Laura Kennedy
@LooraKennedy
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writer who asks annoying questions kennedlaur @gmail .com
Australia, via Ireland/London
Joined October 2013
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Took me long enough but I finally wrote that book on our relationship with identity labels. Turns out the best productivity hack is quitting your job and moving to Australia where you don’t know anyone and have nothing to do but write a book. Out September 19th.
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It’s been just my brother and I since our mother died four years ago, & even though we both have great spouses, that can feel like a very narrow family. Last night, his daughter Astrid was born and just like that, there are more of us. It’s an uncomplicated joy in a complex time.
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I am back on Irish soil after two years and by god there isn’t a dog that will go unpet or a baby unsmiled at. It’s glorious to be back.
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Ireland is a wonderful example of not taking offence at cultural appropriation. This weekend, we will tolerate shitty accent impressions, crappy plush green hats, insultingly intoxicated tourists and generally farcical reflections of our culture, and we’ll be like ‘grand so’.
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Today I passed my PhD viva with minor revisions. Finally, as a doctor of philosophy, I can be powerless to help people who have medical emergencies on planes but still obnoxiously shout ‘ME!’ If anyone asks if there’s a doctor on board.
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Someone find me the (inevitably existing) German word for when you’ve forgotten that you stripped the bed earlier and now you’ve come up to bed but there are no sheets on it and it’s after midnight.
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Happy international men's day all. Some hugely important men's issues don't get the attention they need.
#InternationalMensDay
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It’s very difficult to hide the fact that you’re Irish. It’s not just an accent thing - it announces itself in ‘subtler’ ways. Eg I went for a meeting at the bank today, and when I stood up to greet the guy I was meeting, a ham and cheese sandwich fell out of my handbag.
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@Nigella_Lawson
is now baking potatoes in cream and sprinkling the whole business with breadcrumbs. It’s nothing short of obscene. Can’t something be done for her in the way of honorary irish citizenship? She is evidently one of us.
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I'm irritated by women begrudging
#InternationalMensDay
. Feminism is about equality. Acknowledging men's issues is equally important.
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It is March. We are all hurtling swiftly toward death. Do something about that thing which has been on your mind every day, and that you haven’t acted on out of fear/worry. Being perpetually anxious is palpably worse than most failures/changes.
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I’ve been thinking about this lovely tweet quite a bit today. My mother used to cut clippings of stuff I got published and glue it into a scrapbook (which I have but still can’t really look at). The idea that anyone else in the world would do this is somehow especially touching.
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Philosophers - have you observed that academics in other disciplines tend to have negative attitudes toward philosophy and philosophers? If so, why do you think that might be? I find myself continually encountering academics in varied disciplines who exhibit this attitude.
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This is all very challenging but it’s important to find the bright side of self-isolation if you can. In my own case, it’s a brilliant cool-off period for relatives who are upset himself and I eloped last week. They should just about have got tf over it when I next see them. 👍
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Thanks to Kevin Doran for confirming what we all knew already - that the Catholic church is the most poisonous entity in Irish history, and that while individuals of course have every right to be guided by its ideology, it should have no role in our collective morality.
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If you disagree with an opposing view, and you justify your disagreement with reference to anything other than the content of the argument articulating that view, your position is not rigorous, respectable or defensible.
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If you are in a mixed-nationality relationship, it’s important to respect your partner’s culture. For example, try not to do what my British husband did this morning, when he merrily wished me a happy St. Patrick’s Day and asked if I wanted blighted potatoes for dinner tonight.
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'Giving' new national maternity hospital to Sisters of Charity is an unconscionable insult to Irish women. They have no place in hospitals.
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Sharing one more time because this is a weird window in the calendar (and people reading my stuff pays my bills, frankly). It’s really the sharp edge of the year and it feels like people are always lost in the transition.
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Disappointed
@Rubberbandits
was unnecessarily named here, but Blindboy is doing something very valuable and is generally ignored by irish legacy media - partially due to its inherent insularity, and partially because his work threatens it.
