Samantha Horley
@SamanthaHorley
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Screenwriter w @UnitedAgents . Script doctor & lecturer. Ex intl film sales. ENM, EDS. Fairness fanatic (BLM, TWAW). “Welsh enough”
179 Yards Into Essex
Joined November 2008
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So I promised some cold hard truths to writers about submitting scripts to execs. Buckle up, this is gonna be bumpy.
#scriptchat
The first thing to say is that they assume it’s going to be shit. Sad isn’t it? The fact is that most scripts are. Even the packaged* ones.
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Need your help Twitter. A neighbour’s autistic daughter needs a new fire engine. It has to be this and only this one. Mum is desperate. Manufacturer Galey but no longer made. We can do this. Pls retweet.
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@MiGoodhall
Oh my god!! Thank you so much. That’s fine. She doesn’t need the shapes. I’ll DM my address and send you the postage. Wowwwww. Twitter really is amazing.
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Oh fuck the fuck off. How often have we had to suck up watching women being nagging wives, hookers or dead hookers?
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The number of scripts I STILL read where “good” men punch walls, grab a woman by the arm to stop her leaving. One I’m reading right now a guy throws a bottle at a wall. These are not “good” men who are angry or frustrated. These are violent men but violence is just normalised.
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Hello. I am a person in a film or TV drama and when I wake up, before even opening my eyes, I feel the pillow next to me to see if the person I fell asleep with is still there or not.
Hello. I am a person in a film or television drama. I never use the toilet.
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Went to a film freelancer event tonight. Writers, directors, editors. Everyone had the same look in their eyes… no one is working. Well, one person finally got a TV directing job for this year. All weary and wary. Hoping, trying to be positive it’ll get better. Fucking bleak.
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If anything like this is happening to you and you work in UK film or TV then please call the
@FilmTVCharity
hotline or report anonymously to your union who keep tallies on potential serial abusers. With enough complaints they can report. Or you can just talk. You are not alone.
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To the men who ARGUED with me that the man who approached me at a bus stop at midnight to tell me he’d seen me from the top of the bus and got off to especially talk to me was ROMANTIC... this is why it’s fucking terrifying.
Woman stabbed at bus stop 'after refusing man's sexual advances'
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BUT the the joy… THE JOY!… when one comes through that you love. You want to jump up and down and it breathes life back into your jaded existence and you want to hug the writer and be their champion and it reminds you why you’re here in the first place.
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Try around 100 max. Please. Edit edit edit. Be tough on yourself.
Genre. Choose one and stick to it. Don’t try and be tricksy and clever here. Needs a clear target audience.
A good title and a cracking two line pitch may well get you noticed if it makes an exec sit up…
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*** if you think I get my stuff read because I have the contacts, well, sometimes sure. But guess what, most of the execs I send my stuff to? Well, they assume it’s gonna be shit. See above.
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So what am I saying? Make it as easy as possible for the exec so that their heart doesn’t sink when they come to your script. Start with page count. It’s literally the first thing we look at. Anything over 110 pages and we resent you already because it may be a sunny day.
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Tough read. “In the 70s, working-class kids had access to youth clubs, community groups, local libraries, swimming pools, sports clubs, arts groups – opportunities to change their lives. “Today, that’s all mostly gone. These were routes out of poverty. Now, they’re non-existent.”
You are being asked not to look away from this story
I spoke to the head of Scotland’s leading children’s charity about what poverty is doing to kids today
‘They face a daily struggle to survive. It’s intolerable. We cannot look away’
Listen to her
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All of us who read scripts started out loving films and excited to read scripts. But most are shit. Over time we all became jaded and it gets to the point that reading scripts is a fucking chore. See, told you it was sad.
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So. What I can ASSURE you is that every exec in the film industry loves films. Of EVERY genre. We love talking films and TV. We love horror films and silly comedies and tearjerking dramas. (So don’t be a snob coz we aren’t).
In the example above if the script is good…
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*packaged meaning with producer, director, cast.
When I say “shit” I mean creatively: plodding, too long, badly structured, don’t have payoff, bad characters etc
But also may be badly packaged: miscast, budget too high etc
Muddy genre, no audience**
Or here’s the clincher..
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… and say “That sounds cool, I wanna know more.”
I’m a writer now. I get my stuff read***. I also tell them “it’s an easy read.” Which my scripts are. The “action” is as fun as the rest because it’s tone setting. This is a whole other thing I’ll get into another time.
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I’ve bought the nastiest, chewiest Haribo for the trick or treaters so I don’t eat it.
I’ve eaten it.
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They may not be to that person or company’s MO. eg you’re sending a horror script to a company who does award winning dramas. 10 pages in and you know you’re gonna pass so you’re already wasting that person’s time.
