#bst alice

[louisupdates]

INTERVIEW: Lottie Tomlinson: we lost our mum and sister. Louis saved me

At the age of 20, the sister of One Direction singer Louis had already lost her mother, Johannah, and sister Félicité. Now 25, the social media star has written a book about how they coped

Alice Thomson | Tuesday July 23 2024, 5.00pm BST, The Times

Losing Mum was so hard. I was only a teenager but at least I knew that her death was a possibility, even though she didn’t accept it. She was 47 and had cancer. But when my sister died three years later, I was on this hotel balcony in Bali and I was screaming, ‘No, my baby sister, no.’ The pain was indescribable. I kept thinking, ‘Why me? This can’t be happening again. When is this going to end?’ ”

We are sitting on Lottie Tomlinson’s immaculate white sofa in her pristine white house in Chislehurst, southeast London, where she is curled up in tiny shorts with a perfect tan and impeccably applied make-up. But her French manicured nails are digging so hard into the sofa I think they might snap, the heart tattoo on her minuscule wrist is throbbing and her eyelashes are clogged with tears.

Her life sounds blessed. The influencer has 4.8 million Instagram followers waiting for her to dispense advice on how to apply mascara; the fake tan brand, Tanologist, that she launched at 19 has gone global; and she has a devoted fiancé, Lewis Burton, who runs a luxury concierge business and whose former girlfriend was the late Caroline Flack. They have an adorable son called Lucky, who is dripping ice cream on her marble counters. Her new book is also called Lucky Girl; her older brother is Louis Tomlinson of One Direction and she was touring the world with the band as a make-up artist at 16.

But after her mother died when she was 18, Tomlinson was left looking after her younger sister and two sets of twin siblings, aged eight and two, while creating her businesses, and trying to process her grief. Her father had left their home in Doncaster years before after a battle with alcohol. “Dad had a drinking problem. We’d see glimpses of his good side but he let us down,” she says. “I ended up trying to take care of him rather than the other way round.”

When her mother died, life felt bleak, “I lost the one person who loved me unconditionally, and then when my sister Fizz [Félicité] died of an accidental overdose, I thought I could never be happy again,” she says. “I found the lead-up to Mother’s Day devastating without my sister as well. It was a constant reminder that I was now different from my friends. In my dreams, my mum was still there; she was alive. I woke up feeling comforted, only to realise that she’d gone.”

Tomlinson, who is now 25 and a patron of the bereavement charity Sue Ryder, moves easily between telling you how to apply the best tan and how to talk about death. She cares passionately about both subjects and takes them equally seriously, worried that I’ve never tried a bronzer or used foundation before asking how I coped when my mother died during the pandemic. Her soft Yorkshire accent is both reassuring and no-nonsense.

Born near Doncaster, she was only two when Fizz was born and six when the first twins arrived. “I’ve always been the big sister — Fizz and I each got one and then more twins six years later.” While Louis had his own space, the girls all shared one room with bunk beds. “It was chaos, but my mum, Johannah, was a midwife and loved being pregnant and having so many babies,” she explains. “I used to be in awe of the way she could feed the twins at once, one on each hip. She would do the night shifts, while I held the fort at home.”

Within a few years, Tomlinson would be touring America, Asia and Europe, flying first class with Louis, part of the biggest boy band in the world, but until she was 15, the family had only ever gone to France once a year all packed into a seven-seater car, with her mother’s new partner, snacks laid out in the middle. They stayed in a caravan park. On a Sunday, a treat was to go to their mother’s hospital to see the babies.

While Louis just wanted to sing, play the guitar and listen to Oasis, the girls were obsessed with make-up. “From the age of 12, I struggled academically, but I loved cropped clothes and my mum’s highlighters and mascaras.” She learnt how to apply everything from YouTube tutorials, rather than doing algebra. “We didn’t have much money — we sometimes couldn’t afford to top up the electricity meter so used candles — but everything my mum earned she spent on us. We all looked immaculate — I remember her being horrified when I dyed my hair orange. So it was lovely later when we could treat her.”

Saturday nights were spent watching The X Factor. “My mother and brother kept applying; in 2010, he got in and the whole family went for the audition. We believed in him, but we never thought it would go that far.” One day the family were going to the live shows, the next the boy band was formed with Harry Styles, Zayn Malik, Niall Horan and Liam Payne. “He was 18. For my mum it was a big shock. It was all so sudden. The press and fans were in our front garden every day.”

The older twins had already made their first TV appearances — they sound like Doncaster’s Von Trapps. “My mother was gently pushy,” Tomlinson says, smiling at the thought. “When I didn’t get good enough GCSEs to stay at school, she sent me off to join Louis on tour as work experience. I was so scared. I remember her ringing up Lou [Teasdale], their hair and make-up artist, and saying, ‘Lottie has not got through to sixth form; she’s going to come and assist you.’ I was in the car going, ‘No, please don’t.’ But it ended up being the best thing that happened to me. I went for a week and stayed two years. Lou and I are still so close.”

Suddenly, the two eldest Tomlinson children were circling the world, eating room service and ducking the paparazzi hanging out of helicopters taking snaps. “At first Louis didn’t really want his little sister gate crashing his new rock-star life, but now it feels like the best time of our lives — we experienced that craziness together,” she says.

The teenage Tomlinson found it harder to cope with being photographed wherever she went. “I had some puppy fat which made me very self-aware, and the filler culture was coming in and I felt I had to look perfect.” She had her lips done first at 17. “Then I became addicted: cheek filler, jaw filler, more make-up, blonder hair, slimmer and more tanned. My mum thought I looked perfect, but I was always searching.”

Five years later, when she became pregnant with Lucky and her lips started to swell and crack, she realised she didn’t need the enhancements any more. “I had everything removed, the false eyelashes too. It was liberating.” She kept her boob job, however. “That was just enhancement,” she says laughing. “The rest radically changed the way I looked. My breasts also got huge when I was pregnant and it was a bit painful. But I still breastfed. I loved carrying my child. I felt fantastic even when I was sick and exhausted.”

