Colette Colfer

…’Yes, I’m a difficult person to endure, I hardly manage.’ - Leila Chatti

‘Poetry is not made out of thoughts or casual fancies. It is made out of experiences which change our bodies, and spirits, whether momentarily or for good’ - Ted Hughes

@_ConnieShaw @MatthewGreenf11 Can you make a gif of your reaction 😂

The moment Demitri Rodriguez, who has worked with Webberley, called her “nothing but a grifter”

@Docstockk Inspirational

Maeve Halligan at the Cambridge Union, facing down Helen Webberley and telling the truth 🔥🔥

The problem when you think the barrier has lifted automatically and you’re driving through and it crashes down. (I’ve never used a pre-booked parking space before - it said it would rise when it saw my reg)

"No, I don't subscribe to this 'kindness' - I'll tell the truth instead." I spoke at the Cambridge Union last night about LGBs, children's safety and women's rights. Full video here:

Ravelling, the audiobook, is out today, on Audible, for all those who’d prefer to listen. Please share because the book’s too long for a lot of people to be bothered reading and I need to put shoes on the childers’ feet. And also, it’s very current with Bertie and the Congolese an all.

@RoisinMichaux Podcasts? Blogs?

As Europeans wake up to the Giggle V Tickle news, a call to action: the time to start being brave and speaking out is now. As Helen Joyce said about the media, who refuse to report that sex has effectively been abandoned as a coherent category in western law: “Go around them”.

‘All this while, when it seemed there were two doors, there was only one - this passing through’ - Tess Gallagher

The Full Federal Court has handed down its judgement in Giggle v Tickle. In a shock to women across the country - Sall Grover not only lost her appeal, the Court set aside the original finding of indirect discrimination and replaced it with direct discrimination, upholding Tickle's cross-appeal. The damages were doubled from $10,000 to $20,000. It’s important to note the Court expressly said it was only applying the Sex Discrimination Act as it is written- it is "not empowered to give effect to its own view" about whether that law is desirable. In 2013, @JuliaGillard’s @AustralianLabor government amended the Sex Discrimination Act- stripping the meaning out of "man" and "woman" and adding gender identity as a protected attribute to be pitted against biological sex. Today's outcome is proof of what those amendments have done: women are left with no meaningful rights or recognition under the Sex Discrimination Act - a bitter irony, given that protecting women was the very purpose of the Act under our commitment to CEDAW. In my opinion, this is a verdict on the law, not on Sall. The judges found that the law - as that government amended it - left them no other conclusion. These amendments must be repealed. The Sex Discrimination Act must once again recognise biological reality and protect women's right to single-sex spaces. What a dark and devastating day for Australian women and girls. #RepealTheSDA2013 #IStandWithSallGrover #GigglevTickle #Auspol

Court then goes on in legal language to make the point that it is only having to give its silly ruling due to fact that its role is simply to interpret statutes, foisting the blame for this whole Tickle do-do show onto parliamentarians, where the blame does in fact lie.

@salltweets So sorry to read this. We are living through something insane. Wishing you strength, courage and onwardness.

I am absolutely devastated Men who claim to be women have more rights than actual women in Australia. It is women who are being discriminated against, not the men who claim to be us. But in a sense, nothing has changed: we will all wake up tomorrow & men will still not be women.

An increasing number of females who have hormonal and surgical gender interventions are speaking up about symptoms of pelvic floor dysfunction. It’s deeply worrying and physio needs to start building a workforce to help this novel population.

“At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go into the same box.” (Italian proverb)

The Iliad and the Odyssey are foundational literary works that are also about men doing manly things and feeling manly feelings — they’re about pride and duty, they’re about friendship and loyalty, they’re about fear of death and bravery in the face of it, they’re about striving and longing. These are stories that have taught men to be men for a thousand years, that celebrate the highest versions of masculinity, and that is why so many people who are hostile to these values and ideals try to mess with these works of literature, to claim them for other audiences, to “recontextualize” them, to “queer” them and to subvert them. Men barely read today. Boys are alienated and underserved by English instruction and are falling starkly behind in reading. The “literary man,” a common type in hipster Brooklyn as recently as the mid 2010s, is basically extinct. Men are now the most underserved, underrepresented audience in books and publishing, and anyone in publishing who claims to be interested in “equity” or serving neglected audiences should be focused on this disparity. English teachers and the publishing industry should be working to get men and boys reading again and to elevate works that speak to men and boys. And that means preserving and teaching Homer, in translations which preserve the majesty and the masculinity of the original works.

