Saw a tight flock of about twenty sheep being shifted back and forth across a hill by a small starling formation swooping a few feet above. Each time the sheep shifted, the starlings picked at the exposed grass. Then they’d swoop again, move the sheep, feed on whatever was there, and on it went…

just heard a shop worker in Devon tell a colleague that it’s going to stop raining by 5pm, and colleague reply yeah but it’ll be dark by then.

I got so bored of editing my novel that I took a break and wrote another book, about how to edit your own writing, and now I’ve got to edit that one too.

sometimes, the news is not our friend. This headline could read ‘overwhelming majority of women happy with the service: four out of five like it, that’s a 80% contentment score’

Late night walk through #bristol

Still some spaces on this course, taught by me. It’s at the #bristol Folk House so will be friendly, informal and as much fun as editing can be. Book now at www.bristolfolkhouse.co.uk/courses/how-...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

Pew Tor #dartmoor looking towards #Plymouth

Windycross, and Grimstone & Sortridge Leat, on a sunny #Dartmoor today

reposting these but I imagine you all know anyway. I might print it out and stick it through the letter boxes of people who don’t get it. But I probably won’t.

love David Kynaston’s books and currently into this one. Turns out it was a very important year and not just because I was born during it. Superb read.

Is welfare spending ''out of control''? Total welfare spending in Britain in 2025-26 is estimated to be 10.8 per cent of GDP. That's just 0.8 per cent of GDP higher than in 2007-08, and total welfare spending has actually fallen fallen by 1.2 per cent of GDP since 2012-13⤵️ buff.ly/s5mz97u

been listening to #r4today forever but tired of tedious spats like this morning’s nagging by Nick Robinson, and wriggling by Rachel Reeves. I wish she’d said ‘I’ve just taxed private jets and given the money to poor kids you numpty; what have you done today?’ With a proper Peaky Blinders accent.

some of the budget reaction says that if people get a pay rise it pushes inflation up and ruins businesses. But, curiously, this apparently obvious law of economics only applies to the poor and the young. Better-off and older people can get richer without any problem at all.

delighted to see, as the new editor, the latest www.devonhistorysociety.org.uk journal arrive. It’s mailed to our members, and an archive of previous volumes is on our website. Many thanks to our contributors for the depth of their research and quality of their writing. Real history, at its best.

the #nathanhill traitor story has 30 other news articles before it on the Daily Express website, and is tucked away under an item about dodgy flapjacks

A British politician turns out to be a traitor … and to find the report on the Daily Mail’s website you have to scroll past 19 other stories first #nathangill

punching up is so hard that it seldom happens, punching down is a really bad look, and punching sideways is a bit pointless. Maybe the UK’s political parties should just stop promising to punch people.

it’s a pity there isn’t a way to more widely share this kind of good news. Perhaps someone could invent the Newspaper, or the Radio, or Television, and use it to let us know that amongst all the gloom good things also happen .

a lesson in how to be rich

Nowhere in the hysterical pile-on against the BBC in the British press has anyone mentioned that BBC News now has 77 million viewers & listeners in the US and has established itself as the second most trusted news source there.

I’m in the high street and just heard a mum tell her daughter ‘you can’t say that sort of thing in a shop’

A magnificent piece of work. Comprehesive, revelatory & shocking. Journalism this good is always rare & precious but never moreso than at times like this. Latter day Lord Haw Haws being plumped, preened & delivered to your doorstep in plain sight by a Nazi-saluting goon news.sky.com/story/the-x-...

hey BBC you don’t have to all tabloidy regarding where someone’s from when it’s of no particular reference. Your story even says his immigration status has not been confirmed. And as a description, ‘Algerian’ with no other details does not help the public identify him.

superb talk on A Gun Through Time at the Beacon in Bristol last night by @davidolusoga.bsky.social

pure alchemy. How to create a fact from nothing at all.

this is a very mischeivous little book

just had to be done

A rare plug for my other half, who’s just had her paintings accepted by three different institutions at the same time: Penwith, Truro and Forfar. Here’s my favourite (called Fleeting Glimpse of Goldfinches) but of course I’m biased. Follow her at bevcampbellart.co.uk/gallery/7536...

I’m in Cornwall and a local has told me if I’m going swimming to watch out for a seal who is, for obvious reasons, called Nibbles

on my BBC news app the second biggest story is one migrant criminal bending deported. This one guy has been on the top three stories on the app for a few days. It’s one guy and it’s disproportionate coverage. I’d expect this of the Daily Mail but the BBC doesn’t have to do this

my wife noticed I liked this @mirandakeeling book and bought it for me for a special occasion. I’ve noticed that I’m enjoying it

where does the racism of #farage #jenrick #pochin come from? Privately educated, financially secure, they can’t fear that anybody’s going to take their house/job/hospital bed. Where’s the hate and anger from?

this was fascinating. Loved her definition of ‘folk’. Made by human hand, by the people and for the people (if I remember rightly). It’s a serious business but discussed with much charm and humour.

he uses ‘ipso facto’ in the second paragraph of an article about being ‘culturally coherent’. If you can’t write in proper English mate, the kind that ordinary people can understand, then bog off back to Ancient Rome.

just went to a show in a 1,500 seat theatre and didn’t see anyone I knew. Except for two friends, each called John, who each know me but not each other, and were sitting immediately behind me

✨ Exeter in the 1920s Fayre and Show ✨ Exeter’s Lord Mayor, Councillor Anne Jobson, and her consort paid the event a wonderful compliment by arriving in full 1920s costume!

just seen pictures of damage to the #whitehouse by #trump and was reminded of the last time it was left in such a mess, and of other horrors of Britain’s lesser-known war with America #dartmoor #washington

OMG etc presumably it’s Area 51 they’ve cordoned off #devon

Just popping out to LIDL, or 50-1-500-50 as the Romans called it.

surely nobody who’s actually been in an #nhs hospital would support this nonsense? I’ve just been treated by an amazing global team at the glorious #southmead in #bristol and I wanted to hug them, not deport them.

never thought I’d be increasingly looking to the FT for some of the most informed and measured analysis on just about everything.

love this stuff. Buy her book!

distances glimpses of (amongst other things) the twinkling Tamar, from the Staple Tors on #dartmoor

somehow, amongst all the other bad stuff, this story stands out both for its utter madness and sadness

I am in blood Stepp’d in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o’er.

funny how the Welsh and Scottish flags say hey we love our country and hope you will, too, for however long you stay. And how the English flag says something different.

I wrote this about an interesting book, for the weekend magazine of the #westerndailypress #psychology #bristol The book is a great read, written by a great guy. www.waterstones.com/book/trains-...

I found this thoughtful article useful

came across this corner of #dartmoor where a poetic memorial to a WW1 soldier looks over Black Rock Pool and the River Lyd towards Brat Tor, atop which sits Widgery Cross. The soldier’s story is here alumni.mountkelly.com/news/alumni-... and the poem is here www.tracesofwar.com/sights/14587...