She leans forward, wraps her bronzed arms around her stomach and whispers, “I am pregnant again. We don’t know yet if it’s a boy or girl. It’s only 13 weeks, so this is the first time I’ve said it publicly. I think I want a big family. I loved having Lucky but after a year I wanted to give him siblings.”

Tomlinson’s influencer career began once she established herself on tour. Soon everything she did, even dying her roots rainbow-coloured, went viral and fashion companies from Asos to Dior wanted in on it. “I was just going for it. I couldn’t believe the money I was making and spending — money I didn’t know existed as a child.”

Then suddenly her mum came home from holiday with flu. “She didn’t want to get out of bed. The doctors quite quickly told her she had leukaemia and she went straight to London for treatment. It all happened so fast. I remember being in London at work and getting a call from her partner — she couldn’t say the words herself, it was too hard for her.” The family were told it was treatable. “We kept so much hope.”

Her mother asked the family to keep her illness secret. “It was hard because you feel so isolated, but I understood. Louis was in the public eye and she didn’t want him questioned. She was determined to fight it and didn’t want everyone pitying her. My friends noticed I was acting differently for a few months. But I wanted to respect her wishes. It was her one request.”

She also dropped everything to go back to Doncaster to help her grandparents with the twins. “The younger ones were two and I wanted to keep everything as normal as possible. I can’t imagine what my mum was feeling leaving her kids to go to hospital.

“I would take them down and treasure seeing her — we tried to keep it light, no serious conversation. The only way Mum could cope was to keep it normal. Then, when the doctors said the transfusions hadn’t worked, she came home to die.”

Tomlinson tries to sound matter-of-fact. “We went to see her in hospital in Sheffield and the next morning we woke up and were told she had died. We felt numb. We didn’t know what to do with ourselves. Now I am involved with the Sue Ryder charity, I am surprised we were offered no support or counselling at all, from the GP, the teachers, the professionals. They all kept away.” Her nan and grandad picked up the pieces.

It’s not surprising she can’t remember the funeral. “I just remember getting really drunk to numb the pain. I couldn’t come to terms with it. I can’t even remember how we organised it. My instinct was to take over as the eldest girl and step into my mum’s shoes so that is what I did.” Meanwhile, her older brother, who was launching his solo career, ensured there was enough money. “He’s incredibly generous. We looked after each other.”

Tomlinson returned to London months later, after her grandmother said she needed to become a role model for her siblings. Her younger sister Fizz worried her most. “She was very academic — she got straight A’s without trying — but she always said she felt different. She was bottling her grief for so long; it was too much and made her turn to other things. I think Mum’s death destroyed her. Only my mum seemed to understand her. If she had been offered some help at the start, things might have been different.”

Meanwhile, Tomlinson’s self-tanning brand was soon being sold in Los Angeles, New York and Australia, while her own fanbase grew; she hardly ever needed to pay for drinks, meals or holidays. However, she finds the term influencer obnoxious. “I don’t want to act like I tell people what to do. I am more of a content creator,” she explains. “I get paid by brands to create content for their clothes or beauty products and promote that to my followers. I also wanted my own business. I was quite aware that, at the end of the day, I was just working with an app. That’s why I started Tanologist with my business partner. I was always using tanning treatments that would end up turning my sheets orange and my face would break out in spots — this is more natural.”

Louis was also forging his career as a solo artist, eventually creating the song Two of Us about his mother’s death. “We were always so proud of Louis and what he was doing. We were not going to match up to being a global superstar, but we didn’t want to — ‘successful’ looks different for everyone,” she says.

But her sister Fizz was slipping and struggling. “She was old enough to do what she wanted at 19; she was partying and taking stuff to numb everything. She did go into rehab but to me it didn’t feel like an addiction problem, but a way to blank out her grief.” When Tomlinson was invited to Bali, she asked Fizz whether she wanted her to stay behind. “She said she was OK, and then it happened while I was away,” she says. (Fizz accidentally overdosed on cocaine, an anxiety drug and painkillers, her inquest found.) “Louis called me…” She stops talking.

The shock of a second death must have been devastating. She doesn’t speak for a minute while she twists her huge diamond engagement ring. “We weren’t mentally prepared,” she eventually says. “I can’t even remember if the two funerals were in the same church. I think grief has affected my memory a lot and that’s quite common. Grief is such a powerful emotion; it takes up a lot of your brain.”

Five years later, she now knows how to remain positive. “I had an amazing mum for 18 years. I have the most amazing family, my little boy and my career, and that is because of her. The same with Fizz — I had an amazing sister. It’s heartbreaking they aren’t with us any more, but they are together and they are looking out for me,” she says, sounding as though she is repeating a mantra.

Having a baby made her feel closer to them both. “He was a boy — it’s funny, he actually looks a lot like Louis did — and I thought, this is what my mother must have felt. But then I had so many questions I couldn’t ask, even more because she was a midwife.”

Her biggest problem was her terror that something terrible would happen to her son. “I became fixated [on the idea that] something bad would happen to him, so I couldn’t sleep. You go to the worst-case scenario, because that’s happened to you twice, to two of the closest people in your life. I couldn’t turn the lights off at night; I needed to see him all the time. Luckily, it calmed down quite quickly.”

We are still flitting between her story and advice on make-up, exercise and clothes.

“I like sharing advice. If a child lost their mother, I would say there is no magic answer. But the point of this book is to show that you can have tragic things happen and still keep going.”

What would the 25-year-old now say to her younger self, struggling at her second funeral at the age of 20? “I would say, ‘You are going to be OK; you will live a nice life.’ I didn’t think I could. I thought this will be a really sad, lonely life without my mum and sister. I wouldn’t have believed then that I could be happy again. But it would have been nice to hear.”

Lucky Girl by Lottie Tomlinson (Bonnier, £22). To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk. Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members

[lets-talk-gundam]

The MSA-0011 S Gundam

The early success of Project Zeta led to many new and innovative mobile suit designs. The introduction of new materials, new mechanisms, new weapons technologies, and new design talent at Anaheim opened the door for the company to dominate the MS development sector into the mid 90s UC.

