Welcome to my Substack new followers!

Thank you for being here.

Happy Friday! 🥳

It is a happy one for me, after a productive week. I had a piece published in Spiked!, a review of a book I very much enjoyed and will probably devote a whole post to it at some stage because it’s just that good. (Click on the link if you would like to know more.)

And I did my first ever livestream on YouTube. You can watch it here:

To my new followers, welcome! I find it surprising and immensely flattering that anyone gives a toss what I think about anything, so your attention is most definitely appreciated. A quick primer on me, for my new subs: I am a politically homeless, populist by instinct, Gen X indie-kid-now-middle-aged mom. I spent my teens listening to Nirvana and The Cure at my local Belfast disco. I spent my 20’s hanging out in dive bars in New York City, and my 30’s trying to raise a family and have a career there (spoiler: I failed.) In the last five years or so, I watched in horror as political division infected first my family, then every last part of the public discourse.

I am *not* down with woke. I loath the contemporary progressive liberal left with the kind of fervour typically reserved for a cowardly husband who deserts a sick wife to run off with the 19 year old nanny. Some people mistakenly equate my loathing of the left with me being right-wing. People can, of course, think what they want. But the terms “left” and “right” are merely terms of banal classification at this point and divulge precisely zilch about actual values or beliefs. They are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Really I just consider myself to be an adult, capable of making my own decisions, forming my own opinions and running my own life. Not because I am some kind of expert or Believe the Science (Peace Be Upon It). But because I trust myself, my common sense, my instincts, and whatever wisdom I have gleaned from nearly 46 years walking this earth. Far too many of my peers have lost this basic confidence; their evolutionary programming — designed to keep us all alive — overridden by enormous social and economic pressure from an utterly corrupt, corporatised and self-serving elite.

It’s bullshit, and it’s bad for ya.

I write about politics a lot for someone who doesn’t consider herself political, but my main interest in the subject lies where politics intersects with culture and our daily lives. My main strength — and by all means, correct me if I’m wrong — is writing about my own personal experiences in such a way that they make people feel, just for a minute, less alone.

Thanks for being here, everyone.