Oh, floors… I have had writing foiled by floors before. I wish you all of the luck getting the flooring finished swiftly so you can focus on the words!

Oooh this is neat! I’ve been writing a solarpunk/cli-fi sci-fi novel lately, as well as a serial romance that will hopefully help fund my sci-fi. My goal right now is just to keep writing weekly, and so far I’m on a 7 week streak of writing at least once a week, which is massive for me. There’s even a 23-day streak hidden in those 7 weeks that was only thwarted because I came down with a stomach bug.

I guess my other goal is for my romance to be accepted by the serial publisher that I want to work with. But I’ve submitted my sample, and now it’s just up to them to deem if I’ll meet that goal or not, heh.

I would also love to figure out what I’m actually doing with the cli-fi. I have vague theme and plot concepts kicking around, but I usually discover most of the story as I write it.

Content of my letter, identifiers redacted:

Objections to the Secondary Let licencing of [Next door property] To whom it may concern at [my] Council, My name is [Okasen], and I am writing to object to [Next door property] being permitted to operate as a Secondary/Short Term Let. As the owner and resident of [my property], I have great concerns about allowing this home to be used as a business, instead of as a home for a long-term resident.

Some of my discomfort stems from personal concerns; My partner and I are expecting our first child, and are worried about her growing up in immediate proximity to a revolving door of different residents (for reasons listed below). Community is important for raising children, and community safety moreso. I feel it is reasonable to want neighbours I can get to know over time. Quite frankly, if I had known that the home attached to my own [home] was going to become a neighbourhood-eroding business, I would not have purchased [home]!

Beyond personal concerns: The housing markets in the UK, particularly in tourist hotspots like [my city], are already struggling to keep up with the demand for homes for long-term residents who desire to live and work within [my city]. I strongly feel that we should not be pushing long-term residents out of the city in favour of private businesses.

My specific concerns and reasonings are as follows:

Anti-social behaviour and noise disturbances associated with Short Term Lets [Next door property] has been running as a Short Term Let for some time now, with visitors frequently coming and going. While some of these visitors are well-mannered, others tend towards more anti-social and noisy behaviours such as: Leaving dogs inside the property alone for hours at a time, which cause noise disturbances with non-stop barking and crying. Loud behaviour and activities, sometimes late into the night– understandable as many of these visitors are on holiday, but becomes a nuisance in a semi-detached home.

Degradation of Neighbourhood Spirit and Community

The pedestrian subway entrance to [my] Street is decorated with a photo collage celebrating the community that inhabits the street. A community is made and maintained by long-term inhabitants. When more and more homes are repurposed as short-term lets, we hinder the ability of long-term residents to move in and maintain the community spirit. A street like [my] Street, which proudly celebrates its community history, needs to have that community-based history and future protected.

In the time where this property has operated as a Short Term Let prior to being licenced, it has been incredibly difficult to communicate with the owner of the property about issues related to the building. As [next door property] is attached to [my property], it is imperative that we can communicate about problems relating to the shared building. Unfortunately, with a revolving door of residents coming and going, even notes left through the post box go unnoticed or are not responded to.

Oversaturation of short term lets operating on [my] Street: On just Booking.com, it is possible to see 7 properties up for short term letting, along with another 2 currently visible on airbnb. A street cannot dedicate 9 homes to short term lets if it wishes to remain a community. I feel these concerns that I have laid out clearly show how a short term let is not an appropriate use of [next door property]. My name and address can be found below for this objection:

[No they can’t, not anymore lol]

I also want to make it clear that I don’t mind the current owner making the next door property a long term let. I rented for a long time and am only not-renting now due to resounding luck in career aptitude. And realistically, if the owner was to sell the property, it’s most likely gonna be another landlord buying it because gestures at societal failures.

Reading your updates on this project is always the highlight of whatever day’s scrolling it falls on.

Though I have now unlocked a new fear of being abruptly asked if someone can come over for coffee.

Beautiful! And I bet it’ll be even more beautiful in bloom!

Do you harvest from this patch and eat them? I’ve never had prickly pear, but everyone I know who has raves about it. Therefor, I am jealous 😄

I would just like to both validate and challenge your view of the UK. I lived in Torquay (Devon, so the southwest) for a good long while, albeit during the height of lockdowns, and community felt nonexistant. There were some punk-type-folks attempting to get stuff started right when I moved away, but only just then iirc.

I moved to Inverness (Scottish Highlands) and it’s night and day. There’s a queer community doing hella shit, there’s a tool library popping off, lots of good local initiatives are being organised and taking off.

My kneejerk response is to say that Inverness beats the hell outta Torquay. But the thing is, about 4-5 years ago NONE OF THE STUFF I mentioned was going on. The queer meetup was organised by one dude who moved up from London and was gobsmacked that there wasn’t an active community. Now it’s consistently a huge, weekly event. There are even offshoots of quieter meetups that had to be created because the main one is So Successful. But all the local queers will tell you that before this started, they thought they were all alone up here.

And the tool library is only about a year old, but keeping on well.

So on one hand, yeah, I think the UK has a very… independent culture. But once someone identifies a need in a community and fills that need, people tend to show up and appreciate it.

Also, i reckon this is a good time to be an organiser. People are tired of being alone during a pandemic, people are tired of seeing what other communities do via the internet and want their communities to do the same.

Tl;dr be the change! There’s an appetite for it.

I can see the concern, as a trans and nonbinary person, about the phrasing of the headline. Casual readers will totally think the actual guidance says “if you fuck up a person’s pronouns, you go to jail” or whatever.