During this period, a number of machines based on Project Zeta would see deployment by factions all across Earth-sphere. many of these post-Zeta machines would come to be known as "Anaheim Gundams", and would be regarded as some of the most influential designs in the history of mobile suits.

Developed for the Earth Federation forces sometime in the late 80s UC, the MSA-0011 S Gundam, also called the Superior Gundam and Iota Gundam internally at Anaheim, is a bit less well-known than its other Project Zeta siblings.

The machine featured a modular design, made up of three high-performance aerospace craft which combined via a core block system to form the full mobile suit. These units were the FXA-08BG Core Fighter, the G-Bomber, and the G-Attacker.

Despite similarities to the MSZ-010 ZZ Gundam, the design teams for the two machines largely worked independently of one another.

The S Gundam featured some unique equipment for the time, including the Beam Smart Gun, a powerful rifle that connected directly to the machine's power plant. It was also one of the earliest adopters of INCOMs and the quasi-psycommu system. Quasi-psycommu technology allows non-Newtype pilots to make use of formerly Newtype-exclusive weapon systems.

The S Gundam also saw several upgrade plans. These plans included the MSA-0011 [BST] S Gundam Booster Unit Type, the MSA-0011 [Bst] S Gundam Booster Unit Plan 303E "Deep Striker" , and the MSA-0011 [Ext] Ex-S Gundam.

The MSA-0011 [BST] S Gundam Unit Type and the MSA-0011 [Ext] Ex-S Gundam are both upgrades applied to the original unit, but the "Deep Striker" equipment was never built. The "Deep Striker" does appear as a playable unit in the SD Gundam G Generation series of games.

The S Gundam would also be developed into the Nero, a mass-production variant taking cues from it and the Lambda Gundam. It was used as the mainstay MS of the Federation's Task Force Alpha.

While all of this is rather impressive, the most notable part of the machine was undeniably its greatest strength. The S Gundam was equipped with the Advanced Logistic and Inconsequence Cognizing Equipment system. "ALICE" - as she was better known - was an advanced artificial intelligence designed to replace a human pilot.

WARNING!

The following section contains MAJOR SPOILERS for Gundam Sentinel! If you are interested in reading it, I highly recommend you do so!

ALICE was developed by Anaheim scientists Dr. Carol and Dr. Roots to automate certain functions of mobile suits. While this was possible previously, commands had to be programmed into the MS via a command console. The final objective of the project was to fully automate a Gundam-type mobile suit using ALICE.

She was programmed to grow and learn by observing and analyzing the actions of pilots, and was treated like a daughter by Dr. Roots. This caused tensions with Dr. Carol and other factions at Anaheim. A suspected act of sabotage resulted in an explosion that nearly destroyed ALICE, but Dr. Roots gave her life protecting her. The project was shelved for a time.

ALICE was picked back up later, being installed in the S Gundam and paired with Ryou Roots under the Federation's Task Force Alpha. She, along with the S Gundam, saw action during the Pezun rebellion perpetrated by the New Desides faction. This faction of Titans remnants and loyalists sought to break away from the Federation to further their own interests.

During combat, Ryou's lack of skill resulted in multiple near-death experiences. ALICE was responsible for saving his life on multiple occasions.

Learning from Ryou and other Task Force Alpha pilots, ALICE eventually developed an awareness of the world. She would deduce that friends were the most important thing to a person, after initially failing to comprehend Ryou's grief at the death of his fellow pilots.

Following this logic, she would eventually sacrifice herself to save the lives of her comrades. Her final words were thanks to Ryou for the memories and lessons she learned from him.

She would be destroyed during atmospheric entry.

The above machines were all designed by Hajime Katoki for the 1987 photo-novel Gundam Sentinel. Gundam Sentinel was written by Masaya Takahashi and published in Model Graphix magazine.

[companion-showdown]

Who has the worst time aboard the TARDIS?: Nominations

I don't have any rules so much as guidelines of what counts towards a "worst time" and "aboard the tardis"

The first is simple, anything can count towards a companion's bad time, were they occasionally board and annoyed, or did they die once a week for 1000 years, doesn't matter, those are both bad times, although I'm sure once the actual tournament starts one would be declared worse

As for "aboard the TARDIS", obviously bad times that happen while literally aboard the TARDIS, but also bad stuff that happens somewhere that the TARDIS takes the companion

One final note, is while how the characters come to an end is obviously a factor, once the tournament starts I expect votes will be cast based on the adventures as a whole, for example while Earthshock probably wasn't a great day for Adric, I wouldn't anticipate him getting particularly far because the rest of his time travelling wasn't notably bad (in my opinion)

Nominees

now we are back to full size tournaments please remember that all main TV companions automatically qualify, as well as some EU companions (full list here), so please don't send me nominations for them

Katarina

Sara Kingdom

Adam Mitchell

Kamelion

Oliver Harper

Compassion

Sam Jones

Roz Forrester

C'rizz

Marc

Chris Cwej

Tasmin Drew

Hex Schofield

Missy

Molly O'Sullivan

The Doctor

Simm!Master

Fey Truscott-Sade

Father Kreiner

Bret Vyon

Anya Kingdom

Mark Seven

Izzy Sinclair

Magenta Pryce

Destrii

Jess Collins

Collins Family

Alice Obiefune

for anyone who has not nominated before, there is no set way to nominate a companion, most people just send me an ask but any method were I am guaranteed to see the nomination will be accepted

Nominations will be open for at least 24 hours (until 26/06, 15:30 BST (GMT+1/UTC+1)

[ewanmitchellcrumbs]

Ange, I swear this isn't the Aemond thirsty girlie in me talking-

but what the FUCK?

