Josa Keyes

#audiobook #reviewers, Sail Upon the Land is now on @audibleuk @audible_com and promo codes are available. DM me for information. 4* 752 reviews and counting... amzn.to/3AXijB8 'Love a good family saga - and this is a REALLY good one!'

@bloodthrstbooks Narnia

any recommendations of fantasy books for 9 year olds? she told me she likes “books with animals and creatures and different worlds” (i love her so much oh my god)

Beetle (c) Josa Keyes #poetrycommunity (in British English nappy > diaper)

In a long life of lumpy breasts, I've frequently been examined by men. I'm not sure I would be bothered by having them give me a mammogram either, as long as properly trained. It is a medical procedure, nothing else.

Went for my breast exam last week - I had very early breast cancer in 2017, and regularly request further check ups. The consultant was a man my age, and we discussed our children of similar ages. He examined me before sending me for a mammogram and scan. This was not a problem.

Salted caramel: Why doesn't anyone like me any more? Pistachio:....

@VictoriaPeckham @thetimes A grandmother here. For F***'s sake.

Is a “gran” the lowest unit of human life. Me in @thetimes today. Some VERY indignant Times reader grans in the comments. thetimes.com/article/f6997c…

@NaoiseGale13 @themothmagazine What wonderful news. Congratulations!

I’m ridiculously excited and honoured to be shortlisted in @themothmagazine Moth Poetry Prize, judged by one of my all time favourite poets Fiona Benson.

@mijomojo1 @JoshEakle Also born in the 50s - no measles vaccine. Measles caught up with me in London in 2023, due to the frighteningly stupid anti-vax brigade. I was very ill in hospital for 5 days. No doctor knew what was wrong with me. It was like an episode of House. Exhausted for six months.

@JoshEakle I was born in the 1950's. We didn't have vaccines, or measles, chicken pox, or polio parties. Just kids in wheelchairs in my class, & babies born deaf & blind---

MTG is calling for people to hold "measles parties." These people will legitimately kill us all.

Calling all UK creators, please go to the government consultation about AI theft of our work, and fill it in. @MaggieA spent a day going through this document - which privileges AI developers, and wrote a brilliant guide. I used her guide and added more. maggiealderson.substack.com/p/calling-all-…

@DConwayRead @Docstockk When one applies for a DBS check, one has to state all previous names on the form, and prove identity. Is this not the same for everyone, regardless of 'identity' change?

@Docstockk I am a retired teacher. I was very happy to have DBS checks. But I always said the checks only meant that a person hadn't been caught yet and we still had to be very observant about colleagues' behaviour. Being able to erase former convictions by a name or sex change is madness.

I'm glad to see my Sunday Times column today is getting widely circulated. In it, I have spelled out a point that nearly everybody knows, yet which is hardly ever acknowledged by professionals and senior managers in health, the therapeutic professions, or social care. I want to add something else to the discussion before moving on. (Obviously what follows is not addressed to the brave ones already doing something). Namely: the ridiculous behaviour exposed at the GMC, potentially obscuring a doctors' past disciplinary record by changing his gender identity, is striking but scarcely unusual, and the problem was obvious. It should not have taken a media scoop for it to be sorted. It is beyond time for those in relevant professions - health, social care, the police, prisons, etc - to start properly engaging in their own organisations, or at the VERY least actively feeding it into decisions about safeguarding vulnerable women and children. With everything we already know, this should be done already. Why isn't it?? Look at your policies in your professional bodies and workplaces. See how the myth of identity transformation/ personality transplant has infiltrated and changed established norms on safeguarding, and how this might affect women and children who can't defend themselves when chaotic, narcissistic, personality-disordered men are getting up close and personal with them, because your organisation put them there. Don't wait for a scandal. Gather evidence. Find allies. Get a group together and go to the most senior manager available. Write letters. Put it on the agenda at meetings. Whistleblow. Or whatever it takes. Persist until its sorted. Do it responsibly; do it with evidence; do it with care for language and many disclaimers if it makes you feel better; but just do it. There are many women and some men who have been doing the heavy lifting on truth-telling about such matters for years now; and yet still - after court victories for free speech on gender, clarification of equality law, politicians humiliated for putting savage, disordered men in female prisons, and ample AMPLE evidence of what I am saying below - so many professionals that could be having robust conversations with colleagues, or back up the people that do talk about it in public, stay silent and embarrassed. I don't care if your best pal's daugher says she is a boy; I don't care if your brother-in-law or someone at your church cross-dresses; I don't care what your reasons are. Yes not all trans. Yes not all men. But SOME men. And safeguarding policies by definition are supposed to deal with the few in order to protect the many. For gods sake, stop being so cowardly and relying on people like me to say what is obviously true and take the flak. And to the usual morons who are trying to make me feel ashamed of saying something like this - a) as JD Vance said recently in another context, I really don't care, Margaret; and b) I feel proud of myself for being brave. it's a good feeling - and you can have it too.

I love the sound of this book @PollyVernon

@RealDMitchell @BBCOne It's very soothing.

It's the last episode in the current series of #Ludwig tonight! (@BBCOne 9pm.) Thanks so much for all the nice comments - I'm thrilled that so many people have enjoyed the show.

I was thrilled to find my poem Shit Villanelle was shortlisted in @Culturesmatter in the Bread and Roses Poetry Award Anthology 2024.

@LissaKEvans I'm listening to a thriller where the thing that motivated things is so bloody unlikely/illogical that I can't bear it. Why do editors not say, sorry but that can't happen in the known universe?

Listening to an excellent thriller on Audible but the hero dog’s just been killed, so that’s that. *Takes out ear-buds*

@ProfSteveKeen @jbhearn Thank you for sharing that information. The black thing appeared when I was caring for a friend out of town during her health crisis. I went straight back to Moorfields but they diagnosed a lesser thing.

@JosaKeyes A sudden wavy black string appearing in my right eye. It degraded to floaters and I ignored it until it happened again last night at drinks with @jbhearn. Came to Moorfields first thing this morning.

I have tears in my eyes because the NHS has discovered a tear in my retina just 2 days after I first saw symptoms and 3 hours after I came to Moorfields Eye Hospital. I’m just about to get laser surgery. Without the NHS I could have gone blind. Austerity undermines society.

@Shakatak7 @ProfSteveKeen Thank you for sharing that.

@JosaKeyes @ProfSteveKeen My detached retina was like raining purple then black floaters and flashing lights.

@adeleparks 65 and yes

@nic_eileen @LissaKEvans @MayorofLondon It's all about money. If something smells wrong it's always the whiff of Mammon.

@LissaKEvans @MayorofLondon Is the world gone totally mad???

Gigantic poster endorsed by the @MayorofLondon. Everyone happy for teenage girls - struggling with what it means to be a woman in today's society - to be given this message: 'have a double mastectomy and you'll not only look cool, but we'll be proud of you'?