Dave Underwood

@oblivionwithbells.com

1164 Followers 1278 Following

I blog about mortality awareness. Humanist. Anti-authoritarianism. I have #MECFS. Reposts not necessarily endorsements. (he/him) My blog: https://oblivionwithbells.com Location: Loughborough, United Kingdom 🇬🇧

There is no final victory, as there is no final defeat. There is just the same battle. To be fought, over and over again. ― British democratic socialist Tony Benn
A man laughs while miming sweeping a broom.
I know, I know
‘Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first rate talents, regardless of the sympathies, with those crack pots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty’ - Hannah Arendt
Man laughing while miming sweeping a broom
A man laughing loudly while miming sweeping a broom
This video is from the @nycmayor account on Instagram and features the current NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani. In the video he says the following: "When I ran for mayor I said I was going to tax the rich. Well, today we are taxing the rich. I'm thrilled to announce we have secured a pied-a-tierre tax. The first in New York's history. This is an annual fee on luxury properties worth more than $5 million, whose owners do not live full-time in the city. Like for this penthouse, which hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin bought for $238 million. This pied-a-terre tax is specifically designed for the richest of rich. Those who store their well for New York City real estate, but who don't actually live here. But even so, they're are able to read the huge financial rewards of owning property in, dare I say, the greatest city in the world. (There's more but Bluesky limits the amount I can put in alt text. Sorry) Source: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DXKlAiMkeAr/
This video is from Verso Book's Instagram account and is highlights from an interview with Ann Pettifor as part of advertising her book The Global Casino. In this video Pettifor suggests six ways housing could be made more affordable in the UK: 1. Capital controls 2. Rent controls 3. Tax landlords 4. Build more public housing 5. Target second homes 6. Support first mortgages Source: https://www.instagram.com/reels/DWMizkQsRYE/
A screenshot of the home screen on the iOS version of the Visible app. It shows I have used 11 out of 9 pace points, and that may current heart rate at the time of the screenshot was 95bpm.
This is a photo of a person wearing a Visible pacing band on their upper arm. The photo shows the person wearing a white T-shirt with horizontal black stripes. The person is giving a thumbs up. The Visible band is a product designed to help with pacing & using energy for people with chronic illnesses like ME/CFS. The company's website is https://www.makevisible.com/.
A man laughing while miming sweeping a broom.
Evangelicalism promises safety & security yet its teachings drive believers into states of fear & helplessness. — You Are Your Own by Jamie Lee Finch
This is a parody of the Reform UK logo. Instead of saying Reform it says Deform.
Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. — Pericles
Man laughing while miming sweeping a broom.
Dairy versus plant-based milk: what are the environmental impacts? Environmental footprints of dairy and plant-based milks, per liter. Based on a meta-analysis of food system impact studies across the supply chain, which includes land use change, on-farm production, processing, transport, and packaging. Land use Dairy milk: 8.95 m² Oat milk: 0.76 m² Soy milk: 0.66 m² Almond milk: 0.5 m² Rice milk: 0.34 m² Greenhouse gas emissions Dairy milk: 3.15 kg Rice milk: 1.18 kg Soy milk: 0.98 kg Oat milk: 0.9 kg Almond milk: 0.7 kg Freshwater use Dairy milk: 628.2 L Almond milk: 371.46 L Rice milk: 269.81 L Oat milk: 48.24 L Soy milk: 27.8 L Eutrophication* Dairy milk: 10.65 g Rice milk: 4.69 g Oat milk: 1.62 g Almond milk: 1.5 g Soy milk: 1.06 g *Eutrophication is the pollution of ecosystems with excess nutrients. Data source: Joseph Poore and Thomas Nemecek (2018) License: CC BY
A man laughing miming sweeping a broom.
Keep calm and organise
A tired man rubbing his face
Conservatives 14 years of failure.
Man laughing as he mimes sweeping a broom.
Man laughing while miming sweeping a broom.
The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than average leisure, brutality and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement & terrorism. — Bertrand Russell
Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty. — Hannah Arendt
I believe this is a screenshot of a post on X.com. The post is by someone called Keith Burge @carryonkeith. This is the content of the post: 'So essentially the pattern is, destroy the country as a Tory and then defect to Reform claiming you need to sort out the mess. That you created.'
Keep calm and organise
Man laughing while miming sweeping a broom
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country.
Man laughing loudly while miming sweeping a broom
A man laughing loudly while miming sweeping a broom
Comedian laughing loudly as he mimes sweeping a broom
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country.
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country.
Conservatives 14 years of failure.
A photo of farmland in Leicestershire in the United Kingdom. In the foreground is a hedge and trees. The photo was taken on a grey cloudy day.
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country
Top five things each of us can do individually to fight climate change 1. Have one fewer child than you were planning to 2. Go car free 3. Fly less 4. Buy green energy 5. Eat a plant-based diet