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I wrote this on my mother’s anniversary, about how grief changes and what we learn from it.
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@MarianKeyes
I find that if you just let them in, buy them a jewelled collar and give them all your property, they’re only abusive a small proportion of the time.
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Suicide rates among men are astronomical. Men die younger and die in the workplace far more often than women.
#InternationalMensDay
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Floyd Mayweather saying he wants to set an example for younger fighters. Don't punch women, then, you donk.
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Thanks to those who sent messages about today’s column. One of my favourite aspects of Irish culture is the way we deal with death.We aren’t any better at dying than anyone else, but we leave room to think and talk about death, and we treat it with humour, honesty and reverence.
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Today’s column - my last - is on endings, and the fact that though life can teach us to fear them, we really don’t need to. If you have read the column these last several years, thank you.
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The scope of the (yet again) ugly response to Sinéad O'Connor really articulates the extent to which we don't 'get' mental illness.
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Irish people feeling obliged to traipse into the comments to tell me our country is shite is the most Irish thing ever. I know it’s shite you eejits. It’s also great. That’s the nature of home. Settle down and moderate your need to stamp out a tiny frisson of joy, Geraldine.
I am back on Irish soil after two years and by god there isn’t a dog that will go unpet or a baby unsmiled at. It’s glorious to be back.
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I absolutely dislike forms of feminism which imply that women are brainless victims of culture whose agency is in some way less than men’s: that men consciously do what they want & women unconsciously do what men want. This has been an irked subtweet. Have a good afternoon.
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Also of course I have some theories. Philosophers are, after all, just the absolute most annoying people in the world etc, but curious as to what you think.
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I don’t think I’ll ever get a better, more gratifying or exciting retweet than this, so I’m sharing it and none of you can stop me.
This is such a beautiful, though heartbreaking, piece
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Catcalled by sad old guy. Whistled,said "Who's your daddy?" Responded "Dunno he effed off yrs ago. Omg are you him!? If so you owe me money"
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A man just watched me apply neat cat eye liner on a moving train with his jaw open. I feel I have given him one of life’s most miniature aesthetic experiences on his commute to work. Also, let’s hope women keep bodily autonomy because we can do all sorts of amazing shit.
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I wrote a piece for
@TheSTStyle
on how the basic rituals of grooming and beauty helped to maintain my relationship with my mother at the most difficult time in both our lives. So often, beauty is considered shallow, but it can be visceral and affirming.
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One of the great things about CBT and philosophy around it is that it teaches you to look take your own emotions out and have a look at them. I am in a snippy, weird mood today that I don’t fully understand. If I didn’t realise that, I’m confident I would follow it somewhere bad.
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I tend not to be publicly emotional, but I’ve wept most unattractively today over the wonderful emails from
@IrishTimes
readers who’ve emailed to say they’ll miss the column. I’ll answer all eventually but in the interim thank you so much if you’ve been in touch, & for reading.
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I’ve never taken cocaine, but I just got contact lenses for the first time and it turns out the world has a mind-blowing texture I haven’t been able to see in years. I went for a walk; met three chihuahuas with distinct faces. I can see every leaf on every tree. Vision is my drug
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I wish to suggest the illegalisation of the following terms: ‘mumma’ (translation: mother), and ‘bubba’ (translation: baby). Example of use: ‘Sandra is mumma to two little bubbas’. STOP IT.
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I have had a stressful day. Himself just came in from the supermarket holding a pumpkin and said gently ‘I bought you this pumpkin. I thought that maybe you might like to carve it’. Being Irish, I couldn’t possibly tell him I was v touched so I came upstairs to tweet it instead.
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Something to make Christmas less challenging for others: if you encounter someone who doesn’t have a relationship with certain family members, don’t judge or give advice in light of the time of year. If you don’t know why someone doesn’t see a relative, trust their judgement.
