#WordsOnWednesday “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling–my darling–my life and my bride, In her sepulchre there by the sea– In her tomb by the sounding sea.” – Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee 🎨Edmund Dulac

This massive tomb mound, in Macedonia, is linked to the family of Alexander the Great. It is still being excavated and much is yet to be known. #WordsOnWednesday metro.co.uk/2026/05/13/secre…

This week #WordsOnWednesday will have the theme of - tombs. What words of wisdom do we have about the tomb? (Photo: Facade of Philip II tomb Vergina Greece. Wiki)

“My parents died years ago. I was very close to them. I still miss them terribly. I know I always will. I long to believe that their essence, their personalities, what I loved so much about them, are - really and truly - still in existence somewhere. I wouldn't ask very much, just five or ten minutes a year, say, to tell them about their grandchildren, to catch them up on the latest news, to remind them that I love them. There's a part of me - no matter how childish it sounds - that wonders how they are. "Is everything all right?" I want to ask. The last words I found myself saying to my father, at the moment of his death, were "Take care." Sometimes I dream that I'm talking to my parents, and suddenly - still immersed in the dreamwork - I'm seized by the overpowering realization that they didn't really die, that it's all been some kind of horrible mistake. Why, here they are, alive and well, my father making wry jokes, my mother earnestly advising me to wear a muffler because the weather is chilly. When I wake up I go through an abbreviated process of mourning all over again. Plainly, there's something within me that's ready to believe in life after death. And it's not the least bit interested in whether there's any sober evidence for it. So I don't guffaw at the woman who visits her husband's grave and chats him up every now and then, maybe on the anniversary of his death. It's not hard to understand. And if I have difficulties with the ontological status of who she's talking to, that's all right. That's not what this is about. This is about humans being human.” ― Carl Sagan

#NationalBlackCatDay🐈‍⬛ Halloween beckons, today is dedicated to black cats. With links to the devil & witchcraft superstition says it is unlucky should a black cat cross your path. However, on the flip side, ailurophiles attest to their loyalty and charm #FairyTaleTuesday

#FairyTaleTuesday “Anyone could see that the wind was a special wind this night, and the darkness took on a special feel because it was All Hallows' Eve. Everything seemed cut from soft black velvet or gold or orange velvet.” – Ray Bradbury, The Halloween Tree. 🎨Chris Davidson.

🎃 🎃 👻 👻 🎃 🎃 Some of the most beautiful #Haunted Houses for #FairyTaleTuesday's #Halloween BASH! 🎃 🎃 👻 👻 🎃 🎃 hgtv.com/lifestyle/real-esta…

🎃 🎃 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛ 🎃 🎃 Sing a song of HALLOWEEN Pumpkins everywhere Cats & bats & witches are flying through the air 🎃 🎃 🐈‍⬛ 🐈‍⬛ 🎃 🎃 Vintage Halloween Postcard #art for #FairyTaleTuesday's #Halloween BASH! #Halloween2026 #HalloweenArt

THE MAGIC HALLOWE'EN All Hallowe’en, the magic night ... when folly reigns supreme, the pumpkin heads are all alight, the stars are all agleam. #FairyTaleTuesday #Halloween #Halloween2026 #FairyTales_Tues #Halloween

Apple bobbing has been around since at least 14th C; Luttrell Psalter depicted it in a drawing! Girls would attempt to bite into apples named for male suitor. If she won after 1st try, fated for love! x2; romance would fade. x3 courtship wouldn't last at all. #FairyTaleTuesday 🍏

A pair of wonderful Halloween postcards capturing the spirit and otherworldly atmosphere of the Halloween season. #FairyTaleTuesday #Halloween2026 #Halloween #FairyTales_Tues #vintage #artwork

In Robert Burns's 1785 poem Halloween, Scottish young people perform elaborate fortune-telling rituals involving nuts, apples, kale stalks, and hemp seed. The poem preserves a remarkable record of the romantic anxieties and seasonal games of Burns's time. #FairyTaleTuesday

The Devil's Wine is a poetry collection from @CemeteryDance #FairyTaleTuesday

In Old Ireland, Halloween was a time of shifting realms for the Fairy Folk, when Fairies left their ordinary haunts to gather at ancient mounds, hills, and sacred hawthorn or holly bushes. #FairyTaleTuesday #FairyTaleFlash @AmandaBergloff @fairytaleflash @FairyTale_Tues

