Christine Burns MBE 🏳️‍⚧️📚⧖

Editor of Trans Britain. #Author of Pressing Matters. Lifetime Achievement Award PrideOfManchester 2021. Drove an 8 year old #EV called Peggy and now drives Olga who is one year old.
Posts about #climate mitigation, #trans moral panic, #books. Was #retired. Checked out but unable to leave. She/Her.

Buy Trans Britain online: https://www.queerlit.co.uk/collections/non-fiction/products/trans-britain-our-journey-from-the-shadows
Bookstore UK Affiliate ‘store’ listing trans-related books: https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/christineburns

Public Key

npub1pq44czl6qnxahermw2ceq7utsjya8dj733ue9t708ntskka4pm7q0q2mle

NIP-05 Address

christineburns_at_mastodon.green@momostr.pink

Profile Code

nprofile1qqsqs26up0aqfnwmu3ah9vvs0w9cfzwnke0gc7vj4l8ne4cttw6salq6gz3pg

Author Public Key

npub1pq44czl6qnxahermw2ceq7utsjya8dj733ue9t708ntskka4pm7q0q2mle

Show more details

Last Notes

2024-08-13 10:03:12

- reply

We need to train the Orcas to work more efficiently. Then we need to train big birds to target the private jets.

2024-08-13 10:01:34

- reply

Wars are essential to the arms industry. They’re also the dynamo of invention for new types of weapon. Prolonging this one has shown that all those big expensive weapons we were used to are outclassed by smaller cheaper stuff you can deliver more accurately.

2024-08-10 19:56:24

Question. A three part work is a trilogy. But is there a single word like that for a two part work? How do you describe a work that’s two books or two films or whatever? And I wonder if that omission has led to artistic creations sometimes being stretched to three parts when two would have been just dandy.

2024-08-05 10:46:43

- reply

I notice that Diesel sales are down by almost 22% in July. Registrations have fallen a further 1.4% market share since last year and, since this attrition has been going on a while, you have to wonder how long such low numbers have to go on for before the overall population of diesels starts to shrink and filling station operators start making decisions about how much of the stuff they hold on site. Fossil fuel sales are low margin and rely on volume sales to justify holding stock.

2024-08-05 10:19:29

The first of the analyses of July’s car sales is now out from the industry body SMMT. Almost 200,000 EVs have come on the road in the first seven months of the year — 27K in July, representing 18.5% of sales and 18.8% up on July 2023
https://www.smmt.co.uk/vehicle-data/car-registrations/
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/908/869/384/813/505/original/af61dfeae6bdacca.jpeg

2024-07-31 09:24:21

The warm months add about 40 miles to the range of my car. This month I’ve averaged 4.78 miles per kWh (about 280 miles range on a full battery) whereas, in the coldest months, it can dip to 4m/kWh or just below, giving me a smidge below 240 miles. In absolute terms, I’ve driven 143 miles in July and the car has used 29.9kWh (about 50% of a full battery). I’ve charged just once, at a public charger on the motorway services for £13.26. More detail in the alt text.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/880/359/774/641/628/original/c90900f3179eacf7.jpeg

2024-07-25 06:25:23

Making bigotry reasonable? Why the trans community in the UK is scared of Starmer
https://kierkegaardslunch.blogspot.com/2024/07/making-bigotry-reasonable-why-trans.html?m=1

2024-07-10 11:57:53

- reply

How to get a fabulous photo in the highlands:
1. Get camera out. Any kind will do.
2. Remove lens cap (if present)
3. Point camera.
4. Click shutter.

2024-07-10 11:29:27

- reply

I saw that. I thought it was cheap. The chamber didn’t like it. The irony is that, until that jibe, his first speech in the Commons had gone well.

2024-07-10 11:26:40

- reply

Back in the 1950s my parents had a Goblin cylinder vac. I remember going with my mum to buy new hoses whenever they wore out and I remember my Dad sitting at the dining table rewinding the coils on the rotor when one had burned out. Replacing the brushes in the motor was a regular occurrence. They kept that vac going right up into the eighties, through seven house moves, when I persuaded them to get a modern upright. My own upright is now 35 years old!

2024-07-10 10:30:05

- reply

Death to their agenda by 1000 positive micro-announcements.

2024-07-10 10:21:26

- reply

That sounds like a sensible idea!

