Liz Maher

Trying to surgically implant a uterus in a man's body and expecting it to support a pregnancy is as ridiculous as sewing dolphin fins onto a monkey and yeeting it into the ocean. Just about as ethical, too.

@cdaly72 Or 10 😆

@Rudbow Absolutely. It's not the end of the world to be separated for a two hour flight!

It's annoying that airlines don't automatically seat couples/families together, but if I've paid for a window seat I'm not swapping. Man on the flight today asked if I'd swap with his wife, who was a few rows ahead in an aisle seat. Why didn't they book seats together?!

@IntrovertProbss In my first house I used to go out the back door to use the side passage, even though it wasn’t the direct route!

I can’t be the only one that stays in their car until the neighbors go inside

@DeborahMeaden The truth will be part of your past, a lie will one day be part of your future! Something I try to live by!

The trouble with telling fibs is you need a massive spreadsheet to keep track of all the angles they affect… I have always found it easier to just stick with the truth… actually not always… since I was around 5 or 6.

@Andie00471 If men are protectors, who the fudge is he shielding us from?? 🤷‍♀️

If you come up to me quietly in the dark of night and reach for my bag or car door, you’ll be on the receiving end of one of three defensive weapons. And I’ll choose which one.

apple there has to be a better way to add an iPhone app to a folder than chasing said folder round the screen as it carries out fighter jet level evasive manoeuvres

Girls, Welcome the boys in your sports or you'll get nothing and like it. Signed, King Charles.

@anon_opin I’d love to, I can walk to my local bookshop, but they charge £15 for a book I can buy secondhand online for a couple of ££

I'm baffled by people who go to a bricks-and-mortar supermarket every week, but buy things like books online. Why would you not want to spend time in a nice little bookshop, but you're happy to go to an aircraft hanger on the arse-end of town full of baked beans?

@bushontheradio Went to a different dentist as an emergency after cracking a tooth! He kept going on about how healthy my gums were, to the point he called colleagues in to take a look!

A gas engineer told my mate Will that he had the CLEANEST BOILER he's ever seen. Have you ever had a weird compliment?

Sat on a busy train, woman next to me has propped her phone up doing FaceTime - I’m witnessing someone walking round their home showing different rooms! What is wrong with people!

I think about this photo at least once every day. Absolutely haunting.

The woman I’m talking to runs the Nottingham women’s centre. She was alarmed and distressed by my questions and comments about how disappointing it is for the women who founded the centre that it now includes men and therefore excludes some women. She’s using funds to get legal advice to try and keep men attending. These women are happy to play professional “women’s pain” grifters without any care for women at all.

NHS Rainbow badges: a play in three acts.

From my new poem ‘Taxman’ Tax us once, tax us twice, tax us once again, The contents of the piggy bank have all gone down the drain, Tax us on our savings, on the little we have banked, And tax us on our pension, which we thought was sacrosanct.

@CliveWismayer Don’t forget: If you know, you know (we all know) Watch until the end (I won’t watch at all)

Can people please stop saying: • let that sink in • that’s all you need to know, & • that’s it. That’s the tweet. Thank you for your attention to this matter (& stop saying that too).

@seledka_vodka I don’t think that’s a hard or unfair ask? I have deputyship for my mom’s finances, she has advanced dementia in a care home, not only does she have to pay 1,500 a week I have to provide receipts for every £ spent, those receipts are required by a government agency! Go figure 😡

