I have to check this- am I right that Rishi's wife took taxpayer's money- from nurses, from teachers, from cleaners, from delivery drivers- during the pandemic to furlough staff for a company that doesn't pay tax in the UK whilst she was a non-dom non UK tax payer?
It is completely amazing to me that I was a child. Then I grew up, went away to college, lived in different countries, had children, wrote 40 books, came back to Scotland, watched my children grow into teenagers, turned 50 and CHARLIE IS STILL A NURSE ON CASUALTY
You'd think, given that there's sixty million people in the country, if there WAS a good way to do Brexit, statistically someone would have come up with it by now- even by accident, like in a dream or something.
My mum died the same time as David Bowie and it was a bit crap having everything going on really loudly all around me, so if you're going through it personally right now, love and sympathy to you xxxxxxx
#OnThisDay
in Labour history in 1998, Chancellor Gordon Brown announced the Sure Start programme🌹
"bringing together quality services for the under-threes and their parents—nursery, child care and playgroup provision, and post-natal and other health services" 🧵
Last night I had such a vivid dream that my (late) mum joined the rest of us at dinner, then I had to take her to the station and she gave me the most realistic hug and said "thanks for having me to visit", and I feel very strongly that she did.
Andy Murray turned down a seven-figure sum to play an exhibition match in Saudi Arabia due to the country’s human rights record and will not entertain future offers, according to his rep. By
@martynziegler
via
@SportUnlocked
Who on earth stands to gain from the endless, tedious, pointless, unfair monstering of Meghan Markle is beyond me. Apart from making the world very slightly worse, drip by drip, every day :(
@chelseabwrites
I has to sit at a signing table once in Stansted Airport. For TWO HOURS. Nobody came to buy a book but a zillion people came to ask me their gate numbers. In the end I just memorised the gate numbers and helped them out. Do not be downhearted. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have finally grown to love our annual tradition of me baking a beautiful Christmas cake, and the kids ruining it by decorating it absolutely horribly. Here is this year's effort. 😁
Okay all April fool's pranks are rubbish, but SOME kudos to my daughter's class who all pretended to freeze on their teacher's zoom at the same moment this morning :)
I shouldn't torture myself, but the fact that Scotland had a referendum on whether or not to leave the EU, 68% of its citizenry voted to remain and yet we're still getting dragged to the abyss by a bunch of spivs, crims, flat-out liars and useful idiots is quite the piss-boiler
The older I get the more convinced I am Michael Caine should have got his Oscar for Muppet Christmas Carol. Not only is he the most faithful to the text, the most heart rending, convincingly changed and progressively moved; he had to do it all surrounded by fuzzy felt.
I don't care about royalty and bloody hell I don't care about fashion, but I am going to buy September
@BritishVogue
because, UGH the nastiness. I have never bought Vogue before, I hope the cartoon strip is funny.
Everyone is talking about how funny
#jeremyhardy
was- which is true obvs- but I wanted to add that he was utterly sweet and a total gent to box office and bar staff, which is always how you know.
It is not the census here, but I still will always remember Census 1991, when my flatmate had a one night stand and we realised the next morning the girl had to fill in hers at our flat and he had to painstakingly take down all her personal details before never seeing her again
SO
@MarianKeyes
and I have discovered that staying in the room between ours is ALEXANDER SKARSGARD!!!!
We have decided just to have a little sit down until he gets back or we are removed by security. (Also we figured it was only neighbourly to bring him a book.)
Okay, every time people say 'oh, get off twitter it's an anxiety engine', I will think of this- I am having trouble playing some
#rachmaninoff
, tweeted about it, and a Musical Director in TENNESSEE recorded it for me slowly enough to learn it properly. And that's AMAZING.
@jennycolgan
Here you go!! I might have added an extra note in a chord somewhere but the rhythm is right! The lower LH syncopated bass note is weird not being on the downbeat!
I know everyone is saying
#chernobyl
is flawless but it could probably be SLIGHTLY improved for British people by a tiny sidebox telling you where you saw that actor before so it stops driving you crazy
The little one is in trouble for not tidying her room and banned from tv, so we are knitting together in front of the fire and listening to
@stephenfry
read Harry P, and I am going to make up minor things she's done wrong every single evening for the rest of my life.
Managed to politely sit through my child's parent's night last night as his English teacher told me F. uses too much dialogue in his creative writing and, 'you can't tell a story through dialogue'.
I realise I'm getting older, and ageing is a natural and unavoidable process to be embraced etc etc etc but genuinely, seeing this picture and thinking, mmm, he's not bad, is very much the worst thing that's happened to me so far.
I am looking forward to next week’s
#gbbo
, when we see everyone’s home life, as I am quite excited to see where Chigs and I will live once we are married.
My dog has just gone into labour (and is looking wildly unimpressed so far) so I would suggest muting me for the next 24hours if going heavy on the puppers is not your thing 😀😀😀🐶🐶🐶🐶🐶
My husband forgot and bought my two colourblind sons (yes, through me) a green rugby ball to play with on the grass. It’s just two lads wandering about, squinting. 🙄🙄🙄🙄
Terrance Dicks helped more children (especially boys) develop a lifelong love of reading than almost anyone else who's ever lived. I don't think he even got an OBE.
Aw here we are: my
#bookdecade
. You could fit it all in the boot of a Ford Ka and it takes up less than 1mb of computer memory- but it's mine all mine 😁
I was too excited to sleep last night because I am about to surprise the 13 year old on her birthday weekend with
@Harry_Styles
tickets for TONIGHT and she is going to FREAK
The news is so unbelievably dreadful today. It’s like a trigger warning for the entire world. There is only one good thing in it and it is Stormzy at the Met Gala.
A woman in this cafe just asked me to keep an eye on her dogs whilst she went to the toilet and I am just formally announcing that I am stealing her dogs and she can have my crap ones
I strongly feel we need to normalise crisps as a gift for those of us who don't like sweet things. Ribbons, pretty macaron style wrappings, beautiful boxes, except inside- CRISPS!
Jodie Whitaker pointing out that as she was pregnant filming her last two episodes, she was the first ever Doctor to actually have two hearts. 💙💙 (also I always preferred Peter’s outfit on her)
@isabelkaplan
omg are you kidding? When I wanted to write an extra book in lockdown and he was landlocked (he works in shipping), he took over all the home school supervision. There has never been a bias about who takes kids to parties/ dentists etc. I owe him the world. He cute also.
Massive 💗💗💗 to the man at the junction just now who prefaced telling me my rear light was falling off my bicycle with the words "excuse me, I *promise* I'm not a man who shouts at women from cars (but your rear light is falling off your bicycle)"
I try not to have favourites amongst the pups but seriously why is the youngest girl not a professional supermodel already. She's like the Christy Turlington of dogs
#muzzletov
Adored by everyone, worked brilliantly till the end, married to the same person for seventy years. I can't be too sad about Bernard's wonderful, life-affirming life.
It's my husband's birthday and to cheer everything up I got him a pinata and the little one has fallen in love with it and I can already sense trouble brewing. Here he is having his breakfast 🙄
I think I loved today so much is that my mum ADORED a royal wedding, and for Will's we sat on the phone, me in France, her in Scotland, and dissected EVERYONE. She *really* hated Fergie, for reasons that will always be unclear. Oh, I miss her so much.
A woman just caught me scanning the book aisle at Sainsburys and said “they’ve got none of yours today though!” and now I have to dump my shopping trolley and run away to sea to become a sailor
Ooh this is weird. I am trying to write about what makes a really great opening to a novel, and I looked some famous ones up and THEY’RE ALL THE EXACT SAME SENTENCE.