2024-07-10 10:19:19

- reply

Sunday is the day the Christian God kicked back for a well deserved rest after a busy week creating the world. It follows that it’s the last day.

2024-07-10 10:16:08

Suddenly less subversive. I hope departments reorder progress flag lanyards. The more colours, the smaller Suella becomes until she finally disappears in a nasty smelly puff.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/761/664/308/131/844/original/14f0a155e8a8f9a8.jpeg

2024-07-10 09:43:53

Behold! The hand vacuum of Theseus!
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/761/536/690/239/972/original/a3c8bc841cf11baa.jpeg

2024-07-10 08:13:35

James O’Brien asks whether David Cameron has got away with it…
https://youtube.com/watch?v=BKPYj0Mbhvk&si=kns9LSlTPvXKglil

2024-07-10 08:02:25

- reply

Maybe if you factor in the gigantic ongoing financial support for the gas industry (indirect subsidies) then the overall cost of gas becomes more apparent. Chief among these, in my view, is the way the electricity market is weighted towards gas, so whilst we have the illusion that gas is cheaper than electricity in our boilers we are paying far over the odds for electricity. The whole thing needs an overhaul and an exposure of how subsidy is buried from view

2024-07-10 07:19:59

- reply

The writing’s on the wall guys.

2024-07-10 07:09:54

Labour drops ban on 'woke' LGBT lanyards - inews
https://apple.news/AaDq18OBSQlueYI9W1fFaow

2024-07-09 22:09:05

- reply

Nice. It suits you.

2024-07-09 11:48:51

- reply

They had to be ruthlessly pragmatic to get this far. I reckon they’ll soon work out which side their bread is buttered and start the process of distancing from everything that enabled the great moral panic conspiracy.

2024-07-09 11:35:18

- reply

That goes for all the anti trans policies they might toy with retaining. They’re all capable of blowing up in their face, starting with the deaths of trans kids, which they can’t keep brushing under the carpet. I’m betting that Cass keeps her surname out of the title she chooses when sworn into the Lords. It’s the only way to distance herself from policy that she’s been lined up to take the fall for.

2024-07-09 11:31:25

Time for someone to start chiding people for using the past participle of the verb ‘to wake’ as a meaningless vague adjective. Start with all the people who became grammar activists to complain about the singular use of ‘they’. I reckon the venn diagram of those two groups is a perfect circle.

2024-07-09 11:26:41

- reply

That’s a very good argument to at least stall doing any further damage that was in the works and simply play down what’s on the books. If doing something good is too scary then at least quietly stop doing any more harm.

2024-07-09 11:23:55

First easy task in Education is to actually READ the consultation responses to Keenan’s dangerous proposed policies on trans kids in school. And then quietly bin the toxic idea. I don’t think anything was implemented yet so it doesn’t need a big announcement, just bury it.

2024-07-09 11:19:09

One really easy ‘win’ this week is for the government to cancel the order that stopped Scotland’s democratically passed bipartisan Gender Recognition (Reform) Bill from receiving Royal Assent. If people seriously believe that genuine GRA reform would be problematic then there is an actual controlled trial waiting right there.

2024-07-09 11:14:18

- reply

He would have been straight out of the gate self publishing a radically restructured first person Bible on Kindle whilst critiquing all the other preceding holy books on Goodreads. Getting into people’s heads is a bit hit and miss but getting onto their phones and Kindles would be far more reliable.

2024-07-09 11:09:27

- reply

it’s a bit of an unforced ‘tell’ !

2024-07-09 11:06:29

If we don’t get an announcement this week that the Women and Equalities Minister is inviting LGBTQ groups back round the table then there will be questions. That department and others also need to deal with the placement put in by Badenoch. It really does need fumigating.

2024-07-09 10:15:23

Braverman MUST have been told over and over by civil servants and even her own colleagues that no-one performs gender reassignment operations on children in hospitals. The cognitive bias needed to go on asserting such a falsehood and to go on doing so when now out of office points to something seriously wrong with these people.

2024-07-09 10:08:59

- reply

With both her and BadEnoch it goes beyond political ideology and right into pathology I fear.

