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Varina

@varinajr.bsky.social

1K followers 400 following 1.8K posts

Librarian and open knowledge advocate at UofAberdeen. Lover of cats, yarn, tea, and liberation for all. All views my own. 🍵💙💜💗✡️🫒🍉

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Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 6h

I once sent the train company a message requesting I be given a sash reading 'Quiet Coach Enforcer' and the power to shush (and hopefully eject) people, but they seemed to think it was a joke!

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 1d

The phrase 'Rain rain barkels' is going to be stuck in my head for weeks

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 1d

I mean realistically many European students with a standard grade education had to pass harder English exams than I did to get an American high school diploma, and I doubt this rule will be applied to American students. We'll probably remain exempt from testing requirements

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 1d

You're right they probably just being raising the minimum score on the TOEFEL, but it's just absurd rhetoric if you know anything about how international admissions and English language standards actually work.

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 1d

What about students from 'English-speaking' countries? Clearly being a native English speaker is not the same as having an A-level in English or every English student would have one. Also, what about Welsh, which is meant to be treated equivalently to English in immigration law?

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 1d

What do you mean they'll have to have an 'A-level standard' of English? I mean functionally, what does that mean? The TOEFL can't check that, it isn't at all like an A-level English exam. Are you proposing to administer English A-levels in any country across the world, at ludicrous expense

Dave Vetter @davidrvetter.bsky.social · 2d

I will bet my bike that close to zero of the British racists that this law is pandering to could pass A-level English.

Migrants will be required to pass A Level standard of English

Migrants will be required to pass tough new English language requirements under a law introduced in Parliament today.

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 2d

BINGATE REDEMPTION!!!!! #GBBO

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 2d

Why did they spend so much time farting around with tiles on a souffle challenge??? #GBBO

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 2d

Those who study History actually doomed to see us repeat it in increasingly stupid ways

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 2d

Not wanting to pay a bunch of tariffs is literally why Americans drink coffee over tea, despite being a former British colony (and also why America stopped being a British colony). And now the America First crowd is saying "let them drink Monster". Politics is so stupid now.

The Atlantic @theatlantic.com · 2d

Tariffs have rapidly increased the price of coffee—a drink with almost no nutritional value and lots of functional substitutes. Yet coffee may also be the one thing Americans can’t live without, @elcush.bsky.social writes:

The Drink That Americans Won’t Give Up Without a Fight

Coffee has almost no nutritional value and lots of substitutes. It’s also, apparently, too important to lose.

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 4d

To be fair, adding advertisements for the concept of soup does seem like something that would happen at an Ankh-Morpork publisher

Tansy Gardam @tansyg.bsky.social · 4d

hello i have just learned about Terry Pratchett's multiple German publishers who either used unbelievably bad covers or put soup ads in the middle of the book.

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 5d

I finished my project copying the cardigan from Pokémon Sword and Shield, also caught a Perrserker

Side view, you can see the same large cable running down the sleeves, and front, cardigan clothes with large wooden toggle buttons

Lady wearing a green tam and grey cardigan petting a very fluffy yet ferocious looking grey cat

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 5d

I got this comment a lot after my husband died. "I don't think I could go on!", like thanks, I didn't have a choice actually

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 5d

I think black cats know when it's October and just get a little more mischievous

A beautiful black kitty cat sitting up

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 6d

Oh wow, she really is

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 6d

And while asparagus season lasts but a moment, Lebkuchen season continues for months

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 6d

Like, I'm overdressed in the Five Guys because we're going to see Dara O'Brian and when he asked where I wanted to eat I just wanted a good greasy burger and an irresponsible amount of fries, not because my partner won't take me anywhere nice.

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 6d

Occasionally you'll meet these straight women who have convinced themselves that their doofy husband is just the best men are capable of, and so she makes some assumption about you and says something wild and you have to be like "no dear, my partner is nice to me, actually. You deserve better".

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 7d

Ugh, the worst

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 7d

Oh now that is a true nightmare. On the other hand, perhaps I could turn that into a 'I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me' scenario. I have some things I'd like to say to a Reform politician

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 7d

I had a dream last night that the LibDems new strategy for reaching voters was via apparition. Like, you'd be given a mysterious orb from an old woman outside the shop and at a reasonable time of day a LibDem would appear to you and explain their manifesto pledges

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 8d

Sidenote: for some reason the final fact that you need to learn for the history section of the Life in the UK test is apparently that Donald Trump won the presidency on November 4th. Which....is simply not a thing that happened in the UK

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 8d

You can really tell that whoever wrote the official Home Office study guide for the the Life in the UK test is acutely aware that no Irish person would ever need to take this thing. The description of Cromwell alone could re-start the Troubles (to say nothing of the Famine).

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 9d

If you need something to delight you on your feed, I highly recommend following for Rat October

Gabrielle Drolet @gabrielledrolet.bsky.social · 9d

Day 7 of rat October

Small watercolour painting of rat in a pumpkin, wearing stem as a hat

Varina @varinajr.bsky.social · 9d

Look, I am a 40-year-old woman. I think any chance I was going to outgrow it and not always giggle at the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has long since passed. It is what it is now.