Tag Archives: London

13Mar/23

Uncovering the secret religious and spiritual lives of sex workers

Daisy Matthews, Nottingham Trent University and Jane Pilcher, Nottingham Trent University

Tanya* is telling me just how important her Methodist Christianity is to her. We’re chatting over a video call, and I can see Tanya’s living room in the background. This also happens to be her workspace because Tanya, who is 50, is a full-time phone and cam sex worker. For Tanya, earning her living through sex work does not conflict with her religious beliefs at all. Tanya tells me that she had a client who talked to her about his enjoyment of wearing women’s clothing. He confided in her because they both shared the same religious identity.

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13Mar/23

HSBC will acquire the assets of SVB UK. Deposits will be protected

Here’s the HM Treasury statement:

Silicon Valley Bank (UK) Ltd has today been sold to HSBC. HSBC is headquartered in London, is the largest bank in Europe and is one of the world’s largest banking and financial services institutions, serving 39 million customers globally. Customers of SVB UK will be able to access their deposits and banking services as normal from today.
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27Feb/23

The cockney dialect is not dead – it’s just called ‘Essex’ now

Amanda Cole, University of Essex

As English dialects go, cockney is one of the most influential. Long considered the preserve of working-class communities in east London, it has shaped the way people speak across the country, from Reading, Milton Keynes and even Hull all the way to Glasgow.

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17Feb/23

Kids’ online safety: A fragile balance

By Samuel Woodhams | Digital rights researcher and journalist

Last week, Joe Biden sounded the alarm over the lack of child protections online during his State of the Union address. He called for a ban on the collection of kids’ personal data and the prohibition of targeted advertising to children, saying: “We must finally hold social media companies accountable for the experiment they are running on our children for profit.”
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14Feb/23

Valentine’s Day’s connection with love was probably invented by Chaucer and other

Natalie Goodison, Durham University

As an undergraduate, on a tour of Europe, I happened to step into the church where Saint Valentine’s head was kept. The tour guide told us a (likely fictitious) story about Saint Valentine performing forbidden marriages for persecuted Christians under the Roman emperor Claudius Gothicus (possibly 269-270 AD). Valentine was then imprisoned and beheaded in Rome.

His saint’s day has since become a celebration of romance. But earlier medieval accounts of Valentine’s life contain no mention of his association with love.

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31Jan/23

THE WHO: THE WHO WITH ORCHESTRA LIVE AT WEMBLEY

On July 6, 2019, The Who headlined Wembley Stadium in London for the first time in forty years. The show was the only U.K. date on their ‘Moving On’ Tour and featured the band accompanied by an over 50-piece orchestra performing classic tracks from Quadrophenia, Tommy, Who’s Next, Who Are You and more as well tracks from their WHO album, their first studio release in thirteen years. Continue reading

30Jan/23

Deep Fake Neighbour Wars: ITV’s comedy shows how AI can transform popular culture

Dominic Lees, University of Reading

ITVX’s Deep Fake Neighbour Wars is the breakthrough in television’s use of artificial intelligence that experts in the cultural use of deepfakes like myself have been waiting for.

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19Jan/23

The British government will block a bill passed by the Scottish parliament that makes it easier for people to change their legal gender

  • UK uses power to block Scottish bill for the first time
  • Sturgeon: decision is an attack on devolved powers
  • Unclear how issue may impact support for independence

LONDON, Jan 16 (Reuters) – The British government will block a bill passed by the Scottish parliament that makes it easier for people to change their legal gender, its Scottish Secretary Alister Jack said on Monday, the first time it has invoked the power to veto a Scottish law.

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19Jan/23

Church of England bishops refuse to allow same-sex marriages

LONDON, Jan 18 (Reuters) – The Church of England will refuse to allow same-sex couples to get married in its churches under proposals set out on Wednesday in which the centuries-old institution said it would stick to its teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman.

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10Jan/23

INRIX: Return to Work, Higher Gas Prices & Inflation Drove Americans to Spend Hundreds More in Time and Money Commuting

INRIX, Inc., a world leader in mobility analytics and connected car services, today published the 2022 Global Traffic Scorecard that identified and ranked congestion and mobility trends in more than 1,000 cities, across 50 countries. Chicago (155 hours), Boston (134 hours), and New York (117 hours) lost the most time to traffic congestion in the U.S. and were all in the top five for most congested cities in the world, alongside London (156 hours) and Paris (138 hours). Continue reading