According to online stores, Green Star Japan is coming out in paperback at the end of the month. That's a nice surprise, and just in time for Christmas. www.foyles.co.uk/author/81753...

I want an alert whenever there's a wrist spinner bowling in international cricket. Today: ✅ Alana King has to be one of the funnest bowlers in the world to watch. Just a shame Georgia Wareham is on the bench. #cricket

I profoundly do not want to have to have a bloody app for every shop I go into.

Ok, I'm pretty sure these ones are Do Not Eat.

A good horticultural show A decent Windsor knot in a cutaway collar.

Fascinating article, featuring biodiversity, u-turns/j-turns, Peter Matanle's work on depopulation, and areas the size of Wales as a bonus.

Starship Troopers (2025)

indifferent and went to see another woman instead. Everyone, even people who were not directly concerned, felt indignant about this callous behavior, and the woman’s family was much grieved. The man himself, however, showed not the slightest pity.

I remember a certain woman who was both attractive and good-natured and who furthermore had excellent hand-writing. Yet when she sent a beautifully written poem to the man of her choice, he replied with some pretentious jottings and did not even bother to visit her. She wept endearingly, but he was

Went to see the wonderful Dauntsey Doom painting. Hell looks fantastically delightful. And a skull friend!

To the park, where we indulged in Park Run amid much moaning and complaining.

Detectorists, imo.

We did a bit of a survey of the field - at least 12 different fungi. It's amazing how different it is year to year: some years we have been inundated with fly agarics, this year none. The same for some type of waxcaps.

It's a good year for fungi, it seems. Allegedly porcini are not mistakable for anything named angel of torment or the like, and plenty of people here forage for them, but I'm still dubious about the risk/reward.

I could have sworn I got the recommendation for Children Of Time from @thinkingpoker.bsky.social but I can't find any evidence of it. Anyway, the series is some of the best sf I've read in ages. Like Thomas Nagel in space!

Oxford uni is looking for a specialist in pre modern Japanese history. Hens teeth, etc etc. my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

What alternatives are there to Academia.edu?

Ycha fi.

The gin is pretty good, too. But the real action in Penderyn is at the autumn ram sale.

In London for the evening. So far: Paid £7.50 for a pint of beer Saw people on a lime bike with no helmet and dubious cycling proficiency People in town from Northern England for an awards ceremony astonished by the side of their hotel rooms Locals bemoaning the size of their flats/rent Bingo?

Looks fascinating

Ok, it's canon now.

A century-old naval clash still haunts Asia’s geopolitics and fuels debates on military modernization.

I used to live near honmonji. It's a nice, low key temple. One year, after their annual festival, I pinched a poster advertising it from the local station. I still have it. The next time I came through the station, it has been replaced with a "don't steal the poster" public awareness poster.

I've become a huge fan of the flyers advertising Japanese museum exhibitions. I've started using them to make the folders of copied sources a bit more easily distinguishable.

Looks fascinating. "Debt" is the first one that leaps off the contents page at me...

Today in 1940, the German air force launched Operation Loge, a heavy bombing raid against London, starting a months-long air campaign known as the #Blitz. Hundreds of British and German aircraft tangle in the skies over southern England. But one pilot sits out the battle. A thread... 1/20🧵

#Cricket talk: is the sausage dog that says "I find that very offensive" in the sky ad breaks supposed to sound like Keir Starmer

We had a fantastic time hosting the 50th anniversary of the British Association Of Japanese Studies in Cardiff. But eerie to be listening to the history of boom & bust in UK area studies while living an onslaught on the humanities (& also reading 90s critiques of JS's intellectual foundations)

It's taken quite a few years, but our apple trees seem to finally be getting productive.

A slight sense of disappointment that I'll now never be encouraged by Melvyn, ever so slightly irascibly, to get to the point.

The cricket season officially ends in the rain, on the m4 to Newport. Crappy sort of season: all of our teams have struggled with availability. I came into it hoping to score some big runs for the thirds, spent most of it bowling mostly fine for the seconds and only playing defensive cameos.

Tuned over lunch to watch a sheep go for 110,000 guineas

It's the Scottish national texel sheep show today, and sale tomorrow! That's where the most expensive sheep are bought and sold: www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scot...

Home from holiday to discover the chickens got eaten, the freezer defrosted, and the septic tank broke. Never leaving home again.

Woke up to a text "can you captain the thirds, also they're down to 9 players", we got someone's Dutch cousin, a dad, and one of the girls team to get to 11, and had a blast. The boy took 2 catches, 4 wickets, and 20-something in a run chase that fell 4 runs short after I thought we'd got it won.

The shoreline was covered in feathers this morning, all the way along the beach. Something to do with bird flu, I wondered?

19 runs feels like it might as well be 100 right now.

Today I think is the end of the uni's financial year means it's been the final day for a whole host of colleagues who've taken "voluntary" redundancy. Very unsettling experience.

Day two of using the accounting system's new AI to accelerate my expenses claim. Currently correcting all the items it thinks were from Stavanger or Oslo.

In autumn the evenings, when the glittering sun sinks close to the edge of the hills and the crows fly back to their nests in threes and fours and twos; more charming still is a file of wild geese, like specks in the distant sky.

The girl has pivoted hard into K-Pop Demon Hunters. We might be word perfect on the script by the end of the summer.

(British?) universities have just the most amazing ability to take something seemingly simple and turn it into an incomprehensible bureaucratic nightmare.

We extracted 10 frames worth of honey over the weekend, and it's been settling before putting into jars tomorrow. Rough calc suggests there's ~10 litres of it, which the internet tells me might be 30 lbs.

I don't really know what hyrox is, but whatever has led the algorithm to advertise it to me seems deeply misguided.

The boy played a nice cameo in a pretty epic chase for the thirds yesterday, I ground out 8* in about a gazillion balls during a proper batting collapse for the seconds. It was also very hot.

A red plum-blossom dress in the Third or Fourth Months.

I really enjoyed this reflection on the practice of reviewing. Lots that chimes with my experience, and lots of new ideas as well.

We put a swift box up on our house this year. Apparently it can take a few years to attract them to come and nest. There are swifts down the valley, and also just over the top of the hill, so it should be possible.