A selection of headlines from today’s Guardian:

Why gravity-defying boobs are back – and what they say about the state of the world

This is how we do it: ‘Even after 11 years we have sex every day, and three times isn’t unusual’

My girlfriend told me she prefers big penises. Now I’m worried I won’t satisfy her

‘Shar-pei sex’, swinging, and 10 orgasms in an afternoon: This is sex after 60

People aged 60 or over: tell us about your pets and what they mean to you

I’d better stop there. The Guardian constantly tells me I’m one of their most faithful overseas readers, and it’s been a tiring afternoon. I need a rest.

[In case you were wondering, the old biddy who manages 10 orgasms per afternoon uses “three fully charged vibrators in conjunction with a chocolate edible” while watching porn alone. I may be old-fashioned, but I can’t help feeling that Guardian readers might be more in tune with the real world if they spent their afternoons looking after the grandchildren or arranging the flowers in the local chapel.]

The Guardian also has a section called “You may have missed,” where you’ll find:

The rise of climate denialism, with George Monbiot and special guests

https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-live-events/2025/jun/24/the-rise-of-climate-denialism-with-george-monbiot-and-special-guests

With an invitation to attend a special event next September at the Barbican centre – tickets from £33-£52, with a special section of £20 seats for students.  

And where: 

you’ll have the opportunity to engage in insightful discussions with like-minded people, and learn more about what we can all do to tackle the climate crisis.

The article claims that “governments and big oil companies are turning their back on climate promises” and that “secretive lobby groups and far-right politicians” are “fuelling anti-green climate moments.” (I think they mean “movements”).

The Guardian provides links to practically every breath they utter, so we know that by “secretive lobby group” they mean the Heartland Institute, which secretively organises annual public events on climate change attended by thousands. Naomi Klein attended one and reported on in the first chapter of her book “This Changes Everything.”

The  claim about “far-right politicians fuelling anti-green climate moments” cites an article by science editor Jonathan Watts 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jul/04/far-right-using-climate-crisis-as-bogeyman-to-frighten-voters-and-build-higher-walls

reporting from the  Amazonian rain forest just before last year’s UK general election. He names Bolsonaro, Trump and Farage, but fails to cite any anti-green climate moments they are supposed to have fuelled. Watts notes:

These ever more extreme politics are, not coincidentally, coming at a time of ever more extreme weather. In the past month alone, more than a thousand hajj pilgrims died of heatstroke and related diseases as temperatures soared to 51.8°C in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

No-one loves a good conspiracy theory more than I, but even I would hesitate to link the election of Trump to the death of pilgrims in Mecca. In a few paragraphs, science correspondent Watts’s Amazon jungle-fevered imagination summons up an entire theory of what the left needs  to do to replace our current capitalist system, should Starmer win, which is worth an article on its own. I might even write it, once Starmer has begun to tackle what Watts calls “the issue that will determine the habitability of our world […] the only chance democracy – and, indeed, humanity – has got.”

But back to Monbiot’s Barbican gig.

The article is a bit short on information about exactly what will be discussed. It announces:

Across the planet, hard-won progress towards a healthier planet is being threatened – but what are the forces driving the big climate pushback?

The only clue to the nature of the threats and what to do about the big climate pushback is that among the “special guests” will be “ Mikaela Loach, the climate justice activist and author.”

She, too, deserves an article to herself. The link above, a Guardian article from over 2 years ago, notes that she “is bringing a steely determination to the fight for climate justice. Just don’t call her ‘the new Greta’.”

Well I won’t then. She’s nothing like her. For a start she’s older than the old Greta, and the wrong colour. She sports a 1960s Angela Davis style Afro haircut, instead of 1930s Wizard of Oz style plaits. Even an old climate denier like me can tell the difference.

 The only similarity I noticed was that she’s been groomed for activism by her parents from an early age. 

Loach’s upbringing laid the seeds for her defining belief in the power of incremental change…Her parents raised Loach and her younger brother to question the status quo…“They would teach me about the realities of revolution,” says Loach. “They made it clear that freedom was not something that was just passed down from above – it was something that was fought for from the ground up.”

Revolution? Incremental change? There seems to be some confusion here. But then Mikaela is from the Extinction Rebellion stable, the organisation founded by Roger Hallam, who believes that climate change will result in us being forced to watch our mothers being raped over a table before having our eyes poked out with hot pokers, a climate change plot that Hallam lifted from Sophocles. Confusion seems to be a necessary condition for climate activism.

Confusion is rife in this gushing article on young Mikaela too. Its author is Genevieve Fox, who is described by the Guardian as “the author of Milkshakes and Morphine: A Memoir of Life and Life,” while in its review of her book, the same Guardian calls it: “Milkshakes and Morphine: A Memoir of Love and Loss.” W.H.Smith’s website splits the difference, calling it “Milkshakes and Morphine : A Memoir of Love and Life.”

It was always so. According to Wikipedia, the title of Sophocles “Oedipus Rex” is similarly in doubt.

The article on the Monbiot/Loach Barbican binge ends with a booking form, where you can choose your seat. It seems that about 42 seats have been sold so far, so hurry hurry. 

There’s one person sitting all alone in the middle of the front row of the £52 seats in the stalls. I might take the seat next to her. And bring my own chocolate edibles.