Helen McCarthy
banner
glider.bsky.social
Helen McCarthy
@glider.bsky.social
Glider in the night, dancer in the dark, lover of lost rivers and paths in the woods and libraries and half-open doors. Moonlights as a writer.

All images and poems mine unless credited elsewise. AI is only acceptable if it's consensual.
Delighted that #SamirZitouni, the heroic train crew member who protected passengers in the #LNER stabbing at the cost of serious injuries, woke up briefly and was able to speak to his wife. Hoping for more good news. #BestofBritish #RealHero
November 10, 2025 at 2:18 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
The journal they publish in has pretty strict requirements for reporting those things, it looks like it was funded by the Australian Government
November 10, 2025 at 12:22 PM
“This rediscovery of female samurai history reframes centuries of gendered myth and challenges the hyper-masculine image of the samurai that still dominates film, anime and gaming.” Rosina Buckland, queen and goddess, I'm so there for this show. 3 Feb-4 May 2026
www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...
Groundbreaking British Museum show set to challenge samurai myths
Exclusive: Exhibition will reveal complex reality, featuring women and artistic creations, beyond armour-clad warriors
www.theguardian.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Robbie Gibb once suggested that reporters should reflect if they were getting more retweets from one side than the other - a braindead analysis that ignores that fair and impartial reporting of education might get more Tory retweets than say, criminal justice.
Stephen really does have the best take on this. It’s not clear that the BBC Board or indeed the rest of the News team really understood the message of the previous reviews, which were about getting detail right. Instead they wanted to know what was ‘biased’ or not like they were blotting out stains.
The impossible dream some people on the British right are chasing is that you can have a BBC News operation that retreats from detail and expertise, that takes dictation from the government, but this will only create incompetence and failure when it suits you:
November 10, 2025 at 10:39 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
В. Соколов - Перший подвиг [USSR,Schlager,Dusty Breaks] (1976)
https://redd.it/70khvh
https://youtu.be/HgYKlP79tm0
В. Соколов - Перший подвиг [USSR,Schlager,Dusty Breaks] (1976)
youtu.be
November 10, 2025 at 11:00 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Makoto Shinkai was 34 when his #anime 5 Centimeters Per second premiered in 2007. Now Yoshiyuki Okuyama, 34, directs the live-action remake with a crew "around his own age."
www.asahi.com/ajw/articles...
‘5 Centimeters Per Second’ to get live-action film adaptation | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis
Makoto Shinkai’s 2007 anime “5 Centimeters Per Second” is being adapted into a live-action film.
www.asahi.com
November 10, 2025 at 10:56 AM
True dat. Look after your supporters and let your haters look after themselves. if the #BBC would only realise that it's in their best interests to cherish the people who actually don't mind being forced by law to pay for their keep, instead of behaving like a bunch of gilded entitlocrats...
Gary Lineker: "This is the mistake the BBC makes. The BBC tries to appease the people that hate the BBC, rather than worrying about the people that love the BBC."
November 10, 2025 at 11:09 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
I wish I could get to see this astonishing performance, but I can't. If you can, you should. 600 years is a long time to wait for a UK debut.
www.linkedin.com/posts/akiko-...
"My life as a plantain tree is like a fern beneath the eaves of an old… | Akiko Yanagisawa
"My life as a plantain tree is like a fern beneath the eaves of an old temple — a quiet being that never dreamed of flowering. At the mere whisper of a storm, its tender leaves are torn, as fleet...
www.linkedin.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:04 AM
I am in love with this cover image. Those eyebrows...
November 10, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
This was a fun look back at a range of titles.

I didn't tap out of comics until the mid 90s, but I got into a bunch of these and discovered others later with digital releases. Definitely fun to revisit some titles I hadn't thought about in years.
Smells Like 90’s Comics: The EXXXTREME RemiXXX
YouTube video by Strange Brain Parts
www.youtube.com
November 10, 2025 at 11:05 AM
@lilprincesays.com Our kinda kid!
November 9, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
From North Carolina to Mississippi, Black-owned farms are filling the gaps left by SNAP funding delays
Black-Owned Farms Fill Gaps Left by SNAP Funding Delays
From North Carolina to Mississippi, small businesses work to feed their communities while benefits are paused.
capitalbnews.org
November 9, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Watching the cloud roll in over Hilltop, Storrs and Dungworth this morning . #weather #weaterwatchers #loxleyvalley #sheffieldweather #paultheweatherman
November 9, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
In 1945 we said ‘never again’, yet already we’ve forgotten | The Observer share.google/PUCEiec506P1...
In 1945 we said ‘never again’, yet already we’ve forgotten | The Observer
share.google
November 9, 2025 at 5:42 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Loving today's news that the mysterious "fedora man" outside the Louvre heist was actually a 15-year-old museum visitor who dresses like a 1940s French detective all the time, just because. apnews.com/article/louv...
Fedora man unmasked: Meet the teen behind the Louvre mystery photo
Fifteen-year-old Pedro Elias Garzon Delvaux has become an internet sensation after an Associated Press photo captured him outside the Louvre on the day of a crown jewels heist.
apnews.com
November 9, 2025 at 12:16 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
November’s early darkness enfolds us. The smell of applewood fires and rot is a constant companion at twilight. We hurry between home and evensong, home and pub. Ghosts crowd the lanes, our folklore becomes filled with tales of cold teeth. Winter begins to growl. - #CLNolan
November 9, 2025 at 5:33 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Billie Piper announced as the new BBC Director General but we've got to wait until next Christmas to find out why.
November 9, 2025 at 6:42 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Y'know, it makes perfect sense that Guillermo del Toro and James Cameron were roommates who introduced each other to Patlabor and Battle Angel Alita.
November 9, 2025 at 7:13 PM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Interesting 1962 Christmas Toy Fair and TV Puppet Theatre #gerryanderson #sylviaanderson #fanderson
November 9, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
don't look at me like
you got home before seven
all-night party moon

#haiku #senryu #poetry #moonset
November 9, 2025 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
It's sad to see something like this - nobody considers where all the ghosts are going to go
Many large hotels running since the end of World War II were left to rot in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Japan to subsidize demolition of abandoned inns
ebx.sh
November 9, 2025 at 8:51 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Every time I watch Ranma 1/2, I feel like a dad watching his stupid children.
a girl in a red and yellow outfit is pointing at a boy in a yellow shirt
ALT: a girl in a red and yellow outfit is pointing at a boy in a yellow shirt
media.tenor.com
November 8, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
Tokyo, Japan, 1951. © Werner Bischof/Magnum Photos
November 9, 2025 at 8:56 AM
Reposted by Helen McCarthy
I don't use generative AI because as a writer of fiction, it offers me nothing useful creatively and nothing trustworthy when I do research. It's not worth the environmental impact. That it's been created by stealing my work and using it in breach of copyright law is a further but separate issue.
Hands up if you've never used Chat GPT ✋

(I feel like Dozer and Tank in The Matrix right now - at first I didn't use it because, rather ironically, I'm lazy and stubborn (peak Taurus energy there) - literally no, don't make me use the new thing I don't wanna. Now I'm glad I didn't 😅)
Probably a good way to tell right now if the job you’re applying for is run by absolute dumbfucks is to ask if they’re using AI.
November 9, 2025 at 8:57 AM