2024-07-09 09:57:12

Pleased to see they’ve ditched the phrase ‘levelling up’ and the department with that name goes back to ‘housing, communities and local government’

2024-07-08 12:58:55

- reply

Yes, I just came back to correct myself as the BBC has described it more clearly

2024-07-08 12:57:47

- reply

Yes, I’ve just come back to clarify after seeing that the BBC described the split role more clearly

2024-07-08 12:38:38

Oh bugger! Anneliese Dodds MP is appointed as a Minister of State in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and as a Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities) in the Department for Education.

2024-07-08 12:16:08

- reply

…It is this flexibility to make regulations ‘just like that’ which means a new government can undo the work of predecessors just as quickly. For a government in its first full day it means huge impacts can be had with minimal effort. Damage done by the Tories, like kneecapping the fast growing solar installation industry in 2015 or slowing down the wind power pipeline will take longer to rectify. It’s easier to break things than build them. However I look forward to seeing how widely Labour..

2024-07-08 12:16:08

- reply

..will flex the powers that it has.

2024-07-08 12:16:07

A lot of the stuff Tories did was done through the creation of Statutory Instruments (SI’s, also referred to as regulations) using powers granted to a Secretary of State by the legislation in their field. The idea of such instruments is to give ministers the flexibility to tweak laws for changing circumstances. Although such SI’s are placed ‘before the House’ they are seldom debated and just pass automatically into law after 2-3 weeks…

2024-07-08 11:59:05

- reply

Now they need to end the defacto block on installing solar on farmland. Oh and they need to re task the National Grid and DNOs to sort out connections.

2024-07-08 07:25:28

- reply

Oh I think they’ll get clarity soon enough.

2024-07-08 07:21:08

- reply

Oh it was very common in my part of East London too in the fifties. But of course in those days your mum would be toting a real handkerchief rather than a mangled Kleenex.

2024-07-07 17:11:07

- reply

Snowflakes

2024-07-07 14:09:12

- reply

Well, apart from a brief attendance by David Frost I would say it was almost certainly me.

2024-07-07 09:53:41

- reply

There were forty constituencies where Green came second. In mine Labour lost 24% of their 2019 vote share (reducing them to around 50%) and Greens added 19% vote share. The other parties are so small in comparison that it feels fair to say that the Greens literally reduced the Labour vote by a third. I voted Green in the hope of sending exactly that kind of message.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/744/580/863/167/968/original/9efebc1a503d40ff.jpeg

2024-07-06 16:00:00

- reply

Not really. If the right wing thought they could use trans hate to derail Starmer’s Ming Vase strategy, simply humouring the high priestess of hate would be a good way to de-fang that attack. There’s no up side to a trans hate agenda for Starmer. He’d have to be a full member of the cult to contemplate going that route.

2024-07-06 15:48:45

- reply

Oh that’s a good point.

2024-07-06 14:52:05

- reply

Nancy’s certainly got culture. I got on with her very well when she presented me with an award about three years ago.

2024-07-06 13:57:23

- reply

Also remember the power of dangling a ministerial post in front of the stroppy crowd. Duffield would only qualify for a junior minister post if she behaves. Giving Dobbs Development would be a great way of neutering her position.

2024-07-06 13:54:54

- reply

But only if he wants to pursue the right wing Tory agenda, which wasn’t even in his head till the press helped the Tories put it there. I can understand him mirroring what Sunak said during the campaign as it is a very effective strategy to kneecap the attempt to blow him off course. Trans hate was meant as a wedge and it didn’t work. Let’s see what unfolds now. He won’t want to blow the honeymoon too early.

2024-07-06 13:50:21

- reply

Funnily enough, when I saw it, my first thought was E F Codd and their work on relational databases.

2024-07-06 13:36:45

- reply

Oops! Totally unintentional. That’s Siri’s auto-mangle at work.

2024-07-06 13:34:06

- reply

50 miles is impressive for the category. Average mileage in the UK is 30 miles a day for people go8ng to work. Picking up groceries, etc. so are you able to drive substantially on battery power? Some hybrids insist on running the engine even when you don’t want it (to keep everything oiled) so can you avoid that?

2024-07-06 13:24:43

- reply

Ironically Debonaire’s misfortune could create the space for him to fix the problem there. Looking at his first moves it would seem perverse to carry on divisive moves 5hat the worst of Tories started.

