It's International Women's Day! I proudly give my time to #WomenInTransport and to #ITFUEngland , 2 amazing organisations that hold women up and encourage women to achieve. I've been lucky to be supported myself, and it's good to give back. #IWD #givetogain

Great thinking here! Just in the past year, Google directions sent me to places I'd never contemplate. It's also worth thinking about the directness of a route - the more novelty turns there are, the more I have to check my phone and the harder it is to keep an eye on my surroundings. #safety

It's Christmas Eve and time for my last Advent Album, (and Album of the Year!) Altogether Stranger by Lael Neale. Lo-Fi neo-60s songsmithery. Gorgeous and strangely edgy. Utterly bewitching. All good things will come to pass. #albumoftheyear #adventalbums Happy Holidays!!

Christmas Eve Eve - the penultimate day of Advent. Out-of-offices are on across the board. Accompanying this day of Christmas crazy is The Bad Fire by Mogwai. Relaxing and uplifting, the best aural companion. #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

Monday of a Christmas week - what kind of day is that? A day of lots of driving to lunch with my lovely daughter and swap gifts, is what. And my accompaniment was today's Advent Album, Imaginary Reflections by @dreamcoasterband.bsky.social Gorgeous wall-of-sound dream pop. #albumsoftheyear

The #WinterSolstice. The album I'm choosing for this mystical day is Unfolding by #JessicaMoss. It's atmospheric strings-laden modern classical. I saw Moss open for Swans last month and it was beautiful and intense. Later, I'll be symbolically burning away what I want to leave behind me. #newyear

Another chill record for this 20th of December: Dim Probs by @gruffrhys.bsky.social Gentle but interesting indie - a big Advent cwtch and perfect for these crazy days. ❤️ #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

My choice of Advent Album is Sinister Grift by Panda Bear. It's a glorious dose of Portuguese sunshine! As a bonus, I'm also including Funeral Folk by Maria W Horn and Sara Parkman. It's a doomy take on Swedish folk music. It's actually my favourite album of the year but it came out in 2023. ❤️

One week left of Advent. Are you ready? Today's album choice is The Pattern Speaks by @sklossduo.bsky.social Heavy rock, Heavy metal. So heavy it broke my headphones.

Fun for all the family. Bring your own shovels.

17th of December and yet another of too many days apparently without sunshine. Today's Advent Album is Landfill by @young-knives.bsky.social . Challenging, vulnerable, and dissonant, but compelling and very often surprisingly catchy. I absolutely love it. #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

My Advent Album for 16 December is National Average by #BigSpecial. Shouty modern magpie music. Home to one of my favourite lines from a song this year: "The Night will free us! The Day is Judas. I'd spill blood to stay in bed; I'D SPILL BLOOD TO STAY IN BED." #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

The Ides of December and near perpetual darkness prompt me to choose Songs From The Free House by Smote as today's Advent Album. Doom metal with flute. Tremendous. If you like this, #Smote put another album, Clyppan, out at the beginning of the year and it's also very good. #albumsoftheyear

On a pre-Christmas Sunday where it feels like (but probably isn't) a break from festive havoc, my 14th Advent Album is Phonetics On And On by Horsegirl. The very definition of #Lo-Fi Indie. #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

In honour of my friends who are off to see #Stereolab tonight in Oxford, today's Advent Album is their new album Instant Holograms on Metal Film. Harmonic and otherworldly but jaunty electronica. Also excellent for a sunny winter post-beer festival day. #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

It's not a year if #TySegall hasn't put out a top-24-worthy album. Whilst there's a lot of 2025 that can get in the bin, Ty's newest album Possession reassures us that a year has definitely happened. Perfect psych rock. The 70s done properly with the benefit of hindsight. #albumsoftheyear

10 December - long day, but enjoying Advent Album Ghost Palace by #TheBurningHell. Quirky indie. A bit Handsome Family, moments of Modern Lovers. Somehow, the title track reminds me of the deeply weird film #CarnivalofSouls. But that's probably just me. #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

December 9th and the party continues with Who Let The Dogs Out by @lambrinigirls.bsky.social !! (Extra party because my brand new business has banked its first sales today!) Prepare for propulsive #rrriotGirrl punk. Absolutely Epic live. #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

Monday the 8th of December: Advent Album of the day is GOOD FOR THE SOUL by #GANS. (And no, I'm not shouting at you, but they might be) A little Snapped Ankles, lashings of AK/DK. Hard to describe, but fantastic live - they get the whole joint genuinely Jumping! #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

December 7th is a rainy grey day here. The Scots have the excellent word #dreich for this kind of weather, which is partly why my choice of album today is Sunwise by #Scottish artist Brighde Chaimbeul. Modern classical mixed with Scottish folk; the wildness of a Hebridean island. #albumsoftheyear

Out of the traps early on the 6th day of Advent with Viagr Aboys by Viagra Boys. Sleazy, funky killer rock. (And see them live if they come to your town!) #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums #viagraboys

My choice of Album for this 5th day of Advent is Better Dreaming by @tuneyards.bsky.social . Strident and beautiful voice, trenchant lyrics, big production. Exactly what we came here for! #albumsoftheyear #adventalbums

