Homer Simpson isn't a positive role model for kids? Eat my shorts…

Men and fathers are so favoured in our society, the world is weighted so much to their advantage, that comedy writers can safely make them the perpetual butt of jokes. The fact that Homer Simpson is the funniest, most prominent and most popular character in that show says far more about continued male dominance of money and power in the west than his fecklessness or misfortunes say about the undervaluing of paternal effort.

(via Twitter / LiterallyCov: Thanks @waterstones_cov for …) I’m speaking at the Coventry Literary Festival tonight and this is the advert for it going up in the local branch of Waterstones. You can see my name listed on the right hand side, two below Quentin Blake. Like most adults my age, I read all Roald Dahl’s books when I was a child. So this innocuous image is really rather more special than it first looks. To me, at least.  
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(via Twitter / LiterallyCov: Thanks @waterstones_cov for …)

I’m speaking at the Coventry Literary Festival tonight and this is the advert for it going up in the local branch of Waterstones. You can see my name listed on the right hand side, two below Quentin Blake. Like most adults my age, I read all Roald Dahl’s books when I was a child. So this innocuous image is really rather more special than it first looks. To me, at least.  

Source: twitter.com

ohsehnsucht:

Jonathan Safran Foer’s Commencement Address at Middlebury College (by middcommunications)

incredible. INCREDIBLE.

Since having children (twins, two in one go, hence the plural), I’ve become incredibly aware of how I use technology. If I check my phone and they are in the room, I often glance back at one or both of them for a second and catch them looking at me, engrossed by and absorbing everything that I do. And I feel ashamed. 

I’m an archivist, as Foer puts it. And I suspect that you are too. But I’m not in any way comfortable about it, now more than ever. You must watch this clip, and don’t click away. Don’t multitask. And don’t watch it now if there’s something more important that you should be doing.