But not the guidance itself. We need more protections against intentional, malicious misgendering as verbal harassment. Which is usually less “she said— oops, they said—“ and more stuff like “(female coworker) put has pronouns in her signature? I thought she was a REAL WOMAN”

(The second being a real example from a friends work place. Funny thing is, friend is stealth trans and the coworker being misgendered is cis, but i digress)

But yeah all that aside I think the real context is misgendering when someone needs the bathroom, e.g. “you’re in the wrong bathroom” type comments. Where we really need stronger protections.

I like option 2, I thought I would prefer Option 1 before I saw 2 but it’s executed really well in 2! Also, that illustration is gorgeous, and thank you for sharing the illustrator’s details. I want my next novel to be solarpunk, and I am definitely in the market for a new cover artist…

I need to add this and Murder in the Tool Library to my storygraph. And preorder/buy a copy of both tbh.

This looks like the kind of feeder a small bird would build for itself, and I mean that in the best way. I love it

As always, thank you for these updates! I really enjoy reading them and they inspire the fuck out of me.

This makes me so happy because at least half of the things in community sufficiency column are things I see happening in my city. Saw a flier for a fermentation course recently as well as general veg growing, not to mention the community gardening initiative where people plant edible plants in public spaces. I still need to find a day I can help out with that one. Then we have a local mattress store that sells bespoke and/or handmade mattresses for affordable prices, and specifically employs disabled folk so they can be paid a living wage while upskilling. Then there’s the tool library that’s saved many a DIY project of mine…

I live in a chronically underfunded part of Scotland. In the past i lived in an underfunded part of England. Don’t get me wrong, no city should be underfunded to start with, that’s a government crime imo. But the Scottish city took underfunding and went “fuck the government, we have each other” while the English city just kept crumbling.

All of this said not to brag, but because it proves that this shit can work, does work, and is working. And i find that inspiring.

Oh hell yeah, what a great excuse to write more! And the prize money is not freakin shabby. Like I could put a sizeable chunk towards creating the kind of future I want to write about.

Hey, good for you! I wish for all of the success in this project, community centres are so important.

The other morning my dogs woke me up way too damn early, but it meant I got to watch a very fat pigeon on the power line behind my house, and I got to see the finch population rapidly increase around it. (I swear I saw one little bird and by the time I got out of bed there were 5 jetting around. Pigeon did not move.)

I agree that these are luxuries for a lot of people. Some of them can be found with mindset shifts (from “fuck you dogs” to “oh look, pretty birds” for example) but it’s also hard to shift your mindset to positivity when our society tries its damnedest to beat happiness out of you.

A friend literally just gifted me a copy of this because I’ve been feeling so burnt out by capitalism, and let me tell you, I devoured that book. It spoke to my weary soul. And made me want to quit my job (I already was wanting to quit my job)

So a perspective I haven’t seen here yet: in many places, Starbucks is the only suitable third space left. I.e. place that is not work/school or home. I have non-Starbucks cafes nearby, but due to astronomical and increasing rent for all the independent cafes in walking distance, they are in smaller buildings and they can’t afford to have people sitting for hours on laptops using the WiFi/talking to friends/reading a book. I still support my local cafes for food and coffee, or really short meetings with folks, but if I need to get out of the house and spend time in public where I’m not obligated to speedrun my coffee, Starbucks is The Choice.

And that’s why i might be inside of a Starbucks while hating capitalism. Because capitalism made Starbucks the only corporation able to afford proper cafe space.

(There is a library nearby, yes, but not with good space for sitting down and working on a laptop. And even having THAT Is a massive privilege)

(Also I actually do have a MacBook that I do my personal stuff on, because of various bits of software i need that are OS specific, which is annoying as heck but i got used to my work mac anyways and then found a nice one used… so yeah.)

I’m so interested in this subject, but I have no societally-wide answers. I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone solarpunky who will have a child soon, and then as someone who will be educating that child eventually. I know what I WILL NOT do is send them to American public school, because of my own traumatising experience in that situation. Also because I live in the UK now. But I don’t want to send them to UK public school either, if I can help it. Still too much focus on rule following and “behaviours” as things to be changed, instead of behavior as communication.

In the years before kiddo goes to school, or if I choose to home educate, I’m gonna try pulling in some inspiration from montessori/waldorf/reggio emelia styles. (I’m realising now that I know those names but not exactly what they stand for anymore. Gotta redo my research, because I know they’re all a mixed bag)

But I think the ideal for school is time in nature, problem solving, finding answers over memorising them, etc. Big emphasis on time in nature, too-- I very much love tech and that should play a part in education too, but learning how the world in its most basic state works is so important. Especially with regards to where food and utilities come from.

UK based Senior software engineer here (by title anyways, I have a little over 3 years experience iirc so I’m more a mid stage-wise). I kinda use indeed, mostly use linkedin and recruiters though. My last two jobs, a recruiter just reached out to me with companies I’d never heard of or looked for. But I got on their radars by applying to postings on linkedin.

Oh I feel you on the “how do I afford living” bit. I’m a senior software engineer—arguably the career people say makes some of the best money—and I still feel broke as fuck constantly.

(I mean I’m in the UK so it’s not Silicon Valley Monopoly money but STILL)

Seconding the question on what kind of PT stuff you’d go for, because I often consider the same.

We’re not talking about hair colour though, this is obviously reducing a pic of some friends to “haha big booba small booba”. That’s kind of textbook objectification.