Bearing in mind this is all at a professional level here.
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So, onwards. Most scripts are shit. I read a lot for an investor. For several years. In that time there has been ONE that I truly loved.
A couple were good but needed work… most were just not good at all.
So this is the sad bit…
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Also, even the salaried execs are expected to read scripts outside of office hours. Sunny Sunday today and execs are resentful at having to read shit scripts on the weekend. For me, paid per script, I’m resentful a 128 page script is gonna be an even bigger bite out of my day.
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**no audience/muddy genre. This is what I lecture on a lot as you know. A script can actually be good (a good page turning read) but if it has no audience, it can be perceived as shit. Tough isn’t it?
Sometimes it can be fixed. Sometimes not.
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I know one exec at a huge production co essentially suffering depression at having to read terrible scripts. You may well say tough shit, sure. But I understand the jadedness too well. You no longer have any expectations…
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… it’ll likely get finished and you’ll get a nice note about your writing but it’ll still be a pass with perhaps an irk that you’ve not done your homework about this company.
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@matthaig1
more Americans die every year falling backwards off bar stools trying to catch peanuts in their mouths than killed by terrorists.
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@RhyanRomaine
@wagatwe
@killdads
.I see you’ve met my mother. In other news I’ve spent a shit ton of money on therapy for myself about her. How is that fair?
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Hilarious chat w my agent just now. Said he had a producer call in a rage bc he’d just run into a writer in a bookshop who he was currently paying to write a script. Like he wasn’t allowed to leave the house…?
Agent said that some producers have no idea how writers write.
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Give me your worst pitching stories, pitched at or been pitched.
The cringier the better.
I once asked a producer if he’d like to hear about us and what we were up to and he just said, “no.” We were in his office, at the very beginning of a one hour meeting I had set.
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This week I had to explain to a producer that their job was to provide a nurturing creative environment to their filmmakers, and to treat them like equals, not employees.
I may not survive this but I hope my sacrifice won’t be in vain for those who come after.
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@Rowan_Lawton
.I did it recently, and the guy I asked to turn his phone music down got so angry that two fellow tube passengers thought he was going to turn violent on me and followed me off the tube. I probably won’t do that again.
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I was so upset at being constantly sexually harassed in the street - at fucking 50 - I wanted to know if ordinary men "got it". So I conducted an experiment.
On a dating app as my bio all I put was "Should I be flattered or fucked off at being catcalled at fifty?"
Shockingly:
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Ha ha ha ha WHAT THE FUCK??!?! Met Police. They hate us! They really hate women!! I keep reading they want to win back trust, but all we know is we never should have trusted them in the first place. Also they are unbelievably stupid so no one should trust them.
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When an ex gets engaged and you’re genuinely happy he’s found the one who also enjoys terrible sex.
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I don’t know who to attribute it to but am hoooooting.
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@jenniferemorrow
@13thgenusa
He was known to have hotel meetings with men too. In London I've a lot of male producer friends who met him in his hotel.
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@GaryusherChef
My mum was always on a diet so there was never bread in the house. She used to come home pissed and eat slices of butter with marmite on. And. I just realised this tweet was way more dark than it was supposed to be.
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I think I win at procrastinating. I just downloaded a book on how to stop procrastinating to procrastinate writing my script and now I’m procrastinating reading it by cleaning the kitchen and coming here to tell you lot. I do win don’t I?
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I’m fucking 50 today, what the fuck??
I mean... WTAF??
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You asked for book recs, so here’s a list of film/writing books as personally recommended by working filmmakers and execs (I asked nicely on FB).
The first is my own recommendation, Save The Cat.
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@WhoresofYore
Bah ha ha! Two were grown arse men who’d previously been married a long time. Their poor wives (who are probably finally getting it). One disinterested clueless bumpkin who called it “that London sex you like.”
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A whole thread of joy. I’m so ashamed of my country most of the time, then I watch this and I know what my country is to me.
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Been TWICE approached at a bus stop on my own at midnight recently. One guy said he saw me from the bus and got off to talk to me. I told a guy I know expecting him to be shocked. He insisted it was ROMANTIC. A female pal had to say “IT’S FUCKING TERRIFYING” for him to get it.
It’s so boring that we keep having to indulge this because women are in fear of violence ALL THE TIME . I’ve posted before about women being harrassed when travelling. If uncertain don’t approach us , it’s not a bar or a restaurant or public park. We are trying to get home ALIVE
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Just got instantly unmatched by a guy after he asked what I’d been up to this weekend, I replied “Been on a rally to end Violence Against Women and met my local Women’s Equality Party candidate.” I think I’ve discovered The Holy Grail of flushing out the secret misogynists.
