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shelaghstephenson

@shelaghs.bsky.social
477 followers 442 following 446 posts

playwright, screen writer, living between London and Southern France. 'The mistress of comic anguish' according to Michael Billington. Also likes cooking, and Bedlington Terriers.

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Reposted by shelaghstephenson
Emma Monk @monkemma.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
OK, there is something very, very weird going on in the press right now. It certainly appears, from the outside, as if certain people are being very much protected in a way that was not afforded to certain other people! Let's start with the facts around Lola Salem... 🧵1/
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 14/10/2026
Thank you for this thread. It's clear, thoughtful - and true.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Why does he do this with his jackets? To prove he doesn't have a gun? To show us his crotch? Whatever. I thought he was leaving if Brexit was a disaster?
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 13/10/2026
Where? I'm on jury Service at The Old Bailey then....
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Just said more or less the same thing. How will future Historians make sense of it? Presuming there is a future. With actual Historians in it.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I'd forgotten about this. Proof that he's always been blessed with exceptional taste. And camp as fuck. Like something Liberace might wear in his down time.
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Reposted by shelaghstephenson
Eugene Finkel @efinkel.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
Once we are done with the ICC, we will be livestreaming the execution of Ukraine and paying Russia so that gas prices go down. It's crucial to buy from Russia so it could give more to Iran to target US troops when we restart the war, for which we need the gas prices go down. Stable genius.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
Quite a few bored (paid?) adolescents in the audience.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
That looks like REBECCA Hall. Or is there another one called Rachel?
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 09/10/2026
God, he's so mad.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I'm not sure it's about puzzles or drama - although it has some of the latter. ( And all good drama contains some puzzlement) It's really about human psychology, and how we all - even the most sophisticated - succumb to group think. Or we risk being ostracised. Like John, I'm gripped.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
Not everything that can be counted counts. Not everything that counts can be counted.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
I'd never heard of this person. And now I'm depressed that I have.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 08/10/2026
It refused chilblain the other day. Outraged.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
Nick Timothy is 46.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I've heard Mulhouse is rather lovely. Is it?
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Loved the guy who said 'D'you know what indigenous means?' She looked a bit flummoxed, as it dawned her that she didn't.
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Reposted by shelaghstephenson
Allison Gill @muellershewrote.com · 01/10/2026
“If your concern for women disappears the moment accountability becomes socially inconvenient, then protection was never the principle to begin with. Performance was.”
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I think they belong to someone else.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Hard agree. i just rejoined the Labour Party, having left in despair at Starmer's inadequacy. Now I feel some real hope stirring for the first time in years.
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Reposted by shelaghstephenson
JacquiWine @jacquiwine.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
I’m currently listening to THE GREAT DICTATOR, @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social’s fascinating biography of Barbara Cartland, and it’s an unmitigated delight! A beautifully crafted, hugely enjoyable story, expertly narrated by Matthew himself, it’s one golden nugget after another. Highly recommended! 💙📚
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Just finished it: god, she was a monstrous mass of contradictions. At one point I thought, oh, ok, she's a sociopath. Next minute she's defending and supporting gypsies. A truly excellent and often hilarious book.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I haven't listened to it yet, but the reaction has been extraordinary. I mean obvs, Badenoch et al claiming 'he wants to drag us back to the 70's' is par for the course. I was alive then, I'm not sure she was. It was a messier, grubbier, more chaotic - but actually sweeter time
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
So glad someone's mentioned The Innocents. At last!
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
I'm a huge fan of The Morning Show.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
My new cocktail - well, more or less the only one, any time of year, is an Aviation. Try it. You won't regret it, I promise. Unless you dislike gin.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
what's going on with his hair?
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Reposted by shelaghstephenson