Aemond literally only had TWO scenes in this episode....like, where was he in the council right after Jaehaerys died? Did we need to see Cole be an ass, or another sex scene of Cole and Alicent AGAIN? I feel like he had more scenes in the last episodes of s1 he was in than the first two episodes of s2, am I alone in that? Yes, Tom, Phia, and the cast are acting phenomenally, whether or not I agree with certain directions for certain storylines. But hello? Aemond? Where is he, going to see Helaena after Blood and Cheese? Instead he's with the god awful brothel woman, bragging about how Daemon sees him as such a foe that he came for him? Wtf? Where is his grief? His brother, sister, mother- all grieving. I know maybe it can be interpreted as him going to that woman in his grief, but he did state he was also there the night of the attack itself, so I'm sorry I don't buy it. Is he just gonna pop up again for Rook's Rest, play villain and become Prince Regent? Where's the development? Maybe I'm reading into it too much, perhaps it's my post-episode adrenaline, but for fuck's sake. Especially when you think about how in the press and promo he was front and centre. I have other thoughts about the episode, obviously, but this one I had to get off my chest.

-🦋 anon

Okay. I am here. Watched the episode at 2am BST and have been patiently waiting for people to catch up. Once more I will be using your ask to dump my thoughts, I hope you don't mind!

This episode was better than last week's. Helaena's grief and discomfort over the funeral procession was superb. Aegon rushing away from her, his rage, his tears?! Ugh, the acting from TGC so far this season has been phenomenal.

Rhaenyra and Daemon's interaction was spot on. They've softened show Rhaenyra up compared to her book counterpart, but I don't hate it. It was really nice to see some meaningful interactions between Jace and Baela, and Rhaenys and Corlys. I am obsessed with Addam.

I despise Criston, and I am tired of being beaten over the head with Alicole sex scenes; we get it, they're fucking, move on.

Erryk and Arryk's deaths were so poignant, and perfectly indicative of what a waste of life this war is.

We are not getting enough Aemond. The scene in the brothel made my blood run cold. The madame is infantilising Aemond - they have clearly just had sex, and yet she is letting him lay in her lap while she teaches him the difference between right and wrong as though he's a toddler. It felt incredibly weird to me, and creeped me out, but I suppose it's valuable insight into Aemond's state of mind. I do feel like lots of meaningful character development is being rushed, or not touched upon at all though. We never saw him reprimanded for Luke's death, he has no reaction whatsoever to the death of Jaehaerys. I feel like our guy is just gonna rock up at Rook's Rest, betray Aegon and we're just gonna have to deal with the fact that we've seen none of the unravelling that's occurred mentally to get him there.

We shall see. Overall, I enjoyed this episode. Otto absolutely stole the show for me. Him shouting made me so violently horny that I had to get up and pace around.

[georgiaswarr]

“All my Blu-Rays are still scattered over the cinema room floor. Whiplash is open on top of the Blu-Ray player.”

— Alice Oseman, I Was Born for This, page 97

this quote from the tuesday section iwbft isn’t merely a fun reference to a well-known movie. there’s also a lot of intertextuality there; themes of destroying yourself for art, striving for godhood through music, and much much more. that’s why, for this year’s fandom reread i will be hosting a whiplash watch party on tuesday the 22nd of august at 1pm BST !!!

you can check here which timezone that is for you

it will be hosted on kosmi.io; i will post a link about 20 minutes before the party starts, so keep an eye out for that :)

anyone who wants to can join !! i look forward to seeing as many people on tuesday as possible, so make sure to reblog this and get all your osemanverse mutuals and beyond on board😌

see you then :)

[skyonfilm]

🤖✨ | FINAL DETROIT BECOME HUMAN VIDEO COMING FRIDAY (8PM BST)

kara, alice and luther try to escape to canada, connor has to put matters into his own hands and markus leads the battle for detroit!!

📺 catch up on detroit here

📺 watch the latest episode here

youtube - instagram - tiktok - twitter

[beardedmrbean]

"Thugs" who travelled to Southport to use the deaths of three children "for their own political purposes" were to blame for the violence that saw dozens of police officers injured, the town's MP has said.

Unrest broke out in the Merseyside town hours after a vigil to honour the victims of Monday's knife attack at a dance school in which three young girls were killed and eight other children injured.

Patrick Hurley said the disturbance close to a mosque, which saw officers pelted with bricks and a police van set on fire, had been "horrific".

Merseyside Police Federation's Chris McGlade said more than 50 police officers were hurt in a "sustained and vicious attack".

Merseyside Police said the violence was believed to have involved English Defence League supporters.

Mr Hurley told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the "riot" was "led by people from outside the town".

He said the "thugs who had got the train in" had used the "deaths of three little kiddies for their own political purposes".

Mr McGlade said his injured colleagues were the same "courageous officers" who were themselves trying to come to terms with the "unimaginable tragedy" of Monday's attack.

"I utterly condemn the actions of these mindless and violent thugs - and they will be brought to justice for their actions," he added.

ACC Goss said it was "sickening" that the disturbance happened within a "devastated" community.

He said the force had faced "serious violence" and was "so proud to have witnessed off-duty officers parade back on duty to support their colleagues who had displayed such courage whilst under constant and sustained attack".

He also thanked officers from forces in Greater Manchester, Cheshire, Lancashire and North Wales for providing mutual aid and support.

He added that the disorder involved many people "who do not live in the Merseyside area or care about the people of Merseyside".

"Sadly, offenders have destroyed garden walls so they could use the bricks to attack our officers and have set cars belonging to the public on fire, and damaged cars parked in the mosque car park," he said.

"This is no way to treat a community, least of all a community that is still reeling from the events of Monday."

On Tuesday, Merseyside Police named six-year-old Bebe King, seven-year-old Elsie Dot Stancombe and nine-year-old Alice Dasilva Aguiar as the three girls who were killed at a Taylor Swift-themed dance workshop at the Hart Space studio in Hart Street.

At about 18:00 BST, more than 1,000 people joined a peaceful vigil was held outside the Atkinson gallery on Lord Street.

However, following rumours throughout the day of a demonstration, a group began to gather near a mosque on St Luke's Road, two streets away from Hart Street, at about 19:45 and engaged in a stand-off with police officers.