2024-07-06 13:24:43

- reply

I should add that the sight of Codds apparently moving into development doesn’t rule out her getting Women and Equality too. However, making W&E a secondary role was a Tory thing, signalling their contempt for the topic. Also the anti-trans slide started with Truss in that role and I don’t think the optics would be good to essentially continue a path that Truss started and far right successors continued. It would make more sense for Starmer to do something radical to create distance.

2024-07-06 13:17:15

- reply

Absolutely! There are forty constituencies where the Green Party took second place. Whilst I can’t speak to the other 39, I looked at the numbers in my own constituency and the Green vote almost equals the 24% drop in Labour’s past achievement. That means Labour lost a third of their historic vote. I voted Green specifically for Labour to see that kind of impact in their numbers and I’m pleased to help give Labour some existential angst.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/739/719/424/672/810/original/553e84cc388737ad.jpeg

2024-07-06 12:18:07

- reply

No. it looks like he’s using one of the two big function rooms on the first floor at the back.

2024-07-06 12:14:37

In a shocking display of intelligence, Starmer has held his first press conference INDOORS as it rains outside.

2024-07-06 12:11:20

Keep an eye on who Starmer gives the Women and Equalities brief to this afternoon. That role was shadowed by Annelise Dodds before the election — someone with a poor LGBTQ+ Record and disturbing comments re trans — however the failure of Thangham Debonaire to get elected means that it looks like Dodds may end up with Debonaire’s role now at Development, judging by her appearance at cabinet. A role hasn’t been formally announced yet.

2024-07-06 10:20:37

As an afternoon of negative price electricity edges closer I have not failed to notice that there are perverse incentives. The more I use, the more I get paid and the lower my overall electricity bill becomes. There’s not much room in the EV battery but I COULD have gone on a pointless drive for a couple of hours this morning and made room to push in 20kWh from 1-4pm. I’ve not done that, of course, because it would be perverse and irresponsible. Likewise I’ve pondered inviting EV neighbours..
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/738/995/448/601/258/original/30f50a4b1cfdb7e1.jpeg

2024-07-06 09:06:57

- reply

Will nobody rid us of the ‘one weird trick’ obsession?

2024-07-06 08:54:44

- reply

I don’t see anyone rushing to ditch short-termism unfortunately. Ironically PR, by offering more long term access to power, would help with that.

2024-07-06 08:52:34

- reply

I’ve seen hints of it in individual network tariffs too, although the application of surge pricing seems to be more about controlling traffic on chargers rather than reflecting electricity prices. I believe Tesla does this increasingly now for Superchargers. We need to see pricing get more fiercely competitive.

2024-07-06 08:45:54

Keir Starmer has now given life peerages to three non-MPs so they can be appointed as ministers.
Ministerial Appointments: July 2024 - GOV.UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ministerial-appointments-july-2024

2024-07-06 08:42:26

Another chance to enjoy 20% discounts on EV rapid charging this afternoon, if you operate these networks with an Electroverse card. The logic for this is similar to that behind Octopus’s Agile domestic tariff, which brings the benefits of low electricity wholesale prices to consumers. Of course I’d prefer these networks to be dropping their prices in general. EV rapid charge networks were quick to raise their prices when power prices went up two years ago but slow to respond the other way.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/738/628/024/774/581/original/bc82ecf9f0d0226b.png

2024-07-06 08:31:59

- reply

The trouble with that reasoning is that, for the majority of the cycle under FPTP, Labour gets no power at all. It’s myopia. They desperately need a shift in viewpoint to understand that, through the coalitions that PR produces, they could have Labour hands on the levers of power ALL the time, just not always the dominant player. It strikes me as infantile to pass up ‘some power all the time’ because they want ‘all the power some of the time’.

2024-07-05 18:49:17

- reply

Five times in the last month if I recall correctly. The tariff tracks the wholesale price of electricity, which itself is only of direct interest to large users and domestic supply companies. The price goes negative when there is a surplus of supply as a direct incentive paying companies to use it. This saves having to constrain generators and waste the renewable energy available.

2024-07-05 17:35:58

Another four hours worth of negative price electricity from noon till 4pm tomorrow with Octopus Agile if you’ve got something to use it on. https://agile.octopushome.net/dashboard
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/735/078/202/538/211/original/333f27e3a1f9f3bf.jpeg

2024-07-05 14:58:29

Ministerial Appointments: July 2024 - GOV.UK
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ministerial-appointments-july-2024

2024-07-05 12:15:51

- reply

With counselling 😳

2024-07-05 12:13:14

Now there’s going to be lots of new MP names to learn. Arghh!