This is a unique map showing land use in the USA. The image is a screenshot from this article by Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/ (Archive.org link: https://web.archive.org/web/20180801014510/https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use/) Each square on the map represents 250,000 acres of land. For example: 'cropland takes up more than 1/5 of the 48 contiguous states'. 'Urban areas make up Just 3.6% of the total size of the 48 contiguous states.' 'More than 100 million acres of special-use areas are park and wilderness areas, where most commercial activities, such as logging, mining and grazing, are excluded.' 'According to The Land Report magazine, since 2008 the amount of land owned by the 100 largest private landowners has grown from 28 million acres to 40 million, an area larger than the state of Florida.'
CONTROVERSIAL PROFESSOR TO INVESTIGATE OVERDIAGNOSIS Labour is launching a review to decide whether some mental health and neurodivergence issues are being overdiagnosed. The vice chair will be the hugely divisive academic Sir Simon Wessely. Back in 2011, the Times called Wessely “the most hated doctor in Britain”. He was widely regarded by people living with ME/CFS as having popularised the idea that ME/CFS is a primarily a psychological condition, rather than a physical health one. Amongst other things, this made it much more difficult for people with debilitating ME/CFS to score points for physical health activities when applying for benefits. Health secretary Wes Streeting, who ordered the review, has already made it clear that he thinks there is widespread overdiagnosis. And only last week, Keir Starmer told Radio 4 “. . . there are about a million young people who are on benefits, not all for mental health issues, but quite a number for mental health issues. “I think that is wrong . . .” So, it appears that ministers are preparing the ground for another attempt to persuade backbenchers that benefits cuts for mental health are in claimants own best interests. In which case, the choice of Wessely to play such a key role, given his history with claimants, seems like a potential own goal. (Source: https://www.icontact-archive.com/archive?c=144836&f=2941&s=6745&m=1195842&t=9e9c98a7d9387eb5c584b7e81a15d03a3040ca2700682dadb514b7c01a8d57f0)
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country.
Top 5 Things Each Of Us Can DO Individually To Fight Climate Change 1. Have one fewer child than you were planning to 2. Go car free 3. Fly less 4. Buy green energy 5. Eat a plant-based diet Source: Seth Wynes and Kimberly A Nicholas 2017 Environ. Res. Lett. 12 074024 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541
Line graph from the UK government website showing official Covid 'Rate of cases per 100,000 population in 7-day period'. The Y axis is 'Case rate' and the X axis is 'Specimen date'. The Y axis is from 0 to approximately 6.5. The X axis is from October 2024 to October 2025. The line graph peaks at 6.48 on the Y axis on October 10, 2024 before largely settling to an average case rate of 2 until from approximately August 2025 it starts growing again till it reaches 4.83 on September 29, 2025. Source: https://ukhsa-dashboard.data.gov.uk/respiratory-viruses/covid-19#cases
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country.
Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first rate talent, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty. - Hannah Arendt
Screenshot of a x.com post by Ishaan Tharoor. The post say ‘A senior foreign diplomat posted at the UN texts me: “This man is stark, raving mad. Do Americans not see how embarrassing this is?”
The title of this Reddit post is "We're running out of canaries." The image is a drawing of miners with headlamps looking at a dead yellow canary in a cage. The caption for the drawing is "Kimmel? Kimmel?". The drawing is attributed to 'KUPER'.
Conservatives 14 years of failure.
Remember when we cried as kids and our parents said "I'll give you something to cry about." We thought they were going to hit us but instead they destroyed the housing market, quadrupled college tuition and melted the ice caps
Conservatives 14 years of failure.
A tired looking heavyset man rubbing the inside of his eye.
An old gate with very dry farming fields behind it from the hot summer in the UK in 2025.
This is a screenshot of a tweet by the musician Tom Morello. The contents of the tweet are: 'I'd like to thank all the 2nd Amendment loving patriots who are caravanning towards Chicago right now to defend the people against a Tyranical Federal Government that has declared war on a U.S. city!! Thank you for putting aside the racism & white supremacy that has kept you from stepping up until now! Big Government Thugs wanna "tread on" the people! Now's your time to stop them. Like you talk about.' The tweet was posted at 12:19 pm on September 7, 2025.
Photo of Donald Trump at the 2025 US Open tennis competition. The photo comes from a screenshot from the The Guardian website with the headline 'Broadcasters told not to any booing of Donald Trump at US Open men's final'
Vertical video downloaded from the BBC News Tiktok account. Posted by the BBC on 2025-09-06. Big John being interviewed about the recent spate of flags being hung in British towns & cities: "People that are working here shouldn't be targeted like that, nobody should be targeted like that."
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country.
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country.
Meanwhile, the UK is experiencing a drought right now and an official press release this week from the UK government suggests people “delete old emails and pictures as data centres require vast amounts of water to cool their systems.” Which was literally a joke made about Texas last week. Source: https://www.garbageday.email/p/the-uncanny-valley-between-meme-and-law-9650f12b480c7005
14 years Conservatives Never let the Tories forget what they did to this country.