s the occasion, I asked the staff setting up. They looked at me as if I were a bit dim: ‘So we can give back to the community.’ Just a little dust in my eye.

Stall with barbecue being set up outside a small supermarket for a community gathering.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 16/08/2026

Any WWII people out there? The Guardian printed this pic of Berlin in 1937, & I’m intrigued by the ?buses, ?charabancs parked on the left, 1 with writing on it, & with open tops. Any idea what they are? Tour buses?

A photo of a street in Berlin. People are walking along the pavement and crossing the street. Cars are parked diagonally on the left, with three buses parked at the end of the row. Swastika banners hang from poles.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 12/08/2026

🚨 Public Service Announcement 🚨 There is a Musée d'art moderne André Malraux in Le Havre, and it is known as *drumroll* MuMa.

Caption to a painting by Eugène Boudin, Lady in White on the Beach at Trouville (1869), credited to the Musée d'art moderne André Malraux (MuMa), Le Havre.

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 11/08/2026

This for of citation has been named 'the Chortlemuffin' by @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social :

Post from Sonja Drimmer: 'The citation chain usually works like this:
--supposition stated as fact
--supposition with reference to reputable book from c.1930s
--reputable book from c.1930s with reference to Sir Edward Chortlemuffin, 1782
--Sir Edward Chortlemuffin, 'here's an idea I'll fart out,' 1782'

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JudithFlanders @judithflanders.co.uk · 10/08/2026

*taps the Jackie Fleming cartoon*

A cartoon by Jackie Fleming. A frazzled woman is sitting in front of a 1980s-looking computer and printer, pointing at the printer. The lettering says: What do you mean printer could not be found? It’s THERE you idiot machine. THERE.

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