👇 Cleverest piece of business promotion I can remember. Laughed my way through it. 👇

I think some mobile advertisers misunderstand UX. Tip: the little x in the corner of the screen means “please close this screen”. It does not mean “take me to the piece of tat you’re advertising”.

A tip for my fellow men: I presented as female for decades. As such, I was angered every time a man told me what I “needed” to do or understand. Be aware, the next time you start a sentence with “You need to…”, the women in the room are perceiving you as a knob.

Just finished The Half Burnt house by Alex North. If you like thrillers, this one is tightly plotted and twisty, with a large cast of characters you care about. Thank you, Steve Mosby!

Chicken: the gift that keeps on giving. I peeled the skin from chicken thighs and slow fried it with a bit of salt and pepper to make grebenitz. Then I made jerk chicken with the thighs, for enchiladas. Then popped the bones in a pot to make stock. Nothing wasted but the cluck.

I’m reeling. The Crime Writers Association has longlisted *four* of the stories in An Unnecessary Assassin, the charity anthology I edited, for Short Story of the Year. All profits benefit the eradication of polio. Let’s hope the nominations boost our donations.

Compensation Now For Victims Of The Infected Blood Scandal - Sign the Petition! chng.it/Wf7J7NkDMW via Change.org UK A dear friend is one of the victims. She was in the cohort of people interviewed for the first enquiry, and she is the only one left alive.

I hereby pronounce @madebydbm to be the King of Deleted Tweets. Just seeing the preview snippet in my notifications, and thinking “Wow, that sounds like it will be juicy and injudicious” and then clicking through, only to discover it’s been deleted, makes me laugh. Go, Rob.

If anyone can spare a few minutes, today's YouGov "chat" is on the Tory's proposed policy to re-write the equality act to exclude trans people from single-sex spaces. Currently it looks like the transphobes are bombing it. yougov.chat/channels/daily…

Wouldn’t it be brilliant if a politician said in their first campaign speech, “Let’s not talk about the subjects on which we might not agree. Let’s talk about the issues we all care about”? Uniting, not dividing, our people.

Watch this mind-bending visual representation of wealth inequality in the US.

Wow, Dan Savage, power to your arm! The Sunday Times (London) posted an article about The Tolyamorous Marriage. May your reach ever increase.

I highly recommend acquiring a secret housemate. It saves endless conflict, by answering the questions “Why is the rubbish bin full already?”, “Where did all these dirty dishes come from?”, and “Who drank all the gin?” Ours is called The Honourable Wendell. Entitled little git.

Very powerful!

Tolkien wrote: “War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.”

Folks, please let the Internet Archive continue to lend books in its collection: Let Readers Read: An Open Letter to the Publishers in Hachette v. Internet Archive: - Sign the Petition! chng.it/h5FnTrrKfz via Change.org UK

In praise of my long-suffering bed: I sleep on it, and to my shame, eat on it, smoke on it, drink on it, canoodle on it, and suffer the cat to shed fur all over it. Does it complain? No. Sags a bit in the middle, but don’t we all?

I’m about to delete this account and head over to Bluesky. I’m still J Laurence Sarno over there, laurence-sarno is the user name. If you’re not on Bluesky and you want to stay in touch, DM me here! Much love, stay strong.