Advent Album 4 was going to be something else today, but it's raining and I've developed a wretched cold so pulled forward this gorgeous, ominous, and expansive Icelandic opus: Turnar by Hekla. The sound of glaciers mourning and angry about the state of the world. #albumsoftheyear

Advent Album 3 December has to be Selective Memory by Jesca Hoop. Not only is it a lovely album ("alt folk" I saw it described as), but I got to see her touring it right here at @thetinmusicandarts.bsky.social in Coventry, tonight! And she was wearing classic Vivienne Westwood shoes.❤️ #jescahoop

Advent day 2 is heavier and more modern than yesterday. It's Something Soft by M(h)aol. Love love love this, and not just because their cover is a) a brutalist building and b) there's a cat. Think Dry Cleaning crossed with Girl/Gilla Band. #adventalbums

It's time for the Walnut Advent album picks of 2025!! (In no particular order, my favourite/ most played albums of 2025.) I'm starting with Scottish duo The Cords, and their self-titled debut album. Wonderful Jingly Jangly indie pop that'll get you bouncing around the kitchen like it's 1987 again.

Absolutely gutted. He's (well, was) my favourite living playwright. Enjoy your Arcadia, Sir Tom. BBC News - Playwright Sir Tom Stoppard dies at 88 www.bbc.com/news/article...

I could feel the rage in this excellent, tightly written article by @sophiegilbert.bsky.social for @theatlantic.com #ragerageagainstthedyingofthelight

Friday night, I was in #Leeds for the truly epic #Swans and #JessicaMoss; Yesterday, I finished a book; And Today, I won a gold medal for my #Taekwondo patterns. Feeling like that's a pretty good weekend!

Sitting in Sheffield train station and the guy on the public piano is banging out Coldplay tunes. In Liverpool, you can't move for Beatles buskers, and street musicians crank out Oasis across Manchester... Where's the Pulp? The Arctic Monkeys? The Human League, even? #Sheffield - do better.

We were the happy catchers of the #richardbrautigan book tossed into the crowd by #thelovelyeggs at tonight's gig in #birminghamuk. Photo taken down the road because we were just too squashed in at #thecastle&falcon - How different from the Cob Dominoes days at the Victoria or the Wagon and Horses!

Posted as someone who still has Prime, at least until I can own the movies I've bought differently. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

In case you've ever wondered what the opposite of the French Exit is, I can now declare it to be the Mid-West Goodbye.

Fellow transport people! Please help me understand why getting through an airport (today #BHX) is so unpredictable. Surely the airport knows how many people are expected to depart per hour and can ensure the right level of manning? Surely!

It begins!! 🖤🤟 #supersonic #supersonicfestival25 #curiousminds #homeofmetal

I know it's only 10am, but this has won today's internet!

Toploader lives on in European airports. Eno, all is forgiven. #CDG #lightlydelerious

In Atlanta for ITS World Congress! I'm this picture I'm just about to speak on the hard work we've put into achieving UK data standards to help the US DOT. Great panel with colleagues from Taiwan, Germany and mobilitydata! #ITSWC2025

Amid the general discourse about Mental Load, I've yet to hear anyone discuss the extra mind-space that trying to remember which messaging app you use for each person takes up. WhatsApp? FB Messenger? In-app on LinkedIn or Insta? Or just plain SMS? I want that space back.

In 30 years, Rock n' Roll will be 100 years old.

#Switzerland have just delivered a 21st century Jacques Brel. Curiously nice! #eurovision

#eurovision I'm watching #Finland and thinking that's my kind of country!!

#eurovision Was #Latvia not disturbingly fleshy?!

I wish #SacredPaws were on Bluesky so I could tell them just how much their music is a balm for my soul.

All #Freakzones are good, but tonight's is stunningly beautiful and glorious. (And largely un-shazammable.) Respect. Always respect. @bbc6music.bsky.social @stuartmaconie.bsky.social

Taekwon Do is 70 years old today! A core part of my life for 20 years, there's never been a better time to practice the key tenants of #Taekwon-Do: Perseverance Integrity Courtesy Self Control, and Indomitable Spirit. Here's to the next 20, next 70 and beyond! 🦶👊❤️ #buildingamorepeacefulworld

I'm at a @lambrinigirls.bsky.social show in Brum tonight, on the edge of an epic mosh pit, and my shoulder gets yanked backwards. Someone desperate for the pit, I think. Fair enough. But the pair of bellends who come through, both well over 6', just stop directly in front of me. #bigdickenergy

There's something elemental about the rush of people at #LondonEuston when the platform for a Midlands train is called. It's like a liquid suddenly boiling into gas. (I would say distillation, but no one wants a spirit that tastes of Euston.) #fluiddynamics #humandynamics

Never too old for the joy of the front seat on a double deck bus! #london #travellingtowork

I usually amuse myself by watching political satire. I'm not very well atm, so decided to wallow in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a breakneck family film involving fascism, hard drinking, double crossing, objectification of women, conspiracy theories, and insults to God. ...