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Ed Yong is one of the best science reporters we have, and his COVID reporting for The Atlantic has been superb. He’s just published his final piece of 2020: Where Year Two of the Pandemic Will Take Us. It’s for a US audience but it’s relevant to many other countries too. How does a country… [more]
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This article made me laugh: Why is there a bucatini shortage in America? Being educated noodle consumers, we knew that there was, more generally, a pasta shortage due to the pandemic, but we were still able to find spaghetti and penne and orecchiette — shapes which, again, insult me even in concept. The missing bucatini felt… [more]
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As far as I’m aware, The New Yorker has only devoted its entire issue to a single story once before, for reporting on Hiroshima. And now it’s done it again for this incredible piece of journalism, The Plague Year. It’s very long, very detailed and very powerful. There are three moments in the yearlong catastrophe… [more]
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My band released a Christmas EP last year, and I think the closing track is even more appropriate this year. It’s called A Christmas Prayer. Didn’t kiss you this Christmas by HAVR The lyrics are: I hope you have a good one I hope your christmas is fun I hope you’re with your family and… [more]
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This is beautiful. Over 370 religious leaders from 35 countries have signed a declaration demanding a worldwide end to the dangerous practice of conversion therapy for LGBT+ people. The signatories include Archbishop Desmond Tutu; the Most Revd Linda Nicholls, Archbishop of Canada; the Most Revd Mark Strange, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church; the Most… [more]
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There’s a nice piece in Refinery29 by Robin Craig. It’s about chosen families, the networks of supportive people that can mean so much to LGBT+ people. A chosen family is, as the name suggests, a family that someone chooses for themselves. It blurs the lines between friends, siblings and parents. For trans people, relationships with… [more]
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According to Dame Melanie Dawes, the head of Ofcom, it is “extremely inappropriate” for the BBC to platform organisations such as the LGB Alliance to “balance” stories about trans people, trans healthcare or trans people’s human rights. The video’s here. It’s in response to a question by MP John Nicolson, a gay man who’s been… [more]
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Oh, to be fast-tracked and rushed into medical treatment. Here are the latest gender clinic waiting times for the UK: in the Exeter area the waiting list for an initial appointment is now five years. The maximum waiting time for these services is supposed to be 18 weeks. [more]
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The Good Law Project’s Jo Maugham notes that almost every supposed expert witness in the High Court puberty blockers case was dodgy. Most have overt links to anti-LGBT, anti-abortion Christian Right groups, notably the ADF and the Heritage Foundation. As Maugham writes: Even if you do not care to listen to the views of the trans… [more]
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My band released a Christmas EP last year, and I wanted to make Christmas releases a tradition for us. This year there’s just one song, a quiet acoustic thing about being unable to spend Christmas with the one(s) you love. It’s a very simple arrangement and production but I think that fits the vibe of… [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.