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Can we stop normalising male violence in scripts and on TV. And yes, physically restraining someone less strong than you is an act of violence and it’s still on screens, all the fckn time.
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A quick thread about having your ideas stolen as people are worried and have asked.
Long and short… don’t worry about it.
I’ve heard of this happening once in my 25 years. It was by a mahoosive production company & it’s still subjective TBH as it was based on a true story.
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Loving the imagining of the flirting with Naomi Harris as Moneypenny. I'm so in.
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Because I roundly object to being asked if I’m married, single or eye-roll-whatever-female when I order vitamins... simple pleasures. And I only put this because Wing Commander wasn’t an option on this occasion.
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@ElbaDragon
@AndyHallHall
@jimwaterson
@rogerha
@DavidTWilcock
@MatthewWells
I’ll marry you Andy, and we can be the Horley Hall Halls and live in Horley Hall Hall Hall in Horley.
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As a professional script reader… the joy of opening a feature script on my Kindle and discovering it’s only 83 pages.
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Morning all. So my tweet about execs reading scripts last Sunday caught fire, really reassuring that writers want the hard truth. I do too! Tell me what else you want to know about the industry. I’m cooking up some future Sunday tweets for you.
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Treasures. Bought a house, asked seller to leave a few pieces of his mother’s cool furniture. He & his wife also left me bits and bobs including a vintage typewriter because they thought I’d like it (I do!!) and a bottle of wine with a welcome card. Unusually good juju.
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@WhoresofYore
Love this. I’ve had a bad run. Last couple of years three, THREE, lovers who don’t like doing it. Had to bin ‘em. I’d rather have no sex.
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Gobsmacked. I complained to an organisation that the white moderator mispronounced ALL FIVE names of Black and Brown panellists on a talk on race. Have had no reply.
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Yeah. Women’s Equality party have got this very wrong. As a founder member it’s extremely disappointing. Awaiting and hoping for a U-Turn.
@WEP_UK
@SophieRunning
Here is the official letter of complaint from the sex work research hub to the women’s equality party
@WEP_UK
on Sophie Walker’s recent comments on sex work & sex workers.
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I really wish the TWO unproduced screenwriters with overlong scripts I’ve worked with recently could see the overwhelming evidence that people, including industry people, do choose to not watch/delay-to-never-watch overlong films...
Question. Have you ever decided against watching a film due to the running time?
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Fuck, this is weepingly infuriating.
A thread of trauma-informed videos for
#WMHD2021
#WorldMentalHealthDay
1. We’ve created a system which encourages the psychiatric diagnosis of women and girls as soon as they disclose abuse or violence
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This is awesome. Shout out to producers who so often don’t get the credit they deserve. In the film world often cash too when they may come up with the idea, hire writer, director, make it all happen, are made to defer their fees. Film producers make less than £25k PA on average.
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Nine out of ten times I hear the phrase “strong female character” it’s coming from the the mouth of a male filmmaker.
I’m very bored and deeply suspicious of that phrase.
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When you have to work on a Bank Hol weekend, read & give feedback on a script & you open it & it’s 128 pages & you get paid per script not page so you’re already resentful & predisposed to hate it. 128 pages FFS. I’ll let you know later if it’s any good.
#scriptchat
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Yet another “good” guy has just assaulted a doctor which is understandable apparently because he’s so worried about his sick child. These are the kind of characters that some male writers like to describe as “complex.”
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75% of independent film producer (IFP) respondees who have made 1-2 feature films earned less than £6,000 per year over the past 5 years.
In total, 83% of IFP think being an indie producer in the UK today is “not sustainable.”
Good work
@Loran_Dunn
.
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@WhoresofYore
I’m a founder WEP member and I’m with them
@SophieRunning
, decriminalise. Instead pls help me w a trafficked prostituted asylum seeker pal from Albania who’s being kicked out of the U.K. as HO told her she’s lying, as she’s “too bright” to have let this happen to her.
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For pure joy, surprise and wild invention, my film of the year so far is RRR. I spontaneously applauded several times and got up and danced along (on my own), whooped and cried. And the dialogue is absolutely terrrible!!
Thanks
@PaulRidd
for the heads up.
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@abbyas
@Sevo10
@sooley_darnell
@gids13
@francis_jones
@itswilliamstone
@f1ddlest1cks
With seventy thousand likes, I’m not quite sure it’s “the audience” who didn’t get it.
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23 years. I don’t think any of us really believed it would happen. I’m proud to have helped a pal assaulted by him get her story out to The Guardian and to have been involved in the Despatches doc. Now I’m looking forward to not seeing his face every time I look at social media.
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When I asked why my brothers went to boarding school and I didn’t my dad said, “girls don’t need the discipline.” Didn’t realise for years it was a good old sexist lie. So they got the better education but I wasn’t emotionally scarred for life. Who’s the winner now?