The Onion @theonion.com · 24/09/2026
Dog Can’t Believe Guy She Hooked Up With 10 Years Ago Now Head Of FBI theonion.com/dog-cant-believe-guy-s…
Dog Can’t Believe Guy She Hooked Up With 10 Years Ago Now Head Of FBI
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
With a hint of Fred West...
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
My MP, Andy Slaughter, Hammersmith & Chiswick, says ' I will do my best to attend.' One lives in hope.
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Reposted by shelaghstephenson
Liz Oyer @lawyeroyer.com · 23/09/2026
Extremely disturbing news about the lawyer defending Donald Trump’s media ban. Watch this sitting down, and please help spread the word. youtube.com/shorts/veF5d...
youtube.com
Trump’s media ban gets even more disturbing
YouTube video by Lawyer Oyer
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Ferdinand Mount is a tremendously interesting and thoughtful writer. Always has been. High Tory or not.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
The contortions she's had to go through to reach this pitiful conclusion. She's like a surrendered wife, married to the Reform Party.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Someone needs to gently lead him away to a care home. Gold wallpaper, endless hamburgers but no cell phones. He could wear a paper crown, and Liz Truss could be his carer. She'd tell him he was still King of the World. He'd die - painfully- shortly after making his golf caddy Ambassador to France.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Christ, he looks deranged. That's without the sound on.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Just don't call her a caniche. She gets upset.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
We got a chargemap card. Seems to work everywhere. But most places take credit cards now - they didn't 2 years ago. One of the maddest things in rural France: tiny villages with slow chargers. 8 hours to charge. Useless unless you actually live in said vllage ( ours has 2)
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
here she is x
Olive, a Bedlington Terrier on a steam train, in the foothills of the CevennesOlive half snoozing, possibly writing a poem
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
SNCF. Said ferret was on a leash. The woman next to him screamed when he got it out of its basket. By the time she got off she was in love.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It IS to do with that, but it would be easy enough to install - and we'd pay for it, as would most pet owners. (Eurostar always say it's about hygiene, but it isn't really. ) So it takes us 2 days to get to Avignon in an electric car. With Olive.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Oh, and once, the man opposite us had a ferret with him. Luckily we didn't have Olive the Bedlington Terrier with us or there'd have been carnage.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
We take our dog on the train all the time in France. We can't take her on Eurostar though. Which means a long, long drive. Eurostar say it's for 'hygiene reasons ' Theoretically we could take her from Inverness to Dover on a train, followed by Calais to Marseille. It's that pesky channel.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Great news indeed. Finished it over the weekend - just tremendous. I was JUST about to suggest it to a production company. Pipped at the post . Again!
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Reposted by shelaghstephenson
Bremain in Spain @bremaininspain.com · 18/09/2026
Britain's future relationship with Europe is being debated in Parliament on 12th October. I've just asked my MP to attend. Will you ask yours? www.europeanmovement.co.uk/contact-mp-a...
europeanmovement.co.uk
Ask your MP to stand up for our future in Europe
On 12 October, Parliament will debate the UK's future relationship with Europe, after a government petition got over 100,000 signatures. Will you write to your MP to ask them to attend the debate?
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
i now realise he's a sociopath. Up till now i just thought he was an amoral grifter - which obviously he still is.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Holy God.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Cogent, clear, truthful, as always. Thank you. The intractability of the problem is profoundly depressing and nothing can change while Nentanyahu is in power.Old white men still fucking the world up.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
No idea what he's saying, as I'm watching with sound off, for the sake of my mental health. And he looks like a hostage taker, who's not a natural in front of cameras, making crackpot demands. And getting really pissed off with lack response from negotiators. Am I close?
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
What degrees would you have liked them to get? I mean I have no time for them, but you seem a little sneery of the degrees themselves. Mine's in Drama. I'm a playwright. Worked out well. But even if it hadn't, it's a beautiful thing to study. As is Art History.
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shelaghstephenson @shelaghs.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
God, of course! Sadly it was a great example of how adaptations can go awry. Even though I wrote it myself. Script tinkered with to death. They changed the title -worried about it being obscure. But on on release, the DVD proclaimed 'AKA The Memory of Water.'We had fun though. (And learnt a lot!)
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