RT @NiftyBuckles: #FairyTaleTuesday #FairyTaleFlash 🎃🍂 Happy 60th anniversary to "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" First aired Octo…

The lad who manages that Weatherspoon pub “The Star” in Gosport, and who banned people wearing poppies is sadly typical of so many others. The product of woke politicians, media, police and teachers who have indoctrinated him and so many others to lose sight of the fact that some things are above politics, contribute to who we are, represent our values, and must be protected. They have been taught that those who choose to take offence at things like the poppy have a right to be offended, and that the rest of us who say “Tough, it’s ours, it is important and we will never give in are the problem. No. We are not. The poppy is not political. The poppy is a unifying symbol of national Remembrance and if you don’t like it, damn well lump it. You are not a part of this, my nation. 🇬🇧🌺 Courage and Honour stand where Heroes fall.

I don’t want to post the video. You’ve all seen it. But I do want to write a love letter… Dear everyone in Britain, ( even you illegals) Just so you understand. The poppy is for the boys who never got to grow old. For the boys who were still somebody’s baby, brother, uncle or father. More than 600,000 of them. It doesn’t matter if you support war, hate your country, think you are a woman (even though you are a man). It doesn’t matter which God you pray to, or if you pray to none at all. It doesn’t matter who you vote for, what climate narrative you believe, or whether you believe Israel should exist or not! The poppy isn’t for you! It’s for those who came before. Those who fought for your right to be weird, annoying or even foreign. The poppy is how we say thank you. Thank you for giving us time, peace and choice. And attempting to ban our poppy by declaring it politically divisive isn’t a move towards freedom. It is an act of suppression. Understand that. The poppy is about love and loss. For you! So stick your rainbow flags and every other flag where the sun doesn’t shine and just wear your poppy. Those boys did not die as symbols. They died for you! Did you know that poppies grew across the battlefields where so many fell? As though even the land refused to forget the blood once given to defend it. So the poppy is for them. For those who came before us and paid in youth, in hope, in breath, in blood, so that we might have the freedom to be arseholes. So that we might even have the freedom to fight over the ridiculous, the inconsequential and the insane. Revere it, celebrate it and wear it. The very least you can do is that. Best The ordinary people.

'Male teachers have worked in girls’ schools for some time, it’s not a new concept.' Yep ... I went to a girls' school. There were lots of male teachers - including the odd one we found a bit creepy. But here's four things they never did: 1. Tell us they were women and that we had to call them 'Miss' 2. Publish an article in the newspaper about travelling abroad for a 'sex change' op and/or hold a raffle to raise money for it (1990s pre-internet version) 3. Use toilets, showers and changing facilities reserved for female staff or students - or claim they were entitled to do so 4. Supervise girls getting changed for PE or dance - or claim they were entitled to do so Had they done any of these things - or had there been even the slightest concern they *might* be - this would have raised serious safeguarding concerns. Now girls - and their parents - are told its 'unkind' to question what would once have been extremely concerning behaviour.

♦️WHITE PRIVILEGE♦️ This is how our cotton mills and wool mills made their profits, which afforded them their fine stone-built mansions on the outskirts of mill towns. It was dangerous work, fingers were often lost, eye injuries common, no comfort breaks, no health insurance and no factory nurse. This work was done on empty bellies after a walk to work. Malnutrition was common place and discipline hard. A water barrel with a wooden ladle for dry dusty days as cotton dander filled the choking air. There were no holidays to look forward to, no sick pay, and kids as young as 7 sent to work in the miserable conditions their parents stomached for a lifetime. They didn't play much, they were too knackered for that. A cold hard bed was all they could hope for. Arthritis and joint pains kicked in early as crippled fingers in their middle years struggled with looms. And our MPs talk about reparations for slavery, when every God damned nation was using slaves. White privilege... you disgust me. There should be a plaque of remembrance dedicated to the entire working class! #DawnButlerMP

I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points. I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them. However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created. When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said. The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness. Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison? I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges. The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest. Adults can't expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public - but I have the same right, and I've finally decided to exercise it.