2024-07-05 11:57:48

- reply

From the start they cynically declared what they thought blockers were for so they could then find them deficient. It’s an old trick.

2024-07-05 11:55:35

- reply

58 beats 46! Yay! We win.

2024-07-05 09:51:53

The defeated leader has left Number Ten and the new Prime Minister and staff will be installed in there before America has even woken.

2024-07-05 09:26:39

- reply

The Foreign Office. You can walk through an arch into the FO courtyard and, beyond that, the Treasury.

2024-07-05 09:25:43

Pleased to see that my first time vote for Green in a parliamentary election was useful. They came in second in a strongly Labour seat with 23.5% of the vote (6819 vs Labour’s 15054). As Labour lost 26.7% vote share and Green gained 19.2% I hope the message won’t go unnoticed (and yes I know it’s more complex than that with gains and losses by the other parties). The Reform candidate will have lost their deposit with just 4.5%.

2024-07-05 07:12:34

- reply

It counts to the extent that most of those second places split Tory votes. Their mission is about disruption and, in that, they succeeded. Their success also gives succour to the Tory hard right.

2024-07-05 06:44:40

Nadine Dorries is the poster girl for the expression “love is blind”. She’s so transparent she could get a job as a window.

2024-07-05 06:37:02

- reply

Late to her own political funeral. So on-brand.

2024-07-05 06:24:10

Reform have come second in 98 seats. In Britain you’re never more than six feet from a racist.

2024-07-05 06:20:17

Lib Dems come from 11 seats to 70.

2024-07-05 06:18:34

- reply

That’s going to have to change now.

2024-07-05 06:16:45

A record number of women in the new Parliament. 240 so far.

2024-07-05 05:56:30

Brexit hard man Steve Baker is out

2024-07-05 05:49:12

Truss is out!

2024-07-05 05:42:17

- reply

She came last with 0.5% of the vote — still far too big a share

2024-07-05 05:40:09

The Greens have won Bristol, unseating Thangham Debonaire

2024-07-05 05:35:21

Theresa May’s former seat, Maidenhead, has gone to the Lib Dems

2024-07-05 05:32:52

Priti Patel retains her seat

2024-07-05 05:08:58

Joanna Cherry is out.

2024-07-05 05:02:53

Penny Mordaunt, Gillian Keegan and Grant Shapps all gone

2024-07-05 04:42:38

Jacob Rees-Mogg is gone.

2024-07-05 04:42:18

Wes Streeting barely survived with a margin of 500 or so.

2024-07-05 04:41:19

I see Jackie Doyle-Price is gone. Nice thing to wake up to.

2024-07-04 20:26:19

- reply

Walter Bouman, past President of WPATH doesn’t mince his words regarding Hilary Cass…
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/730/091/577/583/562/original/2a4a1645a15d85f3.jpeg

2024-07-04 20:13:54

- reply

There’s a lot more, including explanatory popups at https://grid.iamkate.com

2024-07-04 20:11:50

- reply

Fair point. 😀

2024-07-04 15:37:41

- reply

That’s the one where the migrants flood in and blow everything up but we get saved by the weird hacker?

2024-07-04 15:03:03

- reply

Oh yes, the Catholic insurrectionists who was caught and summarily executed, with his body pulled apart by horses attached to each of his limbs. The US could learn some lessons on dealing with people caught attempting coups. 😀

2024-07-04 14:59:42

Lots of wind combined with lots of solar means mainland Britain is sailing along with almost 80% renewables. In fact we have a surplus of generation, which is being exported to surrounding countries. No coal. Gas is just 5.7% of the mix — and that’s because we need the inertia of those spinning turbines. Otherwise the gas could be turned off for a bit, which it will be soon enough. Maybe only half an hour the first time, then longer and longer, just as the coal went from our grid.
https://files.mastodon.green/media_attachments/files/112/728/782/293/646/818/original/ceef4ef11202511a.jpeg

2024-07-04 12:33:07

Wakey wakey America. Out of bed. You don’t want to be missing your last Independence Day do you?