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Simon Christmas

@simonxmas.bsky.social
83 followers 87 following 343 posts

Independent social researcher and writer. Www.simonchristmas.net. Some have enjoyed this: www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Annie-Simon…

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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Amen
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Hassinator @hassinator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
a great letter in the times today. perhaps worth sharing in these troubled times. #RNLI #heroes
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Robert Hutton @roberthutton.co.uk · 03/09/2026
Very much here for any moves to throw off the Norman yoke.
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Elle Cordova @ellecordova.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Rough Draft vs Final Draft
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Emmet Ó Briain @emmet.quiddity.ie · 26/08/2026
every time a new plan/policy/reform is launched, it should be obligatory to begin with an extremely detailed explanation of why all previous visions and plans for the exact same thing remain unimplemented
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FT @fucktheory.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Imagine being talented and beautiful and rich and famous and still the most noteworthy thing about you is how good a person you are.
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Susannah Walker @susannahwalker.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
It was set up with war surplus funds to give ordinary people access to the country. Bought loads of land and set up at least three youth hostels. Downgraded by the Tories and redirected to buying stately homes and their furniture. I am perpetually outraged by this
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Emma Monk @monkemma.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This is not misinformation. That's what I normally cover - something out of context, an opinion quoted as fact, or a deliberate misinterpretation... This is none of those. This is full-on disinformation. Because that is NOT from the Express. It is entirely fake😱 🧵 1/10
Lembit Opik tweet:

Burnham's big migration plan: take 4,000 stranded migrants from Ceuta, bring them to the UK and put them up in luxury hotels. Americans look at Europe in despair. 

Express Headline: Burnham's migrant, Campbell, 1,000 stranded in Ceuta to be brought to UK. The Prime Minister proposes flying thousands of stranded migrants from Spanish enclave to Britain and housing them in London hotels. 

Monk Debunked stamp on top of both
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
At last, an anti-science campaign we can all get behind.
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Brake, the road safety charity @brakecharity.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
Calling all teachers, schools, nurseries and youth groups! Sign up now to take part in Road Safety Week this November. We'll give you all the tools you need to get involved and teach children of all ages more about staying safe on our roads. 👉 www.brake.org.uk/road-safety-week
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 03/07/2026
I'd go further: if we native English speakers expect English to be the lingua franca (ha!) of most of the world, everyone who uses it gets to influence how it evolves. Phrases that aren't standard English, like "quite some" and "allows to", are then no longer really "wrong" at all.
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 27/06/2026
I’ll be happy to see a sponsorship scheme in place. I’m not happy to see a Home Secretary who just crowed about denying Afghans and others the chance to study here using one to cling to her position. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
bbc.co.uk
Mahmood announces new refugee sponsorship route into UK
The home secretary says "capped safe and legal" routes would help to restore confidence in the asylum system.
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Oliver (Olly) Zanetti @oliverzanetti.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
At Nesta, our innovation work is underpinned by research. As well as bringing innovation to our mission areas, we also bring it to our methods. We've been experimenting with AI in qual analysis. Our conclusion so far, occasionally useful but mainly very faillible. www.nesta.org.uk/blog/six-rea...
nesta.org.uk
Six reasons why human-led qualitative research is safe from AI… for now
While NotebookLM can support researchers with qualitative data analysis, the value of the tool lies in speed and exploratory sense-checking, not in producing rigorous findings from scratch
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Good illustration of the difference between taking offence and having a sense of humour. And how one is corporate and legalistic, while the other is just human. Or chimp.
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lastpositivist.bsky.social @lastpositivist.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
The good thing is the actual sway of public opinion in the UK is massively, *massively and overwhelmingly*, against the racist hooligans. They're a small minority here. The bad news is that various facts about our political system and media ecosystem may mean that fact doesn't matter.
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Lauren Dobson-Hughes @ldobsonhughes.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Immigrants do not have to contribute exceptionally to deserve safety Immigrants do not have to permanently grovel to their new country to justify their existence Immigrants are allowed to be just as mediocre, grumpy or homesick as anyone else
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Saul Staniforth @saulstaniforth.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
@clairehanna.bsky.social : "Last week, in a very high profile case, the murder of Natalie McNally, the judge.. talked about a frenzied knife attack, he talked about wounds so bad the cause of death was unable to to be determined. There were no riots over the perpetrator of that brutal crime"
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tara 🏳️‍⚧️ @tarabomp.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
Hastings museum had an LGBT history exhibit and there was a bit on a trans guy and a cis woman who married in 1954 that I found moving
UNCLE VIC & AUNTIE JOAN

Remi Graves

Victor Kenneth Jones and Joan Jones (née Lee) met in 1950 at a telephone exchange in Catford, where they both worked. Vic was 22 and Joan 17. They married on 25 September 1954 at St Luke's Church, Downham, with family, and friends in attendance. Joan's family supported their relationship and respected Vic's identity as a trans man. After a honeymoon in Hastings, the couple settled there.