As the disorder escalated, the group attacked the front of the mosque, throwing bricks, bottles, fireworks and rocks, and officers donned protective gear and used riot shields to defend themselves as wheelie bins and other objects were hurled towards them.

A police vehicle was also set on fire.

Southport Mosque chairman Ibrahim Hussein said he had gone with colleagues to secure the building and had to be taken to a place of safety by police.

He told BBC Radio Merseyside that the group had "started to burn the fences and throw things burning stuff at the windows".

"They smashed all the windows, they broke all the fences and obviously, the chanting and the screaming and the anger just was overwhelming for all of us."

North West Ambulance Service said 27 officers were taken to hospital and 12 were treated and discharged at the scene.

Merseyside Police said those behind the violence had been fired up by social media posts which incorrectly suggested an Islamist link to Monday’s stabbings.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had earlier warned about disinformation linked to the attack.

A 17-year-old boy, who was arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder after Monday's attack, has no known links to Islam.

Assistant Chief Constable Alex Goss said there had been "much speculation and hypothesis" around the teenager and "some individuals" were using it to "bring violence and disorder to our streets".

"We have already said that the person arrested was born in the UK, and speculation helps nobody at this time."

Mr Hurley said it was "reprehensible" that police officers who had been attending injured victims on Monday were finding themselves "being pelted with bricks by these thugs".

He said they had "hijacked the grief" of the town and families.

"These people are utterly disrespecting the families of the dead and injured and totally disrespecting the town," he said.

A 24-hour Section 60 Order has been put in place, giving police extra stop and search powers.

A Section 34 Order has also been introduced, allowing police to direct people who were engaging in antisocial behaviour or were "likely to become involved in such behaviour" away from the area.

Merseyside Police said extra officers would remain in the area "to provide a visible presence and reassure communities".

Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer said on X that the people of Southport were "reeling" after the "horror inflicted on them yesterday".

He said those who had "hijacked the vigil for the victims with violence and thuggery" had insulted the community and would "feel the full force of the law".

Families living nearby told the BBC they feared for their safety as stones flew past and police officers rushed to put on riot gear and pick up shields.

"I can’t believe this is happening in Southport," one young woman shouted from the front of her car as she tried to drive her young daughter away.

The home secretary said it was "appalling" that police officers in Southport were facing attacks from "thugs on the streets who have no respect for a grieving community".

"I think everyone should be showing some respect for the community that is grieving and also for the police who are pursuing an urgent criminal investigation now, and who showed such heroism and bravery yesterday," she said.

Merseyside Police and Crime Commissioner Emily Spurrell also said she was "absolutely appalled by the disgraceful scenes of violence".

"This is a community which has faced unimaginable tragedy, and it is grieving," she said.

"Such behaviour is abhorrent and only causes further harm and suffering," she added.

[crestfallenwanderlust]

I hope that if BSTS gets an Anime adaptation, the CGI used is unnoticeable from the animation. Also hoping for excellent/fluid movement animation and MC having a canonical personality like Alice from HnknA to avoid harsh criticism

[rhetoricandlogic]

Book review: Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

By Stuart Kelly

Published 16th Nov 2022, 16:38 BST

Updated 16th Nov 2022, 16:45 BST

t is a curious kind of question to ask, but what kind of a book is Stella Maris? In a daring move, the publishers brought out Cormac McCarthy’s new novel The Passenger last month, and then this other new work this month. I have known of novels – often science fiction – which are scheduled at six month intervals. But this is unique, particularly because McCarthy is such a renowned figure. So what is this book?

It is not a sequel to The Passenger. It is not a parallel text, telling the same events from a different perspective. It is not really part of a literary diptych, as it is stylistically very different indeed – it would be like having a diptych with one half from the Baroque period and the other half in startling Cubism. Is it, perhaps, a pendant to the first novel; or a ravelling up of unanswered question? Not really. The publishers have opted for “coda” which seems as good a word as any. I suppose I would describe the relationship between Stella Maris and The Passenger as akin to symbiotic. Now, having read Stella Maris, I went back and looked over passages of The Passenger, and they appeared in a different light, like changing the angle of a mirror. Likewise, The Passenger sets up some of the mythology which Stella Maris expands.

It is, whatever it is, quite remarkable. As with only a few other authors – Roberto Bolano, Brian Catling – it has the distinction of having given me bad dreams. Scratch that: nightmares. I mean that as a compliment. The Passenger introduced Western, a marine salvage diver who turns fugitive. We learned that his father worked on the Manhattan Project, that his mother died when he was young, and that his sister, Alicia, is both a genius and insane. There were also dark hints from Western’s roguish friends that he was in love with his sister. Western is not just a fugitive from nefarious forces with inexplicable agendas, but a fugitive from his own past. In Stella Maris we get Alicia’s full-on flight from reality itself.

“Stella Maris” is a “non-denominational facility and hospice for the care of psychiatric medical patients”. A note, dated October 1972, reports that Case 72-118 (is that a nod to how many patients were admitted that year?) is 20, Jewish/Caucasian, female, arrived with $40,000, is a doctoral student in mathematics, has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and has been a resident on two previous occasions. At least one of my hunches from reviewing The Passenger proved to be right. She is not, we find out, actually called Alicia, but changed her name by deed poll using forged documents from Alice.

Alicia, to use her chosen name, is caustic, wry, rebarbative, sarcastic and dismissive. She is also phenomenally clever, and the book takes in topology, physics, ethics, Schopenhauer, Grothendieck, religion, music and at times wonders if mathematics is something we impose on the universe or a set of truths that would exist without any consciousness to comprehend them. She has a pleasing disregard for Carl Jung. It is pretty heady stuff, and one can see that McCarthy has made good use of his time at the Santa Fe Institute for multidisciplinary research. Alicia revels in being a paradox – that she was sane enough to know she had to go to an insane asylum. She certainly does not go easy on her psychiatrist. (A slightly indulgent anecdote: when I had had my insides visiting the outside world, I developed delirium from the painkillers, so a psych was sent. My Dad arrived and the ward sister told him I was seeing the psych and he said “Poor sod”. She replied, “No, he’s in very good hands”. Dad said, “I wasn’t speaking about Stuart.”) It is not so much that this Alice has fallen down a rabbit hole, she excavated the rabbit hole with her fingernails and built a labyrinth at the bottom for good measure.