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Thanks to everyone for the well wishes on this. This doctorate took me a long time, I lost people I loved while working on it, and it was a legitimate challenge to my mental health. Nothing does you as much good as successfully finishing something constructive but difficult. 👍
Today I passed my PhD viva with minor revisions. Finally, as a doctor of philosophy, I can be powerless to help people who have medical emergencies on planes but still obnoxiously shout ‘ME!’ If anyone asks if there’s a doctor on board.
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How’s your day going? I’ve just extracted Mabel from the Christmas tree for the 764th time.
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I’m still getting tweets and emails about this column on grief. I wish I were better at predicting which ones will strike a chord. If you’re feeling disjointed by an anniversary, and or grieving, it may help. Or it may not - we’re all different.
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In a vignette which is peak academia, my thesis corrections were just approved at 10pm on a Sunday night, so I guess I can fall into bed a DOCTOR with a sore back, rather than a non-doctor with a sore back. (Makes surprisingly little difference to a sore back tbh).
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Quick Mabel update: please be kind if you receive a Christmas card from her. Her handwriting is pure shite but she’s determined to try her best.
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Home in Limerick for a few days. It still feels impossible that my mother isn’t here every time I come home. For a pretty long time I couldn’t come back at all, but now I can feel the good feelings along with the tougher ones, and that’s genuinely heartening.
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I really enjoy when, as a way of disagreeing with something unrelated I have said, someone points out that I write a beauty column as though that constitutes a specialised counter-argument.Of course, because every lipstick name you learn boots a Platonic Dialogue out of your head
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An Irish Rail spokesman said he would “strongly urge” Mr McGregor to get a Leap Card. “If money is as tight as his trousers, he can also save up to 31 per cent on his fare.”
Conor McGregor’s father complains coins ruin his ‘slim-fit, hand-fitted Hugo Boss suit’
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I feel a powerful urge to shelve the column I’ve written to file tomorrow so that I can write one about a politician suing a Dublin hotel because she doesn’t have the life experience/sense to figure out how swings work. I rarely get such urges, so I’m doing it.
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One of my favourite Irishisms is when someone observes something unkind but humorous about someone else, and includes the phrase ‘God forgive me’ within the same breath as the insult eg ‘He’s an awful self important tool God forgive me.’
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Himself (an Englishman) shouting at me in a comically terrible Irish accent as I complain about the overcomplicated soda breads on Bake Off:’ YEAH. THE ONLY THING YOU SHOULD PUT IN SODA BREAD IS A LOATHIN’ OF THE BRITISH!’
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Concerned by the number of pro choice people I know expressing shock at the size of the recent march to keep the eighth amendment. The shock is evidence that they live in an echo chamber and aren’t talking to others. Echo chambers breed complacency and intellectual laziness.
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Sad about the World Cup, but at least now all the Irish football fans I know can stop wishing the English team ill and go back to vehemently and whole heartedly supporting the English teams they appear to identify with on an existential and cosmic level. Sigh.
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My uncle is a charming loon. He’s spent part of his lockdown installing an outdoor shower to a tree in the woods by his house and then sent me a minutes-long video of my cousin Mark (who looks uncomfortably like my father) showering in his underpants. How’s your lockdown going?
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A working class background dictates that I frame the graduation photo I’ve kept on a shelf for a year, but also that I recognise the inherent ridiculousness of expertise. This monstrosity manages to capture a whisper of this conflict, and reminds me I’m a joke, so that’s good
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Please no one get angry with me, but is there no one else who would rather peel their own leg than go to a festival?
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So many people are living with intense feelings of needing to change their lives in very fundamental ways at the moment. At least if the people around me are anything to go by. If you feel that way, it’s probably quite healthy - it’s been a bastard of a year & we are all changed.
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January feeling like a struggle? Here’s Mabel wearing a vending machine cat hat my brother brought back from Japan. It’s an orange and you’re welcome.
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As a freelance writer (utterly ridiculous job, I know) it seems there’s never been a period (in my lifetime) when timeliness and efficiency have been more important to keeping already precarious work. But I find myself unbelievably distracted and unfocused atm. Anyone else?