In 1954, they were publicly outed and fined £25 each (around £900 today) for what authorities ruled an 'illegal marriage' because Vic was trans. They also became the subject of national newspaper coverage. Despite this, they lived together in Hastings until Vic's death in 1991. Joan remained in their home until 2023, when she passed away at 90.

The photos and objects on display were shared by Joel, Joan's nephew. After Vic's death, Joan gave him Vic's archive, asking him to do as he wished. Joel brought Vic's wedding ring to the Collective's 'Queer Lives. Queer Queer Objects' gathering in March 2025.

I was moved by the lasting love Vic and Joan shared and the quietly defiant way they built a life together on their own terms. ers a rare glimpse into the life a trans ma part Hastings in the mid-20th century.
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Robert Saunders @robertsaunders.bsky.social · 03/06/2026
A Tory peer has just told Today that "We need to get back to a form of policing that is more colour-blind". When was that, precisely? The idea that we *used* to live in a colour-blind society, until minorities got special privileges, goes against *everything* we know of the history of policing.
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Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social · 26/05/2026
Interesting that the idea of another EU referendum is regularly discussed on broascast media as something that would cause division and thus a bad idea. But plans to deport literally millions of people are discussed as administrative questions.
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Emily Herring @emilyherring.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Recently, for *obvious reasons*, I've been thinking about what it means when anxiety and sadness are caused not by individual predispositions, but by the state of the world itself. This led me to early 19th-c. France and the notion of "mal du siècle" (sickness of the century) aeon.co/essays/young...
Gen Z but two centuries ago
A generation of young people with ‘full hearts in an empty world’ sought hope in the face of insurmountable malaise
By Emily Herring