I turn 42 next week and I've only just figured out that crusts aren't actually good for you.
They're just the burnt bits of the same stuff.
What blatant and utterly pointless lies have you told your kids?
#TheBigQuestions
#SundayThoughts
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It’s still going. The “understandable” and therefore entirely permissible male violence in this script is on page after page. I won’t give more detail for professional and confidentiality reasons. If this was a script about toxic masculinity it would be interesting. But it isn’t.
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Oh. My. Fucking. God.
“Children are literally being picked up from outside the building, disappearing and not being found. They’re being taken from the street by traffickers.”
"About 600 unaccompanied children have passed through the Sussex hotel in the past 18 months, with 136 reported missing. More than half of these – 79 – remain unaccounted for."
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Middle-aged white male cashier at Tesco’s, “Would you like a bag?”
Me, shovelling cheese and avocados into pockets and handbag, “I forgot a bag but I think I’ll be fine thanks.”
Cashier, “Just wondering where the cucumber’s going.”
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After 2 weeks of multiple health screens and asking everyone to quarantine, I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time.
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And now the first “good” guy has smashed up a public phone box.
I hope at least one of these “good” guys turns out to be a bad guy.
As an aside, my script notes will also include “who the fuck is the main character?”
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Bearing in mind that 75% or more of my thousand Facebook friends are cinephiles, most of whom work in the film industry, and I’ve not seen ONE clamouring for cinemas to be reopening, I’m calling this one: no one’s gonna go
@guardian
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Just caught up with a U.K. distrib/producer/investor whose biggest beef is that up-and-coming filmmakers aren’t BOLD enough... not exciting enough... are rehashing old tropes... are too tame... if in doubt, go there and don’t hold back. You’re welcome.
#scripchat
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My Filipino filmmaker friend is trying to get a visa to the UK because he’s been invited to Sheffield Doc Fest. Thread.
“it's soooooo crazy to apply for a UK visa. i feel commodified and unwelcome at the same time.
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"Happy Birthday" is not in copyright, Warner owes the world hundreds of millions for improperly collected royalties
http://t.co/k3QVWLoRmn
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So I took the government’s careers test because TBF I wouldn’t be averse to retraining into a sector that was more certain and stable, and the first job it recommended was actor.
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Ah fuck it. This isn’t professional to do this but I’m so angry at this script, one kid actually just said to another kid “I can’t believe you got shot...it’s kinda cool” and everyone laughs. That right there sums up this toxic project.
Rolling up my sleeves to start my report.
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I didn’t know this. She even left her agent over it. Good for HER.
Michaela Coel Turned Down Netflix’s $1 Million Offer for ‘I May Destroy You’ Over Ownership
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“Return of the romcom: the genre is thriving again – but with new values.”
Lucky for me as I just got paid to write one.
Let me show you something, “romcom” disappeared from the “generic genres” categories years ago, take Netflix for example…
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Well Twitter, we did it. We got a fire engine to autistic Sarah who had to have this one, & only this one, her old one here is held together by gaffa tape & stopped making noises long ago. Thanks to
@MiGoodhall
who had one in her attic, her kids now adults. My heart is so full.
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@KateOfHysteria
@poornabell
So true. And don’t forget that if you’re a freelancer working from home, this also means adding time for changing out of your pyjamas and putting make up on.
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My cat Percival hasn’t been in a garden since February. If you’re a fan of joy, you may appreciate this.
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Thanks to
@PayGapApp
, Virgin Atlantic has already deleted their “supportive”
#InternationalWomensDay
tweet 👇🏻👇🏽👇🏿
In this organisation, women's median hourly pay is 30% lower than men's.
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Writing today. Which means I’ve washed all the duvets and pillows in the house, waxed my undercarriage, and am now experimenting with making poached eggs in the air fryer. Nothing if not creative in my procrastination tactics.
#procrastastic
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Someone I haven’t heard from in a year and a half just texted, I thought to check in, say hi, nope, he wants to send me pictures of his cock while in lockdown with his GF. So stunned at the tone deafness I can’t even come up with a witty response. Please help.
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Same script. Different “good” guy is smashing up a car in sadness and anger. Oof.
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Dontcha just love the “if you’re not busy can you do me a favour” email that’s asking you to read a script for free. I’m a fucking script doctor. That’s literally what pays my bills. Do you not stop for one single second and ask yourself, “hmm, I wonder if I’m being a dick here?”
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This reminds me of the time I got a nice paycheck & treated myself to oysters somewhere pricey. I got so relentlessly harassed by a guy (in a couple!) who wanted to know everything, I took him to fucking pieces, she took him home embarrassed, and I drank their wine.
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