Earlier today, I posted about overhearing someone in a café - enjoying a full English breakfast while complaining to the owner that their housing association wasn't fixing problems in their social housing fast enough. I implied that someone on benefits shouldn't be dining out. I want to clarify my position. I fully and completely stand by it. If you are getting paid not to work, I am paying for you. You are reaching into my pocket and taking money I earned and made available to the government as part of my obligation as a taxpayer. That creates an obligation on your end - to spend as little of that money as possible. This is exactly the same standard I apply to government itself. Every public body, from the NHS to the council fixing potholes, owes the taxpayer the same duty: extract maximum value from the budget you're given. I see no reason why individuals receiving benefits should be held to a lower standard. They are spending someone else's money. If you can afford to dine out, you should not be on benefits. You should not be in social housing. To me, that is a clear signal that you are receiving too much and abusing the system. I am not willing to fund someone's restaurant meals while also housing them. Benefits and social housing are meant to be a bridge, not a destination. They exist to carry people through hardship until they can stand on their own. Social housing is temporary accommodation - it is not a home. At least, it shouldn’t be. The moment it stops being treated as temporary, the entire logic of the safety net collapses. This brings me to the part people will call draconian. The moment public funds begin flowing into your bank account, you should expect zero privacy into your family's finances. That should be the deal - stated plainly, signed away upfront. You get the money. We, the taxpayers whose money you are spending, get full visibility into how it is spent. Cash withdrawals should be disabled by default from any account receiving benefits. If cash is needed, invoices and receipts should be uploaded promptly. If they don't reconcile, if dates are wrong, if there is any suspicion of luxury spending or wrongdoing - benefits stop. Simple as that. I know people will invoke human rights and privacy. My answer is equally simple. You take my money, I take your privacy. If you spend that money without taking the mickey, you have nothing to worry about. And I think a great many people would think twice about abusing the system if this contract were real. Because here is the truth: if you are in genuine hardship and you know the money you are receiving belongs to someone else, you are not dining out. You are not buying luxuries. You are spending the bare minimum to keep yourself going until you find the next job and get off the benefits. That is what genuine hardship looks like. There are plenty of countries in the world where this safety net does not exist at all - where individual families bear the entire burden, and where those without family simply fall. We should never become one of those countries. We should always help those facing hardship through no fault of their own. But the point of a safety net is that you bounce back. If you cling to it indefinitely, it becomes impossible for those of us maintaining it through our taxes to keep it standing. For anyone facing genuine hardship, this system - this social contract - will work just fine. It is only a problem if you are abusing it. And that is exactly the point.

John Davidson the Bafta tourettes chap shouted "Fuck the Queen" right in front of Queen Elizabeth, yet she didn't blink or say a word. If the Queen told you to shut the fuck up, I think you may be the problem, Miriam Margoyles.

Doris is a four-year-old Texel ewe on a fell in the Lake District. Doris is, according to several recent opinion pieces, destroying the planet. Let's check in on Doris. 6:30am - Doris began grazing. The fell she is grazing is semi-natural upland grassland. It has existed in this condition for approximately eight hundred years because sheep have been grazing it continuously for approximately eight hundred years. Without Doris, the coarse grasses outcompete the finer ones. The wildflowers disappear. The skylarks that nest at ground level lose the open sward they need and abandon the site. Doris does not know what a skylark is. She has found some good grass near the wall and that is the full extent of her agenda. 7:45am - Doris walked into the bog. This was not the plan. There was no plan. Doris extracted herself, turned around, and regarded the bog with the expression of an animal that has decided the bog started it. 9:00am - Doris found a gap in the wall and went through it. She was now in Brian's field. Brian's field is, by any measurable standard, identical to Doris's field. Doris is aware of this and does not consider it relevant. 10:30am - Doris was returned to her field. The farmer repaired the gap. Doris watched the repair with the focused attention of an animal taking measurements. 11:15am - Doris rolled into a dip in the fell and got cast. This means she ended up on her back and could not right herself because the weight of her fleece shifted her centre of gravity past the point of recovery. She lay there in the dip looking at the sky with the composure of an animal that has decided the sky is quite interesting actually. 11:40am - The farmer found her, righted her. Doris walked away at speed. No acknowledgement. Complete dignity. As though the last twenty-five minutes had happened to a different sheep. 1:00pm - Doris grazed the area around the base of the dry-stone wall. The grazing keeps the vegetation short enough that the wall's base stays dry and frost doesn't work into the joints and expand. The wall is two hundred and sixty years old. It will outlast everything currently being written about livestock farming if the vegetation around it is managed. It is being managed by Doris eating grass. Doris does not know she is doing conservation work. Doris has found something particularly good near the fourth stone from the bottom. 3:00pm - Doris produced manure. The manure will feed the soil microbiome. The soil microbiome will grow the grass. The grass will grow back where Doris has grazed it. The grazed areas will remain open enough for the tormentil and harebells to survive. The tormentil and harebells are why people drive three hours from Manchester to walk on this fell. This system has no external inputs. It has been running since Texel sheep were brought to these fells from the Netherlands in 1970 and discovered the gaps in the walls shortly afterward. 5:00pm - Doris lay down. The fell was quiet. The skylarks were still up. The wildflowers were still in the turf. 5:47pm - Doris found a new gap. She was in Brian's field again. Brian has started keeping a log.

This is the best thing you will read today! It’s also why I’ve always wanted a goat 🐐