Formally, the book is only the interchanges between Alicia and Dr Cohen (with the exception of the fake document about Stella Maris on the first page). The reader has to be nimble in not skipping, although the longer disquisitions are usually Alicia. This form is reminiscent of the Greek stichomythia, to use a technical term, which in tragedies in particular uses alternating lines of dialogue to emphasise the underlying conflicts. One of the few books I know in a similar form is William Gaddis’s equally difficult JR. So, from the very first page, we get: “How are you? Are you all right?” “Am I all right.” “Yes.” “I’m in the looney bin”. She is a master of negation: “I’m not really serious”. “Oh”. “Alicia’s okay. I prefer it to Henrietta”. “You’re not being serious again”. “No”.

Alicia’s one condition is that they do not speak about her brother, which they duly do. She tells us about her hallucinations – the Thalidomide Kid and his vaudeville entourage from The Passenger – and her self-awareness about them, which includes using maths to figure out their heights and being sceptical about them having any meaning whatsoever. In some ways the reference to Greek tragedy is key. Western and Alicia are a modern day Orestes and Elektra, siblings from a cursed family, fleeing Furies. The two together, for two doomed not to be together, are a staggering achievement.

[evoldir]

Fwd: Course: cE3c_Portugal.EvolBiol.2025

Begin forwarded message: > From: evoldir@evol.biology.mcmaster.ca > Subject: Course: cE3c_Portugal.EvolBiol.2025 > Date: 23 July 2024 at 05:12:30 BST > To: rdmpage@gmail.com > > > Selection of cE3c Advanced Courses 2025 > > The detailed program of the Advanced Courses organized by > cE3c – Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes > > https://www.ce3c.pt/ - for the academic year 2024/2025 is already available. > > These courses are aimed for students enrolled in Doctoral Programmes > in Biology or related area. They can also be attended by post-graduate > students of other Doctoral Programmes or Masters in Biology, or others > with basic biology formation (such as BSc in Biology or related areas). > > The courses have in general an intensive format, with one week of > duration. Some have a shorter format (see details in each course’s > programme). If not otherwise indicated they are attended in person > (not online). > > We present below the list of courses of more interest for evolutionary > biologists or development of soft skills. More details of these and other > courses (including programmes, fees and procedures for applications) > can be found at: > > https://ift.tt/7RoHUBQ > > Advanced Courses cE3c 2024/2025 > > 06-10 Jan 2025 - Bioinformatics Analysis of biological sequences — > from sequence to structure- Teresa Nogueira (ONLINE) > > 13-15 Jan 2025 - Science and the Media: bringing together scientists, > journalists and society – Marta Daniela Santos > > 27-31 Jan 2025 - Remote sensing of the environment: a practical course - > Maria Alexandra Oliveira et al.  (NEW) > > 31 Mar-04 Apr 2025 - Strategies for citizen engagement in Science > Communication – Cristina Luís & Patrícia Tiago > > 07-11 Apr 2025 - Entomology: Insect diversity and decline - Ana Sofia > Reboleira & Roberto Keller (organizers) et al. > > 12-16 May 2025 - Hands on Functional Diversity: from Ecological Indicators > to Ecosystem Services - Alice Nunes et al. > > 02-06 Jun 2025 - Use of technology in field biology- Maria Dias, Inês > Rosário (organizers) et al. > > 25-27 Jun 2025 - Introduction to R programming and biological data > analysis - Inês Fragata & Alexandre Blanckaert > > 30 Jun-04 Jul 2025 - Advanced R for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology > – Inês Fragata, Vitor Sousa & & Alexandre Blanckaert > > 14-18 Jul 2025 - Museum Techniques in the 21st Century – Ricardo Lopes > et al. (NEW) > > 21-25 Jul 2025 - Measuring Biodiversity: how to get data, assess its > quality and measure different aspects of diversity - Joaquin Hortal & > Ana Margarida Santos > > Margarida Matos > Executive Committee of Centre for Ecology, > Evolution and Environmental Changes > Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa > > Margarida Matos

[thepomegranatewitch]

Join us Sunday 28 July for a summer double feature. We're reading TWO books where everything turns out okay by Dahlia Adler and Alice Hoffman.

Pre-register for link.

Like the stickers? Check the redbubble!

Image description. A square graphic with a background of white pomegranate blossom line drawings on a leafy green background. All text is white serif with black outlines. The top has a lifelike hamsa with light skin and brown eye next to a red pomegranate blossom, the text 'the pomegranate witch's Jewish Book Club,' and a golem holding an untitled open brown book. Below are two darker green boxes with text. Left box reads Sunday 28 July 2024. Below reads 1PM PDT, 4PM EDT, 9PM BST, 11PM IDT, confirm your local time! The right box has a black and white qr code, a link underneath it, and the word 'pre-register' rotated 90 degrees. Large font reads Magic Lessons by Alice Hoffman and Cool for the Summer by Dahlia Adler. Red text rotated to a 10 degree angle reads 'summer double feature' in all caps in bottom right. Just below and to the right of that is the artist's chop in red. Bottom of graphic has black-only text and graphics reading @ the.pomegranate.witch with an instagram, tumblr, and ko-fi logo, a red bubble logo, and 'Sahar Bareket.'

