Hi team,
Welcome to the thirty-fifth installment of Furloughed. Maybe it’s a newsletter about things I’m doing while furloughed, things you can do, or both.
Good day! I just mowed the shit out of the lawn here and we’re having a fun time on Rainy-Brexit-Profit-Over-People-Plus-There’s-A-Pandemic-Ha-Ha island, aren’t we!
I hope you are all well stocked. I am thinking about going to the Polish supermarket soon to stock up on sauerkraut and other pickled veg. I even have the Ronik catalouge. You can never have enough pickled veg.
There are hoarders at the petrol pumps filling cans (I can’t drive but I’m sorry for your loss) people with cars full of loo roll, empty shelves, not enough staff to keep things running (because nobody will pay decent wages), and friends who won’t be able to afford to turn on the heating this winter.
So it’s all quite Dickensian.
Meanwhile, I have been making homemade fox repellent because one keeps shitting on the lawn here. It’s made of chillis and garlic and is pungent af.
And I went to view a house that came with chickens (literally, the seller said the chickens can be thrown in with the house) and was told I needed to be ready to move to even see a property that was the same as the chicken house but done up and sans chickens.
And I’ve generally been maximising my last days of furlough by hanging out in my PJs watching Gilmore Girls, knitting and eating.
Things to watch
Short things
Man rescues sheep…
And Michaela Coel’s beautiful Emmy acceptance speech (skip to 1.30 to see P-stew introduce her and then the speech)
Series
Mainstay recommendations are City of Ghosts and Waffles + Mochi. And We Are Lady Parts.
Still living in Gilmore Girls as mentioned above.
Documentaries
Watched more of those Netflix Explained things with my partner. One about dogs and one about skin.
Films
Not this week!
Things to read
No more white saviours, thanks: how to be a true anti-racist ally
‘We have been rescuing ourselves and revolting against the oppressor throughout history. Contrary to the popular belief that only great white men rescued us from slavery, it was the Haitian Revolution from 1791 to 1804, the only successful slave revolt in history, that instigated the global abolishment of slavery.
‘Instead of showcasing “poverty and trauma porn”, charities could intentionally choose to centre Black voices and share news about the inspiring work being done by people in the community.’ — Nova Reid
“People are not against change. They want change, but they want that change to have a meaningful and material impact on their lives and not to displace them from their community … Too often, Labour councillors in areas like Tower Hamlets have taken for granted they are safe seats. They utterly infantilise the local Bengali community … These individuals in power use their bureaucratic vernacular as a veneer to claim superiority over those they’re supposed to represent. There is a disdain for the working class communities because of their proximity to land worth in the millions. They will always back profit. … This is a problem w/ Labour across the country. The way it takes advantage of its racialised communities and assumes they will never budge. Not only is this fork of thought entrenched in racist thinking but also exposes how little attention you’ve been paying to your local area.” — Dr Fatima Rajina, founder of NijjorManush, an independent campaigning group for Bengalis and Bangladeshis in the UK, quoted by Brice Stratford
We Must Stop Comparing Sabina Nessa’s Murder With Sarah Everard’s
‘Instead of fighting together for a world free from gendered violence, we are weighing victims’ worthiness against one another.
‘40 years of the state and corporations enticing grassroots movements with funding and jobs have shifted our language from revolution to competition.
‘Let’s grab every opportunity to dislodge their power so that we never have to say goodbye to a sister again.’ — Aviah Day
Books
I bought YiYun Li’s Must I Go. I loved her book A Thousand Years of Good Prayers. Whether I will commit to reading a novel is another story.
I told the bookseller that I was reading The Transgender Issue by Shon Faye. They told me a gender-critical customer had violently demanded they stock the anti-trans Helen Joyce book Blackwells had promoted on its homepage.
If this is your kind of feminism, stay the hell away from me. And from booksellers. FFS.
Anyway, while we were chatting, the bookseller recommended this article, The Road to Terfdom: Mumsnet and the Fostering of Anti-Trans Radicalization and it is fascinating.
‘Mumsnetters were relatively privileged women who had never felt marginalized until they gave birth and came to feel isolated in their nuclear households.
‘By providing a platform that tolerated [trans-exclusionary feminism], [mumsnet] also handed users a convenient scapegoat for all of their problems — not austerity, not misogyny, but the relatively tiny and extremely marginalized and oppressed trans population.
‘The [mumsnet] community isolates its members in a bubble of transphobic thought that leaves them free to develop their bigotries without needing to encounter the human beings affected by them.
‘It also [shows] members…a tragically narrow idea of feminism, one that rejects other people fighting for gender liberation [including, of course, trans people]. And finally, it puts followers at odds with the broader left, which has been fighting for a world without gender oppression, as well as for benefits Mumsnetters say they care about, such as free child care and well-funded health care.’
Feel good
Can anyone Phil McCann up with petrol?
“I would never fill a can.” — Phil McCann.
Things to listen to
Podcasts
Mainstay recommendation is this Blindboy podcast with Emma Dabiri. And more Blindboy - How to Solve the Housing Crisis. And a podcast about doughnut economics.
I listened to this story about how one Dad harmed his family by being an Activist Patriarch. Anyone who has read Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other or who has an Activist Patriarch father will recognise this man.
And I paired that with this one about Anthrax…
Music
Someone posted this on Twitter this morning and it’s just what the doctor ordered (probably won’t cure Anthrax poisoning but they’re dancing on a train!)…
Join a union and find your local mutual aid
You can join a union to help protect yourself and others. And your local Mutual Aid group.
UK government ‘failed to consider gender’ in its response to Covid pandemic
Sustainable Suppression
Avoid the three Cs - Confined. Crowded. Close-contact settings. Mask up.
Here’s Independent Sage’s vaccinations FAQ, if you or people you know have vaccine questions. They have also put out a document about the continuing need for support measures.
A video on how to ventilate a room
After two million deaths, we must have redress for mishandling the pandemic
People to listen to
‘Let’s grab every opportunity to dislodge their power so that we never have to say goodbye to a sister again.’ — Aviah Day
Things to do
Sign this petition: Ban urban and garden pesticides to protect bees, other wildlife and human health
Make a Corsi cube to filter a room/ set up a crowdfund to make them for classrooms
Send me any fun things to do or look at you see so I can include them!