On a painting of young 19th-century men looking drunk and sad around a table with cigarettes and drinks
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Charlie Jones @charliepsych.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Makes obvs sense that oppression, power, & hierarchy can make it hard to speak up. But maybe less obvs is how silencing happens when everyone seems bound by being all polite & agreeable- almost like an oppressive 'niceness'.
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Alice Roberts @profaliceroberts.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
When Sam Freedman @samfr.bsky.social shared his article about why universities were in trouble and why they need investment, a Labour MP jumped in to say they weren’t a priority for her. She may be surprised at how many people are employed in universities and how important they are to the economy.
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 14/05/2026
Who exactly do they think would switch their vote to Labour if only Wes Streeting were PM? Wes Streeting. I have never understood politics less.
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Tony Yates @t0nyyates.bsky.social · 11/05/2026
A good speech today by Starmer would have started by either sacking Mahmood or saying something that triggered her resignation.
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
claremontcomms.com/2026/03/is-i...
claremontcomms.com
Is It Safe? Why Different Perspectives on Risk Matter for a Safer System - Claremont
Collaborator and friend of Claremont Dr Simon Christmas asks whether we need to think more broadly when we’re evaluating what we really mean by “safe”… Is it safe? Is it risky? Ask yourself those ques...
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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
A persistent feature of Home Office messaging under Keir Starmer + Shabana Mahmood - to strongly prefer to reinforce public hunches over the principle of asylum itself. Eg: students who UK finds have valid asylum claim can't be "genuinely fleeing persecution" [not what the UK has signed up to]
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Daniel Sugarman @danielsugarman.bsky.social · 23/03/2026
I grew up in this community and I have a few thoughts I want to share. A short thread. www.jewishnews.co.uk/breaking-hat...
jewishnews.co.uk
Hatzola ambulances set alight in Golders Green arson attack
CCTV footage circulating on social media shows three men approaching the vehicles and then fleeing the scene as flames appear
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Peter Tennant @pwgtennant.bsky.social · 15/03/2026
"My name may be forgotten when it comes, but the time will arrive when great outbreaks of cholera will be things of the past. And it is the knowledge of the way in which the disease is propagated which will cause them to disappear" Happy birthday to John Snow! His name & his work is not forgotten.
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Tom Wilson @feedthedrummer.bsky.social · 11/03/2026
My humble submission to the new Bank of England with concepts for the new bank notes to please both sides.
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
We’ve reached the point in history where Telegraph and Mail headlines are praying in aid Tony Blair’s views on American wars. Where’s Graham Chapman’s army officer when you need him? m.youtube.com/watch?v=3ANu...
m.youtube.com
Monty Python - silly
YouTube video by McNickler
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tomate 🍅 @jascha.ohai.social.ap.brid.gy · 03/03/2026
When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
Husband is on jury service. Bloody immigrants, coming over here and trying our criminals.
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Amen
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Jacob Aron @jjaron.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
I have written a piece articulating what I believe is a reasonably new position on AI, or at least one extremely underrepresented in the discourse, and I hope people will read it. The full piece is behind the New Scientist paywall, but I will share some snippets www.newscientist.com/article/2516...
newscientist.com
Why I have changed my mind about AI and you should too
Both boosters and sceptics have strongly held opinions on AI tools like ChatGPT, but after an experiment in vibe coding, I have realised that both camps are wrong, says Jacob Aron
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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Should biology put complexity first? www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... - excellent essay by @philipcball.bsky.social. I would add epistasis to polygenicity and pleiotropy as a ubiquitous and fundamental phenomenon, not some optional complication that we can try to account for afterwards
sciencedirect.com
Should biology put complexity first?
The dictum “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler” poses a problem for biology. How simply can it be told without doing dama…
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 23/02/2026
To be clear, Bart is relating points of view, not necessarily his own. But goodness, the fact that some in academia think this. It's a prima facie case for compulsory humanities courses, to learn what writing is for and how it works. (And thinking, for that matter.)
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Kevin Mitchell @wiringthebrain.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
I'm SO tired of people looking for "the neuroscience of X" (meaning uninformative neuroimaging pictures) when *the psychology of X* is right there, doing a perfectly good job...
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👻madeline bOoOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 16/02/2026
The drunk uncle theory. You don’t argue with the casually homophobic uncle at Thanksgiving dinner to change his mind; you argue so that the closeted cousin at the kids table knows there’s safe people and better possibilities out there
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farketmemiz.bsky.social @farketmemiz.bsky.social · 16/02/2026
it's like we inherited our 'self' from 'ourselves'. i mean that's the 'healthy' intuition connected with feeling like a 'self'. it can be an open question. but it *is* a question. or, as you say in the book, a mystery. and it touches everything that has to do with pedagogy.
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
Just added this to my WordPress site, so it's free to read. homunculusmusic.wordpress.com/2026/02/14/e...
homunculusmusic.wordpress.com
Epstein’s ugly world of science
As with Peter Mandelson, so in the science world: the Epstein files are not telling us anything that most ordinary punters didn’t already know, but are revealing the full, rotten, appalling extent …
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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 12/02/2026
Writing a book worth reading *should* take time. It should take effort. The crafting of it and the thinking in it go hand in hand. And the rewards, for both the author and the readers, come from that effort. That the AI bros don't understand this is disturbing and revealing.
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 11/02/2026
V happy with with this on @bookshelfie.bsky.social: book-shelfie.com/review/livin...
book-shelfie.com
Living with Annie, by Simon Christmas | Book Review - Bookshelfie
Living With Annie is brilliant, unsettling science fiction that blends medical thriller, sci-fi and love story into something genuinely original. If Black Mirror did a book club with Kazuo Ishiguro an...
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Mathew Lyons @mathewlyons.bsky.social · 10/02/2026
Heaven forbid anyone should be surprised, delighted, or otherwise impassioned, by something unexpected. So much mainstream book publishing works on this model too. How many books are positioned as 'for fans of [author X]' or 'if you liked [author X], you'll like this'?
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Jonathan Birch @birchlse.bsky.social · 26/01/2026
No system beats First Past the Post for creating scenarios in which people inadvertently help their opponents. It's ideal if you want to strongly disincentivise talented, morally motivated people from going into politics (something Britain has successfully done for centuries).
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Simon Christmas @simonxmas.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
@bexbookaholic.bsky.social Are you aware of this corner of Bloomsbury?
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Susannah Walker @susannahwalker.bsky.social · 06/01/2026
As promised, one aspect of what I do every day this week. I also work on 'gender mainstreaming' which is basically creating better places which are more gender equal. The great thing about this is that great examples of good practice already exist in Europe so I get to be positive.
A pedestrian underpass in Umeå in Sweden, reconfigured to be safer and more welcoming for women and girls - with an artwork which lights up at night and extra entrances so they don't feel trapped
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Darren Dahly @statsepi.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
‪It has a name now 😜 Many thanks to Ken for agreeing to put his good name to my...artwork. The image is in the public domain (CC 0), but citations to the linked documents are warmly welcomed. ✅ zenodo.org/records/1808... ✅ pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24452418/
Figure 1: The Rothman-Dahly Evidence Pyramid (original version)

An equilateral triangle with a small blue section labelled "Thoughtful, well-conducted studies of any design" at the top, with the remaining space colored red and labelled "The other shit"
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Toby Buckle @polphilpod.bsky.social · 18/12/2025
those who predicted authoritarianism were both dismissed, & deeply misunderstood, by the media my latest for @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/2042...
newrepublic.com
The Americans Who Saw All This Coming—but Were Ignored and Maligned
Call them the Cassandras: the people—mostly not white and male—who smelled the fascism all over Trump from jump street. Why were they “alarmists,” and how did “anti-alarmism” become cool?
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