Federico García Lorca tr by Jerome Rothenberg

One of the Odyssey's most important lessons comes when Odysseus and his men encounter the Cyclops Polyphemus. At first the situation does not seem dangerous. They land on an island, discover a large cave filled with food and livestock, and begin helping themselves. Odysseus says they should stay and wait for the owner of the cave, because he expects the man to follow the Greek custom of hospitality. In the ancient world a traveler could rely on that custom almost anywhere. Instead, something very different happens. When Polyphemus returns, he blocks the entrance to the cave with a massive stone and begins asking questions. Odysseus explains that they are travellers and reminds him of the sacred duty to treat guests well. Polyphemus laughs at the idea, and tells Odysseus that Cyclopes care not for the gods or their laws. Then he reaches down, grabs two of Odysseus's men, smashes them against the ground, and eats them. The true horror of the scene is the calm way in which Homer describes it. Polyphemus eats the men as casually as someone might eat bread and cheese. Odysseus has wandered into a world where the rules of civilization no longer apply. Now Odysseus faces a serious problem. He cannot simply kill the Cyclops, because the stone blocking the entrance is so large that only Polyphemus himself can move it. If the giant dies, everyone in the cave will remain trapped there forever. The next evening Polyphemus returns again and devours two more men. This time, Odysseus offers him wine that he brought from the ship. The Cyclops has never tasted wine before and drinks it greedily. When Polyphemus asks for Odysseus' name, Odysseus gives one of the cleverest answers in all of literature: he tells the giant that his name is "Nobody." The wine soon takes effect. Polyphemus collapses into a drunken sleep, and Odysseus and his men put their plan into motion. They sharpen a massive wooden stake, heat it in the fire until it glows, and then drive it straight into the Cyclops' single eye. Homer describes the sound of the burning wood hissing inside the eye like iron plunged into cold water. Polyphemus screams so loudly that the other Cyclopes come running to the cave and ask what is wrong. The giant shouts that "Nobody" is attacking him. Hearing this, the other Cyclopes assume he must be sick or mad, and they leave him alone. In the morning, Polyphemus rolls the stone away from the entrance so his sheep can leave the cave. He runs his hands over their backs to make sure the men are not escaping. What he does not realize is that Odysseus has tied each man underneath the sheep, hanging beneath their woolly bellies. The animals walk out of the cave and carry the Greeks with them. It is a brilliant escape, but Odysseus makes one mistake. Once the ship has sailed safely away, he cannot resist shouting back at the Cyclops. He reveals his real name and boasts about what he has done. Polyphemus then prays to his father, the sea god Poseidon, asking him to punish Odysseus for the injury. That single moment of pride ends up shaping the rest of the Odyssey. Poseidon hears the prayer, and from that point on the sea itself seems determined to keep Odysseus from ever reaching home. His intelligence saves him and his men from certain death, but his pride creates new dangers that follow him for years. Even the cleverest man can ruin his own victory if he cannot resist the temptation to pride... --- Join our online book club and study the classics with us! We are working through the great texts of the Western canon, including the Homeric epics: athenaeumbooks.com/welcome To preserve a culture, you must continually study the books and ideas that created it. If the schools and universities won't teach the great books of the West, we will do it ourselves... We are an independent group funded ENTIRELY by the members of this community. If you'd like to support us, please consider a paid membership. You'll get: - Live book club discussions (biweekly) - Essays to guide you through the books we're reading - The full archive of discussions and essays - Access to the community chat room See you inside!

This is brilliant 🤌🏼✨️ Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges talking about what the task of Art boils down to. (Watch all 97 seconds.)

@Bryan277 Ok so if can be done with all the logical fallacies and engage with ideas then we’re on the slide

@ColetteColfer You've retweeted Niall Boylan in the past, not looking good for brain activity.

The narratives are collapsing under their own weight: Ireland’s national so-called public service broadcaster has cancelled the Eurovision (widely regarded in recent years as a diversity gig, a celebration of ‘queer joy’) because of its pro-Palestinian stance and is replacing its screening on TV with Father Ted which is written by women-and-children’s-rights-supporter Graham Linehan (whose views RTÉ oppose on the basis of their promotion of gender identity theory). The glaring inconsistencies, clashes, complications of it all.

@Bryan277 So you agree I have a brain? 😂😂

@ColetteColfer The fact that you did that ridiculous act is evidence enough of my original statement 😂😂😂