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Soul destroying: phoning a Boomer in your thirties and beyond to ask if it’s okay to put a picture of your cat on the living room wall of their third house.
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Arbitrary thing that gives me a disproportionate sense of joy and achievement: watering a wilty, miserable looking plant, coming back a short while later, and seeing that it looks perfect again. Almost like you cured its hangover or reversed time.
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An update on the wisteria house in the village: I’ve seen several thrashing, gnashing tweets this morning from disgruntled individuals. Here’s nine seconds of unfiltered, glorious wisteria for anyone who wants a tiny break - it’s positively restorative.
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If you’re related to me, please stop asking me why i haven’t bought a house yet. Here’s why.
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These two are wonderful together.
@roisiningle
and
@MarianKeyes
Marian astutely points out that if you want an Ottolenghi recipe ready for tomorrow, you have to get it started roughly last January and import several of the ingredients from Jupiter.
#ITSummerNights
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A love letter to my hometown ‘Limerick felt then like a place with a ceiling two feet above your head, with no room to stretch,no room to make anonymous mistakes. No room to try on different versions of yourself to see which felt least like a performance.’
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If you want to know why journalists don’t write their own headlines, I just filed a column about a nice man who’s trying to sleep with my boyfriend. The column makes reference to the nobility of the stoat as an animal, and I’ve provisionally titled it ‘Stoatally Unacceptable’.
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I'm giving away a copy of
#AboutFace
with some of the best products mentioned in the book! Follow and RT. ROI ONLY
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‘I’m not finished grieving; but sometimes the light gets in’. I wrote this about grief three years in, and how I’ve noticed some improvements in relation to it over the last few months. It’s changing shape, and that’s a good thing.
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Many thanks to the parents who, on reading my column on some parents being entitled & disdainful of the lives & time of the childless, tweeted to tell me I’m stupid, egotistical and that my life has no meaning until I have a kid. So nice to have my initial point disproved.
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It is difficult to know what to say, except that Aisling was an original thinker, a kind, robust spirit and an exceptionally constant friend. I am not alone in owing her my start, and will miss her very much. She was loved.
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I am not a football fan, but when I think of the dismissals of ‘women’s frivolous interests’, and then watch this match, I laugh. It is a bunch of onanistic, pugnacious, twattish young men being rewarded for acting like children and diving ten feet every time they are touched.
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People are so bizarre in relation to Peterson - the defensive superfans are as silly as the people who don’t actually know what he thinks but are sure he’s a fascist. Where on earth are the reasoned people who can look at what he truly thinks and just assess the flaws and merits?
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Don't forget that I'm giving these away at the end of this week! Follow and RT to enter. ROI only
#AboutFace
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@thomaschattwill
Perhaps even more sadly, mental toughness seems to be something that is interpreted as a debilitating and toxic hangover of traditional masculinity. The idea being that overcoming obstacles actually just endorses the obstacle. Such bigotry of low expectation.
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Got some new glasses so I took a photo. But God RSF (Resting Smug Face) is a curse. It’s awful to look like you’re always about to ‘well actually’ someone. Or to just generally have a face that suggests ‘my father owns a boat’.
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I wrote a Substack column on treating yourself with compassion for people who learned early to dislike themselves, & struggle as a result. It was a slightly embarrassing one to write, which means it’s either helpful, or I’ll now have to go live in a cave!
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New favourite category of Irish person: Those who are vocally and aggressively disdainful of Catholicism, but legitimately believe that crystals have healing/mood altering powers.
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I wrote this on the third anniversary of my mother’s death. I suppose it is about grief, and how grief changes, twists, recedes and returns with time.
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If you ask me, pancakes for breakfast on Pancake Tuesday is an amateur move. What you should do is have pancakes for dinner, because that is far more forbidden, you can eat them without rushing, and it adds a delightfully injudicious flavour to the whole affair.
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Trinity College sent round email today declaring title of 1st & 2nd yr undergrads to be changed from ‘Freshman’ to ‘Fresh’ in the name of gender neutrality. Wildly pointless and silly. All digital and print mentions of said title to be consequently changed.