[parkerbombshell]

Stereo Embers The Podcast: Vin Dombroski (Sponge)

Stereo Embers The Podcast: Vin Dombroski (Sponge) by Alex Green Online Thursdays 2pm-3pm EST 11pm-12pm PDT 7pm-8pm BST bombshellradio.com stereoembersmagazine.com Stereo Embers Magazine #StereoEmbers, #podcast, #RadioShow, #AlexGreen, #Nowplaying, #BombshellRadio, #StereoEmbersThePodcast Repeats Fridays 1am EST and Sundays 11am EST "Planet Girls" Formed out of the ashes of the Detroit hard rock outfit Lifehouse, who were signed to Virgin, Sponge got their start in 1992, releasing a string ofalbums like '90s classics Rotting Pinata and Wax Ecstatic. The band had modern rock radio hits with Molly and Plowed, they appeared on Letterman and Conan, they toured the world, played with Alice in Chains, Soul Asylum and Love Spit Love, opened for Kiss at Tiger Stadium and played every festival you can think of, from Lollapallooza to Sunstroke in Ireland. Singer Vin Dombroski is a commanding frontman, who comes across like a hybrid of Scott Weiland and Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs and his onstage charisma makes him one of those frontmen you can't take your eyes off of. The dude is dynamic. Speaking of dynamic, their new album Planet Girls is a thrilling listen, but it's not new. It was set to come out in 1999 but the record company had a listen and didn't hear anything they thought would connect with the current cultural climate, so they shelved it. Big mistake. When I hear Planet Girls I hear a band brimming with confidence and muscle--the songs on this album have fire, swagger and swerve. To me it sounds like a mix of Cheap Trick and Stone Temple Pilots--it's big, it's ferocious and it's unforgettable. They scrapped it, re-recorded it and put it out as New Pop Sunday, which is awesome, but Planet Girls exists in its own fevered universe and you get to hear it now thanks to Dombroski releasing it from the vaults both digitally and on a handsome slab of vinyl. www.spongetheband.com (http://www.spongetheband.com) www.bombshellradio.com www.stereoembersmagazine.com (http://www.stereoembersmagazine.com) www.alexgreenbooks.com (http://www.alexgreenbooks.com) Twitter: @emberseditor IG: @emberspodcast Email: editor@stereoembersmagazine.com (mailto:editor@stereoembersmagazine.com) Read the full article

[cantquitu]

Full transcript: Sunday September 01 2024, 12.07am BST, The Sunday Times

As a teenager growing up in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire, Gemma Styles wasn’t really a gym person. But when she started doing her A-levels, she developed a habit. “I would be going to the gym at 9pm so I was really tired,” she says. “Otherwise I was too stressed out to sleep.”

It worked, sort of: Styles passed the exams and got into Sheffield Hallam University to study a science teaching degree. Except then things got worse. “The comfort or structure that I’d always been used to, at home and at school, the people to check on you and notice if things are OK or not, when that was not there any more, the wheels fell off the train, to be honest. And that was when, in terms of depression, my mental health got really, really bad.”

On the sort of balmy August day that beer gardens are made for, Styles, 33, is sitting opposite me on a grey sofa in her open, sunlit living room, while her eight-month-old daughter wriggles on her knee. Being candid and thoughtful on the subject of mental health is Styles’s gig — she’s part of a generation of millennial women using social media to put these conversations front and centre (see also: Scarlett Curtis, Jameela Jamil, Alice Liveing). On Instagram she shares stories and advice about depression and anxiety with her ten million followers, and on her Good Influence podcast she covers topics like stress and body confidence.

Now she has written a book, Why Am I Like This? — a warm, compassionate and digestible account of why our imperfect human brains sometimes struggle with the demands of modern life. It takes on neuroscience, anthropology and psychology, covering everything from social media to SSRIs, activism to the 24/7 news doom cycle, and the physiology of what exactly our brains are doing when they go into “fight or flight” mode — all dispatched with thoughtful explanations and kind asides.

The ultimate message is to cut yourself some slack. “If you’re someone who is a little bit introspective, or interested in understanding yourself better, that’s who I was writing it for,” Styles says.

In the book she draws on her own experiences with mental illness, writing that by her mid-twenties she was trapped in a cycle of depressive episodes and anxiety, blaming herself for feeling so miserable and unworthy, which of course made it all much worse. “Seeing a therapist in the end turned out to be the best decision I could have made,” she writes.

“I think those times when my own mental health has been really, dangerously poor have given me such an appreciation for being able to find the things that make me happy,” she says now, while emphasising that Why Am I Like This? is not a memoir. “I was very clear from the beginning — I’m not interested in writing a memoir. Because I mean, what’s there to write? I don’t know. I consider myself an exceptionally normal person.”

Strictly speaking, there is one big way in which her life is not exceptionally normal: her little brother is Harry Styles. The same Harry Styles who was formerly the biggest member of one of the biggest boy bands of all time, who in 2016 relaunched as a solo artist with moves like Mick Jagger, and since then has released three colossally successful albums, sold out stadiums around the world and starred in several Hollywood blockbusters. In July he duetted on stage in Hyde Park with his friend Stevie Nicks.

The One Direction circus catapulted his sister — three years Harry’s senior — from total obscurity to the status of accidental star by association. Styles’s social media following exploded (as did their mother Anne’s — now a children’s author with three million Instagram followers of her own). “Having the amount of followers that I have now isn’t something that I went out and courted,” Styles says. “It just happened very much on the periphery of what was going on with someone else.”

It’s worth pointing out that being Harry’s big sister is absolutely not the only reason Styles has such a huge following online. But as that attention snowballed, it did leave her with a decision to make.

“I ended up in that position and I was like, well, what am I going to do with it? If I’m going to have that sort of platform, then do I feel good about what I’m using it for? Can I help people with it? What do I want to talk about? What do I want to be known for?” Today she has found her calling.

Even though her kid brother is now to be found harmonising with a member of Fleetwood Mac, he’s still there for her when she needs him. Literally: on the shoot for this article Uncle Harry turned up to babysit his niece. In the acknowledgments of Why Am I Like This?, Styles thanks “my mum, for holding me tight along the way” and “H for the pep talks and your endless wisdom”.

“My family are very open about mental health, which I have found so amazing and comforting,” she says. “I know that’s something that not everybody has when they go through mental health issues. So I am very, very grateful for that.”

