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Do you know what stochastic terrorism is? It’s a fairly obscure term, and it describes making the bullets for other people to fire. Stochastic terrorism is when you demonise a particular group of people and violence ensues. You aren’t directly responsible for the violence, because you’re not the one actually perpetrating it. But you made… [more]
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Buckey Wolfe is a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory. He’s a supporter of the far-right Proud Boys, and he’s been charged with the murder of his brother. Buckey Wolfe called 911 on Sunday evening and admitted killing his brother, saying that “God told me he was a lizard†and telling the dispatcher, “Kill me, kill… [more]
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The Sunday Times isn’t the only supposedly respectable newspaper to mislead its readers in order to parrot the homophobic and transphobic views of its owner, Rupert Murdoch. The Wall Street Journal does it too. The WSJ appears to have started the new year the way it means to continue, with an op-ed warning readers about… [more]
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Former first minister Alex Salmond has won his legal case against the Scottish Government over its investigation of sexual harassment allegations against him. The government admits it didn’t follow the correct procedures and as a result, its investigation is invalid. The verdict has nothing whatsoever do to with the truth of whether Salmond actually harassed… [more]
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Another day, another admission by The Sunday Times that an anti-trans article by Andrew Gilligan was made up. This time it was the one about women’s toilets in the City of London, in which Gilligan completely misrepresented the Equality Act to scaremonger about nothing. As I wrote at the time: I regret to inform readers… [more]
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The editors of N+1 Magazine describe “The New Reading Environment”, where writers and readers are often sworn enemies. Readers lose patience, and the careful quoting, like snipping coupons with precision, becomes tearing — into lines, phrases, and points. The space grows for misinterpretation, co-optation, and misunderstanding. All it takes is one podcast host with a grudge and a… [more]
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Amanda Mull has found the secret to perfect skin: be rich. That’s not to say you shouldn’t moisturise, keep hydrated or stay out of the sun. But the celebrity beauty secrets magazines are so keen to share tend not to include the best-kept secret of all: You can drink as much water and wear as… [more]
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There’s been a bit of controversy over a new film, Girl, which is about a trans woman. It’s interesting to see how that’s been reported: almost without exception, the trans movie reviewers and reporters who’ve made legitimate criticisms of the film (such as a shocking scene of self-harm they worry might be imitated) have been… [more]
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There’s an interesting piece by Alex Hern, the Guardian’s tech correspondent, about online fakery. He thought it would ruin the world, but considerably less sophisticated bullshit got there first. On social media, the public is for the first time exposed to the raw firehose of news, with no ability or desire to perform the work… [more]
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I’ve posted before that we’re lucky to be alive right now: for most of us the world is a better place than it’s ever been. But it also feels very divided, and some of the world’s worst people are deliberately fuelling those divisions. Sometimes it’s malicious – it’s a lot easier to push through a… [more]
Read me in books
My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.
My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.
I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.