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I recently wrote about the conceptual problems with depression - how vague it is. This week, I’ve written a little about my own experience with it, and a perspective changing moment in a therapy session when I was young and really struggling.
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Read a piece on
@IrishTimes
suggesting that sharing food on a first date increases the chances of progressing to a second date. I’d rather die alone, frankly.
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The graffiti in Somerset lacks the politicised edge of London’s street art, but tells the truth so forcefully that I prefer it.
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The church in Ireland laid down in action the best possible example of how not to live and treat others. Now, let's get it out of our schools, and assign it the status it is entitled to - that of any religious organisation people can engage with in their own time, and by choice.
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@thomaschattwill
This reads like a crib sheet for building an emotionally cramped, creatively stunted, fear-dominated learning environment. Also interesting that students who ‘commit to themselves’ can only do so by submitting to the specific, regimented, outright weird values of the writer.
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Particularly if you know a young man who may be having a hard time or mental health issues, check in with him today.
#InternationalMensDay
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Ad hominem attacks, a purported ability to intuit the other person’s intent, or concern for who else holds the view are simply irrelevant. An idea has merit in its own right, or it doesn’t. The only way to figure that out is through good faith engagement with opposing views.
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I think suing a hotel whose novelty swing you fell out of because they didn’t have supervision or signage to instruct you on how to use it is possibly the greatest meta level self own an Irish politician could engage in.
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I’m not a fan of Markle’s issue of Vogue. Here’s why -
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Every time I break one of the cups from the tea set my mother left me when she died, I have a small crisis in the kitchen, as though I’ve betrayed her in some way, or lost part of her. I found a sort of solution to help with this -
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I have a particular loathing for saccharine PR emails which begin with the salutation ‘Hello Lovely’. I possess a name. Also I’m not actually lovely. I’m extremely irksome and ill favoured. The most cursory research would confirm this.
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If you're disturbed by events in Afghanistan, the most practical action is to email/write your MP or public rep. The US and UK governments have a direct responsibility and duty of rescue to the Afghan people - if you live in either place, you can use the below letter template.
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This is still in the top most read pieces on the entire The Irish Times site today. Apparently, people respond well to being told that we’re all going to die. That’s nice.
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My deepest wish is that it be
@Rubberbandits
who fly to Vegas to perform the national anthem for McGregor.
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@lastpositivist
Horrifying. I much preferred the irish catholic approach to education, where the nun would begin the class by affirming that no one in the room is interesting or special, and then give you equations.
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If any of you try to suggest that I haven’t achieved much in this bizarre year, I will whip this tweet (laminated and worn around my neck on a duck egg blue lanyard) out and shrilly shout ‘BEG TO DIFFER!’ before sauntering off in high dudgeon.
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Contextualising the joy. She wasn’t around last time I was home. Two years away and I finally got to meet her. That’s one baby smiled at anyway.
I am back on Irish soil after two years and by god there isn’t a dog that will go unpet or a baby unsmiled at. It’s glorious to be back.
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Would not be too concerned about Healy Rae’s words - he did more to convert undecideds in favour of repealing the eighth than months of campaigning could. Such embarrassing buffoonery is an unspeakably arrogant, ham-fisted attempt at virtue signalling, but ultimately helpful.
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Just finished the piece on
@jordanbpeterson
and it took me so many drafts I’m half blind. It was really enlightening to sit down with him and ask him to clarify some stuff for me - we covered a lot.He was polite and obliging. You can read about it in
@IrishTimesMag
this Saturday.
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I was getting annoyed by something at home this morning when I turned and saw Mabel had climbed into the impossibly small basket I had just removed a plant from. A good reminder that everything about being alive is ridiculous and we should all take ourselves less seriously.
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This is such comforting listening. It isn’t from this week, but listening to
@Nigella_Lawson
talking about freezing milk and making potato peel crisps will just make you feel better. Take half an hour if you can and rearrange your insides.
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