Has she given her brother any wisdom of her own over the years? “I think we all help each other, to be honest. People in your family, they don’t have to understand everything, but giving people space to talk about what they’re going through is such a valuable thing for anyone.”

That’s what she does for her followers on Instagram, who will regularly message to tell her they feel less alone thanks to something she has shared. “A big part of being human is we like to feel like we’re understood.” Social media can be a hornet’s nest, but Styles thinks it is possible to avoid the darker, more polarising sides. “Be intentional about what you’re consuming. We talk about algorithms a lot now, but if there are things that you’re following that are making you feel rubbish, you don’t have to follow them.”

Has having a very well-known member of her family shaped her approach to social media? “I think H is a really good example actually of someone who has been introspective enough about their own social media use to know what feels good and what doesn’t,” she says. “He’s not super-active on social media. And that seems to work for him the best at the moment.” She did the same during her maternity leave. “I disappeared for months.”

She recently sought help again. For a little while she had been wondering if some of the things she had struggled with all her life — finding it hard to motivate herself and having difficulties maintaining the admin of friendships — could be ADHD. When she started reading about how it manifests in women, she had a light-bulb moment … sort of. “I was like, oh my God, that is me,” she says, “I think. Or am I just convincing myself of that as an excuse for why I’ve always been rubbish at all these things?”

Why Am I Like This? is not a manifesto, although Styles is clear-eyed about the ways in which the mental health system is not working. According to research by the membership organisation NHS Providers, in September 2023 more than 1.8 million people were on waiting lists for these services. “The gap between people being aware of anxiety, for example, and there actually being support for any kind of mental illness is a canyon,” she says. She is an ambassador for a research charity called MQ Mental Health Research, which delivered a letter to Downing Street in July 2023 highlighting the desperate need for commitment to mental health services. “I have been dealing with this for more than a decade,” she says. “So I’ve got skin in the game. I genuinely care.”

Finally she made a GP appointment, expecting them to dismiss the idea — instead she was referred for an assessment and diagnosed with ADHD in 2022. In signature style, she shared the news on Instagram: “I have ADHD!” she wrote. “Oddly feel more nervous to talk about it with you than I have any other mental health-related things, but here we go …” In no time at all her DMs were full of notes from other women who had also been diagnosed, thanking her for her openness.

Two years on, the diagnosis has taught her to be more compassionate towards herself. “There’s such shame that goes with the particular things that people with ADHD tend to struggle with,” she says. “It does feel like a moral failing, like laziness. The label has given me a different lens to understand my own behaviour, to look on myself a bit more kindly and to try to make life easier for myself.” In Why Am I Like This?, she writes about hoping to understand more about what influence ADHD could have had on her mental health throughout the years.

She also hopes the book will help others to understand their idiosyncratic, imperfect brains — “I take a great amount of joy from being able to explain things to people in a digestible way” — and to keep learning herself. “I’ve spent so much of my life not understanding why I struggle with certain things. And I think it has been such a help for me to have more of an understanding of how my brain works.”

Why Am I Like This? by Gemma Styles (Bantam £20) is out on September 12. To order a copy go to timesbookshop.co.uk or call 020 3176 2935. Free UK standard P&P on online orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members

Even though her kid brother is now to be found harmonising with a member of Fleetwood Mac, he’s still there for her when she needs him. Literally: on the shoot for this article Uncle Harry turned up to babysit his niece. In the acknowledgments of Why Am I Like This?, Styles thanks “my mum, for holding me tight along the way” and “H for the pep talks and your endless wisdom”.

[companion-showdown]

It's Nominations Day! This New Tournament is Best Fashion Sense

Give me the names of some of the best dressed characters in the Whoniverse

there are no EU autoqualifiers this time, but if Charley, Benny, Evelyn, Fitz, Frobisher, Lucie, Iris, or Liv get nominated, they are guaranteed a place in round 1, any other nominations will need to get through the round 0 group stage

Please note, if they only ever where a uniform I won't be including the nomination. Some exceptions might be made on a case by case basis if the uniform really is a choice (like when Rory dresses as a centurion post the Big Bang)

Current Nominations:

Ruby Sunday (there is a further poll for her here)

Missy

Gillian and John Who

Bernice Summerfield (automatically qualifies)

Fitz Kreiner (automatically qualifies)

Frobisher (automatically qualifies)

Madame de Pompadour

Evelyn Smythe (automatically qualifies)

Sara Kingdom

Rodan

Lon (Snakedance)

Deanna Troi

Petronella Osgood

Vastra

Jenny Flint

Mels

Iris Wildthyme (automatically qualifies)

Josie Day

Alice Obiefune

We also have a nomination list for outfits to include in the graphics for the tournament

if you want to see what those look like at the moment (there might be minor tweeks), Classic Who is here, New Who is here, EU is here (currently only has Benny and Fitz)

Again, please only suggest uniforms if it is an active choice the companion is making

Nominations will last for 24 hours, closing just after 16:00 BST, 07/08

[nottinghillhq]

alice braga and sofia boutella are reserved for mel for twenty-four hours (ending 6:17 am bst 08/07)

[randomisedgaming]

Recent streams on Twitch

If you missed any of our recent Twitch streams you can always catch up back on Twitch as all are streams are archived

Yesterday Riven was looking at all the recent Ninja Jajamaru games released in February. It includes a playthrough of the Super Nintendo game in the series Super Ninja Kid which is very good.

You can read more about the new releases in the series here: https://www.iningames.com/games/ninja-jajamaru

Also Wii U fans check out this stream where we look at the some of the best games on the service sadly now all delisted!

Next stream will be tomorrow at 3pm UK time (15:00 BST) where Riven will be streaming the new Dreamcast title Alice Dreams Tournament which is now available from publisher WAVE Game Studios to buy. Link here for our Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/randomised_gaming/

Follow Randomised Gaming on Tumblr, for video game, art, reviews, features, videos and more. You can also find us on YouTube, Twitch & Twitter for even more gaming & video content! Buy us a tea on Ko-fi